Great or Nothing, page 20
It felt wrong, though, that Mary’s fellow sisters in flight were the ones fronting the costs of funeral expenses so her family would not be burdened, in a country that they were giving so much to. Jo understood why Charlie was outraged—and why she wanted others to be outraged. Sometimes outrage was the only way to change things.
“I’m so sorry about your little sister,” Peg said. “I’ve lost one as well. I understand how hard it can be.”
Jo gave a short nod of acknowledgment.
“You understand, then,” Peg continued. “You feel protective of your younger sisters, watching them make mistakes. Sometimes the same mistakes you made. And losing a sister…” She pressed her lips together, like she was holding back a memory by the skin of her teeth. “It makes you guard the ones you have left, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, it does,” Jo said, even though it was a lie on her part. Beth’s death didn’t turn her into some stalwart guardian, armed with swords that she never dropped, no matter the weight.
She had tossed whatever she owed her family to the side to bolt. She could’ve stayed, like Meg. Been the good daughter her father thought she was. But she wasn’t that girl, deep down. She was nothing like they thought. Would they love her if they saw her as she was, this mess of a girl who didn’t know which way was up?
“Charlie will be back,” Peg said again, and this time, it was almost like a wish uttered.
“Of course,” Jo said.
Peg smiled at the reassurance, before ducking into her room with a grateful wave. Jo turned to do the same and, to her surprise, found an envelope with her name scrawled on it taped to her door. She plucked it free and went inside before opening the letter.
Dear Jo-not-Josephine,
I had to scram before my sister started doing an impression of a teakettle and steam came out of her ears. But I wanted to thank you for talking me down the other day. Without you, I probably would’ve gone back inside and Peg and I would’ve descended into hair pulling like we were kids again (oh, who am I kidding, she pulled my hair when she was twenty, too).
Thank you for giving me an out in this tangle I’ve found myself in. Your idea to pitch an article about the factory girls who build our planes was sublime. I have a favor to ask—perhaps it is too much, considering you’re toiling away every day—but I wonder if you’d like to help me with this story? Give me feedback? Maybe suggest angles? It always helps when a writer has an expert—and to have one who is a writer as well is a boon indeed.
I appreciated our talks. I’m not sure if it came through, but visiting my sister is a welcome but trying experience. You made it a little easier. And it’s not often I find a friend with just as many Virginia Woolf books and lectures stacked on her dresser as I have.
If you’d like to collaborate as I suggested, my address is on the back of this letter. And even if you don’t, we could always just write. We could discuss Virginia’s core premise: that room of one’s own, away from it all, a metaphorical and actual space to explore words the way men are free to do, financed and supported and valued. I think about it often: a life free of feminine expectation and full of the kind of creative pursuit that should not fall to just men but seems to.
It’s the dream, isn’t it? To have that room, that time, that pursuit? It is certainly mine.
Your friend,
Charlie-not-Charlotte
PS: I know I said I wouldn’t, but I couldn’t help but glance at the first page of that story on your vanity when you were recovering. I promise: I didn’t read any more. And I told myself I wouldn’t ask, but I can’t stop thinking about how you introduced the character, almost like a film shot closing in. I must betray myself to ask: What is the bloody woman in the woods doing there?
Jo felt a true smile curl across her face. Her cheeks almost ached from it, like those muscles were sensitive to such use after so long.
She sat down at the chipped vanity, her eyes sliding to the stack of pages that she hadn’t touched in weeks. She’d unpacked it and set it there as a sort of reminder—perhaps a way to make herself feel guilty, to spur herself into action.
It had done nothing but make her feel terrible.
But Charlie…
Charlie had liked the way she’d introduced the woman in the woods. She’d called it cinematic. The glow of the praise lit Jo up like an ember.
For the first time in a long time, she reached for her box of stationery and a pen.
Dear Charlie-not-Charlotte…
Glow
An ember
sparks a fire
but also
glows
long after
a fire has gone out,
hot as the flames themselves.
Always with the potential
to destroy, refine.
To spread, consume.
Unless it’s starved
of what it needs
and then it turns
to ash.
The Fireplace
The mantel
above our fireplace
was always crowded
as a train platform
just as the train arrives.
Photos and trinkets,
books and flowers,
an entire family history
on one narrow shelf of brick.
Such a stark contrast,
the mantel at Aunt March’s.
A showy vase, some candlesticks.
I never saw them lit.
I sometimes wonder, had I lived,
would I have ended up alone?
Perhaps she’d leave me the house,
for you all would have had other lives to live.
But if she had, I would have filled
that barren mantel with my own platform
of travelers with their joys and sorrows, busy lives.
Photos, trinkets, mementos from my sisters
and their families, my family too.
CHAPTER 20
MEG
Meg was having a rotten day.
