Great or Nothing, page 14
“Hello there, Meg. This is Andy. Andy Fitzhugh.”
Meg’s heart sank. Not John.
“Hello, Andy.” She tried to keep the disappointment from her voice. “How—how are you?”
“I’m doing well, thanks.” Without asking how she was in return, he launched right into his reason for telephoning. “Look, I was wondering, would you like to go with me to Sallie’s Christmas party next Saturday?”
“Oh, I…Thank you for asking, but—”
“I had a swell time at the Grove,” Andy plowed on. “You’re a great dancer.”
“Thank you.” Meg laughed, uncomfortable, twirling the black telephone cord around her finger. “I’m a little rusty, I’m afraid.”
“No, not at all. But I bet we could get some practice at Sallie’s. Her parties are always a real gas. Now, she said you might put up a fuss but I should ignore that. She said to tell you she’ll be awfully disappointed if you aren’t there, and after the year you’ve had, you deserve to cut loose a little.”
“You sound just like her!” Sallie was a terrible snob, but she did want Meg to be happy. They just had different ideas of what that looked like.
There was a lot of that going around these days.
“You know how Sallie is—she’s liable to give you a real earful if you don’t show up.” Andy chuckled. “Jack’s got his hands full with that one.”
“Andy, I’m flattered, but—”
“She told me about your sister,” Andy said, interrupting again.
Meg was stunned into silence.
“I’m real sorry for your loss, Meg. My kid sister, Mattie—she died a couple years back. It was a boating accident. It was…Well, it was rough. Especially at the holidays.”
“Yes,” Meg said softly. “I’m sorry to hear that. About Mattie, I mean.”
“I hope you don’t mind that I was asking about you,” Andy continued. “You just…You seemed a little blue at the Grove. I know you said you had a good time and all, but I wasn’t sure if I should call you again. Sallie said not to take it personal. She said you’re still grieving. She knows I know what that’s like, losing a sister myself and all. I came home a lot that semester to be with my folks. Ma especially—I knew she liked having me around. But then my dad sat me down and told me to go back to school. He said Mattie would want me to live my life. And I bet your sister would feel the same way. I understand if you’re not up for a party, but I hope you’ll at least think about it.”
Meg hadn’t expected any of this. Her mind was spinning. Beth hadn’t gone to many parties herself, but she had waited up to hear about them when her sisters got home, eyes shining, hugging her doll to her chest.
“I—I guess so,” Meg said uncertainly.
“Is that a yes?” Andy was persistent; Meg had to give him that. And he’d been surprisingly candid. Maybe there was more to him than she’d thought. Maybe Andy was someone she could talk to. As a friend. She didn’t have very many of those these days.
“Sure,” Meg said. “Yes.”
“Great. I’ll pick you up at seven. And…Meg?”
“Hmm?” Meg was already lost in her thoughts. What would she wear? She had a closet full of skirt-and-sweater sets from her college days and shirtwaist dresses perfect for teaching, but nothing fine enough for a party like this.
“I’m looking forward to it. See you.”
“See you,” Meg echoed, hanging up the receiver.
What had she gotten herself into?
She took a sip of her tea and was reading a short story by P. L. Travers in Mademoiselle when the telephone shrilled again. This time she didn’t get her hopes up. It was late; Jo was probably already in bed if she had an early-morning shift.
“Good evening. March residence, Meg speaking.”
There was a loud squeal at the other end of the line. “Meg! I heard you’re coming to my party with Andy. I’m ever so glad! Let me loan you a dress. I have just the thing, and you deserve to wear something nice for once. You’ll be an absolute vision!”
Meg hardly knew what to take offense at first. She had loads of nice dresses, just not evening gowns; it wasn’t as though she had many occasions to wear one. Had Andy telephoned her from Sallie’s? Had she talked him into it? Was this a pity date? “That’s sweet of you, Sal—”
“I’m happy to do it. I’ll drop it off on Friday afternoon after school. But that’s not why I called. Meg…guess who’s going to be in Concord next week?” Sallie barely paused. Meg did not guess. “Jack’s aunt Viola!”
