Little Women and Me

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  “Margaret,” he said when Jo was gone.

  Who was Margaret?

  Then I realized. He was talking to Meg.

  The blush on her face told me this was the first time he’d called her anything other than Miss March.

  As I stood there in my secret corner, he confessed his love to her, asking if she thought that in time she might learn to love him.

  Use a girl’s first name for the first time and immediately confess your love? Sure, why not. That made sense.

  He said he’d wait for her, which I admit did seem incredibly romantic. Meg looked like she thought so too, but then he blew it all by saying he’d been good at teaching her German and that he thought it would be even easier to teach her to love him.

  I don’t think his self-confidence impressed Meg, who began playing games with him. She even told him that she wanted him to go away. He seemed just on the verge of doing that, hat in discouraged hand, when there came a pounding on the door and Aunt March shouted, “Mar-ga-REET!”

  So of course Mr. Brooke did what any self-respecting grown man would do at the sound of Aunt March’s voice: he ducked into the nearest closet, pulling the door shut behind him. I can’t say I blamed him. As for me, I tried to disappear even farther into the floral wallpaper.

  “I’m looking for my nephew!” Aunt March announced, entering.

  Her nephew? It took me a moment to realize she meant Papa. But I always assumed they were brother and sister!

  “I’ll get him,” Meg offered, moving to leave the room.

  “Actually,” Aunt March said, “I wanted to talk to you first. It has come to my attention that an unfortunate … association has sprung up between you and that man employed by your neighbors. I wish it to stop. In fact, if it does not stop, if you persist in marrying this man, you will not get a single penny from me when I die. Not one.”

  Five minutes ago, Meg had been ready to send Mr. Brooke packing. Now her normally calm features became enraged and she started to go off on Aunt March. Well, good-bye, Dr. Jekyll, and hello, Mr. Hyde.

  Poor Aunt March. Even I could have told her that her plan would backfire. If she didn’t want Meg to marry Mr. Brooke, she should have told Meg she did want her to marry him!

  “Fine,” Aunt March said, changing tack. “But you must realize, I am only trying to help. And you must further realize that, as the oldest daughter, it is your duty to marry a rich man so that you can help your family.”

  What?

  I had to put my hand over my mouth in order to stifle the outrage that was dying to pop out.

  Aunt March was a lunatic! People should marry the person they wanted. Well, unless the person they wanted was an ax murderer or something. But to marry just for money in order to help the family? What did she think this was, ancient history?

  Oh, right. It was.

  But again, Meg seemed to have no trouble expressing her outrage.

  “This man has nothing,” Aunt March persisted. “No money, no position in society, no immediate prospects for changing either circumstance. Surely you must see that.”

  Well, when she put it like that …

  “He’s marrying you for my money!” Aunt March finally cried when all else had failed.

  As far as Meg was concerned, that was the last straw. In fact, she came awfully close to using the word love to describe what she and Mr. Brooke shared.

  It was enough for Aunt March, though, who began her tromp through the room after telling Meg she washed her hands of her.

  She paused at the door, turned. Putting her lorgnette to one eye, her gaze swept the room until it at last settled on me.

  “E-mi-LY! What are you doing just standing there like a bit of wallpaper? Get over here at once and open this door for me.”

  My presence had been finally exposed, but once Aunt March was gone and Mr. Brooke had come out of the closet, I had as good as gone back to being wallpaper as they tentatively approached each other as though really seeing each other for the first time.

  “Margaret.”

  “John.”

  Use each other’s names for the first time one moment and the next they’re engaged?

  Yep. Talk about your crazy Victorians!

  It was decided that they would marry in three years’ time.

  Everyone approved of the plan. Everyone except for Jo, of course, and Aunt March.

  Laurie, Jo, and I were all gathered in one corner. Laurie was there to comfort Jo, and I was there because I was nosy, plus I didn’t want to leave them alone together.

