Little Women and Me (28 page)

As I left the room, wondering what I was even still doing there since somehow I’d managed to save Beth’s life, I heard her address Meg and Jo. “Honestly, girls. How
could
you have allowed Emily to visit here when you know she has never had scarlet fever? You should have sent her back to Aunt March’s the minute you saw her face.”

“
Allowed
?” Jo used a rare scoffing voice with Marmee. “
Sent
? Have you ever tried to tell Emily to do anything when she has already determined to do the exact opposite?”

There was a brief pause before Marmee finally admitted, “Indeed.”

The first snow was on the ground when I rode with Laurie to deliver the good news to Amy.

“It is too bad,” he said as the carriage bounced along, “that you have not been able to accompany Amy and me on our afternoon outings. I have seen a different side to your youngest sister in the time we have spent alone. Perhaps if you had been there more, you might have seen it too.”

“A different side to Amy? What different side could there possibly be? With Amy, what you see on the surface is definitely what you get.”

“You mean that she is vain and foolish?”

I certainly wasn’t going to disagree.

“Of course she is that,” Laurie continued when I said nothing, “more vain and foolish than any girl I know. But when one spends time alone with her, one realizes that she is also strong and even shrewd.”

Shrewd? Amy???

But then I remembered something else she’d said about a week or so ago when she’d advised me: “Your time here would go much faster and be more smooth and pleasant if only you’d get into the spirit of the thing.”

At the time, I’d interpreted “here” as our stay at Aunt March’s.

But what if Amy had in fact meant something deeper? What if this strong and shrewd Amy, according to Laurie, was instead
referring to my time here in Marchville? Had Amy somehow figured out that I didn’t come from
here
at all?

No, of course that wasn’t the case, I reassured myself as Laurie delivered Marmee’s message and Amy flew at Laurie’s head in gratitude just like Jo had done. Amy wasn’t shrewd enough to figure out something like that. How could she?

But she was smart enough for one thing, I saw now. Laurie had said his impression of Amy had changed. And I saw for the first time clearly just how shrewd she was: Amy was an opportunist and, having the opportunity of Laurie all to herself, had seized upon it. Now the most eligible boy any of us knew had started to look at Amy in a new and more favorable light.

Hmm …

Oh, well. If Laurie was feeling a new passion for Amy, he certainly wasn’t showing it now. No sooner did Amy let him go than he collapsed on a sofa, like some frail lady in a Victorian novel, claiming to have slept not at all since the day before.

Soon he was snoring softly.

“I guess I’ll write to Marmee now,” Amy said, with a disappointed glance at the snoring boy.

It wasn’t easy for me to stay away from home and Beth, but I did my best the first few days, knowing that Marmee would be firmer in kicking me out than Meg or Jo had been.

I was helping Amy straighten up the parlor, yet again, when Marmee came to call.

“Beth is doing well enough now,” she said, “although I prefer
you both remain here for the time being, but I did so want to see the one daughter I have not seen yet.”

Marmee opened her arms wide and Amy flew into them.

Then, as if I wasn’t even there, Amy sat in Marmee’s lap and told her all about how hard things had been for her, being away from home.

“Oh. You’re here,” Aunt March said to Marmee, rousing from where she’d been napping in a chair. “I hope you don’t plan to take Amy away from me just yet. In fact, I wish I could have her with me forever.”

“No, I’m not taking them yet,” Marmee informed her.

“Oh.” Aunt March looked disappointed as she cast a glance in my direction. “I was hoping you’d take away just the one. Really, anytime now would be fine.”

“Marmee!” Amy cried, holding out her hand. “Look at the ring Aunt March gave me! She originally planned to leave it to me in her will, but decided I should have it early, because I am so good.”

Marmee agreed that the turquoise was a very pretty ring, even if it needed a double guard to fit Amy’s finger. But she also thought Amy too young for such “adornment.”

That’s when Amy proved her shrewdness once again.

She spun some convoluted reasoning about how the ring would serve as a constant reminder that she must strive to be unselfish, like Beth.

