Little Women and Me (22 page)

The only one not tossing adulation in my direction was Jo, who let us all know what she thought by snorting.

“Why don’t we meet in ten years’ time,” Jo suggested, “and compare where we are with our wishes?”

The others all thought that was such a
capital
idea—their word, not mine—and left me no choice but to agree.

What could I say? That in ten years, poor Beth would probably be dead, unless I found a way to stop it? Or that if I did manage to stop it I’d be back living where I belonged, in the twenty-first century?

Besides, because I’d studied history in school, I already knew one castle in the air that wouldn’t come true:

There would be no peace on earth.

There would no be goodwill toward mankind.

The American Civil War would end, but eventually, other wars would come to replace it. Some things couldn’t be stopped or changed.

The others tried to convince Laurie that he should be a musician if that was what he wanted most. What was there to stop him? Of all of us—as a male, as a
rich
male—the world should be his oyster.

That’s when Laurie explained that his grandfather wanted him to be an India merchant, as he was, but that he hated the idea and hoped that going to college for four years would appease him. Why, if the old man had anyone else in the world other than him, Laurie would leave tomorrow for Europe to pursue his music.

Meg continued on with her advice, accidentally making it clear that she knew an awful lot about Mr. Brooke, and telling Laurie that we only teased him because we regarded him as our brother.

Huh.

Did Jo regard him as a brother?

How did he regard each of us individually?

And what did I really think of him?

Fourteen

I’d become a stalker.

Just like that, October had arrived and with it, a strong chill in the air. The other thing that had arrived was a new industriousness in Jo. She spent more and more time alone in the garret, writing. When Meg asked her if she got lonely up there—didn’t she miss “our society”?—Jo replied that her pet rat, Scrabble, provided excellent company and that his eldest son was quite amusing too, although she failed to name him.

I wanted to know what she was working on, but when I asked, she wouldn’t say. As for my own story, I was still working on it in stolen moments.

I did try sneaking into the garret one night after the others were all asleep, my intent being to ransack the old tin receptacle where I knew Jo kept her pages, but she’d booby-trapped the thing. By candlelight I saw that she’d taken so many of her long
chestnut hairs, draping them across the crease in the drawer in an intricate pattern, I knew that if I tried to move them, I’d never get them back again the way she had them.

And then she’d know someone had broken in. And she’d probably guess it was me.

One chilly day, I secretly observed her doing a suspicious thing: putting on her silly hat and coat and then, when she thought no one was looking, taking a package wrapped in red ribbon and lowering herself out the back window! Naturally, I had to follow her.

I tailed my suspect to what the others called an omnibus, a public vehicle drawn by horses. Hoping to avoid being seen, I hopped on the back at the last minute, situating myself behind an old man. When we got into town and everyone else got off, I again waited until the last minute before hopping off and following her at a safe distance.

At last she arrived at a small office building. Hiding behind a fat oak tree, I peeked around the corner, observed her as she circled around to the front entrance no less than three times.

Why was she so nervous?

I squinted up at the signs as she finally entered.

The dentist
? Was that why she was so nervous? Did she have a cavity? I could see why she’d be nervous. I had no idea how they filled cavities in the 1800s, but I had a feeling it involved more pain than it did where I came from.

Poor Jo. I may not have always liked her very much, but the idea of dental work without Novocain was scary to think about.

But wait a second. A bad tooth didn’t explain that mysterious package she was carrying.

I squinted up at the signs again, and that’s when I saw it.

The Eagle
.

Huh. That was our local newspaper. Most people liked to wrap their fish in it.

But why would she …?

Why, that little … !

She’d brought her stupid stories here to beat me to the publication punch.

Well, we’d see about
that
! I huffed as I raced down the hill.

For a long time, I’d felt in competition with Jo as a writer. First, there was the fact that we did both love to write, which sometimes could be enough in itself. Then there was the fact that she thought she was
all that
. Not to mention that competition over the
Pickwick Portfolio/Twist Times.
And now she was going to try to sell a story to a newspaper before me?

I hurried faster. I had to get home as quickly as possible.

I had a short story to finish.

Who does she think she is?
That was the furious thought that filled my mind, alternating with every sentence I wrote in my story. That and,
I’ll show her!

That’s what I was doing, writing furiously and furiously writing, when the object of my fury found me in the garret two hours later.

“Emily, can I have a word with you?” Jo asked, with a rare shy tone.

Before answering, I quickly covered my pages with my arms.

“I’m not trying to steal a look at your silly
writing
!” she snapped, returning to her typical exasperated mode of addressing me.

“Oh, sorry,” I said, blushing as I loosened my arms.

Then I thought:
Hey!
What did
I
have to be sorry for?
After all, she’d been so paranoid of her own writing being seen, she’d placed that basket weave of hair over it. Well, two could play at paranoia!

