Becoming Johanna

much.”

  “Fresh and clean? I’m the one who made it fresh and clean. I’m the one who painted the inside. And washed the windows. And pruned the overgrown bushes in the front yard.”

  “You did use my shears to do that. Besides, you don’t have a lease, dear. I don’t believe you have anything spelling out how much the rent would be on the cottage. I’m asking you to sign a lease now. I don’t want to double your rent, dear, but I do have to raise it a couple of hundred dollars a month. It’s only fair.”

  “But I’m the one who paid to fix it up,” Johanna argued.

  “It was a diamond in the rough. The value was always there. You got off cheap for a while. It’s best that you sign this lease, or I can’t promise the rent won’t go up again.”

  “Are you going to pay me for the paint and cleaning supplies I used to get it so clean?”

  “We already discussed that. I told you I couldn’t afford it but graciously allowed you to do it if you were willing to bear the expense.”

  Johanna signed, reluctantly. “Can I use your bathroom?”

  “Your own bathroom is just a few doors away. Don’t tell me you can’t make it that far?”

  “I can’t. Please?”

  “Okay, go ahead, but don’t touch anything. I don’t go in for snoops, and I’ll know if you move anything or open the medicine cabinet.”

  Johanna knew she couldn’t hide out in her landlady’s bathroom. She just hoped Derrick would give up and go away. When she walked back in the living room, she saw her landlady staring out the window.

  “Are you trying to avoid those two people parked in front of your cottage?”

  “Two people?”

  “Yes. A young man, whom I’ve seen entering your apartment with you on occasion. And a dark complexioned girl with flaming red hair.”

  “Amaranda.”

  “Why are you avoiding them?”

  “I owe them money. I fully intended to pay them back today, but I don’t make that much money and you just raised my rent. I was supposed to get paid for working all last weekend on a special project for work, but they haven’t paid me yet, so I don’t have their money. I feel too ashamed to see them right now.”

  “Well, you can’t stay here, so you’re just going to have to see them, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Johanna walked out of her landlady’s house, ready to face the music. She was just in time to see Derrick and Amaranda pull away. Thank God. But she knew they’d be back, and unless she wanted to hide in the dark all weekend, she’d have to apologize and beg their forgiveness.

  Derrick and Amaranda didn’t return, and Johanna felt optimistic when she went to work on Monday, hoping to straighten out the pay snafu with her boss.

  “I have a check for the special project you worked on.” He handed her a check for three hundred dollars.

  “No. This is wrong. I worked overtime. Plus, I was locked in. I should get time and a half for the extra sixty-three hours I worked here.”

  “I’ve been informed that special projects are reimbursed separately from regular hours worked. This project was budgeted as a two-day job at one hundred fifty dollars a day. It’s contract labor. We gave you the full amount. You’ll have to pay the taxes on your own.”

  “No. This can’t be.”

  “It can be, and it is. That is all, Johanna. You may leave now.” He shooed her away with a flick of his wrist.

  Johanna felt her face flush with anger, but she refrained from arguing with her boss. It would only waste time, and he would probably dock her regular pay. Instead, she tried to think ahead. At lunchtime, she would cash the check and give the cash to Derrick, to settle her debt with him. After work, she would return the dress, bag, and shoes she’d purchased and pay back Amaranda. And that would be that.

  The rest of the morning dragged, probably because she was anxious to get on with her life. At the stroke of noon, she popped out of her seat.

  “Hold on, Johanna. You’re not going anywhere.” Lucinda, who rarely uttered a word to her, was staring at her intently. “I have to leave early today and was told to give you the invoices I’ve been working on. You can’t leave until I give them to you with explicit instructions. And I can’t give them to you until I’m done with them.”

  Johanna sat down and waited. She watched the long hand on the clock slowly make its way to the quarter hour, and then to half-past, before Lucinda finally handed her a large pile of paperwork. “All of these have to be double-checked for accuracy, and then each customer has to be called with the price and must agree to it in advance of shipment.”

  Johanna stared at the invoices. “This will take more than one afternoon.”

