missed,” Lucinda answered, pulling a lint ball off the sleeve of her sweater and flicking it away.
Johanna felt like she had been slapped in the face. She tried to be nice to everyone, but after working there more than a month, she still felt like an outsider.
A guy, who sat a few desks away, placed some snowflake cookies wrapped in a paper napkin on her desk. “I saw you couldn’t get out to the party, so I brought a little of the party back to you.”
She felt her eyes sting. “Thank you,” she said. His small act of kindness contrasted sharply with Lucinda’s nasty retort.
By the end of the day, Johanna had caught up on her work. Just two more days and LOI Book Services would close shop for the four-day holiday weekend. She wouldn’t get paid for Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, but she wouldn’t lose her job either. Everyone had to take those two days off—whether they wanted to or not.
After going to the bank to cash their paychecks, Derrick dropped Johanna off at her door Friday evening. “See you next Thursday. I’ll pick you up for work in the morning.”
She did a double take. “Not until Thursday?”
“It’s Christmas. If I don’t fly home and spend time with my family, my mother will hunt me down and kill me. Or nag me to death. And she’ll never let me leave on Christmas Day. I have very little choice in the matter.”
“Oh, right. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She handed him the money she owed him.
“I told you it was a gift.”
“It’s too generous a gift,” she said. “And it doesn’t include all the meals you’ve bought me, or the rides you’ve given me. Please take it.”
Inside, Johanna collapsed on the futon. Derrick was going home for the holidays. Amaranda had wished her a Merry Christmas before leaving the previous night with her new dress and accessories. She’d announced she was going on a family ski trip and wouldn’t be back until after the New Year. Johanna hadn’t anticipated being all alone for the holidays. She thought about Peakie’s. She’d hated it there, but at least other people were always around. The previous year, the staff had organized a Christmas Eve concert featuring a chorus of some of the children. The next day they’d served a turkey dinner. She served the turkey dinner. Cook specifically told her each child could only have one slice of turkey, and she’d better not see Josefina dishing out any more than that. Johanna tried to make it look like more by placing it on top of the brussel sprouts everyone hated, and pushing it close to the dressing, then dumping gravy on top. By the time she got to eat her own dinner, it was cold. It didn’t seem like much of a meal then, but it was better, in comparison, to the peanut butter and jelly sandwich she would probably eat alone on Christmas Day.
Boredom overcame her the next day. She could have worked on the cottage if she didn’t have a broken leg. She finished reading the books she’d borrowed from the library and craved more, if only to occupy her mind. She could take a cab to the library but hated wasting what little money she had left. She decided, instead, to walk there. It wasn’t as far as the town center, although it was easily a mile away. It should have been a pleasant walk on a sunny, cloudless day; however, unusually cold temperatures and the fact Johanna’s leg throbbed made it a grueling journey. By the time she reached the library, she begged them to allow her to put her foot up on a chair to help alleviate the swelling.
“You must want a particular book very badly to walk here on crutches on such a cold day.”
“No,” Johanna replied. “I just ran out of books to read and I wanted a few new ones.”
“Well, now, let me see what we have,” the librarian said, embarking on a search for new releases.
A half hour later, Johanna made her choices.
“How will you get these home?” the librarian asked.
“The same way I brought the returns with me. I’ll put them in a plastic bag and tie the bag to the handle of one of my crutches.”
“Doesn’t that throw you off balance?”
“It hasn’t yet.” Johanna watched a woman walk out of a nearby office carrying a plate of food and a glass of punch. The woman placed it on a desk and took her place behind it.
The librarian noticed. “It’s our holiday party,” she explained. “Can I get you some punch or a cup of mulled apple cider? Have you eaten yet? I could make you a plate of food. We have more than we can possibly eat.”
Johanna wanted to say “no, thank you,” but her stomach chose that moment to growl, and the word, “Okay,” slipped out when she opened her mouth.
“You wait right here.” The librarian disappeared into the office and re-emerged a few minutes later with food and cider.
