Jo & Laurie Read online

  “What?” She laughed, pulling away.

  “A surprise!” Laurie loved a surprise more than anything. They were all his little productions—a version of theater, not unlike Jo’s parlor-room plays, she supposed.

  “Please. No settee jumping in the drawing-room, Mr. Laurence!”

  “Aw, don’t you trust me, Jo?” He looked remarkably earnest for Teddy Laurence. And for the moment, remarkably unfoppish, she thought.

  She smiled at him fondly. “Of course not.”

  He nodded. “Very sensible. Still . . .”

  * * *

  • • •

  PLANS, INDEED!

  It had taken two days to convince Mr. Laurence to allow his ward to go to New York City, let alone with one of the March girls. (“Running off to that thieves’ den? My own grandson? And with a decent, sweet thing like Josephine March? Forty fits! That’s what you’ll give me!”) It had taken three days after that to talk Mama Abba into allowing Laurie to bring Jo along with him; she’d only relented, in the end, because she had an old neighbor-friend—Mrs. Kirke—who ran a boarding house in Greenwich Village, which was where Laurie and Jo found themselves now.

  Their train had arrived too late for lunch and too early for dinner, so they sat together at the long-planked table in the communal dining-room, drinking tea and eating chocolates, laughing at the characters they’d seen on the train and in the streets along their way.

  When Laurie took a flask of his grandfather’s brandy out of his satchel and dripped a capful into each of their teacups—“Let’s have a little Grandfather’s tea, shall we?”—they only laughed harder. It was all very scandalous.

  The boarding house was plain but clean; Jo suspected Laurie had never stayed in such a humble room, but he managed not to say anything terribly obvious, and she loved him for it. And for her part, well, New York City loomed larger than she had realized it would. For almost the first time, she wondered if she were not quite so brave as she let on.

  “You have to let me do this, Jo,” Laurie said.

  “Do what?” Jo asked now, stirring another lump of sugar—and by that, she meant another capful of brandy—into her tea. She raised her glass. “Here’s to Grandfather’s tea.”

  “Grandfather’s tea,” Laurie said, clinking his teacup to hers—but he put his down without sipping it this time.

  “Let me treat you, old girl. Take you out. Show you what a proper weekend in the city can be like.” He sat up, excited by even the prospect of such an adventure. “For inspiration! A new adventure every night—you’ll have loads to write about!”

  Jo shook her head at his excitement. At times like these, he was as young as one of Meg’s pupils. “We’re here, Teddy. Isn’t that enough?”

  “No, Jo. It’s not.” He stood up. “Not for you. If I’m to be a proper muse, it’s my duty to inspire you.”

  “Muse? You!” Jo laughed. Laurie looked hurt. “Inspiring it would be, but you live in Concord just like I do, dearest heart. How would either of us begin to know what a proper weekend in New York City is like?”

  “I asked.” He held up a handful of tickets and papers. “Grandfather called his solicitor. I’ve arranged whole days of proper New York plans. Nights, even. Come on, Jo! Be a sport and humor me. Just this once—it’ll be such a grand lark!”

  Now Jo was caught off guard. “Tickets? Laurie—to what? The opera? Art galleries? Museums? You shouldn’t have!”

  “Oh, I didn’t. As I said.” He grinned. “Really, Jo? Why would I myself have opera tickets? I live in Concord just like you do! I just, you know, sent a few telegrams . . . spoke to a few rather well-situated chaps . . .”

  Jo shook her head in wonder as she pored over the tickets—then put them down on the table linen between them. “What of our agreement? You were to catch up on your college reading, and I was to try to write, remember?”

  It was true that Laurie was meant to begin school in Cambridge in September, regardless of how he felt about it—and there was a fairly daunting reading-list that stood between him and his arrival in Boston. That said, not only had he failed to open a book yet, he’d also been threatening to not go at all for weeks now, which was how Jo felt about her failure of a writing project. The looming fall was bearing down on both of them.

  “Gah,” Laurie said. “Reading.”

  “Do you not think, dear boy, I might be the slightest bit offended by the low regard in which you seem to hold my entire awful profession?”

  “We needn’t both be writers,” Laurie said. “That would be unbearably dull. Besides, I read your book.”

  “Liar.” She glared.

  “Fine.” He laughed. “But I will, one day. Write a few more, and I’ll read those, too. Write enough and you’ll convert me to your entire awful profession yet, Miss March. Until then, I will confine myself to being, if not your muse, your . . . let’s say, Master of Inspiration.”

