Little Women and Me

One


“Christmas won’t be Christmas without any presents,” grumbled the girl, lying on the rug.

I looked at the girl sprawled out in front of the crackling fire. She was my age or maybe just a bit older—tall, thin, large nose, gray eyes, chestnut hair piled into a messy bun, long gray dress. I knew her. Oh, not from school or town. No, I knew her from the woodcut illustrations—yeah, the ones in my book. And I knew the words she’d spoken, which were the opening lines, of course.

Jo March!

I blinked my eyes hard at the impossible vision—what was going on?—only to snap them open again at the sound of other girl voices.

It was so strange, coming in on the middle of the conversation. What were they talking about? Something about missing Papa? Something about the war?

I followed the voices to the speakers. They all wore long dresses, seriously ugly boots peeking out from beneath the hems. The oldest looking of the girls had soft brown hair tied up in some kind of funky ’do. She looked like a size 16 and she kept studying her hands as though she thought they were the coolest thing ever. Whoa! That’s Meg March, I thought.

The girl next to her looked the youngest, a skinny chick with long, curly blond hair. Her eyes were a startling blue. Amy.

So where was …?

I heard a soft voice say something about not minding about the money. That’s when I saw her, almost hidden like a mouse, as she knitted away in the corner. The rosy cheeks, the flat hair, the bright eyes, and the peaceful expression. Check. Had to be Beth.

As I looked around the room, and took in the old-fashioned furniture and stuff, I tried to figure out what had happened. The last thing I remembered was opening my copy of Little Women and reading the first line, then reading more and thinking about things, and then … WHOOSH!

Had I turned on the TV while doing my homework and stumbled on an old movie version? But no, this Jo March didn’t look like an actress playing Jo March. She looked like, well, Jo March! Maybe I’d eaten a contaminated lettuce leaf at lunch and was hallucinating or someone had poisoned me? Or maybe the answer was simpler: I fell asleep while reading, and this was just a dream?

I pinched myself, hard, but after the pinch I was still in the room. In a dream, can you give yourself a specific direction like that and actually have the dream-you do the thing?

“Emily.” I jumped in my chair as Jo kicked me in the foot.

As I looked down at where she’d tapped me, I saw for the first time that I had the same seriously ugly boots on my feet as the rest of them: they were brown leather, heavily creased, and laced from the toes to a few inches above the ankle. I also took in my long brown dress, and felt something thick and binding across my midsection. My hand moved to my waist. At the feel of the narrow bonelike strips, a bizarre thought occurred to me—was I wearing a corset? This was worse than a bra! And my underpants felt … loose. Not like panties at all. They felt bloomerish! All of it—the boots, the long dress, whatever bizarre garments lay underneath the dress—felt incredibly heavy, like I would lose weight just by walking around and sweating in this stuff all day long. My hand traveled up to my head only to find my auburn hair pulled up into a loose bun with … pins? I had pins in my hair? That’s when I jumped in my chair for the second time in as many minutes. What the heck had happened to my own clothes? Why was my hair like this? What was going on???

“Emily,” Jo said again. “Why must you always daydream when we’re trying to have an important discussion?”

And how did she know my name?

It had felt real enough when she nudged my foot hard, and I suddenly needed to touch her, to see if she felt real. But as I reached, half tempted to tap her on the shoulder as hard as she’d tapped my foot, I saw my own hand. It was no longer the hand I knew. Gone were the longish nails, painted near black, and the ringed fingers I’d used to hold my salad fork while talking to Jackson. In its place was a hand that looked rougher than mine, like it had been doing some sort of work, the nails very short and very clean.

I jumped to my feet. Not seeing any mirrors in the room, I rushed to a set of windows and glimpsed what I could of my reflection in one of the panes, the night black beyond the glass. I looked like me, I saw, and yet not at all like me. Where was my makeup? My eyebrows were no longer tweezed! Suddenly I had to wonder: If I took off all these clothes—obviously not in front of everyone else, of course—would I discover unshaved armpits and hairy legs? Gross!

On a small table next to the set of windows stood a small lamp, the light glowing through a cloudy glass globe attached to the silver base. I couldn’t see any wires attached to the base, so I glanced inside the globe, saw a flame burning from a thick wick. I sniffed: oil.

First, I was hearing things from Little Women. Then I was seeing things. Now I was smelling things? What was going on?

It’s just a dream, Emily, I muttered to myself repeatedly, closing my eyes on all the confusing things, just a dream, just a dream …

“Really, Emily,” Meg said sternly.

My eyes snapped open again. I was myself and not myself, and not only could I hear these four girls talking to one another, but they were talking to me too, even using my name. This was some dream!

And if I could see and hear them, then maybe they could hear me too?

I opened my mouth to speak, not taking the time first to think of what to say. What came out was:

“What year is this?”

“It’s 1861,” Amy said with a smirk, then for good measure she rolled her eyes.

1861? Wow. Radical.

“If I ever asked a question like that,” Amy continued, “Jo’d tease me forever.”

I ignored her.

“And how old am I?”

“You’re fourteen, you goose,” Jo said, adding in an exasperated singsong, “and Meg is sixteen, I am fifteen, Beth is thirteen, and Amy is twelve.”

“And that makes me …,” I started to say.

“The middle sister”—Jo’s tone remained exasperated—“just like you’ve always been. Now do try to stop being so silly, if you possibly can. We’re trying to figure out what we shall each get for Marmee.”

