Becoming Johanna (6 page)

Johanna felt overwhelmed
but knew the only way to get past it would be to begin.
Start at the top
, she
told herself,
while I still have
strength
.

She shivered as she
started counting cartons. The wind howled outside, and it didn’t
feel like there was any heat inside the warehouse. Hours passed.
She hadn’t eaten since lunchtime, when she had consumed a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich that she brought from home. It was
closing in on midnight, and she was cold, tired, and hungry. She
looked at the sections she had finished. Maybe, if she were lucky,
she was ten percent done. She’d have to work faster if she wanted
to get done on time. But right now, she needed sleep. She walked to
the door and tried to pull it open. It was locked. She looked
around for a key but couldn’t find one. Not hanging on a nail
nearby; not in the desk in the office; nowhere. She was stuck
there.
I can die here
and no one will miss me until Monday
. She carried her coat and bag up to the tiny office and
closed the door. It wasn’t much warmer, but at least she couldn’t
hear the wind whistling quite as much. She sat at the desk and put
her head down and immediately fell asleep.

She woke up with a blazing
headache and a crick in her neck the following morning. Then, her
stomach rumbled. She looked through the desk again for something
that had caught her eye the night before. She found it tucked
between a box of staples and a container of paper clips—a granola
bar. She took it and got herself a cup of water from the water
cooler. She nibbled the bar and took sips of water, praying it
would fill her up enough to keep her going until someone let her
out. After her impromptu breakfast, she returned to counting. It
was mindless work and she allowed her thoughts to wander back to
the foundling home. She had been miserable there, but at least it
was hot
in the laundry. Too hot, perhaps,
but she would welcome that steam right now. Then she thought about
the cafeteria. The food was like pigswill, but at least it filled
her stomach three times a day and she didn’t have to worry about
where her next meal would be coming from.
I should have stayed longer. Saved a little longer. I
wouldn’t be stuck in here right now, if I had.

That evening, she
guesstimated she was halfway done with the inventory. Though
exhausted, she rummaged through the rest of the warehouse to see if
there was any more food. She found a bag of licorice in a metal
desk in the receiving area, as well as a can of soda.
A veritable feast.
She
ate half the candy and drank the can of soda. Then she managed to
count a couple more shelves before exhaustion set in.

On Sunday, she pushed
herself to finish the job. She worked straight through until the
last book was counted. By then it was ten p.m. She knew that
because she owned a watch that had put her into hock. She wondered
how much the company would pay her? She had been there all weekend.
If she didn’t get out until Monday morning, she would have spent
sixty hours straight in the warehouse. That was like a week and a
half’s pay. More if they paid her overtime.
They have to pay me overtime.
That
would help straighten her bills out.

She woke up Monday morning
when she heard the bay door open. She looked at her watch. Six a.m.
She picked herself up and straightened her clothing. She slowly
descended the stairs. The lack of food made her
lightheaded.

“
Hey, you,” the foreman
called out. “What are you doing in here?”

She explained why she was
there. The foreman’s eyes widened when he heard she was locked in
all weekend without food. He handed her a brown bag with his lunch
in it. “It’s just a couple of bologna sandwiches and an apple, but
you’re welcome to it.”

Johanna really wanted to
go home and shower, but she was too hungry to refuse. “Just one
sandwich please, and I’ll be on my way.”

A second warehouse worker
walked in. “Hey, who’s your friend?”

“
She was told to do the
inventory—by herself—and they locked her in.” Johanna would have
added to the story, but she was too busy eating. “So I gave her my
lunch. She looks a little shaky. Maybe you ought to drop her at
home.”

“
Do you live far?” the
worker asked.

She gave him her address,
and he gave her a lift to her cottage. She showered and changed,
but dared not lie down—even for ten minutes—or she might fall
asleep and be late for work. Instead, she walked back to town to
start another week.

Johanna lived on instant
soup and peanut butter sandwiches all week, and avoided going out
the front door at work because she didn’t want to run into Amaranda
or Derrick until she had their money.

Finally, it was payday.
She ripped open her pay envelope and stared at the check.
No!
She marched inside
her boss’s office and waved it in his face while she repeated how
she had been locked in the warehouse for sixty hours and deserved
time and a half for that, besides her regular salary, but the check
was made out for one week’s pay, the same amount she received every
week.

“
Now, Johanna, don’t get
upset. I’m just waiting for the higher ups to approve the time
sheet you submitted. They’re having a hard time understanding how
you could put in for one hundred and three hours of work for a
single week. They weren’t going to pay you at all, until I
convinced them to at least let me pay you for your regular
workweek. We’ll sort it out.”

She left his office with
tears in her eyes, snuck out the back door, and walked home. As she
turned the corner in front of her landlady’s house, she spotted
Derrick’s car parked in front of her cottage. She didn’t make it
that far.

“
Johanna, I have to talk
with you about the rent.”

She turned to see her
landlady standing in the doorway. “I paid the rent. In cash. It
couldn’t have bounced.”

“
No, dear. It’s just that
a realtor was nosing around here, inquiring about the cottages.
Apparently, some big mucky-muck is thinking of buying them all. So
I brought an appraiser through your cottage to see what it’s worth.
I explained I had a tenant, and he asked what I was charging you,
and when I told him, he said the place looked so fresh and clean, I
could probably get twice as 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.