Great or Nothing, page 5
But this was only a double date, a group of friends. What was the harm in that?
“All right,” Meg said finally.
Sallie squealed, squeezed her, then drew back and gave her a quick up-and-down appraisal. “Wear something nice, all right? We’ll go to dinner and dancing in Boston. It’ll be swell, I promise. Andy’s the best. I’ve got to run. See you!”
“See you,” Meg echoed. She felt like she’d been run over by a bus.
A lead weight was settling in her stomach. She already regretted her impulsive yes. Back in school, Sallie had always played on Meg’s worst impulses—her vanity and her pride. Was it too late to chase after her and say, oh no, she’d forgotten, she had other plans for next Saturday?
An enormous crash echoed from the kitchen. Meg sighed. She’d have to phone Sallie later. There was work to do.
* * *
Two hours later, Meg limped through her front door, exhausted. “Marmee?”
It was nearly suppertime—the cleanup had taken ages—and Meg was hoping rather desperately that Marmee had made something to eat. Maybe they could share a cozy meal in the kitchen while listening to the news. Afterward, Marmee would sew, and Meg would flip through the latest issue of Mademoiselle while they sipped tea. She would ask Marmee how to get out of the double date she was already dreading. Marmee believed in honoring one’s commitments, but she had never liked Sallie Gardiner.
“Marmee?” Meg called again, heading to the kitchen.
The room was dark, the woodstove down to embers. Meg switched on the lamp.
There was a note on the table.
Meg, dear—
I’m at a meeting at the Lowells’, so you’ll be on your own for supper. There’s leftover ham in the icebox. I hope the blood drive was a roaring success.
Marmee
Meg plopped down at the table, kicking off her oxfords. As she switched on the Crosley tabletop radio, she remembered Sallie’s taunt about spending her Saturday nights pining. But it wasn’t John she was missing. She remembered all the evenings she and her sisters had crowded around listening to Beat the Band while they varnished their nails. Amy was aces at guessing the song, but Jo was fiercely competitive; she got mad when Amy guessed it first. And of course Amy gloated!
Meg missed them so much. Even their silly squabbles. She grabbed a pen and paper. She’d write Jo and describe how Doro had sassed Mr. Michaelson and put Jack Moffatt in his place. Jo would like Doro; the girl had moxie.
Only…how many letters had Meg sent now? Jo hadn’t responded even once. She was a champion grudge holder, it was true, but this was getting ridiculous.
Why didn’t she write? They had never in their lives gone this long without speaking.
Meg looked at the note on the table. Was Marmee avoiding her, too?
No. She was being silly. Marmee was busy. That was all.
Meg put pen to paper. She knew at least one person who’d be glad to hear from her.
My dearest John,
I’ve just gotten home from the Red Cross blood drive at school. What a long day it was! Nothing compared to army training, though, I’m sure…
Marmee & Father
Marmee’s work:
dinner on the table
fire in the hearth
clean-swept floors
and mended hems.
Father always
coming and going
preaching, proclaiming,
gathering causes like
clouds he could not hold.
One with dreams
spiraling into the sky
while the other
anchored us
to earth, to truth.
And there we were
in between,
grounded and inspired.
Madame Alexander
Do you remember, Meg,
the first time Sallie
dressed you up, her living doll?
You fretted over the borrowed dress,
the charity a too-tight sash around your pride.
All I saw was my elegant sister,
her grace turning formless cloth
into beauty.
You never needed Sallie’s finery.
You made your own elegance
in every even hem, careful curl.
You were the most glamorous,
the one I yearned to be
in the rare moment I dared
dream of a life in the world,
more than girl in repose on settee.
It wasn’t easy glamour. The world saw
the put-together March, composed, refined.
But I know the time you took, intentional, precise.
CHAPTER 5
JO
“Jo, hurry up!” Molly called. “They’ll leave without us!”
Jo drained her cup of the last of its precious coffee and grabbed her jacket and purse. “Thanks, Mrs. Wilson,” she called over her shoulder.
“Have a good day, girls” was the rallying cry as Jo dashed across the creaky floor of the boardinghouse and through the door Molly was impatiently holding for her.
“Honestly, Jo,” she scolded. “You must be pure coffee at this point.”
“Keeps a girl on her toes,” Jo said.
“Stop lagging!” Anna hollered, half hanging out of her truck.
Several girls were already piled in the truck, Anna behind the wheel, waiting. Anna had inherited the Ford from her grandfather. Rusty and rickety but as reliable as a clock, it was a fitting vehicle for a girl who made Jo think of Shakespeare and Hermia and “though she be but little, she is fierce.” Once winter took hold, riding in the truck bed to work might not seem like such a boon, Jo knew, but it was better than the long walk from the boardinghouse.
Jo scrambled up beside the girls, holding out her hand to pull Molly in with her. Crowding against Evelyn and Ruth with an apologetic smile, she gripped the rusted edge of the truck bed in preparation—Anna drove like someone was chasing her.
“Everyone ready back there?” Anna called to the girls.
“We’re all good!” Ruth yelled back.
