Little Women and Me

Six


I’d already decided that my purpose here was to keep Beth from dying, but so far, I’d had no opportunity to take much action. After all, other than feeling her forehead after our one visit to the Hummel family, watching her the entire week afterward to see if she got sick, what was there for me to do? Simply wait until the story carried me to a point where I could change something, anything, to keep the worst from happening.

Until that time came, all I could do was go about my days.



I’d announced to the others that I could visit Laurie on my Fridays off, but it would be a week before I could go back over.

Sunday. You’d think a family like the Marches would be regular churchgoers, but Sunday came and went with no mention of church at all. Could we possibly be Jewish? I wondered as the day wore on. Muslim? But no. Of course it was neither of those things. What then?

Then it struck me. The only things that had happened since I’d been here were those things that had actually happened in the original book: visiting the Hummel family; Jo and Meg going off to the party at the Gardiners’; Jo making fast friends with Laurie. The only changes to those scenes? My presence. The story itself didn’t change on its own. But perhaps I could change it. I wondered what would happen if I suddenly suggested, “Hey, aren’t we going to church today?” Would the others quickly lay aside their reading and sewing and sketching, hastily throwing on cloaks and bonnets? Maybe Jo, looking slightly puzzled by the turn of events, would hurl a “We were all just waiting for you to say something, lazybones” in my general direction?

Sunday passed quietly until Marmee reminded us that Mr. Laurence had said Laurie might—what was the word? Oh, right—benefit from our society.

That’s when the great pilgrimage began.

Meg took a walk through the gardens, enjoying the winter flowers.

Jo took up position in the grand library, grabbing every book I showed any interest in so that there was little fun for me and tons of frustration.

Amy studied the artwork on the walls, making sketches.

I, the jack-of-all-trades, apparently had no hobbies to call my own, not like the others did, and so I was left at loose ends. It would’ve been a good chance to flirt with Laurie, but somehow that would’ve felt weird with so many other sisters in the house. Jo would probably call me on it if I tried anyway, accusing me of breaking the pact. So I had to be satisfied with smiling at him as we came and went, and introducing dude to him as a form of address.

Only Beth stayed away, in spite of Jo’s description of the piano. She was too shy of the old man, too shy of life.

Monday, it was off to the wretched Kings again with Meg.

Tuesday, it was off to wretched Aunt March’s with Jo.

It was Wednesday when things began to change.

On Tuesday night, alerted by Jo to Beth’s specific fears about his heavy eyebrows and fears of him in general, Mr. Laurence paid us a visit. As Beth listened, clinging fearfully to her limbless and headless doll—whose name I’d since learned was peculiarly Joanna—he told Marmee that he could really use someone to play the piano and help keep it in tune since Laurie so rarely played. And whose fault was that? I wondered. Mr. Laurence assured Marmee that anyone who was kind enough to keep the piano in tune need not worry about being bothered by the rest of the household. In fact, that person could simply come and go as she pleased.

What an awesome invitation. For the first time in my life, I wished I played the piano. Too bad the only musical talents I’d ever possessed had been the sort to elicit “You suck” pronouncements from my real sisters.

But it was a perfect opportunity for Beth. And for once, it seemed she wanted something enough to let go of her fears. Slipping her tiny hand into the old man’s large one, she offered up her services as pianist.

It was quite a thing to see, the way this gruff and stiff old man melted into a puddle around Beth.



But then it was Wednesday and there was Beth steeling her courage to walk across to the Laurence estate. I went with her and we entered quietly by the side door, and discovered the simple sheet music that I was sure the old man had deliberately left out for her.

Beth took a seat at the piano, touched the keys in awe, breathed a happy sigh.

“You needn’t stay any longer, Emily,” she said. “It was so kind of you to accompany me this far, but I can manage from here.”

“Are you sure?”

She was. And then it occurred to me: she wanted to be alone, wanted her first time at this piano to be exactly as Mr. Laurence had promised her it would be—without fear of bothering anyone and no one bothering her.

I went out the music room door, thinking I might find Laurie. Perhaps we could have a little chat, maybe get to finally know each other better without nosy Jo around.

But as I moved to close the door, and Beth began to play, I saw Mr. Laurence open his study door to listen, and then I looked up the winding staircase, and saw Laurie standing guard there, warning the servants away. How sweet was that? It was so sweet.

Still, I realized then that this wasn’t the place for me, or at least not at that moment. It was Beth’s moment, Beth’s day.

It was time for me to find something else to do with myself, outside of intruding on other people’s stories.