She squealed again. Loudly. Meg held the receiver a few inches from her ear. “That’s lovely. Are they close?”
“No, you dummy!” Sallie haw-hawed. “Jack could care less about his spinster aunt. But she’s the headmistress at Plumley! I’ve invited her for tea, and I want you to come. Then when you apply for the position, she’ll remember how lovely you are.”
Meg sighed. “Sallie, I can’t apply to Plumley. I can’t leave my students midyear like that. And even if I wanted to”—she lowered her voice, glancing at the closed kitchen door—“I couldn’t leave home. It wouldn’t be right.”
“That’s hogwash. Why is it all right for your sisters to go off and live their lives, but not you?” Sallie demanded.
“It’s because they’ve gone off that I can’t. I couldn’t leave Marmee here all alone.” Couldn’t you? the voice in the back of her head nagged. Would Marmee really mind? Maybe she would prefer it.
Sallie gave an unladylike snort. “What would she have to say about you turning down a marvelous opportunity like this to stay home with her? You said she was fine, on a thousand different volunteer committees!”
Meg eyed the door to the parlor. Sallie had a point. Tonight was the first time in ages that she and Marmee had eaten dinner together. Even over the Thanksgiving holiday, Marmee had kept plenty busy with various church committees, calling on friends who were ill or bereaved, volunteering at the Red Cross…Meg had barely seen her. When she did, Marmee was quiet. She answered Meg’s questions but seldom asked any of her own. Meg had chalked it up to grief—this first holiday with only the two of them—but maybe it was more than that.
Maybe Marmee would prefer being on her own to being stuck with Meg.
“Meg? Are you still there?” Sallie asked.
“Yes,” Meg said, choking back tears. “And, yes, I’ll come to tea. Thank you, Sallie. Plumley—it sounds wonderful. Maybe getting away from home is just what I need.”
Impulse
Impulsive Jo, passionate Amy
stumbling into lives of adventure
while you and I, Meg,
we stayed at home.
By choice or circumstance
it hardly mattered.
They couldn’t be blamed
for their natures any more
than a cat can be blamed
for toying with a mouse.
Except sometimes
those natures led them
to sink a claw in,
drawing blood.
Burning manuscripts,
leaving a sister
to plunge through ice.
Saying,
Anyone can be a mother.
Practice
I spoke to my dolls,
dressed them, brushed their hair,
sat them up for stories
and laid them down for bed,
long after my sisters
had given up their dolls.
I took in stray creatures,
stayed up nursing kittens,
fed them with bottles
like I’d never feed
an infant.
Not my own.
It wasn’t practice
since I’d never play the role.
Not everyone can be a mother.
CHAPTER 14
JO
The week after Thanksgiving brought a dusting of snow. Anna ferried the shivering girls to the factory in her truck at half the speed she normally did, since some roads the plow had yet to reach.
“I never thought I’d see the day Anna would slow down,” Molly said as they unloaded in the parking lot. Overhead, a plane was making its descent toward the airfield. Jo shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to identify it, but she still wasn’t skilled enough at picking the different kinds out to recognize it from this far away. She should study more—maybe that’d impress Mr. Bates.
Before joining her friends, Jo stamped her scuffed fur-lined boots free of snow and wood chips. Jo and Anna had helped Mrs. Wilson haul a few truckloads of firewood from her brother’s farm over to the house that weekend.
“Mr. Bates was asking me about you the other day, Jo,” Ruth told her in the locker room.
“He was?”
“Well, he was asking about girls on the riveting line that I thought would be good for more complicated work,” Ruth said. “I mentioned you.”
“Ruth, thank you,” Jo said. “Not that I’m not glad to be where I’m at,” she added hastily. But Ruth smiled.
