Becoming Johanna (2 page)

The visitor’s eyes
flashed. “She’s hardly old enough to be working here. It looks more
like indentured servitude to me.”

“
It most certainly is
not,” the matron spit out. “She gets paid.”

“
Oh,” the visitor said,
nonplussed. “What about her studies? This can’t be helping
her.”

“
She has completed her
studies,” the matron replied. “She’s a sharp one, but not so sharp
as to outwit me.”

“
Has there been trouble?”
Malcolm Trees asked.

“
No. And there won’t be if
I have anything to say about it.”

“
You see,” the headmaster
broke in, “Josefina is too young to send out on her own, and jobs
like this allow her to build up her skills for when she ultimately
leaves us.”

“
If she finished her
studies two years early,” Malcolm Trees mused, “I can’t help but
think she’s gifted. So you can understand why I’m concerned that
you’re building her skills as a cafeteria worker
rather than getting her advanced
tutoring.”

The headmaster reddened.
“This is just one of the jobs she has here at the home. It’s not to
teach her how to be a cafeteria worker. It’s to teach her
responsibility and self-sufficiency.”

“
Yes, I see,” the visitor
answered.
I see only too well.

A few weeks later, Cook
brought Josefina to the market with her. The sights and sounds
outside the home were not what the girl expected. Just one block
away from the foundling home, a village square bustled with people
going about their daily routine. Storefronts captured the girl’s
attention with their treasures, but she was not allowed to linger
and study the displays. Instead, Cook filled the cart Josefina
pulled with whatever she needed to stock her kitchen. And when the
amount of goods exceeded the room in the cart, she handed Josefina
bags to carry as well.

Months passed before
Josefina felt she had saved enough money to run away. She’d thought
about leaving two months earlier, after she had been sent to the
basement to fetch a box of fabric scraps. In the dark confines of
the cellar, she discovered a pile of old and broken items destined
for the dumpster. A small suitcase—barely twelve by sixteen
inches—sat at the top of the heap. It contained no name or
identification and now lay abandoned under a thick layer of grime.
Josefina hid it in a far corner where it would not be easily
discovered and vowed to return for it before she made her
get-away.

Her excursions with Cook
taught Josefina just how expensive food and sundry items could be,
and she felt she might never save enough money to live on her own.
But she knew it was time to leave when the headmaster—complaining
about high costs—announced he would be cutting workers’
wages.

This is it.

That night, after all the
children had gone to bed, Josefina snuck down to the main office
and closed herself inside. She was lucky the lock to the
headmaster’s door had been broken months before, when he threw a
paperweight in a fit of anger, and it shattered against the
doorknob, knocking something in the mechanism out of whack. Inside
his office, she looked for her name as she searched the file
drawers aided only by the full moon and a box of kitchen matches.
She found the folder and hid it under her clothing.

As she was about to open
the door, she heard a floorboard squeak. Someone was outside the
office. Her heart thumped. She could hear the blood rushing in her
head. She knew if she got caught stealing a file from the
headmaster’s office, she would be severely punished. Her internal
cacophony must certainly be louder than the floorboard in the
hallway! She felt sweat bead up on her forehead. She sank down into
a low crouch, hoping a large credenza would shield her. She waited
for what seemed like an eternity, but no one entered the office.
When she finally felt safe, she crept upstairs to the girls’
lavatory where she locked herself in a stall to review the folder’s
contents. It contained correspondence pertaining to her being left
at Peakie’s, and a record of all her grades and
infractions
.
There was only one, and it still hurt to think about the
punishment she received for telling the headmaster he was
wrong
.
The last
item in the folder was a small card containing a social security
number in the name Josefina Charo. She knew she would need the
number to make her way in the world and hid the file in her jacket
sleeve.

The following morning,
Josefina snuck away from the laundry while everyone was busy with
work or classes and gathered all her possessions together in a
small pile. She didn’t have much—a skirt and blouse, a pair of
pants and a shirt, socks, underwear, a nightgown, toothbrush,
hairbrush, and more importantly, Joan Alice Carr’s wallet. Josefina
would wear the only pair of jeans she owned with a sweater and her
jacket during her
getaway
. She snuck down the back
stairs and crammed everything in the suitcase she had
found.

The rest of the day
dragged on, especially dinner, and she could hardly wait for
everyone to go to bed. She waited for their tossing and turning to
stop and their breathing to regulate, before she clutched her
jacket to her chest and crept down to the basement. She grabbed the
suitcase and stealthily made her way toward the back door of the
home. CRASH! She jumped when she heard a pot clatter against the
kitchen floor followed by a string of expletives. She hid in a
shadowy alcove and waited. Whoever had dropped the pot apparently
made a mess and took their time cleaning it up. Every minute felt
like an hour. Josefina might have fallen asleep if the wild beating
of her heart hadn’t kept her awake. Finally, she saw Cook’s face
for an instant, before the woman switched off the kitchen light and
groped through the dark to the back staircase.

Josefina tiptoed into the
kitchen and felt her feet sticking to the floor.
Smells like oatmeal.
She
looked at the empty stove.
Cook dropped
the breakfast pot. I guess everyone’s getting cold cereal tomorrow.
Everyone except me.

She unlocked the door and
eased it open inch-by-inch to keep it from squealing on its hinges
and alerting someone to her escape. The beam of a flashlight cut
across the rear yard, and she managed to get inside with the door
mostly
closed just before being caught.
She’d heard there was a night watchman but had never actually seen
him outside, although she had noticed him once or twice sitting in
the lobby by the front door when the weather was nasty.

