Little Women and Me - By Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page 0,79

the last straw. In fact, she came awfully close to using the word love to describe what she and Mr. Brooke shared.

It was enough for Aunt March, though, who began her tromp through the room after telling Meg she washed her hands of her.

She paused at the door, turned. Putting her lorgnette to one eye, her gaze swept the room until it at last settled on me.

“E-mi-LY! What are you doing just standing there like a bit of wallpaper? Get over here at once and open this door for me.”

My presence had been finally exposed, but once Aunt March was gone and Mr. Brooke had come out of the closet, I had as good as gone back to being wallpaper as they tentatively approached each other as though really seeing each other for the first time.

“Margaret.”

“John.”

Use each other’s names for the first time one moment and the next they’re engaged?

Yep. Talk about your crazy Victorians!

It was decided that they would marry in three years’ time.

Everyone approved of the plan. Everyone except for Jo, of course, and Aunt March.

Laurie, Jo, and I were all gathered in one corner. Laurie was there to comfort Jo, and I was there because I was nosy, plus I didn’t want to leave them alone together.

“It’ll be fine, Jo,” Laurie said. “We’ll still have fun when Meg is gone. Why, I’ll be done with college before you know it and then we can go abroad together.”

Wait a second here. He’d canceled our Washington trip, but now he was talking about the two of them going abroad?

“You don’t understand,” Jo said.

“Maybe he doesn’t,” I cut in, tired of Jo’s attempts to hold Meg back, “but I do.”

“You?” Jo looked shocked at the very idea.

“Yes, me,” I said, trying not to feel offended. “Look, I’ll be losing a sister too when she goes.” But would I really? I wouldn’t be here still in three years … would I? I shook the idea off, continued. “You can’t go on like this, Jo. If you really care for Meg—”

“Of course I do!” came the outraged interruption.

“Then you have to let her live the life she wants to live, not the life you want her to live. If you try to hold her back, you’ll only push her away. Who knows? You may even lose her.”

“Lose her?”

Laurie and Jo both gaped at me, shocked. If I could have, I would have gaped at myself. Where had that bit of wisdom come from?

Apparently I wasn’t done yet, though, because when I opened my mouth again, the following words came out:

“If you love something, set it free. If it comes back, it’s yours forever. If it doesn’t, it never really was.”

Jo and Laurie ate it up. It was like I was the Dalai Lama or something.

Seriously. These people were made for Hallmark greeting cards.

Really? Really? Three years? Meg and John were supposed to marry in three years?

But that made no sense to me. I could have sworn that in the original book they got married not long after being engaged. So how was it possible that—

Twenty-Four

The three years that have passed have brought but few changes to the quiet family.

Three years had passed? Whoa! How the heck did that happen? It was like being dropped into this world all over again.

I knew it was three years later because just a few moments before, the others had burst into the parlor where I was sitting and shouted, “Happy birthday!”

“It’s my birthday again already?” I said. I couldn’t believe it. How had a year passed with me missing it? “I’m sixteen now?”

“Silly Emily.” Beth laughed. “You’re eighteen now. You know that.”

Eighteen. That wasn’t possible! I hurried to the first reflective surface I could find, studied my image in it, saw Beth was right: I was taller now, leaner. I looked more like a young woman than a teenage girl. I looked around me. The others, except for Beth, who still looked the same, were visibly older too. Meg looked more proper than ever. Jo, whose hair had been cropped short the last time I saw her, now had hair cascading down her back once more. As for Amy, she looked downright sophisticated. She must be sixteen now. If she lived in my era, she’d be getting her license soon, probably tooling around town in a sports car before long. Amy was definitely the sort of girl who’d be given a sports car as a present on her sixteenth birthday. Not that I was jealous or