I returned my arms to their protective posture over my work.

She rolled her eyes at me. But when I asked, “So, what did you want to talk to me about?” a sad look came over her face.

“I need to talk with someone,” she said, “and there is no one else with whom I can discuss this particular thing.”

That was weird. Jo and Meg always confided their secrets in each other. Or else they spoke to Marmee. Nobody ever came to me.

In a way, I felt flattered. Even if it was Jo doing the asking.

“How can I help?” I offered magnanimously, feeling just a little bit like the head of a Mafia family.

“I was just in town—”

“And what were you doing there?”

“Does it matter? I was in town and, when I finished my business, I ran into Teddy …”

It took me a minute to remember that Teddy was what she called Laurie.

“What was he doing there?” I asked.

“I don’t know! I thought I saw him coming out of a billiards saloon, he claimed he was taking fencing lessons, but I’m still not sure. The point is, we got to talking and—”

“Talking about what?”

“I’m trying to tell you! So we decided to trade secrets—”

“What sort of secrets?”

“
I’m trying to tell you!
And Teddy’s secret was … Teddy’s secret was … Teddy’s—”

“Yes?” I was on the edge of my seat here.

Her next sentence came out in a breathless rush. “Teddy’s secret was that he knows where Meg’s other glove is.”

“Is that all?” I collapsed back into my chair. “And what glove?”

“The missing glove.” Horse that she was, Jo rolled her eyes at me and then snorted. “Remember the time Beth was delivering the mail and we all got a lot of things—well, except for you—and Meg got a few things as well, one of which was a single glove from the set of two she said she accidentally left over at the Laurences’?
That
glove.”

“Sounds vaguely familiar,” I said. “But what of it?”

“Teddy told me that Mr. Brooke has kept it as a treasured memento of our sister. He carries it in his pocket at all times. Apparently, Mr. Brooke …
likes
our Meg.”

“Oh!” I had to admit, that did strike me as a bit icky, the notion of someone carrying around someone else’s sweaty glove at all times. But then, that was the Victorians for you. You never knew what crazy things they’d do when under the spell of love. So probably, there was nothing too terribly psychotic about Mr. Brooke’s behavior. He’d carry her glove, she’d probably press his dead flowers in some book, and eventually they’d call it love.

“So he likes her.” I shrugged. “I fail to see the harm that—”

“
Fail to see the harm?
”

“Well, there’s no need to get—”

“
Fail to see the harm?
But this is the most awful thing ever! She’s too young for love!”

“Well, she is seventeen now. How old was Marmee when she married your—I mean
our
father?”

“Then
I’m
too young to have her be in love,” Jo said, ignoring
my question. “Oh, why do things have to change? Why do we have to grow up?” She paused. “There is one hope.”

“Yes?”

“When Teddy and I were in town, we ran into Meg. She was just coming from the Gardiners’, where Sallie had been telling her all about Belle Moffat’s wedding. Belle’s in Paris for the winter now, you know. Anyway, I could tell that Meg was envious of Belle’s grand wedding. So maybe she can be persuaded to leave off her fancy of Mr. Brooke, since he is a poor man, and wait for a rich one? With a little luck, it could be years before one comes her way.”

Well, there was Laurie …

But I knew Laurie wasn’t destined for Meg. Having recovered from some of my story amnesia, I also knew where Meg and Mr. Brooke’s storyline was heading. Of course, I couldn’t tell Jo any of that.

I was still thinking about Meg and Mr. Brooke’s future when Jo’s annoyingly annoyed voice cut in.

“Aren’t you paying any attention to me, Emily?”

“Sorry?”

“I was trying to tell you about the other problem.”

“Which is?”

“Teddy.”

“Oh. Is he holding some girl’s glove hostage too?”

She ignored that. “That thing about me seeing him come out of the billiards saloon. I know he told me he was just taking a fencing lesson, and he even offered to teach me when I asked him, so that our fight scenes might be realistic when the time comes for us to do
Hamlet
, but I’m not sure if I believe him. What if he’s lying?”

“So?”

“
So
? You know how Marmee feels about such things. Why, she won’t even let Ned Moffat come to call—who, I might add, would make a much better secret suitor for Meg than Mr. Brooke, being rich and all—because he spends far too much of his leisure time in billiards saloons. So I told Teddy that he must be simple and honest and respectable so that he will always be welcome here.”

“And what did he say?” I asked, curious. I couldn’t imagine a guy appreciating being lectured to by Jo.

“He said that he didn’t go to the billiards saloons all that often anyway, but that he did like to go sometimes. Said he had a billiards table in some room in that huge house of theirs, but that it was no fun for him to play alone at home.”

A billiards table? Hey, wait a second here.
I
shot pool.

I decided the news of the billiards table and Laurie’s interest in the game was useful information to be filed away for later.