Johanna thanked her and dug in. She found life to be either “feast or famine,” and she knew she should feast before famine inevitably returned.
“Do you have plans for the holidays?” the librarian asked, making conversation.
“Thanks to you, I plan on curling up with a good book.”
“No big holiday dinner plans?”
“No … but this,” Johanna pointed to the plate of food the librarian had given her, “more than makes up for it.”
A woman and her daughter rang the bell on the circulation date. “I’d better get that,” the librarian said, turning.
Johanna nodded as the librarian rushed away. “Thank you,” she called out.
Ten minutes later, Johanna hobbled home with a bag of books tied to her crutch and a belly filled with food.
By Christmas Eve, Johanna had finished reading all her library books and boredom returned. She felt cooped up and isolated and a little depressed that she had no one to celebrate the holidays with. She consoled herself with the fact that she wouldn’t have to spend extra money that she didn’t really have on gifts and decorations.
If the weather had been unseasonably cold just before Christmas, it turned unusually mild for Christmas Eve. It beckoned her outside, and she grabbed her crutches and slowly made her way up to the strip mall. At the corner, she rested by a temporary Christmas tree lot. It wasn’t as crowded as she thought it would be on Christmas Eve, and she said as much to the young man selling trees.
“Everyone who wants a tree, pretty much has one by now. I’m here for the holdouts—you know—the parents who want their kids to think Santa put up the tree. They’re the Type-A variety who drink designer coffee and run on adrenaline and nicotine.”
Johanna pointed to a scrawny tree that was barely two-and-a-half feet tall. “What will happen to trees like that one?”
“We’ll feed it to the chipper and sell the mulch in the spring.”
“Oh.” She didn’t mean for it to sound like a gasp, but she felt sad about the tiny tree’s fate.
“Where’d you get your tree?” he asked.
“I don’t have one.”
“I’m guessing you couldn’t wrestle one home with that broken leg.”
“No. At least not a big one.” She looked at the little tree longingly. “How much is that one?” As soon as she said it, she wished she hadn’t. She could see her landlady with her hand out for the rent and hear Derrick’s veiled suggestions about how she could repay him in lieu of cash. She couldn’t afford to splurge money on a dead bush.
He looked her over. She was kind of cute, even on crutches. “No one should go treeless at Christmas, and that little guy won’t make much mulch, so if you want him, you can have him. Free. But how are you going to get him home? I’d help you, but I have to stay here for last minute buyers.”
Johanna’s face brightened. “Maybe you could tie it to my crutch.”
“I could do that.” And so he did, and Johanna limped home with a smile on her face because she would have a tree for Christmas.
“Merry Christmas,” he called out as she limped away.
“Merry Christmas,” she replied.
As Johanna turned the corner to her cottage, she saw a delivery truck pull away from the curb. On her top step lay a package wrapped in brown paper. She slowly climbed the two steps to
her door, being careful not to knock off any tree needles. She’d lost a few during her trek home, and she didn’t want to sacrifice any more. The tricky part would be picking up the parcel. But saving the tree was more important to her. She slipped her key in the lock and went inside but left the door open to make sure no one swiped her package.
She grabbed a knife from the kitchen drawer, so she could cut the string binding the tree to her crutch, and placed the little tree on her table. Returning to the front door, she leaned her crutches against the wall and held onto the doorjamb while she slid down far enough to reach the package. Lifting it turned out to be harder than she thought. She couldn’t bend the leg with the cast, so she had to slide it outside the door and along the step. There was no way she could pick up the package with one hand and lost her balance, ending up on her butt. That was fortuitous, because she now had two hands free to grab the package and pull it inside. The trick would be finding a way to get up again from the floor. In the end, she left the package on the floor and wiggled across the living room so she could hoist herself up on the sofa. At least she’d managed to kick the door shut with her good leg on her way to the futon, but in doing so, she’d knocked over her crutches, which now lay on top of the package. Her little adventure and perplexing problem exhausted her, and before retrieving them, she closed her eyes to rest and quickly fell asleep.
The sun had set by the time Johanna awoke,