Little Women and Me (14 page)

Back home, Amy and I were wrapped in blankets and put before the fire, our teeth still chattering.

Jo couldn’t do enough for Amy. Apparently death was a great reminder of love.

“Well, no harm done,” Marmee said soothingly. “A little cold water never hurt anybody.”

I nearly choked on my tea.

No harm done?
my mind screamed.
A little cold water?
I wanted to strangle Marmee. Amy had almost died out there.
I’d
almost died out there! Hadn’t any of these people ever heard of hypothermia before?

Oh, wait a second … 1862… perhaps no one had invented hypothermia yet … or maybe they just didn’t know about it …

And then they were hurrying Amy and me off to our beds, and I could hear Jo and Marmee talking over Amy’s snoring in the next room.

Jo was feeling guilty over her temper, worrying that one day she’d do something so awful it would destroy her life and make everyone hate her.

Serves you right
, I thought.
If we were in
my
world and you pulled a stunt like that—letting someone go out on thin ice when you knew the risks, and then if that person died, we’d call it negligent homicide and lock you away.

Wait a second. Maybe Amy wasn’t the resident sociopath. Or perhaps she and Jo were
both
pathological?

But there was Marmee’s voice, soothing Jo with stories about her own temper, how it had taken Marmee most of her life to conquer it.

“How did you?” Jo asked with rare timidity. “Conquer your temper, I mean.”

“I didn’t conquer it permanently,” Marmee said. “It came back to me again when I had four young daughters and we were poor.”

“Four? Don’t you mean five?” Jo said.

“Oh, that’s right,” Marmee said sounding puzzled. “I don’t know why, but for some reason, I forget at times that there are five of you and think there are just four.”

Gee, I wonder why that is?
I almost snorted out loud. It was some comfort to realize that I wasn’t the only one here who was confused at times by all of this. Maybe the story mostly seemed preadapted to me, but there were these occasional wrinkles, as though the story still had to stretch to accommodate me.

Then Marmee droned on about Papa, how his goodness and perpetual patience had been the beacon that had led to her current temper-less state. He’d encouraged her to be the kind of woman her girls would want to grow up to emulate, a woman who would be proud and happy to have her girls confide in her.

It would have been so easy to snort then. So much of what she was saying was snort-worthy, like the idea of Papa being perpetually patient. Well, of course he was—because he never actually had to be there!

I thought about what Marmee and Jo had discussed about Jo’s temper being something she needed to work on and I remembered those books Marmee had given us for Christmas: the four—no,
five
copies of
Pilgrim’s Progress
. It occurred to me that Marmee knew that Jo’s temper was her weak spot; and further, that Marmee had intended for each of us to work on our character. Meg, I figured, needed to become less superior; we all knew about Jo’s temper and Amy’s vanity, not to mention Beth’s shyness—shyness might not be a huge flaw like a pathological temper, but it did keep Beth from fully enjoying her life. But what then was my character flaw, the big thing I had to work on? Surely, it had to be something more than conquering my tendency to be the family skank.

“I still don’t believe that story Amy told about Emily saving her,” Jo said. “
Emily?
Perhaps Amy was imagining things?”

“It does seem unlikely,” Marmee admitted.

Hey!
I was outraged. I would have objected, loudly, but I was the eavesdropper here. And what did they mean by that? What did these people know about me that I didn’t? Was there something about me that made it seem unlikely I
would
ever save anyone else’s life?

Then Marmee said how much she missed Papa but how she’d told him to go to war because she wanted to give her best to the country she loved, and then Marmee counseled Jo to turn to her Heavenly Father for guidance, Amy woke up with a happy cry to see Jo there, the two hugged and kissed, and everything was forgiven and forgotten.

Well,
I
wouldn’t forget.

Amy could have
died
because of Jo … and Amy destroyed Jo’s
book
!

These Marches were nuts!

Nine

I needed to find out what a fortnight was.

It had been making me crazy for years. Why hadn’t I ever looked it up before?

I’d come across the term when reading
Little Women
when I was eight and I’d been puzzled by it, so I’d asked my mother. She’d said, “Look it up in the dictionary!” And I’d automatically assumed her advice really meant “I have no idea!” and I’d of course failed to look it up, coming up with my own definition. I’d figured a fortnight referred to four nights, something like a long weekend. Fortnight. Four nights. It made sense to me.

But now as I watched Meg pack what the others termed the “go abroady” trunk for a fortnight at the Moffats’, and I observed all the junk she put in that trunk, it struck me that my definition couldn’t possibly be right. A fortnight had to be longer than four nights …

It would have been nice if there were a dictionary handy, and with Jo being such a great writer, you’d think there would have been, but I’d long since become aware that whenever I wanted a particular thing, it was impossible to find it in the March household. So I did the next best thing: I pulled Beth aside from the others. It’s not like Beth was known for her brain power, but at least she could be counted on not to laugh in my face if I asked what the others thought a stupid question.

“A fortnight is fourteen days,” Beth whispered, “or some people think of it as two weeks, but it is somewhere in there.”

What was wrong with these people? They expanded “fifty” to the lengthier “half a hundred” while compressing the precise “fourteen days” to the confusing “fortnight.” Why couldn’t they be straightforward for once?

That was when Beth laughed straightforwardly in my face.

“Silly Emily!” she said between giggles.

Silly Emily?
Seriously
, Beth?

I was used to the others laughing at me at various times—or casting aspersions on my character by implying I wasn’t the sort of person who’d save my own sister’s life when she’d fallen through a crack in the ice—but never Beth. In fact, I was so stunned by her outburst, I couldn’t reply at all.

