Becoming Johanna (4 page)

“
No,” she whispered,
studying the card with her picture and new identity. “This is
perfect.” She flashed him a smile. “Thank you.”

He smiled back. “Any
time,
Johanna Charette.
You know where I am if you need me.”

She walked out of the
motor vehicle bureau and spotted LOI Book Services across the
street. She took a deep breath before walking inside. “Hi. My name
is Johanna Charette,” she said, extending her hand. “I heard you
were hiring from a neighbor whose daughter just got a job here. I
absolutely love books and spend all my spare time reading. Please
tell me you’re still hiring.”

“
What kind of experience
do you have?”

Johanna only hesitated a
moment. “I have experience working in a school. I think it’s so
important for children to read.”

“
You hardly look old
enough to have been a teacher.”

“
I graduated high school
early. And,” she lied, “I was a student
teacher.”

“
Why did you give up
teaching?”

“
I moved. And I could
really use a job. I’ll do anything
.”

“
We have an opening, but
you’re probably overqualified for it.”

“
What is it?” Johanna
asked.

“
We need an account
specialist. Someone with excellent telephone and organizing skills
who enjoys dealing with the public.”

“
I’m your girl,” Johanna
said. She had never had much reason to speak on the phone, but how
hard could it be? She could make up for her lack of phone skills
with her organizing skills. And she’d be happy to meet the
public.
As long as none of them are from
Peakie’s.

The receptionist took a
form out of her desk drawer and attached it to a clipboard. “Fill
this out and return it to me when you’re done. Meanwhile, I’ll see
if there’s anyone who can interview you this afternoon.”

Johanna wrote her new name
and new address on the form. She filled out the other information
to the best of her ability. She changed a couple of the digits on
the social security number she had taken from Peakie’s so she
wouldn’t be linked to the home. When it came to past experience,
she froze. She couldn’t write Peakie’s Foundling Home as her place
of past employment. LOI Book Services might contact them, and
Peakie’s could try to track her down. Instead, she made up the name
of a school in a small town on the other side of the country. Maybe
they’d be so impressed by her work skills that they wouldn’t care
about her lack of experience.

Johanna was right. LOI
Book Services needed customer service clerks so badly, they never
bothered to check her references. From what she’d told them during
her interview, none of her past experience would come into play for
this particular job. Besides, it was an entry-level
position.

Unfortunately, the
position was not what Johanna expected. She thought she would be
surrounded by books and interesting people. Instead, she sat at a
desk piled high with invoices, and a stack of ever growing book
requests. She didn’t get to meet the public, just speak with them
over the phone, and most customers were gruff, economized their
words, and weren’t afraid to criticize her when they thought she
was wrong. Still, it was better than sweating in a laundry or
ladling out what-passed-for-food to youngsters who couldn’t
differentiate it from the real thing because they had never eaten a
wholesome or delicious meal in their lives.

There was a high turnover
rate in the office, with new faces coming and going every few
weeks. The only exception was Lucinda, a middle-aged woman who
would probably die of old age at her desk. Johanna could sense
Lucinda marking her territory every time she spoke. To make matters
worse, she reminded Johanna of the matron at Peakie’s. If ever a
relationship was doomed to failure, it was any semblance of
friendship between Johanna and Lucinda. But the young girl did
manage to cultivate a couple of friendships outside of
work.

Johanna ran into
Amaranda—a catalogue copywriter—almost every day in the coffee
line, and she found Amaranda had a sharp wit and a comical
rejoinder for nearly everything said to her. Amaranda had graduated
from a college specializing in fashion design and illustration and
hoped to work for a major fashion magazine one day. Right now, she
only got to write short catalogue descriptions, but she studied all
the latest styles and pored over fashion blogs, reading every
description and studying the words the writers used.

Then there was the clerk
from the motor vehicle bureau. Derrick frequented the same coffee
truck and made it a point to say hello to Johanna whenever he saw
her. Eventually, he got up the courage to question something she
had told him. “Johanna?”

“
Yes, Derrick?”

“
I thought you had to
leave town in a hurry, and that’s why you needed your license so
quickly.”

Amaranda sneezed, jostling
Johanna and making her spill the coffee just handed to her. By the
time Johanna had recovered, she knew just what to say.

“
I was supposed to go away
with my father on a trip, but my sister wheedled and whined until
he asked me if I would mind staying home while he took
her
on vacation instead.
It really made my blood boil, because she always gets what she
wants. She’s the baby
in the family.
Anyway, I had given up my job because I thought I’d be spending the
summer … away. So, when I heard about an opening here, I decided
working in a new place would be my summer adventure. I rented a
small cottage across town and settled in.”

“
Really? You’re living
here now?”

“
Um-hmm. It’s tiny, but
it’s mine.”

“
Did you change the
address on your license?”

“
Not yet. I want to make
sure I’m going to stay first. My father may have a hissy fit when
he finds out I moved away from home.”

“
Well, you know where to
find me when you need to have that done.”

“
Thanks, Derrick.” Johanna
smiled to herself. She thought she was going to have to take a bus
out of town to another motor vehicle bureau to avoid suspicion when
changing her address. But since Derrick offered to do it, she could
hardly turn him down.

“
Would … uh …” Derrick
blushed, “would you have dinner with me on Friday?”