“Onward!” Anna bellowed, and laughter rippled through the air as the truck lurched forward with a shudder and a belch of black smoke.
East Hartford wasn’t a terribly large town; Hartford, across the river, was bigger. Jo didn’t think she would’ve ever ventured toward either of them if it weren’t for the war. Maybe if things were different…If Beth hadn’t…Or if she had but Jo hadn’t just bolted, she would’ve seen East Hartford shown in a newsreel at the movies with her sisters. She would’ve thought fondly but distantly of the brave women on the line and never known the weight of a drill in her hand or the way her fingers would cramp and her back would ache by the end of a long day.
But East Hartford was not just a scene in a newsreel. It was home, for now. Maybe for a long time, for who knew how much time their world and their lives would revolve around this fight.
She had thrown herself into the deep end to escape another kind of drowning, only to find herself struggling to keep above this surface, too.
Grief, it seemed, could not be left behind like sisters and boys who should’ve known better than to—
“Don’t you think, Jo?”
Startled out of her self-pitying reverie, Jo glanced at Ruth, who was waiting expectantly.
“I’m sorry. What was that?”
“I was saying it would be exciting to be a lady pilot, like Peg,” Ruth said.
“You’re slow to get going this morning,” Molly said, a furrow in her brow.
“She was probably up late reading.” Ruth gave Jo a sympathetic smile that made Jo wonder if her pacing in the garden at night had been noticed. Was Ruth giving her an out? She’d take it.
“Reading is my greatest vice,” Jo said cheerfully.
“I’m so glad Peg’s back,” Molly said. “Even if she spends most of her time on the airfield. She has the best stories.”
“You like that she keeps late nights, like you,” Evelyn teased. “I’ve seen you two cover for each other with Mrs. Wilson.”
Molly glared at her.
“What do you get up to at night, Molly?” Evelyn asked, her brows arching delicately.
“None of your business,” Molly snapped.
“I didn’t realize there were any female pilots working the airfield,” Jo said, trying to save Molly the way Ruth had saved her. Luckily, it worked, steering Evelyn back to the subject at hand instead of Molly’s late-night comings and goings.
“Peg’s the only WASP I’ve met,” Evelyn said, clutching her hat to her head as they rocked along the potholed road. “I think she’s got a few friends who fly on the test field, too, but they live across the river.”
“Peg’s entire family are aviators,” Molly said. “Can you imagine? Her father taught all the girls, just like he taught the boys. My father would never. He didn’t even want me to learn how to drive.”
“And now you’re building engines. Joke’s on him,” Jo cracked.
Molly giggled. “He still thinks I’m sewing parachutes at the Pioneer factory in Manchester.”
“Molly!” Ruth’s eyes widened. “You shouldn’t lie like that.”
“Only way I was going to get here.” Molly shrugged. “And you’ve seen my stitching. I don’t think the parachute factory would take me!”
Ruth tried to hide her smile and failed. “I must admit, that is likely true.”
“Are all Peg’s sisters WASPs like her?” Jo asked, curious despite herself. Her own father had raised her to be bold; he had kissed her forehead before shipping out and told her he knew she’d be brave for her mother (how sure he’d been of her ability; how she had wanted to be that girl, and how she had failed). But she wasn’t sure, as bold and brave as Father thought her, if he would’ve encouraged one—or all—of his daughters into the danger of being in the Women Airforce Service Pilots.
“No, I don’t think so. Her brothers are both flying bombers. But her little sister’s still too young. And Charlotte’s a reporter.”
“Talk about stories,” Ruth said, followed by a low impressed whistle. “Charlotte Yates has all of them.”
“Charlotte writes for Life,” Molly added. “You’ve probably read her articles, Jo.”
“Probably,” Jo echoed, and as the other girls fell into a conversation about plans for Thanksgiving in a few weeks, she tilted her head back into the rushing air, heedless of how it whipped her hair.
An aviatrix and a woman reporter in the same family. She couldn’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy, toward one person she barely knew and another she didn’t know at all. But to have a sister who understood…
She knew she was an outlier. An oddity. She had heard tell of it enough, everyone from Aunt March to Amy. She had thought, once, that as strange as she was, she had at least belonged to her sisters. She had thought, for so long, that she had at least been understood by Teddy. She hated that, even now, thinking of Laurie’s nickname made her heart twinge, the memories bitter instead of sweet.
Jo didn’t feel like she belonged to anyone anymore, and she barely understood herself these days. She’d known herself before: sister, daughter, friend, writer. The north, south, west, and east to her spinning compass point. She’d been sure of herself to the edge of almost cruelty sometimes, because so many kept hoping for her to fall into roles she kept telling them all she wouldn’t.
She was still a sister—but it felt muted now, like a radio turned down too low. She was a daughter—but she had failed at doing what Father had asked of her. And the last two…
She had lost Teddy. But had she ever truly had him, when they found themselves in such a tangle, wanting each other in such opposite ways and hurting each other so badly because of it?
As for being a writer…
The thing she had been most sure of had slipped through her fingers, and instead of fighting tooth and nail for it, she had let it go.
Beth would be ashamed of her.