“I understand.”
“Oh, Ruth?” Anna said. “If Mr. Bates asks again, do you think you could mention me? I know he values your opinion.”
“You’re interested?” Ruth asked Anna in surprise.
Anna shrugged into her coveralls, slipping the wide buttons into their places. “It’s more money, right?”
Ruth nodded.
“Then I’m interested. I need to find a way to send more home. I’m up for anything.”
“I bet we’d make a great corrugating team,” Jo said, shooting a smile at Anna.
“Anna might be too petite for the machines that press the sheet metal,” Ruth said tactfully. “But a small size means you can fit into places that the men typically can’t. The men don’t want to admit it, but smaller hands”—she held up her own—“can make some of the engine jobs quicker. I’ll recommend you as well, Anna.”
“You’re a doll, Ruth.” Anna placed a smacking kiss on Ruth’s cheek, leaving behind a smear of pearly-pink lipstick. “My mother will be grateful.”
“Work still hard to find for your father?”
Anna nodded. “He’s a farmer at heart, but that land isn’t what it used to be.”
“Isn’t that the case in so many places,” Ruth said, with a regretful shake of her head.
Jo finished tying up her hair, feeling a frisson of excitement at the thought of moving from the buzz and monotony of riveting to the concentration of cutting and shaping metal. If anything could take her mind off things, it would be that.
The bell to signify the shift change clanged and the girls made their way down for the morning inspection before heading out onto the floor. The sound hit them at full blast, the pounding, erratic beat of the factory that rose and fell like a wave.
Taking her place on the riveting line next to Molly, Jo grabbed her buffer—they were clamping parts today, which required the pincerlike tool—and tried to ignore the twinge in her back from stacking the firewood that weekend. Turning her focus on her work and the long line of machine parts set in front of her, she found that the smooth handle of the buffer in her hand was almost a comfort.
“Do you really want to work with those big machines?” Molly asked as they began the repetitive task of clamping each piece together.
Press. Clamp. Hold. Push to the right. Press. Clamp. Hold. Push to the right.
“I heard the men talk about workers who’ve lost fingers or hands if the timing isn’t perfect,” one of Molly’s friends added, a row down from them. Jo wondered if the girl had some wolf in her, her hearing was so good.
“Then I’ll just have to be perfect,” Jo tossed back.
She laughed, but Molly looked concerned. “You don’t want to lose a finger, Jo!”
Jo shrugged. “It’d make for interesting dinner conversation.”
There was a whistle, sharp and piercing, that made the girls’ heads whip to the left, where Mrs. Harris, formidable in her kerchief and sensible oxfords, stood.
“Tuck in, girls. Transports coming through!” she called.
Almost as one, the girls crowded against the line they were working when men with heavy-duty carts full of supplies and engine parts began to wheel them down the center of the aisle.
“You would think they could do that before we came in, without disrupting our work,” Molly muttered.
“That would require them to think our work is important,” Jo pointed out.
“We only keep the planes and engine parts fixed together,” Molly added sarcastically. “That’s nothing at all.”
The other girls on the line tittered as the carts rattled behind them.
Jo saw it coming a split second before the shout came. The strap holding one end of the metal rods snapped free, and the rods swung wide, making the cart wheels spin forward out of a man’s grip. Molly was half turned toward Jo, the cart in her blind spot. Jo grabbed her hand and hauled her out of the way, and the cart crashed into Jo’s side. The rods swung downward, and that was the last thing Jo saw for quite a few minutes.
She came to in pieces, as one does when delivered a hard knock on the head. Voices tuned in and out at first, making her temples pound. Her eyelids felt impossibly heavy, and she didn’t even bother to try to open them after the first attempt.
“Give her some air!”
“That’s blood, Anna! She doesn’t need air; she needs an ambulance!”
“Get those carts out of here! Scram!”
“Mrs. Harris!”
“Where’s Mr. Bates?”