  “That’s your problem,” Lucinda said as she grabbed her bag and raced toward the door. She turned before exiting. “And you’d better get them done,” she said with a scowl before finally leaving.

  Johanna gritted her teeth as she headed to the bank to cash her check. She had already wasted a half-hour of precious time waiting for Lucinda. She would be lucky if she had any time left to eat.

  She cashed the check and concentrated so intently on counting the money in her hand, she didn’t see a car pulling away from the curb. The driver hit Johanna. The crisp twenty dollars bills she’d clutched in her hand moments before shot into the air, and the wind scattered them about. Johanna couldn’t have chased them down even if she wanted to. The impact had knocked her down and broken her leg. The car sped off. A small crowd gathered around her. One person called for an ambulance, while another ran for a police officer.

  As the ambulance crew lifted Johanna into the back of the vehicle, a woman approached them and handed Johanna three twenty-dollars bills that she and her children had retrieved.

  “But this is only sixty dollars … ”

  “The rest got away,” the woman answered. “Either the wind carried your money off, or passing opportunists did.”

  Johanna didn't know what to say. She felt her lower lip quivering.

  An onlooker admonished her. “You could say ‘thank you.’ She didn’t have to give the money back to you. No one else did.”

  “Thank you,” the injured girl whispered.

  An emergency medical technician wheeled Johanna into the busy hospital on a gurney. Every seat in the waiting room was taken. Wheel chairs and gurneys occupied with waiting patients lined the walls. A worker grilled Johanna with personal questions and asked for her insurance card. Johanna explained that she had none and was given another form to sign—stating she would be responsible for paying back the cost of medical treatment. She felt overwhelmed. Her head began to swim and she fainted. A while later, she felt a nurse tapping on her face and saying her name over and over. The odor of spirits of ammonia made her gag.

  “Where am I?” Johanna asked.

  “You’re still in the ER. We can’t start treatment until you finish filling out these forms.” The woman shoved a pen in Johanna’s hand and held a clipboard up to her face. “Sign here,” she said, pointing to the appropriate line, “and here.”

  Johanna scribbled her name and closed her eyes, wishing more than ever that she had never run away from the orphanage.

  Doctors fitted a cast to support Johanna’s broken leg, and she was given a pair of crutches and a small container of painkillers. The staff seemed reluctant to let her go without the help of family, but after Johanna told them for what seemed like the one-thousandth time that she had just moved to the neighborhood and had no family, they agreed to put her in a taxicab.

  The good news was the hospital would bill her.

  The bad news was she didn’t think to write down the license plate of the car that hit her. Still, the police might have it. She would have to track it down, when she could.

  Her immediate problem would be getting to work. She couldn’t afford to take cabs every day, and she couldn’t ask Derrick or Amaranda to help when she owed them both money. She thought about losing the money she had planned to use to p
ay Derrick—and cried. Life shouldn’t be this hard.

  Someone banged on her cottage door. She hobbled over and pulled it open, even though she was in no mood for company. She found Derrick and Amaranda standing there.

  “You know … ” Amaranda began, before her eyes widened. “What happened to you?”

  “I went to the bank to cash a check so I could pay you and Derrick back, and I got hit by a car. I’d just come out of the bank and was holding the cash in my hand and it went flying. Most of the money flew off or was pocketed by people on the street. Now I’ve lost a half-day of work. My leg is broken. And I have no insurance. So just say what you want to say and get it over with, because I know I’m a terrible friend, and I deserve whatever you spit out at me.” By this time, she had staggered back to the futon and sank down. Her stomach growled—memorably.

  “When was the last time you ate?” Derrick walked over to the refrigerator and opened the door. He found a half loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, and an open box of instant soup. “I can’t believe you still have no real food.”

  “I’ve had other things to worry about,” Johanna answered.

  Amaranda sat next to her on the futon. “Are you going to sue?”

  “No. Who would I sue?”

  “The guy who hit you with his car.”

  “How do you know it was a guy?”

  “Because I saw the accident. I just didn’t know it was you. I was too busy running after … hmmm … I guess you can deduct twenty dollars from what you owe me. I grabbed it off the sidewalk.