Great or Nothing, page 10
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Never mind,” he said, pacing along the pavement. “Does your family have any clue where you are?”
“No, and you better not say a word to them.” Not to her parents. Not to Meg. And certainly not to Jo, who would chide Amy endlessly for this, calling her impulsive and irresponsible. “Promise me, Laurie.”
He stopped walking. “Or what?”
“Or…or…” Her heart was a wild drumbeat. How could she convince him? Goodness, to hell with it. “I’ll never speak to you again, Theodore Laurence!”
Almost immediately, Amy winced at how petulant she sounded, like she was five years old and Jo had taken her favorite doll. She snapped her eyes away from him, embarrassed by her outburst, but then he did something that made her angry all over again.
He let out an incredulous laugh.
Was he laughing at her?
She went to punch him in the arm, appendectomy be damned, but at that exact moment a bolt of lightning zigzagged across the sky and a spray of raindrops fell over her skin. With a groan, she searched for a place to keep dry, like a tree or a shop overhang, but soon the damp English rain had soaked through her blouse and she realized she’d forgotten her coat back on the Clubmobile. She stared up at the traitorous sky, tempted to raise her fist at it.
“I know where we can wait out the storm,” Laurie said as another crack of lightning fanned out overhead. He shrugged off his jacket and held it over Amy’s head as he led her down one side street and then another, the buildings growing narrower and dingier as they went. Amy couldn’t help but notice that the shop signs around them were written both in English and in another language that she didn’t recognize.
Laurie stopped in front of a little restaurant. “We can wait here until the rain lets up. I know the owner.”
“What is this place?” Amy whispered, motioning at the sign overhead, which said the golden lotus on one side and had three Asiatic characters on the other.
“A restaurant. I figured we could grab a bite to eat since I didn’t get a chance to try your doughnuts,” he said, the corners of his mouth kicking upward.
“What sort of restaurant?” Amy asked warily.
“Chinese. I think you’ll like it.”
Amy cast a long glance over her shoulder. She’d never ventured to this part of the city, which appeared to be a small Chinatown. Many of the buildings lay crumbled from the Blitz, but a handful of businesses had stubbornly remained open—a tobacconist and a grocer, a couple of lodging houses, and a few restaurants like this one.
Laurie opened the door for her. “Come on, we’re both drenched, and you can tell me how you got yourself into this ‘Captain Pace’ mess.”
Amy pushed her wet hair out of her eyes. She didn’t think she owed him any explanation, but the restaurant did look warm and dry, and her teeth were chattering. “Fine,” she mumbled. “Lead the way.”
Inside the Golden Lotus, the room smelled like tea, but not the kind that the Marches drank back at home in the summer months, which Marmee would prepare in a pitcher with plenty of ice cubes. This tea smelled heartier. Earthier. Different. A kid approached them, perhaps ten or eleven years old, with a friendly grin and a mop of thick black hair.
“Back already, Lieutenant Laurence?” the boy said in a London accent that caught Amy off guard. She’d thought that he would have a Chinese accent, for some reason, but perhaps she shouldn’t have assumed that. After all, one of her schoolmates at home, Ginny Tanaka, spoke with an American accent just like everyone else in Concord. Even their choir teacher, Mrs. Folger, had commented how Ginny spoke English so well, which had made Ginny blush furiously and murmur that she’d been born in California.
“I couldn’t resist your steamed fish, Jimmy,” Laurie replied.
The boy glanced over at Amy, a shine in his eye. “And you brought a date!”
Laurie was quick to clear his throat. “This is a pal of mine from home. You got a table for us?”
The restaurant was only a quarter full, so Jimmy showed them to a spot by the window, where he set down a pot of red tea and handed them menus before trotting off to the kitchen.
Amy poured herself a cup and warmed her hands around it. “How in the world did you find this place?”
“One of my buddies brought me here when we were on leave, and he got me hooked,” Laurie explained. “It’s too bad we don’t have a place like this back home.”
Amy wasn’t sure what to say to that. Chinese cuisine seemed like quite a stretch for the residents of Concord, where Italian food was considered exotic.
“Let me know what looks good to you,” he said.
Her eyes grew wide as she read the menu. About half of the items had been crossed out due to rationing, and what remained befuddled her. Abalone soup? Chicken liver chow mein? She felt entirely out of place—and it wasn’t only because of the food. Aside from her and Laurie, everyone else in the restaurant was Chinese, or seemed to be. She knew that England was a different country from America, but this was the first time since her arrival that she really felt like a foreigner.
“You know, I think we passed a nice-looking pub on the way over,” she hinted at Laurie.
He glanced up from his menu. “Where’s your sense of adventure? You used to chew pickled limes by the jarful,” he said as Jimmy returned with a small plate of fried…something.
“Spring rolls on the house,” Jimmy proclaimed. “My mom told me to say hello to you and your pal.” The boy smiled mischievously, and Laurie got a little color on his cheeks.