Her fourth-period class had been full of sass; she’d had to send Bradley Braithwaite to see Principal Hamilton. Fifth period hadn’t done their reading, and their discussion of Walden felt like pulling teeth. Then the seventh-grade boys had started a food fight while she was serving as lunch monitor. Meg still had spaghetti sauce on her sleeve. And she was supposed to visit her father’s aunt after school! She looked in the mirror of the ladies’ washroom, dabbing at the stain with her wet handkerchief. It was clearly visible against the pink wool, and Aunt March was sure to comment on it.
Helen Gagnon came in, and Meg wished she could disappear. Yesterday she’d seen Helen down the hall, turned tail, and practically run in the other direction. She wasn’t proud of it. She flushed and scrubbed at her elbow.
“Oh no!” Helen gave Meg a sympathetic smile. “Did you get caught in the food fight?”
“I did.” Meg didn’t know what else to say. Helen must think so badly of her after the way she’d acted at Sallie’s.
Helen peered down at her. “Meg, are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Nothing a little Lux can’t fix,” Meg said brightly.
Helen propped her hip against the sink. She wore a kelly-green shirtwaist dress with white polka dots. “I don’t mean the spaghetti. You didn’t seem like yourself on Saturday.”
Meg met Helen’s kind brown eyes in the mirror. Her hands fell to her sides. “Gosh,” she said. “I’ve made such a muddle of things.”
“Do you want to talk about it?” Helen asked, as Meg glanced toward the washroom door. “It won’t leave this room. I haven’t breathed a word about anything that happened at Sallie’s, either. I’m an absolute vault.”
Meg bit her lip to ward off tears. She had been dreading what Helen might say to the other teachers, and here she was, offering a shoulder to cry on. “You shouldn’t be nice to me.”
“Of course I should.” Helen handed her a clean white handkerchief embroidered with hlg in the corner. “Here. Just in case.”
“Sallie and I were friends in school,” Meg explained, sniffling. “I ran into her again a few weeks ago—her fiancé came to the blood drive—and she talked me into going out dancing with her and Jack and Andy. I shouldn’t have. I don’t want to date anybody but John. But…how well do you know Sallie?”
Helen grinned. There was a gap between her two front teeth; it made her smile a little mischievous. “I don’t. My date went to BC with her fiancé, but to tell you the truth, he was a real dud. And, I have to say, Sallie seems like a piece of work.”
“She has this way of making me feel so small. I didn’t want to go to the party, but when Andy called and asked me, I was feeling awfully lonely. Nothing’s been right at home since we lost Beth.” Meg glanced at Helen. Beth had loved her music classes. “My sister Amy’s in Montreal in art school, and Jo is working in a factory in Connecticut, and my mother is on a thousand different committees. It sounds silly now, but I couldn’t bear spending another Saturday night home alone. So I said yes, I’d go. And then I overheard Andy and Jack talking. Saying I was a sort of charity project for Sallie. It turns out Andy only asked me out because she talked him into it.”
Helen winced in sympathy. “I don’t know if I quite believe that. He was pretty green-eyed when you were dancing with all those other fellas.”
“It doesn’t matter. But I had too much champagne, and Sallie’s always brought out the worst in me.” Meg gave a rueful laugh. “It hurt my pride, so I decided to show them I didn’t need their charity, and I danced and flirted.”
“Then no real harm was done.” Helen patted her arm. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re a good egg. I’ll miss you if you take that position at Plumley.”
Meg sighed. “I’ve ruined any chance I had by mouthing off to Sallie.”
Helen ran a hand over her sleek blond hair. “You don’t need Jack Moffatt to put in a good word. Half a dozen teachers here would write you a letter of recommendation. You’re a good teacher, Meg. Your students adore you. Especially the Junior Red Cross girls. We’d be awfully sorry to lose you, though.”
“That means a lot, coming from you. You were Beth’s favorite teacher, you know.” Meg sniffled again, and Helen gave her hand a quick squeeze. “I don’t want to leave. I love my students. I love being right down the hall from John. I want to be here when he comes back. It’s only…I went to high school here, and I still feel like a kid sometimes. Miss Pennington certainly sees me that way.”
“Agatha called Principal Hamilton a ‘young man’ the other day,” Helen said.
Meg giggled. Principal Hamilton had to be at least sixty!
“Everyone is a kid to her,” Helen added. “Don’t let her treat you with anything less than respect.”
Meg looked pointedly at the leaky faucet of Helen’s sink. “It would be nice to work in a school that wasn’t falling apart. With students who want to talk about Shakespeare.”
Helen gripped the faucet handle and gave it a good hard twist. The trickle of water stopped. “Do you think those rich private school girls need you as much as our students do? You’re doing a lot of good here, Meg. And it’s partly because you’re you, but it’s also because you’re part of this community. The kids know you. Their brothers and sisters went to school with you and your sisters. They know what you’ve lost, and—especially now, when we’re all losing so much—it helps them to see you soldier on with grace and good humor.”
Meg shrugged. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do.” The bell rang for the next period, and they both straightened.
“Thank you.” Meg stuffed Helen’s handkerchief into her pocket. “I’ll launder this and get it back to you.”
Helen smiled. “If you want my advice—write and tell John the truth. He’ll understand. He’s a good egg, too.”