What I should do, I thought, lame as it might be, is go home and do Beth’s share of the housework as well as my own. That would be the nice, sisterly thing to do. But I didn’t want to do that.

I decided to walk into town.

So far, I’d only been to the Hummels’, the Kings’, the Laurences’, and Aunt March’s, and it was high time I saw something else. The other sisters had all bought Christmas presents for Marmee somewhere, so there must be at least one store around here, some sort of town center perhaps.

But, I wondered, arriving at the street, which way was town?

Hmm … the traffic on the street, such as it was, the few carriages in sight, all seemed to be heading … that way.

Figuring that must be where the action was, and hoping there really was action and that it wasn’t too far away—it was seriously cold out!—I followed in the carriage tracks.

Soon there were more carriages in the street, more people walking in the same direction. At last we all turned a corner and there was …

A strip mall. Well, not a strip mall like back home—there was no Starbucks, no CVS—but there was an obvious string of businesses: a tearoom, a barbershop, a store selling items for women, a general store, the last being the place where my sisters probably did their holiday shopping. Since I wasn’t a man in need of a haircut and since I had no cash to spend, I decided to check out the general store.

There were food items, housewares, there were men’s army boots similar to the ones Jo had bought for Marmee. I picked up one of the boots, studied it from all angles. I’d always thought the boots we wore here were ugly, but you never knew when something was going to become fashionable again in a retro way. Maybe when I got back to the real world, I could win Project Runway with these?

At the sound of voices, I looked up to see a group of older men standing around the counter talking.

“The war has accelerated since the New Year,” one said.

“Since before that,” said another, “since back in July when Major General McClellan took command of the Union Army of the Potomac.”

“How long,” asked a third, “before Lincoln orders an attack on Virginia?”

Attack on Virginia?

That’s when it hit me, really hit me: it was 1862 and I was living in a country that was in the midst of a war. Before now, I suppose I had been aware of the war on some peripheral level—the absence of Papa, Jo’s incessant talk of wishing she could be where the fighting was—but it had never hit me like this. While we were all safe here up north, leading relatively comfortable lives, terrible things were going on down south. So what if this was a fictitious world. The American Civil War was real. The dying was real.

I felt a sudden sense of urgency, spoke without thinking.

“Can’t the Red Cross do anything?” I asked. “People are dying!”

The men looked at me like I was an alien, which, I guess, I was. Maybe the Red Cross hadn’t been invented yet?

“Do?” the first man who had spoken scoffed.

“You’re a girl,” said the second, stating the obvious before snorting.

“You can sew socks,” said the third with a sneer. “That’s all you can do.”

Socks??? I was outraged.

The very idea—that I could do nothing, simply because I was a girl, that it was all above my pretty little head! Didn’t these idiots know that girls could do anything guys could? No, of course they didn’t. In my time, my real time, women were soldiers, fighting right alongside men. But here? I was pretty sure girls weren’t even allowed to vote yet!

Well, what were they doing that was so important and helpful? Standing around a general store and talking?

And yet what could we really do, outside of talking and sewing socks?

I left the store feeling disturbed at my own powerlessness to influence the larger events around me, the men’s mocking laughter following me out the door.

Not ready to go home yet—a new home that felt too safe just now—I walked farther down the street. Soon the shops disappeared, then came a long expanse with nothing, and then …

A church.

But it looked so familiar.

As I stepped closer, I saw a tiny metal plaque nailed to the wall beside the front door. It had a year on it, dating the founding of the church to the days of the American Revolution.

I’d seen that plaque before …

Suddenly, I remembered a much larger church, with a wing for a bigger congregation and administrative offices, a Sunday school, but with this original tiny building still preserved as part of the entrance.

I knew this church!

It stood, or at least in its more modern version, in the town where I lived in my real life, the town I’d grown up in.

Just what the heck was going on here?

Why was I essentially back where I started?

Then the answer came to me: change. Somehow, it all came down to change.

I’d already been altered by my time here, even I could see that. The way I saw the world around me, even the word choices I made—it wasn’t the same as before. But if I was really being changed by this world, what changes was I acting upon it? Surely there must be something beyond introducing wack into the vocabulary. Surely there must be some reason for all this, some higher purpose.

Was it really all about saving Beth?



Beth must have made quite an impression on the old man and he on her. So grateful was she about him letting her play the piano, she sewed him a pair of slippers as a thank-you in record time, calling on us sisters to help. The slippers had pansies on a deeper purple background, leaving the old man so touched, he sent her a little cabinet piano of her very own with brackets to hold candles, green silk with a gold rose in the middle covering the flat top, a perfect little rack and stool. It came with a note from Mr. James Laurence to Miss Elizabeth March, saying the piano had belonged to his granddaughter, whom he’d lost.