“I’ll have the wonton soup with the steamed fish and fried rice,” Laurie said with a cough.
“Powdered eggs okay with the rice?”
“No problem, kiddo,” Laurie said before glancing at Amy. “Anything catch your eye?”
She grew a little rattled. “Um, I’ll have what you’re having,” she said before snapping the menu shut. Her gaze flicked across the restaurant again, and she saw a couple of patrons staring back at her, probably because she and Laurie were the only Caucasians in the establishment. She busied herself by spreading her napkin over her lap, and she wondered if Ginny ever felt this way, except flipped around since she was the only Japanese girl at their school. Heck, in most of Massachusetts. It must’ve been awfully lonesome, which was something Amy had never really considered until now.
Laurie leaned in toward the table. “So let me see if I’ve got this straight. You used false papers to get yourself into the Red Cross, and you gave your family some cover story so they wouldn’t worry about you. Does that sound right?” He watched her shift uncomfortably before continuing. “Where exactly do they think you are right now?”
“Why don’t you write to Marmee and ask her yourself?” Amy said smartly as she reached up to remove the pins from her cap to wring the thing out.
“I could write her a letter as soon as we’re done here,” Laurie said, a quiet challenge in his tone.
She rolled her eyes while she tugged at a stubborn hair pin. “They all think that I’m attending an art school in Montreal, all right? With Flo.”
“Flo knows how much danger you’re in, and she hasn’t told anyone?” he said, nearly choking on his tea.
“Don’t go blowing your stack! I bet you’re in far more danger than I am day in and day out. How long have you been in England anyway?”
“You can’t compare the two,” he replied with a shake of his head. “What you’re doing is reckless.”
“You’re one to talk. Tell me, how many times have you flown over the Channel?” At last, she freed the cap from her hair and tossed it onto the table. “Your poor grandfather. He pulled all those strings to keep you safe.”
Laurie made a face. “I’m no coward. As soon as an opening came up here in England, I volunteered. I couldn’t stomach sitting at a typewriter while the Axis conquered half the world.”
“Then you should understand why I joined the Red Cross! This is a woman’s fight, too, you know.”
“I never said otherwise, but you went about this all wrong. Your family already lost one daughter last year.” All of a sudden his voice went soft, like it had done at Beth’s funeral. “Don’t make them mourn you as well.”
Amy gripped the sides of her teacup, hating the truth in his words and forcing them away. “Need I remind you that you’re the only family your grandpa has left?”
Laurie’s jaw worked as he tried to come up with a response to that, but before he could say anything, Jimmy arrived with their food. The boy set the soup down first, followed by the rice and a platter of fish.
Amy nearly yelped at the sight of it. The fish had been cooked whole, with its head, tail, and eyes still intact. She could swear it was staring at her.
“Still want to go to that pub down the street?” Laurie asked, a single brow raised.
In reply, Amy filled her plate with food, the fish included. As she lifted the first spoonful toward her mouth, she could feel Laurie’s gaze on her and she was determined not to chicken out. She was ready to drown each bite with a long sip of tea, but she needn’t have worried—the food was delicious. The rice was fragrant, and the wonton soup wasn’t too different from Marmee’s chicken noodle. Even the fish, which she’d taken only a tiny bite of, was as soft as silk.
“Not too bad, eh?” said Laurie.
Amy kept a poker face, not wanting to give him the satisfaction that he’d been right. “As long as you’re paying.”
He let out a laugh, and as Amy joined in with him she realized that this was the first meal that they’d ever shared alone. Back in Concord, there was always somebody else with them, either her sisters or his grandfather or a mutual friend like Fred. Maybe it should’ve felt awkward with only the two of them, but it felt—oddly—like home.
Which made his silence over the last year all the more painful.
“Why didn’t you write me back?” Amy said, setting down her spoon. “Did you even get my letters?”
Laurie froze midbite. “Of course I did. And I was glad for every one.”
“So glad that you never returned the favor?”
“I just…” He frowned, then sighed, and then frowned again. “I guess I wanted to forget about home for a while.”
You mean you wanted to forget about Jo, Amy thought. Something had happened between him and her sister right before he’d shipped out. Jo had gone to the train station to see Laurie off, but after she returned home she had gone straight up to the attic, with her face white and her hands shaking. Meg had knocked on the door to talk things out, but Jo told her to leave her alone already. And that had been that.
“I’m sorry I didn’t write,” Laurie said quietly. “Water under the bridge?”
That was quite a lot of water to forget about, but in some ways Amy could understand why he had never replied. She avoided writing home, too, not only due to the lies she had to spin but because it forced her to think about Concord, and why she’d left in the first place: the awful row she’d had with Meg and Jo, the raw grief of losing Beth, and the too-quiet house that reminded her of everything she’d lost.
She couldn’t let Laurie send her back there.
“I’m doing good work here with the Red Cross,” she began. “I’m helping our soldiers. I’m doing my part in the war. Please don’t tell my family.”