* * *
After school that day, Meg gave three sharp raps on her great-aunt’s front door. Perhaps Aunt March isn’t home, she thought hopefully. The old woman was persnickety; she tried Meg’s patience on the best of days.
Aunt March’s maid, Brigid, opened the door. “Hello, Miss March. Your aunt is in the parlor.”
Just Meg’s luck. She ran a hand over her shoulder-length curls. “Thank you.”
The parlor was exactly as it had been when Meg was a child—probably exactly as it had been when Father was a child, too—airless, and crowded with heavy antique furniture. A few silver candlesticks and an ugly vase sat on the mantel. Aunt March sat in her armchair in front of a blazing fire. Her dreadful little terrier yapped at Meg’s heels.
Meg pasted on a smile, resolute, and prayed she didn’t have lipstick on her teeth. “Good afternoon, Aunt March.”
“Is it?” the peppery old woman asked, casting a critical eye at Meg’s elbow. Meg cringed. “You’ve got a loose thread in your hem. Didn’t your mother teach you to sew?”
Meg gritted her teeth. “I made this dress myself, actually, from a pattern in McCall’s.”
“Pink doesn’t suit your coloring,” the old woman grumped.
“Thank you for bringing that to my attention,” Meg said sweetly.
“Are you going to stand there all day? Sit down.”
Meg dutifully perched on the uncomfortable horsehair settee.
“Has there been any news from my nephew?”
Aunt March was actually very fond of Father, despite taking every possible opportunity to criticize his financial acumen and remind him of her substantial loan. Meg recounted Father’s latest letter from the Pacific.
“I daresay he could write more often and let me know he hasn’t been killed by one of those Japanese destroyers. Yet. Imagine going back to sea at his age,” the old lady grumbled. “I haven’t heard a peep from those sisters of yours, either. Off gadding about when they should be at home! At least one of you has some sense. I was glad to hear you’ve thrown over that schoolteacher!”
“I…Pardon me?” Meg said, flabbergasted.
“Well, a husband like that would hardly help rescue your family from penury, would he?”
“Penury?” Meg echoed, attempting to keep things lighthearted. “I don’t think we’re in such dire straits as all that!”
“Not at the moment, perhaps. Thanks to my money. But you never know.” Aunt March fussed with the amethyst brooch on her ample bosom. It was a family heirloom: Victorian mourning jewelry. Inside was a lock of her long-dead husband’s hair. Meg found it rather creepy, but she supposed people grieved in all sorts of strange ways.
“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint,” Meg said, not an ounce of apology in her voice, “but I haven’t thrown over Mr. Brooke at all, if that’s who you mean.”
“I heard you were quite the belle at Sarah Gardiner’s ball.” Meg winced. How had Aunt March heard about Sallie’s party? “And that you were escorted by Andy Fitzhugh.”
Oh no. Meg trusted that Helen hadn’t been gossiping behind her back, but there had been close to a hundred people at the party. What if word got back to John? Maybe Helen was right; maybe she should write and tell him what had happened, how foolish she had been. Surely he would understand.
But what if he didn’t?
“I won’t be seeing Andy again. I’m committed to Mr. Brooke,” Meg said.
“Oh, Meg, do be sensible!” Aunt March entreated. “If he tried to take liberties…Well, all men are—”
“It was nothing like that!” Meg said hurriedly, horrified and a little bit fascinated by the direction the conversation had gone.
Aunt March peered at her over her half-moon spectacles. “Did he not take liberties that you wished him to take?”
“No! Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She could have been kissed by half a dozen different men at Sallie’s party if she’d had a mind to be. Not that she would have! But she could have.
Aunt March waved one plump, ring-laden hand in outrage. “Andy Fitzhugh is from a good family. A graduate of Boston College. Those Jesuits don’t put up with any nonsense, you know. And now he’s an executive at the electric plant. He’s a younger son, but his older brothers are both in the army, so who knows what the future holds?”
“Aunt March, that’s awful! He’s already lost a sister,” Meg gasped.
“So have you. You’re the eldest, Meg, and you aren’t getting any younger, you know. It’s your duty to make a good match. We certainly can’t rely on Josephine. She’s entirely too headstrong. Who would want to marry a girl like that, working in a factory like a man?”
Laurie would. And Laurie was plenty rich.
Jo might be—was—headstrong, obstinate, and entirely pigheaded sometimes; Meg didn’t always understand her. But she loved her. She would never, ever betray her by throwing Laurie’s proposal in Aunt March’s face.
“I think it’s wonderful, what Jo’s doing,” Meg said loyally. No matter if she and Jo weren’t speaking, she would defend her to the death from Aunt March. “Loads of women are working in factories these days. We all have to do our part.”
Aunt March sniffed. “And look at Amy! She’s the pretty one, you know.” Meg bit her tongue. Amy was pretty. “But she’s off painting in Montreal like some sort of bohemian. Next we know, she’ll be living in a garret in Paris. How long does she expect Fred Vaughn to wait for her?”