The very idea of Amy taking an unselfish approach to life for any length of time—HA!

But Marmee swallowed it whole.

I couldn’t keep myself away from home and Beth forever.

And so, a few days later, I made the long trek through the snow to see how my favorite sister was doing.

But as I peeked over the ledge to Beth’s room, I saw that Marmee and Jo were there, and neither looked like she’d be leaving anytime soon.

The window was slightly open—Dr. Bangs had probably prescribed that a little pneumonia was just the thing for an invalid—so I was at least able to eavesdrop on them.

Marmee and Jo were discussing John Brooke—the stalker with Meg’s glove.

First Marmee said what a help he’d been to her in Washington and how glad it made her knowing he was still there, tending to Papa.

Then Jo surprised me by spilling the secret about how Mr. Brooke had kept Meg’s glove so that he could have a piece of her.

Then Marmee surprised Jo
and
me by saying she knew all about John’s love for Meg—if not the glove—and that he’d confessed it to her and Papa.

“He wants to earn enough money and position himself better,” Marmee went on, “before marrying her, but your father and I told him that we will not allow Meg to wed until she is at least twenty.”

Then Jo went on and on, her usual predictable blather about wanting to keep Meg with them forever, blahblahblah. I was about to fall asleep out there when she said something I couldn’t have predicted, not in a million years.

“I had always intended,” Jo said, “that Meg should marry Laurie.”

What the—

It was mind-boggling to think that Jo was so dense she thought Laurie should marry Meg, the March girl least suited for him. The rest of us, even Beth, had more fun in our little fingers than Meg had in her whole body. Even more mind-boggling was the idea that Jo had so little self-awareness, she didn’t see that
she
was the one best suited for—

What was the girl—nuts? Anyone who’d ever read the story—anyone with half a brain—could see that Jo and Laurie were meant to be together. Yes, even
me
. The way they talked so easily, the way they clicked over everything, the way she affectionately called him “Teddy” and “my boy”—it was so obvious how much Jo liked him. And yet, no matter what anyone who’d ever read the story thought, no matter what anyone with half a brain could see, there remained just one tiny problem:

I still wanted Laurie for myself.

Twenty-One

A few weeks had passed and I was still living between worlds: spending part of the time at Aunt March’s with Amy, and the rest of the time back home.

There was constant chatter about the possibility of Papa returning now that his health was improving, and I wondered what it would be like to come face-to-face with the one remaining family member I’d supposedly known my whole life and yet never met, but no specific date was on the calendar.

Now that Marmee had returned and Beth had turned her dark corner—Three cheers for Beth! as Jo might say—the household had rearranged itself once more. Beth could actually lie on the sofa in the study now, playing with her cats and sewing clothes for her dolls. I’d kept my silent vow to never think another bad thought about the headless and limbless Joanna and even gave an outward showing of this newly turned leaf by praising
the garment Beth had sewn for her: a gown with a high-necked collar that somehow served to emphasize the lack of head.

“Joanna looks extremely happy in that,” I told Beth.

“How can you tell?” Beth asked.

“By her smile, of course,” I said. “Joanna always smiles like that when she’s particularly happy about something. It’s like the sun coming out.”

Beth seemed particularly happy herself at my words, my willingness to finally play along.

Now that we were into the shortest days of the year, Jo’d taken to lifting Beth up in her arms, blanket and all. Then she would carry Beth around from window to window so she could see cheerful nature and the changes in the out-of-doors.

I had to grudgingly give Jo credit, for being generous and for being strong enough to carry her. One time when Jo was out of the room, I tried, and nearly dropped Beth.

Beth had lost so much weight it occurred to me that if my friends in the twenty-first century knew how effortlessly scarlet fever peeled away the pounds, they’d probably do anything to catch the disease. Hmm … maybe I could somehow take a vial of scarlet fever–infected blood with me when I time traveled back home? I’d probably be rich and famous!

Not that I seemed likely to time travel back home anytime soon. I was beginning to wonder if I was doomed to remain here forever.

I pushed that thought away.

And in the meantime, while I was here, I focused my attentions on Laurie.