Laurie looked hesitant as he counted out the coins to pay their bill. “Your parents are the best people I know, and I’m not sure if I can keep this from them.”
“I’ll be as safe as I can be! I’ll never break curfew, and I’ll stick to the other girls like glue. The Blitz is over anyway.”
“That hasn’t stopped the Nazi bombers from sneaking over the Channel. London is still at war.” He looked at his watch. “I better be heading back.”
She started to protest, but he was waving goodbye to Jimmy and ushering her outside to hail a cab. When a car pulled up, he slipped the driver a bill from his wallet, but Amy refused to climb into the passenger’s seat just yet.
“Promise me you won’t say a word,” she said, looking up to meet his eyes. Lord, he was tall.
“Or else you won’t ever speak to me again?” he replied with his mouth quirked on one side.
Perhaps she’d deserved that, but she wanted to pummel him anyway. “Please, Laurie.”
But he wouldn’t give her a straight answer. Instead, he opened the door to the car and said, “Someone has to look out for you.”
“Do I have to remind you that I’m not twelve years old anymore.”
His gaze was hard to read as he gave her a tip of his cap. “You’ll always be a kid to me, Amy.”
Frail
I’d rather
Laurie saw me
as a kid than
how he truly did:
frail, pale,
eternally old.
You each had
something
that caught the eye.
Meg’s elegance.
Amy’s confidence.
Jo’s quick wit.
It would have taken
quite the light
to outshine you;
I never had the wick.
The spotlight’s not
what I wanted, anyway.
But I did daydream
nightdream
all I did was dream
of a boy one day
looking at me the way
Laurie looked at Jo
John looked at Meg
all the boys looked at Amy.
A boy who saw me
as something more than frail.
As a girl whose fingers danced
up and down piano keys
because music was the way
she spoke her mind.
As a girl who would risk her life
to care for those less fortunate—
yes, I also longed for acclaim.
Does that shock you?
You say you want to be great or nothing,
but I don’t think you realize, Amy,
what it truly is to be nothing.
Nothing
A smitten boy
can’t take Nothing’s hand,
can’t whisper secrets in her ear.
He can’t pen a letter to Nothing
describing his dreams for their life together.
Nothing can’t tear open the letter,
convinced at least for a moment
it holds the key to her happiness.
Even before she became Nothing,
when she was Something, for a time,
she never tore open a letter like that.
Of course she didn’t, because she was
something frail
something fleeting
something finite.
If some foolish boy
had offered his heart,
he’d only have had it broken
when she’d inevitably
turned to Nothing.
CHAPTER 10
JO
The dance hall was already a smoky haze by the time Jo and her friends arrived. The old Masons’ hall downtown had become the meeting place on weekends and holidays for the young working set of East Hartford to entertain themselves. Dancing, music, sometimes a nasty brawl if some of the boys were feeling wild…there was always a good time to be had at the hall.
A small band had been hired for the night, and things were in full swing as the girls crowded into the mass of people. The singer, a tall redhead in a studded mustard gown, was crooning about the fanciful ingredients in moonlight cocktails, as couples swayed on the dance floor and even more people milled around the tables.
Jo let herself get lost in the music, in her friends’ laughter and the dark-haired airman who smiled and flirted at her like she was beautiful. She danced with him for four dances, until her cheeks were red and his eyes were shining with more than exertion. When he went to get them drinks, she felt no guilt for slipping out the back door before anyone could miss her, away from it all. Her friends would be more sore about it than the airman. He’d find someone else to spin around the floor.
Jo pulled her brown-checked swing coat tighter around herself as she breathed in the fresh night air. The back of the hall opened up to a narrow alley, but all that was in it was a stack of crates that Jo promptly fashioned into a seat for herself. She could still hear the music—but faded, in a pleasant, muted sort of way, like it was coming from another world, but she could still enjoy it.
Her relief at her quick respite from the bustle inside faded when she realized what she had done after she had sat down. Almost automatically, she had opened her corded handbag, pulled her ever-present notebook out, and flipped it open, like she had done countless times. Like she always did when she had a moment alone with her thoughts.
Why was this so instinctual—muscle memory, practically—but writing was not? Had she used all her imagination? Had it just been shriveled with grief, never to grow again?
In the cracked alleyway light, Jo stared down at the notebook. Fingers tracing over the spirals that bound the pages, she thought of the countless books she had filled before this one. There were stacks in her closet at home. She’d read of the Brontë sisters, writing on tiny tears of paper, on the backs of letters, on any scraps they could find, their need to get the words down so great that nothing could stand in their way.
She had felt that need, once. Maybe she’d taken it for granted. No. There was no maybe about it. She’d been cocksure and flying, until that dark storm settled in her breast and never left.
It wasn’t only the magazine editors who had rejected her stories of grand women on even grander adventures with polite wording that amounted to You should maybe think about writing stories about the affairs and concerns of home. Jo could’ve weathered that, built a thicker skin, but then…