He’d lost a son and a granddaughter? How sad!

But I stopped being sad when Beth began to play. It was just wonderful to see how happy she was now.



Wednesday night turned into Thursday turned into breakfast on Friday.

Jo (trying to appear casual): “So, Emily, how do you plan to spend your day of leisure?”

Me (trying to appear equally casual, but failing): “I thought I might go over to the Laurence place for a bit this morning.”

Jo (with ill grace): “Harrumph.”

No sooner did my sisters head out the door to their various destinations than I was out the door myself and across the grounds to the Laurence estate like a light. I was so excited to be on my first solo visit to him, but not so excited that I forgot to remind myself that the hedge separating our properties was taller than it looked.

Laurie looked only mildly surprised to see me on my own.

“Ah, yes,” he said, finally opening the door wider so that I might enter, “I remember now your saying you could come on Fridays.”

Then, remembering his manners, he bowed at the waist and greeted me with, “Dude.”

“Dude,” I returned with a slight curtsy.

He had fully recovered from his cold and asked me to walk in the conservatory with him.

“I like your family very much,” he said, strolling with his hands clasped behind his back. “Your mother is a capital woman.”

“Capital,” I echoed, feeling dumb.

“And your sister Meg, such patience she has with everybody.”

“Patience.”

“And then there’s Jo.” He laughed. “Jo can be quite overwhelming.”

“Overwhelming.”

“Amy is so funny about her nose. I don’t imagine anyone but her sees anything wrong with it.”

“Nose.”

“And dear Beth. Was there ever a kinder, gentler girl in the world?”

“George H. W. Bush.” In a speech, he’d once referred to “a kinder and gentler nation.” What can I say? We’d studied sayings of the presidents in American history class.

“Pardon me?” That brought him up short.

“Sorry,” I said. “I guess I was just free-associating for a moment there.”

“Free-associating?” He looked puzzled. “Is that another word you invented, like wack and dude?”

I ignored the question. “I’m glad you find so much to admire in each of my sisters,” I said, “but isn’t there someone you’ve left out?”

“Left out?” He continued being puzzled. “No.” He shook his head. “I don’t believe there is anyone else.”

This wouldn’t do.

“Me?” I finally said, coming straight out with it. “Don’t you have any admiring things to say about me?”

He laughed then. “Why, of course! You’re the middle March, and may I say, you do a capital job of it!”

Harrumph!

No, this really would not do.

Didn’t he feel the same attraction for me that I felt toward him? He had to!

I decided to test my hypothesis. I placed my hands on the sides of his face and pulled his head toward mine, closing the space between us.

“Miss March!” he cried, just prior to my lips touching his.

I can’t say it was the most satisfying kiss in the history of the universe. There were no sparks of electricity, no stomach butterflies, and when I tried to slip him some tongue, all I was met with was a firmly closed mouth.

“Miss March!” he cried again, extricating himself from my grasp and taking a full leap backward.

“Emily,” I corrected.

“Very well. Emily. I do not know what came over you, but I am no longer certain your Friday visits are such a good idea.”

I just looked at him, curious. He may not have returned my kiss, but I was somehow sure he hadn’t totally hated it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, gaining control over his innate good manners when I remained silent. Perhaps he thought I felt offended? “I am sure I know what just happened. You have somehow caught the cold that I had last week and now you are delirious. Colds can do that to one—cause delirium, I mean; not, er, kissing other people, although I suspect it could cause that too, since it so obviously just did.”

“You must be right,” I said, feeling the need to accept his explanation as a kindness to him more than myself. He was so obviously confused and I couldn’t blame him: there were no kisses like that in the original Little Women. I put my hand to my own forehead in that same gesture I found so annoying when Jo or Meg did it. “Oh, look,” I said. “I’m warm. I believe I do have a fever!”

I reached for his hand so that I might place it on my forehead, prove to him how feverish I felt to the touch, but he was having none of that.

“I will take your word for it,” he said, untangling his hand from mine. “Now, you really must go home and take care of yourself until you are better. I am sorry I spoke so harshly earlier when I said you should not come on Fridays anymore. Of course you may come—when you are feeling all better, that is—and we shall never speak of this dreadful incident again.”

Dreadful in—?

Well, that went well, I said to myself as he brusquely ushered me out of the house.

But then I decided he was probably just acting so flustered because on some level he thought I was hot, even if he couldn’t allow himself to think that.

At least it wasn’t a total loss.