  “It’ll be fine, Jo,” Laurie said. “We’ll still have fun when Meg is gone. Why, I’ll be done with college before you know it and then we can go abroad together.”

  Wait a second here. He’d canceled our Washington trip, but now he was talking about the two of them going abroad?

  “You don’t understand,” Jo said.

  “Maybe he doesn’t,” I cut in, tired of Jo’s attempts to hold Meg back, “but I do.”

  “You?” Jo looked shocked at the very idea.

  “Yes, me,” I said, trying not to feel offended. “Look, I’ll be losing a sister too when she goes.” But would I really? I wouldn’t be here still in three years … would I? I shook the idea off, continued. “You can’t go on like this, Jo. If you really care for Meg—”

  “Of course I do!” came the outraged interruption.

  “Then you have to let her live the life she wants to live, not the life you want her to live. If you try to hold her back, you’ll only push her away. Who knows? You may even lose her.”

  “Lose her?”

  Laurie and Jo both gaped at me, shocked. If I could have, I would have gaped at myself. Where had that bit of wisdom come from?

  Apparently I wasn’t done yet, though, because when I opened my mouth again, the following words came out:

  “If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, it never really was.”

  Jo and Laurie ate it up. It was like I was the Dalai Lama or something.

  Seriously. These people were made for Hallmark greeting cards.

  Really? Really? Three years? Meg and John were supposed to marry in three years?

  But that made no sense to me. I could have sworn that in the original book they got married not long after being engaged. So how was it possible that—

  Twenty-Four

  The three years that have passed have brought but few changes to the quiet family.

  Three years had passed? Whoa! How the heck did that happen? It was like being dropped into this world all over again.

  I knew it was three years later because just a few moments before, the others had burst into the parlor where I was sitting and shouted, “Happy birthday!”

  “It’s my birthday again already?” I said. I couldn’t believe it. How had a year passed with me missing it? “I’m sixteen now?”

  “Silly Emily.” Beth laughed. “You’re eighteen now. You know that.”

  Eighteen. That wasn’t possible! I hurried to the first reflective surface I could find, studied my image in it, saw Beth was right: I was taller now, leaner. I looked more like a young woman than a teenage girl. I looked around me. The others, except for Beth, who still looked the same, were visibly older too. Meg looked more proper than ever. Jo, whose hair had been cropped short the last time I saw her, now had hair cascading down her back once more. As for Amy, she looked downright sophisticated. She must be sixteen now. If she lived in my era, she’d be getting her license soon, probably tooling around town in a sports car before long. Amy was definitely the sort of girl who’d be given a sports car as a present on her sixteenth birthday. Not that I was jealous or anything.

  Eighteen.

  I’d been here four years and somehow I’d missed three of them.

  Go with the flow, Emily, I told myself in an effort to calm my anxiety, just go with the flow.

  Really, I’d been living in Crazy Town for so long now, what was one more stop
on the road?

  Before long the others tired of celebrating me and said it was time to head over to Dovecote. I had no idea what Dovecote was, but I didn’t let on, following along with the other girls and Marmee.

  Dovecote turned out to be a small brown house. I wouldn’t have thought a brown house could be adorable, but this one was, the interior decorated so cozy it was as though the owners had been living there for years. By remaining quiet and simply listening in on the conversations of the others, I quickly figured that Mr. Brooke—well, John now, as the others called him—had prepared this house for Meg. Were they married then already? So many things I didn’t know—talk about story whiplash!

  “Psst, Beth,” I said while the others talked loudly about the furnishings.

  Beth turned. “What is it, Emily?” she whispered back.

  “I was hoping I could talk to you about something, just the two of us. Is there another room here we might use?”

  “Why don’t we step outside and get some air?” Beth suggested.

  The others didn’t notice as we left the house. They were busy yakking about dishes and things.

