the person who goes abroad with Aunt Carrol—and the person who winds up with Laurie—was no little thing!
I started from the room, but Amy grabbed my arm, hard.
“What are you planning to do now?” she demanded. “You can’t interfere any more. Don’t you understand? Do you have any idea how difficult it was for me getting used to the hardships of the 1860s when I came here used to the modern conveniences of the 1880s? If I have to live through the story, I’m going to wind up with Laurie.”
Talk about an interloper!
I shook her hand off and marched out of the room.
Reentering the parlor, with Amy scampering behind me still trying to stop me, I walked right up to Jo.
I grabbed Jo by the biceps with both hands—man, she had well-developed biceps!—and gave her a good shake. I didn’t care that everyone else was looking, what they were thinking.
It was time I did the right thing. It was time I became a better person.
“I don’t care how you do it,” I warned Jo, “but you must be the one to go abroad. If you don’t, Amy will go. She’ll go to London, she’ll go to Paris, she’ll go to Heidelberg.” I stopped. Heidelberg—where had that come from? I’d never even heard of Heidelberg! I shrugged the thought off, barreled on. “And she’ll go to Nice. Eventually, Laurie will find her there to comfort her about”—I shook my head, shook the sadness away—“something really sad, but never mind that now. The point is, he will find her and eventually they will get married.”
“Amy and Teddy married?” Jo laughed, as did everyone else except for Amy.
“I know,” I said, “it’s a real laugh riot, right? Except it isn’t, because that is exactly what will happen if you don’t go abroad. Meanwhile, while Amy’s larking around Europe on your trip with your Teddy, you’ll go to New York to live in a boardinghouse. You’ll meet an old German guy with a beard and you’ll agree to become his wife one day when you come across him walking in the rain with a parcel under his arm and he shares his umbrella with you.”
“New York? An old German guy? An umbrella?” Jo wrenched one of her arms from my grasp, placed her hand on my forehead.
Now, that was still annoying.
“Are you feeling all right?” Jo’s voice was full of concern. “Is this just one of your castle-in-the-air stories like before with Great-Aunt Louise?”
How was I ever going to persuade her?
“So what if it is?” I sighed. “I’m telling the truth.” I paused. “Think about the bread, Jo,” I said meaningfully. “Think about the moldy bread.”
Jo looked sharp at me then and I knew she was remembering. Maybe it was wrong of me to use that, since I knew now that the bread hadn’t saved Beth, wouldn’t save Beth. But maybe it would at least make Jo listen to me.
“I know things,” I said, and I did, even if I didn’t know how to save Beth. “You may not realize it now, but you love Laurie. You’re in love with him. Maybe you’re too blind to see it, but he certainly knows he’s in love with you.”
It was so true, all of it. I saw that now.
“Everyone knows you two belong together,” I finished somewhat lamely.
Jo was puzzled now.
“But I thought,” she said, “you wanted Laurie for yourself.”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. I thought I did, once.”
It struck me then, how for so long I’d thought I wanted Laurie, but it was only ever the idea of him—the idea of having something that was really meant for one of my sisters. It was the whole Jackson thing all over again. And now I saw that there had been signs all along that I didn’t really like him like him—starting with the fact that I felt nothing when we kissed—but I’d been the one who’d been too blind to see the truth.
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” I told Jo, “what I once thought I wanted. Now I want him for you. Anyone who’s ever seen the two of you together knows you belong together.” I paused before adding, “It’s the way the story was always meant to be.”
V-ROOM!
What was that sound?
It sounded like a vacuum cleaner.
Wait a second, I told myself. No one had a vacuum cleaner in the 1800s!
But the sound didn’t stop. Instead, it grew in volume and suddenly I felt myself spinning in circles rapidly, spinning and spinning until …
WHOOSH!
Epilogue
Talk about getting sucked