The price of being a human being

The Price of Being a Human Being A novel in twelve chapters Chapter One: The Last Week of Rent Maya Reyes was folding the last hotel sheet of her career when the manager called her name. It was a Tuesday morning in Calder City, and the laundry room at the Harbour Crest Hotel smelled the way it always did, of hot steam and lemon detergent. Maya had worked there for four years. She knew which machine shook when it was overloaded and which dryer needed a kick on the left side. "Maya, could you step into my office?" Mr. Holloway said. He did not look at her when he said it. That was how she knew. The office was small and cold. A single sheet of paper lay on his desk under his folded hands. "The hotel is sending its laundry to a cleaning company across the river," he said. "From Friday, we no longer need the full team. I am very sorry. Your final pay will be in your account by the end of the week." Maya heard the words, but they seemed to arrive late, like thunder after lightning. "All of us?" "Eleven positions. I argued for you. It made no difference." She nodded, because nodding was easier than speaking. She signed the paper, collected her coat and walked out through the side door. The wind from the harbour hit her face. She sat down on a bench at the bus stop and did what she always did when fear arrived. She counted. In her bank account there was $212. Her final pay would add about $340, which made $552. The rent on the small apartment she shared with her mother and brother was $900, and it was due in nine days. Her mother, Elena, had diabetes, and her medicine and test strips cost about $130 a month, even at the cheap clinic pharmacy. Electricity and water came to $85. Food, if they were careful, was $280. Together they came to $1,395 for the month ahead, and she had $552. What she did not know was how to turn one number into the other. When she reached home, the apartment was quiet. It was on the fourth floor of a tired brick building. Her mother sat by the window with a shirt across her knees, sewing a new button onto it. Since her doctor told her to stop cleaning offices, Elena had taken in small The Price of Being a Human Being Page 1 of 35

repairs from the neighbours. It brought in about $150 a month. Elena looked up and put down her needle. "You are home early. And you are wearing that face." "Which face?" "The one you wore when your father left." For a moment she thought about lying, then dropped the idea. The rent was coming whether she spoke or not. "The hotel let us go," she said. "All eleven of us. I have until Friday, and then there is no more work." Elena did not gasp or panic. She folded the shirt carefully and set it aside. "How much do we have?" Elena asked. "Two hundred and twelve now. About five hundred and fifty after my last pay. The rent is nine hundred." "Then we are short by about three hundred and fifty for the rent alone." Elena said it plainly, the way a doctor reads a result. "And we have not yet eaten." "Mama, I will find something." "I know you will. I only want you to know that I can see the size of it. You do not have to pretend it is smaller." That was the strange thing about her mother. She never made the problem smaller, and somehow that made it easier to stand beside. The front door opened and Leo came in, dropping his school bag by the wall. He was fifteen, thin, and growing so fast that his trousers always seemed a little too short. "What happened?" "Nothing you need to worry about," Maya said. "That is exactly what you say when it is something I need to worry about." So Maya told him. When she finished, Leo stood very still, and then he did something she did not expect. He took off his left shoe and held it up. The sole had split across the toe, and he had stuffed folded paper inside it. "I did not want to tell you," he said. "I thought you had enough to deal with." In that moment she understood that all three of them had been hiding small problems from each other because they loved each other. The silence was only making everything heavier. The Price of Being a Human Being Page 2 of 35

"No more secrets about money," she said. "Not in this house. Whatever it is, we say it out loud, and we deal with it together. Agreed?" Leo nodded. Elena nodded. After dinner, which was rice and a few vegetables, Leo went to do his homework and Elena went to bed early. Maya cleared the table and sat down with a pencil and the back of an old electricity bill. She drew a line down the middle. On the left she wrote, What I have. On the right she wrote, What I need. Under the first heading she wrote $552 and a small question mark beside it. Under the second she wrote $1,395, and beside that, shoes for Leo. Then she stopped and stared at the paper for a long time. Numbers only told her how big the hole was. To fill it, she would need something else. She turned the bill over and started a new list. Across the top she wrote, What can I actually do? It was not an easy question, because for four years her answer had been, I fold sheets. But she made herself think harder. She was fast. She was careful. She could remove a wine stain from white cotton in four minutes and a lipstick mark in two. She could look at a messy room and know, almost without thinking, the quickest order in which to put it right. None of it looked like much written down. But it belonged to her, and nobody could outsource it across the river. She was still staring at the list when someone knocked on the door. Maya opened it and found Mrs. Brandt from the flat upstairs, a tall woman in her sixties who rented her spare apartment to travellers. She looked flustered, and she was holding a set of keys in one hand. "Maya, I am so sorry to bother you so late," she said. "I heard your mother say you were finishing at the hotel. My cleaner has just quit, with no notice at all, and I have guests arriving tomorrow at noon. Do you know anyone who could help me?" Maya looked at the keys. She looked at the list in her hand. Then she looked back at Mrs. Brandt. "Maybe," she said slowly. "What exactly do you need?" Chapter Two: The Man at the Top Henry Voss had not slept well in three years, but nobody at Voss Holdings knew it. The Price of Being a Human Being Page 3…