“I’m sorry,” Beth said, at last managing to gain control of herself, “but don’t you realize that I can see what you’re up to?”

“Up to?”

“Why, yes! You are asking me a question that everyone knows the answer to, while pretending you do not.”

“And, er, why am I doing that?”

“Why, to make me feel just as intelligent as the others, of course! You know that I am shy about my lack of book learning,
and you want to make me feel as smart as anyone else.” She gave a happy sigh before turning serious. “That is so like you: always looking to do the kind thing.”

I was getting credit for being kind? Coolio! “Yes, well,
kind
.” It made me feel suddenly guilty that Beth thought of me that way, when all I cared about now was figuring out the meanings of terms I had no clue about. “I don’t know about that. But while we’re on the subject, could you tell me what a tarlatan is?” I’d heard Meg say something about packing hers.

“Silly Emily!” She started to laugh again. “There you go again, being kind!”

“Yes, heh, there I go.”

It turned out that a tarlatan was a type of fabric, in this case referring to a slightly shabby-looking gown Meg intended using as her “ball dress.” It was obvious Meg wanted something finer—apparently the Moffats were very wealthy compared to us—but there just wasn’t enough money.

“Anyway,” Jo said cheerfully, “Marmee has given you so many things from the treasure-box, I wouldn’t think you’d mind so much wearing an old dress to the big party, since so much else of what you’ll have on that night will be new. Well, at least to you.”

The treasure-box—I’d been able to figure that out without resorting to pumping Beth—was an old cedar chest where Marmee had a few things to give to each of us when she thought the time was right. I was very curious about that chest. Since Marmee sometimes forgot there were five of us, not four, was there really anything for me in there?

“Marmee says that fresh flowers are the perfect ornament
for any girl anyway,” Amy said to Meg, “so isn’t it wonderful that Laurie has promised to send you some while you are at the Moffats’? I’ll bet the other girls will be green with envy!”

Wait a second here. Laurie stood guard while Beth played the piano, he took Jo to the theater and skating, and now he was sending flowers to Meg? Off the top of my head I couldn’t think of any particular favor he’d shown Amy, but just what was going on here? When was Laurie going to romance
me
?

But I didn’t have time to wonder about that anymore because Meg was fretting over her material things not being perfect.

For the second time that day, Beth did something surprising. She got a little PO’ed.

“Just the other day all you wanted in the world was to be allowed to go to Annie Moffat’s,” Beth said, “and now, even though Marmee has given you new gloves and silk stockings, it still isn’t enough?”

“Yeah!” I agreed forcefully. I found myself liking Beth’s slightly skewed perception of the world with me cast in the role of kindness while Meg was an ingrate.

If Jo had to work on her temper, Beth her shyness, and Amy her vanity, Meg definitely had to work on that dissatisfaction thing of hers.

Perhaps sensing that dissatisfaction, the other three began exclaiming over the pretty things Marmee had given Meg and talking about all the fun and parties and new experiences she would have on her fortnight away.

Fun. Parties. New experiences.

Suddenly I had to get out of that room.

The others were too busy squeeing to notice my quiet exit. As I gently closed the door behind me, I saw Marmee standing across the hallway.

“Talk with me for a while, Emily?” she requested.

How could I refuse? It wasn’t like back home, where I could say: “Not now, Mom, maybe later.”

She led me to the small living room, took her special seat before the fireplace.

“I am very worried about Meg,” she said, “but without Papa here, there is no one else I can confide in but you.”

Whoa! Since when was I someone anyone could confide in?

“You know,” Marmee went on, “I was reluctant to allow Meg to go to the Moffats’ in the first place.”

“Well, yes,” I said, “with her being gone for a whole …
fortnight
, the King children will be neglected for two weeks unless I go to them myself.”

“I wasn’t thinking of Meg’s job,” Marmee said. “But yes, you are right: you will have to go.”

Rats.

“No,” she continued, “it’s that I fear this time away, being exposed to the Moffats’ grander lifestyle, Meg will return even more discontented with her life here than when she left.”

Grander lifestyle?
Suddenly, I wanted more than anything in the world to be where there would be fun and parties and new experiences.

“I have a solution!” I offered eagerly.

Marmee waited expectantly.

“I could go with Meg!”

“Of course you can’t. You weren’t invited. Jo wasn’t even invited.”

“Well”—I hurried to think of some useful purpose I could serve—“I could act as lady’s maid to Meg, helping her dress her hair and things like that. Remember that ponytail I gave Amy that time?”

Funny. She didn’t look impressed.

“I’m sure all the Moffats have their own ladies’ maids,” I rushed on. I was sure of no such thing, but what the heck? “I wouldn’t want Meg to do without. Plus, it would be good training for me—you know, to learn the ropes so I know what to do when I’m old enough to attend house parties.”

Would I still be here in a few years? I shuddered at the thought. It was already spring.

“ ‘Learn the ropes’?” Marmee echoed. “Sometimes, Emily, you say the strangest things. And while your offer is tempting …”

Please say yes! Say yes!

“… I’m afraid I must say no.”

I could feel my face fall.

“It was a kind offer, Emily, but I fear that Meg must learn to conquer her discontent on her own. Besides …” She paused. “… you’ll be too busy taking care of the King children.”

I felt outraged. Hey, this woman wasn’t my mother. She wasn’t the boss of me!

But I couldn’t tell her that.