“Jo, are you sure you got enough coffee?” Molly asked. “You look positively glum.”
Jo pasted on a smile. “I just didn’t sleep well last night.”
“You better stay sharp at work, or you won’t get to move off the riveting line,” Ruth warned.
“I know, I know.”
The factory employed a mix of men and women. The heavy lifting and more dangerous tasks were assigned to the men. But there were girls who did more than fixing rivet after rivet into metal hulls. You just had to work your way up and impress the right people.
Anna finally slowed the truck to a less breakneck speed as they pulled into the Pratt & Whitney factory along the Connecticut River. Clambering out one by one, the girls were wind-tossed and chapped, but it didn’t much matter. Coveralls, turbans, and hard work awaited them inside. Vanity didn’t have much place in it, no matter how many pretty factory girls were picked for the newsreels across the country.
Arm in arm with Molly and Ruth, Jo marched toward the factory. When she’d first walked the factory floor, she thought the mechanical din coming from all sides would give her a permanent headache. Now, the rhythmic whir of drills was welcome, though the smell of engine oil and chemicals less so.
“I still can’t believe you’re lying to your entire family about where you’re working,” Ruth scolded Molly as the girls hurried into the small locker room that all the women—day and night shift—used.
“Not just where she’s working. Where she’s living,” Evelyn tutted at Molly. “Makes a girl wonder what else she’s hiding.”
“Oh, leave her alone,” Anna said.
“It’s just a little fib,” Jo said, pulling on her trousers. Meg had made them, and her blouse with the mother-of-pearl buttons as well. Meg had made most of her clothes, except for the coveralls, and the scarf, which Jo resolutely reached for like she could use it to banish the memory of her sister. “We all tell fibs to our families to smooth things over.” Jo began putting her hair up haphazardly, knowing that no matter how many pins she used, it would work its way loose. Luckily, she’d mastered tying the scarf in a way to catch the errant tendrils that seemed to have a mind of their own.
“What fibs are you telling, Miss Jo March?” Ruth’s perfectly painted brows were a true work of art when she raised them.
“None,” Jo said quickly, and Ruth laughed as she began to pin her hair neatly up, looking in the mirrored compact she’d propped up on a shelf. Ruth was never mussed, no matter how long the day went or how hard the work was, and she worked harder than anyone, being the most experienced woman on the morning shift. Jo rather marveled at the magic of it. Factory work was messy, and Jo couldn’t even get out of the locker room before she had some sort of grease on her. If Peg really could fix the hot-water heater like she’d promised this morning, Jo resolved to give the woman her undying devotion, because she ended her days a mess of oil and sweat, and cold baths were just not cutting it.
The locker room was a less-than-ideal situation, with a hole in the ceiling and sagging shelves to store their things. But they had to make do with what little they were given. After all, many of the men hadn’t been pleased when the factory started hiring women. Complaining would just cause more trouble, Jo knew, even if it was her nature to go up against injustice with a blunt sword if need be. But if you wanted to move off the riveting line and into cutting and pressing sheet metal, you didn’t complain. Her first week, Jo had watched Ruth and Evelyn work a press machine to corrugate long metal sheets. The precision and nimbleness between the two had been like a dance: a dangerous, industrial ballet.
She had immediately wanted to learn how, only to find out that few women were allowed to operate the heavy machinery. Thus, she had thrown herself into proving her worth. So far, no luck. But it gave her something to focus on, other than her many failures.
A bell clanged in the distance. “Shift change,” Anna said, grabbing her scarf and tying it hastily over her hair.
“That’s us,” Jo said, raising her voice over the gaggle of chatter and laughter.
“Come on, girls!” Molly tugged at Evelyn’s arm. “Mr. Bates will have my head if I’m late again.”
“I’d be more worried about Mrs. Harris,” Jo called as they hurried down the hall in a group, passing by the sweaty workers heading off the floor. “She has her eye on you.”
Molly scoffed at the mention of the head of the women’s division, a stern woman who was more stubborn than Molly herself. “Mrs. Harris has her eye on everyone.”
“It’s her job, Molly,” Ruth protested.
“Is it yours to be such a Goody Two-shoes?” Molly shot back, but instead of being offended, Ruth, so good-natured, laughed.
“Absolutely,” Ruth said, and no one could scowl in the face of such easy agreement. Molly’s toothy grin spread reluctantly across her freckled face.
“You don’t make it any fun to fight with you,” she told Ruth.
“The lessons learned in a house full of brothers,” Ruth said serenely. “Never engage with their nonsense.”
“Sounds like the opposite of my life with sisters,” Jo said, not thinking it through.
Both Ruth and Molly turned to her, puzzled.
“I didn’t know you had sisters, Jo,” Molly said.
Heat crawled along Jo’s cheeks. “Haven’t I mentioned it?” she asked, aiming for airy. “We’re all scattered to the wind right now. You know how it is, with all this.” Before anyone could respond, she walked past her friends, pushing the doors to the inspection room open. Mrs. Harris was waiting to check them over, in case they forgot a ring or a watch or a stray curl, a welcome distraction.