She froze. She didn’t want
to date Derrick but felt she could hardly turn him down. Not to
mention, she’d be getting a free meal out of the deal. Still, she
didn’t want to lead him on, so she lied—something that came all too
easily to her lately. “I’d love to have dinner with you, but to be
honest, I’m currently dating someone. He’s in the military … in the
Middle East.”

“
Oh.” Derrick paused for a
second. “I understand, but since I already asked you, I’d still
like to take you out … as a friend.”

Johanna smiled. “Okay,
Derrick. Dinner would be very nice.”

He got his coffee and
returned to work with a smile on his face.

“
Do you really want to go
out with that guy?” Amaranda asked.

“
Not on a date, but I
certainly don’t mind having dinner with him as a friend. I can use
all the friends I can get.”

“
Well then, I hope you
enjoy yourself. But next Friday, why don’t you go to the movies
with me and the girls?”

“
Okay,” Johanna answered.
“It’s a deal.”

Johanna was disappointed
when she didn’t receive a paycheck after her first week but thought
she had enough savings left to get her to the next payday. Maybe
she could even afford a lamp. Sure, she had a futon and a table,
but the only lights were in the kitchen and bathroom. She planned
to pick up a few books at the library, but she didn’t want to read
them in the kitchen or
the bathroom. After
carefully counting her savings, she figured she had enough money
for a lamp and maybe even a little table to put it on, as long as
she stayed on the lower end of the price range. She stopped by the
bargain store on her way home from work and picked out what she
wanted.

“
You want us to deliver
that?”

“
No,” she said quickly.
“I’ll take the lamp now and come back tomorrow for the table.” She
took the money for the purchases out of her wallet.

“
We’re not in the habit
of
storing
purchases. I’m going to have to charge you a fee for that,”
the salesman said. He reached for the money, but she snatched her
hand away.

“
On second thought, I’ll
just take the lamp.” She laid half the money on the
counter.

The salesman’s features
hardened. “I can’t promise the table you want will be here when you
come back for it.”

“
And I can’t promise I
won’t go to Danny’s Den of Deals in town to buy one.”

“
Really? You’re going to
carry a table all the way home from town?”

“
I will if I have to,”
Johanna answered.
If it kills me,
she thought to herself.

That evening at dinner,
Derrick told her all about his plans to study architecture. “My
father owns a construction company, and I worked for him during
summer vacations, but I want to do more than build someone else’s
design. He ridiculed the idea. He told me contractors, not
architects, are responsible for working out the logistics to
erecting all the great buildings in the world. According to my
father, studying architecture is a waste of time, and I should work
with him to build up the company.

“
That’s the day I stopped
working for him. I knew my old man would keep chipping away at my
plan to continue my education. So I took a job at the motor vehicle
bureau, even though I make less money and it will take longer to
save up tuition, because I refuse to abandon my dream to become an
architect.”

“
Following your dream
sounds really noble.” Derrick reminded Johanna of herself, but she
didn’t want to talk about her past, so instead, she told him how
much the guy at the bargain store had upset her when he tried to
wrangle extra money from her.

“
You know, if you want me
to go with you when you buy the table in town, I can drive it back
to your place in my car.”

Johanna’s mouth dropped
open. “You would do that for me?”

Derrick smiled. “That’s
what friends are for.”

“
I grew up alone. No one
ever helped me out like that before.”

A fragment of information
poked at his brain cells. His eyes narrowed. “I’m sure your sister
would have, if you gave her the chance,” he said
tentatively.

“
I don’t have a sister.”
She suddenly realized she had fabricated a story about her sister
going away in her place, to get Derrick to change the name on the
license.

“
What?”

“
At least, that’s what I
pretend,” she continued. “I find her so exasperating that I’ve
written her off completely.”

“
Oh.” Derrick smiled. “For
a moment, there, you had me going.”

Johanna felt a headache
coming on. When she used it as an excuse to ask Derrick to take her
home early, it wasn’t a lie.

“
I’ll pick you up tomorrow
around one o’clock to go to the furniture store.”

“
Thanks, Derrick. I’ll see
you then.”

That night, she tried to
sleep, but her head pounded, and she had no aspirin. She put it on
her virtual list for her post-payday shopping
extravaganza.

Johanna had dark circles
under her eyes the next day when Derrick picked her up. “You
feeling all right?”

“
I don’t have any aspirin.
I just moved in and there are a lot of things I haven’t stocked up
on yet.”

“
There’s a drugstore down
the block from Danny’s Den of Deals. We can pick some up. Do you
want to go there first?”

“
No, I’d better buy the
table first. I want to make sure I have enough money.”

“
I could always lend you
money if you need it.”

“
I can’t take your money,
Derrick.”

“
Because your boyfriend
wouldn’t approve?”

Johanna felt
uncomfortable.
That’s another whopper I
told him.
Creating a new license was one
thing; her entire identity had depended on it. But lying to Derrick
about having a boyfriend was something else entirely. She did it to
spare his feelings. Now she felt trapped in a web of lies. She had
never lied before. The punishment for getting caught in a lie at
the foundling home had been brutal, and the children there quickly
learned to take their chances with the truth, rather than be
punished for a lie. Now, everything about her was a lie. She had
abandoned her old life only the week before, and apparently, her
ideals along with it. She felt her headache returning.

She found an end table at
the furniture store that was nicer than the one she had seen at the
bargain store—and it cost less—but right next to it stood a small
chest made out of beautiful burled wood with three drawers. She had
been living out of her suitcase and thought about how nice it would
be to actually have drawers to put her clothing in. “How much is
this?”