“Where’s Mrs. Harris? Oh, she’ll be so angry!”
“Molly, calm down. This wasn’t our fault!”
“Evelyn’s right. This was the men’s fault! They didn’t secure the rods properly for transport, and now they’ve killed Jo!”
“They haven’t killed anyone. My goodness, Molly, stop with the dramatics. Everyone step back. I need to check her. Josephine?”
Something strong and sharp filled her senses, and Jo’s eyes flew open as she coughed away from the open bottle of iodine that Mrs. Harris had thrust under her nose as makeshift smelling salts.
Her head pounded something awful, and the gash on her forehead ached, but Mrs. Harris was right: she wasn’t dead.
“There you are.” Mrs. Harris smiled reassuringly, pressing a handkerchief against Jo’s forehead. “Do you think you can get up?”
“I’m fine,” Jo mumbled, trying to struggle to her elbows and failing when her head spun rather sickeningly.
“She needs a doctor, Mrs. Harris,” Molly said.
“Of course she does,” Mrs. Harris said. “Girls, no need to worry. I’ll take care of Josephine. All of you need to get back to work.” Gentle pressure under Jo’s arms helped lift her to her feet. “Come with me.”
Mrs. Harris took her to the locker room, where she kept pressing the handkerchief to Jo’s head. “Can you hold this for me while I call the hospital?”
As off-kilter as she felt, the mention of the hospital sent a cold enough spear through Jo’s heart to jolt her from her daze. “No hospital,” she croaked out. “I’m fine, Mrs. Harris.”
“My dear, you were unconscious, and that’s quite the nasty cut on your forehead. You need—”
“A doctor. But no hospital. Please, Mrs. Harris.”
The older woman’s mouth twisted in thought. “Very well. I’ll call a doctor to check you on-site. But I won’t have you driving in this condition. Do you hear me?”
“Anna drives us to work,” Jo said. “I don’t.”
“Well, I’ll be driving you home after the doctor sees you, I suspect,” Mrs. Harris said, making it sound like some sort of indictment. “Stay right here. I’ll make the call. And I’ll have to report this to Mr. Bates, you know.”
There went any chance that Ruth’s good word about Jo would get her on a corrugating team.
Jo leaned back against the lockers, the discomfort of the ridges against her sore back nothing compared to the aching in her head. Careful to keep the handkerchief against her throbbing forehead, she didn’t dare pull it back to see the damage. Instead, she closed her eyes. She mustn’t fall asleep, but couldn’t resist resting her eyes. Just for a minute.
The blow and the pain that had followed seemed to have stripped her not just of her senses, but of her defenses. The inner ones that kept thoughts better buried. She drifted as she waited, skipping from the pained pauses during Marmee’s calls to the grip of Laurie’s hands in hers, his pleading eyes…of Beth, in that bed, so pale, so still.
No. She could not think of that. Anything but that.
But refusing to think of one sister…it led to thinking of another.
“What are you doing up here?” Meg’s voice was light, and Jo’s face had been turned from her, looking out the window, so Meg hadn’t seen it yet. But when she turned toward her sister, her eyes so red-rimmed, Meg’s gentle expression changed.
“What happened?” Meg asked. “Why do you look like that?”
“Teddy loves me.”
A curious smile played across her sister’s face. “Of course he does. It’s Teddy.”
“He proposed.”
Meg’s eyes widened. “Jo! Oh my goodness. What did you say?”
Jo couldn’t bear it; she had to look away, from her sister’s wide eyes and the flair of happiness in them.
“I don’t love him like that,” she said, and it wasn’t just to Meg. It was to the world outside this window. It was to herself.
A truth she had always known.
One she had never run from. That had to mean something, didn’t it? It had to.
“No, you must. You two are thick as thieves,” Meg said in protest.
“No. Not like that,” Jo said firmly, a contradiction in four words, the shutting of a door on a hope that everyone but her seemed to hold.