I must have looked confused, because Beth piped up in a nice way, “You know, Emily, how we decided it wouldn’t be right to spend money on our own pleasures when the men are in the army? So we decided instead to take the dollar each of us has received and spend it instead on Marmee?”

“And now,” Jo said pointedly to me, “we are wondering what you plan to get her.”

Was she for real? No, of course she wasn’t. She was just a dream, which was why I burst out laughing and then said, “What can you possibly buy someone for just one dollar?”

Now it was the four others’ turn to look puzzled as they stared at me for a long moment.

Meg finally spoke. “Actually, you can get quite a lot. I plan on buying Marmee gloves when we all go shopping tomorrow.”

“I had been planning on buying myself a new book,” Jo said, adding with an insane level of seriousness, “but now I am going to buy Marmee army shoes.”

“I was going to buy myself some music,” Beth said, “but I’ll be much happier getting her handkerchiefs, and I even plan to embroider her name onto them.”

“I had so wanted some drawing pencils,” sighed Amy. “But I suppose now I shall get her cologne. Although if I get only a smallish bottle—”

“What about you?” Jo cut Amy off as she turned to me. “What shall you buy for Marmee with your dollar when we go shopping tomorrow?”

They’d just listed four things they apparently thought they could buy for a buck each, but how should I know what you could buy in the stores around here? Besides, I wouldn’t even be here tomorrow. I’d be awake, since this was all a dream!

“I don’t know what I shall get,” I answered. Did they have any dollar stores around here?

Wait a second, I thought. I just said shall. It was so weird, like being around Brazilian people and suddenly thinking I could understand Portuguese!

Whatever, I told myself. Just go with it, Emily. You’ll be out of here soon enough.

“I don’t know,” I repeated, feeling the others stare at me. “I guess I’ll just get her one of those things like the things you all are going to get her.”

Meg felt my forehead. “Are you feeling unwell?”

“Emily is behaving peculiarly,” Jo said, adding wryly, “even for her.”

“I’m fine.” I waved Meg’s hand away. “It’s just that sometimes things get … confusing around here.”

Confusing? Ha! I had no idea what was going on! Maybe I’d been kidnapped and brought to some historical re-creationist cult run by those old dudes who like to put on war uniforms from World War II or the Civil War?

“I don’t under—” Meg started to say, but Jo cut her off.

“Didn’t you hear her say she’s fine? Besides, we really should practice the play I wrote for Christmas before Marmee comes home. We don’t want to spoil the surprise by having her see it before we’re ready.”

“Yes, of course,” Meg agreed. “But perhaps Emily should just observe while we rehearse? She really doesn’t seem herself.”

“Fine,” Jo grumbled.

It was a good thing Meg had given me an out. I was having a hard-enough time keeping up with all the conversations in this confusingly elaborate dream—because that’s what I decided this had to be—and it would have been impossible to rehearse for a play I knew nothing about.

As I watched the other four working and playing together, I thought about how their personalities in my dream matched what I remembered about them.

Meg was the prig.

Jo was the rebel.

Beth was the least cool of the four, but she was so sweet and kind, it would be impossible to make fun of her.

Amy was totally into herself, a blond Bratz doll.

But where did I fit into all this? I wondered. Where was my place? Jo had said I was the middle sister, but what exactly did that mean here?

Not that it mattered. I wouldn’t be here much longer. I was bound to wake up any second.

Except I didn’t wake up.

I didn’t wake up during the long rehearsal, which was confusing—put it this way: it was no episode of Glee.

I didn’t wake up when Marmee came home. She was on the shrimpy side when compared with her older daughters and she had some kind of a cloak thing on plus a bonnet. I mean, come on. A bonnet? Still, in spite of her uncool appearance, when she entered the house the others acted like they’d seen the sun rise indoors.

I didn’t wake up when we had our dinner, which they kept calling “tea,” with bread and butter; or when we all gathered around Marmee in front of the fire as she read a letter from “Papa,” who, it turned out, was a priest or pastor or something in the American Civil War. I always thought old people didn’t have to serve, but the letter said he would be gone for a year. It also contained messages for each of his “little women.” And here’s the weirdest part—my dream was so detailed, there was even a direct message from him to me in the letter:



Emily, my middle March, know that even when you feel

there is no clear place for you, there is always in my heart.



Not that the message made a lot of sense, but it felt kind of nice to be treated like one of the in-crowd around here.

As the night went on, in order to keep that feeling of fitting in, I pretty much followed along with whatever they did, mirroring their every move, trying to speak like them the few times I opened my mouth. It got a little easier, I guess, but those shalls were still coming hard to me.

We sewed until nine at night; or I should say, they sewed. I’d never sewn a stitch in my life! I was relieved to see each sister take one corner of a quilt. All I had to do was pass them supplies as they worked. Then there was some singing around the old piano while Beth played, followed by getting ready for bed; I didn’t wake up during any of it, though I kept expecting to, any moment now.

I didn’t even wake up when Beth and Amy went to one bedroom while I followed Meg and Jo into a connecting bedroom. There was a white linen granny nightgown and there was even a bed for me in my Dream March House! Eventually, Marmee came up and sang us lullabies in the most beautiful voice imaginable, before giving us each a kiss on our cheeks.

At that point feeling a part of things, I didn’t want to wake up.