  “What is it, Emily?” Beth asked again as we sat down on the small patch of lawn, arranging our skirts around us. “This is so peculiar. No one ever wants to have a private word with me about anything.”

  “I was wondering if you could bring me up to date,” I said.

  “Up to date?” She was puzzled. “How do you mean?”

  “I want you to tell me what’s been happening the past three years,” I said, then added, “with everybody.”

  “But I don’t understand.” Now she was even more puzzled. Then she brightened. “I know!” she said. “This is another one of your games! It’s like that time when you asked me things that everyone knows just so that I might feel better about my lack of book learning.”

  “A game!” I snapped my fingers. “That’s exactly it! A game. And here’s how we’ll play: I’ll ask you questions and then you answer them.”

  “All right,” Beth said eagerly. “Although I do hope I know all the answers. I shouldn’t like to disappoint you with my stupidity.”

  “You could never do that, Bethie,” I assured her. “Okay, first question. Pretend I’ve lost all memory of the last three years. What’s the most important thing that’s happened in that time period?”

  “I can’t believe it.” Beth put her hand to her chest, closed her eyes in relief. “I thought this might be difficult, but you’re asking me easy questions. I know this one.” She opened her eyes. “It’s the war ending, right?”

  Was she asking me or telling me?

  And then it hit me. Wait a second. An entire war had gone and ended, and I’d somehow missed it?

  “And of course you already know,” Beth went on, “that Mr. Brooke—that is to say, John—went to war for a year, was wounded, got sent home, and now he has set himself up as an under bookkeeper so that he might provide this lovely home for Meg.” Beth turned sad for a moment. “Not that I really understand what an under bookkeeper does exactly.”

  “That’s okay, Bethie,” I said, recovering from my shock at a whole war ending in my absence, “I don’t either. Tell me what Papa’s been up to.” I hadn’t seen him around when I’d come to in the middle of my birthday celebration. Oh, God. I hoped he hadn’t died and that I’d just raised a sore subject for Beth that would make her even sadder.

  “Papa is the minister in our small parish now.”

  Whew. He hadn’t died.

  “Everyone goes to him for advice. He’s half a hundred years old, has much gray in his beard, and is considered to be quite the wise old man.”

  Old at fifty? I mean, half a hundred.

  “Oh, I do like this game, Emily!” Beth said. “I know all the answers. Ask me more questions!”

  “So Meg is married already?”

  “Silly Emily—of course not! She’s getting married tomorrow, which is why we are all here today, to help prepare the house. Marmee has been so busy of late with Meg and all her preparations, she has barely had time to do anything else!”

  “And how about Meg—is she happy with this house?”

  “You know Meg. When she saw what a fine home Ned Moffat made for Sallie Gardiner after their wedding, she was a trifle jealous. But then she remembered how much John loves her and how hard he worked to make this charming little home for her, and then everything was all right again.”

  Ned and Sallie had gotten married? Had I been at the wedding? If I had, I hoped I hadn’t made a fool of myself!

  “And what about Jo?” I said, my attention turning to my old nemesis. “What’s she been up to?”

  “She never went back to Aunt March after my … illness. Aunt March decided she preferred Amy. She even hired a special art teacher to give Amy drawing lessons so that Amy might be persuaded to stay. So Jo continues in her reading and her writing for The Eagle—did you know they pay her a dollar a column now? Of course you did, silly Emily—and she is also working on a book. In between all that, she takes care of me. As you can see, I am the same as I have always been.”

  I did see that.

  “I’ve got another question for the game,” I said. “I haven’t seen Laurie. What’s he been doing?”

  “Oh, good—another question I know the answer to! Why, Laurie has been at college, but he still comes to visit us every week and sometimes he even brings his college friends. Meg doesn’t pay attention to them, of course—she is too busy with planning her life with John—and of course I am too shy to even talk to them. But they like Jo, whom they seem to regard as another young man. Oh, and they really like Amy. In fact, some have grown quite besotted with her. Amy, as you know, has a way with young men.”