A few minutes later, she
opened the door again. She checked the alley to make sure no one
was nearby and moved more furtively. She tossed her suitcase over
the fence and threw a towel she had taken from the laundry room
over the barbed wire to cushion it. She quickly scaled the fence,
glad she had used one of the matron’s plush towels—as opposed to
the ones given to the children, which were practically
threadbare—so she only suffered a small cut on her palm. She tried
to pull the towel off the barbs, but it stayed snagged. She hated
leaving an obvious sign of her escape, but they would figure it out
anyway when she didn’t show up for laundry duty.

Josefina headed for the
lights and laughter at the end of the alley and then stopped
suddenly. What if someone recognized her? She thought about it. It
would have to be a teacher or student, and they were all snug in
their beds because they had to be up early in the morning. Some
local merchants might know her face, but they were also probably
home at this hour. Anyone who would be out this late was no one she
would know, and she proceeded up the alley. She recognized the
grocery market from her excursions and knew the bus station was
just two blocks away. She walked close to the storefronts, trying
to seem inconspicuous.

The bus station was almost
deserted. She approached the window and asked how far twenty
dollars would get her on the main line.

“
Bellingham.”

“
Okay.”

“
How many?”

“
How many
what?”

“
How many tickets do you
want?”

“
Just one.”

“
You’re not traveling with
an adult?”

“
My aunt is going to meet
me,” Josefina lied.

“
Does
she
know
twenty dollars will get you to Bellingham?”

“
I’m calling her, to let
her know.”

The clerk stamped
Josefina’s ticket and pushed it across the counter. She picked it
up and started to walk away. “Hey,” he called out.

“
What?”

“
Twenty
dollars.”

“
Oh.” She pulled the
crumpled bill from the wallet in her pocket and handed it to the
man.

He nodded. “Have a good
night.”

She didn’t think she
would.

Josefina fell asleep on
the bus and failed to get off at Bellingham. She only woke when the
driver shook her shoulder and told her they were at the end of the
line.

“
Where are we?” she asked.
“This doesn’t look like much of a city.”

“
It’s the bus depot. You
fell asleep and forgot to get off at the last stop.”

“
But what am I going to do
here?”

“
Not my problem. You’re
the one who fell asleep.”

She sat mute, not knowing
what to do.

“
See that gate?” He waited
for her to nod. “I can let you out through there.”

Josefina grabbed her
suitcase and walked slowly toward the gate. She had a nagging
feeling that she had made a terrible mistake. The only saving grace
was a sliver of light sky near the horizon. The sun would be rising
soon, and she was far away from the foundling home.

The bus driver unlocked
the gate.

“
Is there a hotel around
here?” she asked.

He studied her. She was no
older than his youngest daughter. “None that you have any business
staying at.” He saw her shoulders slump. “Look, I may know of a
place. Let me lock up and I’ll take you there.”

He led Josefina to his
car, and she sat huddled in the passenger seat hugging her
suitcase. He drove about a mile before pulling to the curb in an
old, neglected neighborhood. “Come with me.” He knocked on the
door.

The curtains twitched
before an elderly woman pulled the door open. “Come for breakfast,
have you—” She stopped speaking when she caught sight of
Josefina.

“
She needs a place to
stay.”

“
How long?” the woman
asked. “All the cabins are taken.” They both turned to stare at the
girl.

“
I need to find a place to
live,” she whispered.

“
A rental?”

“
Yes,” replied Josefina,
“a rental.”

The woman nodded and
pulled a key ring off the wall. “Come on, then.” She led Josefina
halfway down the block to a small cottage with an overgrown yard.
She unlocked the door and flipped the light switch. “It’s not much
to look at, but it’s enough for a little thing like you. This is
the kitchen.” It was just large enough to hold a tiny sink, a
two-burner stove, a mini-refrigerator, and a couple of cupboards.
“It’s got a window over the sink. That’s a very desirable
feature.”

The next room was twice as
long as it was wide; unfortunately, it was only seven feet wide.
“This is your combination living and dining room.” There were two
doors at the end. She ignored one and led Josefina through the
other. “And this is your bedroom,” the woman said, as if pointing
to a suite in a five-star hotel. The tiny room was no bigger than
the kitchen. “You’ll be impressed to see its got one of those
en-suite bathrooms.” The bathroom with its rusty shower stall
looked dingy but actually appeared to be larger than the bedroom—if
only because it also housed a hot water tank and didn’t waste space
on a bathtub.

“
What’s behind that door?”
the girl asked, pointing to the closed door at the end of the
living room.

“
I use that for
my
storage,” the woman
answered. “It’s off-limits to you. That’s why it’s
locked.”

“
Oh,” the girl sighed. “I
thought it was a closet.”

“
You can buy one of those
cheap wardrobe closets and put it in the bedroom.”

Josefina imagined an
intricately carved armoire she had seen in an antique store window
on one of her few outings from Peakie’s. “Okay.”

“
One month security; one
month rent—in advance.” Then she told Josefina how much it would
cost.

The young girl’s face
whitened. It would put a huge dent in her savings. Still, it would
belong to her. Josefina carefully counted out the bills from her
wallet.

“
If you’re a model renter,
I’ll let you stay. Next payment is due on the first of the
month.”

“
But this is already the
sixth of the month,” Josefina said. “I’d be paying for six extra
days even though I wasn’t here the whole month.”