  Yes, I did know.

  “Amy says that Meg should have servants for her house, like Sallie Moffat does, but Meg says she will be quite content with Lotty to run errands for her.”

  Who was Lotty?

  “Amy also teases Laurie when he visits about one Miss Randal.”

  Who was Miss Randal? I didn’t remember any Miss Randal from the original book!

  “I think you are up to date now,” Beth said, “except to tell you that Aunt March, after vowing not to give Meg a penny if she married John, developed a ruse whereby a friend of hers appeared to give Meg elaborate linens for her new home. But of course we all know who was behind it. Oh, and Aunt March is also giving Meg the pearls she promised to the first March bride.”

  “How generous.”

  “Yes, everyone is generous to a bride. That is why each of us has done so much to make this a home for Meg and John.”

  “Each of us?” I echoed. “And what have I contributed?”

  Beth’s face clouded over with puzzlement, but then it brightened at the sight of a tall guy, at least six feet, vaulting over the fence.

  “Laurie!” she cried.

  Wow. He looked even hotter than he had three years ago. “Beth.” He raised his hat at her, turned to me. “Emily. My, you’re looking even prettier than last time I saw you.”

  I was? Involuntarily, I raised a hand to my hair. It was pinned up, but it felt thicker somehow, like it must be a lot longer.

  “Everyone else in the house?” he asked. “Good, right,” he answered his own question. “I’ve got another present for Meg, so I’ll just head on in.”

  “He’s still wonderful.” Beth sighed when he was gone. “Of course he always teases Jo. He says he predicts she’ll be the next to marry. And of course Jo always says that’s absurd, that she will never marry.”

  She would say that.

  Beth sighed again. “Are we finished with the game?” She rose with difficulty from the grass—she was still so frail. “I would like to rejoin the others now.”

  “Just one more question,” I said, “and then the game is over. What have I been doing the past three years?”

  Beth’s face clouded again, even worse than before.

  “Oh no,” she said. “Final
ly, a question in the game I can’t answer. You know, it’s funny, but for some reason, right now I just don’t know.”

  Twenty-Five

  “Why don’t you do Meg’s hair, Emily?” Amy suggested. “I remember when you did mine years ago in le ponytail. If I hadn’t gotten into trouble that day in school, I am sure it would have turned into quite the rage.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “You’re all doing fine with those, um, braids.”

  I didn’t want them to realize that le ponytail was the only hairstyle I knew. Besides, le ponytail just didn’t seem fitting for a wedding.

  We were all gathered in the bedroom I still shared with Meg and Jo, helping the bride get ready for her big day. Meg had on a dress she’d sewn herself—she said she wanted the simplest of weddings, nothing like the fuss and bother Sallie and Ned had—and the rest of us were wearing silvery gray dresses with roses in our hair and bosoms. I felt kind of funny wearing flowers in my bosom—I also felt funny calling it my bosom. As for the dresses, I gathered from what the others said that these were our best gowns for the summer, but I’d never seen them before.

  It was still troubling me, the idea that three years had somehow passed, that I’d somehow leaped forward in time without having any memories of a single event that had occurred in that time period.

  But there was no time to dwell on that now.

  We had a wedding to get on with here.

  Papa stood with his back to the fireplace, officiating over the wedding of Meg and John.

  Meg had said she wanted simple and it was a small crowd, but everyone I knew was there: the immediate family, of course, plus Laurie, Mr. Laurence, Aunt March, Hannah, and Sallie and Ned Moffat. There was one couple I didn’t recognize. They were around Marmee and Papa’s age and I heard Jo greet them as Uncle and Aunt Carrol.

  At one point during the ceremony Papa’s voice caught and it was a moment before he could go on. I realized then that he was emotional at the idea of his oldest daughter getting married and leaving the nest. Perhaps he was also thinking that soon all his girls would leave the nest?