  “Do you mean my Master of Procrastination?” Jo frowned. “We were to be in hiding, remember? You with your Plato’s Symposium and me with my scandalous yet scandalously unwritten novel? I didn’t bring anything nice enough for a proper weekend—and even if I had, it still wouldn’t be nice enough.”

  “What are you talking about?” Laurie looked confused. “You always look nice enough—don’t you?”

  Jo put down her teacup. “You don’t notice, because you’re a boy. But my gowns are all wrong, my slippers are from two seasons ago, and these aren’t even opera gloves.”

  “Operas have gloves?”

  “Laurie, you’re hopeless.”

  It was only then that she saw the twinkling in his eye and realized he was teasing her.

  She blushed. “You’re teasing. You’re awful. A horrible bore.”

  He winked. “At least I’m not a cabbage. At least I’m not Professor Bore.”

  “At least that,” she said, smiling into her tea. “Odious fellow.”

  “Grandfather took care of everything, I’m told. It’s all upstairs, and meant to be a very girly surprise, and beyond that I have no idea what’s in anything or how any of it works, so please don’t ask me to tie things and clasp things and buckle things like Amy always does.” He looked so truly befuddled that Jo laughed aloud.

  “Oh, what love,” she said, and he took her hand before she realized she had said it.

  “You’re magic,” he said, simply. His eyes had locked on hers, and she found she could not look away. “I’ve said it before. You’re a magic person, Jo. I sometimes think you might be . . . an enchantress.”

  She felt the two pink spots deepen on her cheeks, and there was nothing she could do to stop them.

  “Stop!” she said, as much to herself as to him. She drew her hand away from his. “For all you know, what I am is a witch.”

  “Of course,” he said, sitting back in his seat with satisfaction. “A witch. It’s so obvious now! How could I have gotten that wrong?”

  She laughed and shook her head. “Oh, Laurie. How are you even possible? I sometimes think it doesn’t matter what I say.”

  “Not a bit.”

  “You honestly don’t care what words come out of my mouth—you’ve already accepted me for them, haven’t you?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? So long as you’re the one saying them? I know we have our rows, but we always come out on the other side, don’t we?”

  “Always.”

  Laurie looked as if he wanted to say something more, then stopped himself.

  “What?” She sipped her tea, feeling happy and dizzy and alight with the prospects of the weekend.

  Laurie looked uncharacteristically serious. “You’re my best friend in the world, Jo. You have been, for as long as I can remember. I can think of very few words you could say that would change how I feel about you.” He drained his teacup and put it down. “Unless you were, say, Plato . . .
and all the words were a frightfully dull Symposium.”

  Jo let out a laugh, despite herself.

  “But let’s suppose even Plato has a few good bits . . . that I’ll discover . . . one of these days . . . possibly.”

  “You really never give up, do you?” Jo sighed. “I love that you can be like that, my boy. If only I could be that way with myself.”

  “Do you want me to show you how I do it?” Laurie asked. “Because I can. I’ll show you the trick. It’s simple—I swear it.”

  Jo said nothing, but she found it hard to look away. She also found she wanted to. It was like that between them, sometimes. She wanted to be near Laurie, to stay within the bubble of light that he carried with him; but once she was that close, she found she was too afraid to show herself. Whether to him or to herself, she couldn’t say.

  Either way, one moment everything would be perfectly normal. They’d be laughing and teasing and running the meadow path like wild things.

  The next moment, he’d look a certain way—or look at her a certain way—and she’d find herself staring down at her own slippers, like a tongue-tied schoolgirl who can’t bring herself to look her first maidenly crush right in the eye.

  Just one look.

  Sometimes, one word.

  The constant push-pull of her emotions exhausted her, dizzied her. Or perhaps it was only Grandfather’s tea.

  She found herself studying her slippers.

  Laurie lowered his voice and leaned forward. The room was suddenly so still, she could hear dishes clattering and maids chattering in the next room. But as he spoke, she heard nothing else, and it seemed to Jo like they were the only two people on earth.

  The words were close and quiet in her ear.

  “Love yourself like I love you, old friend.”

  He pressed his two hands to her one. His voice was light, but she recognized the tremor of truth as he spoke, and she knew he was deadly serious.

  She felt the air close around her. Her heart beginning to pound. Her old familiar shadow-lands, waiting just behind the door to her heart. Now a tidal wave of panic beginning to rise. As if she were trapped in her own skin and had no choice but to wriggle free. As if her life depended on it, and she didn’t know why.

  It’s Teddy. It’s still just Teddy. You’re not afraid of him.

  You’re not.

  She let go of his hand.

  “That’s quite a trick.” Jo shivered. “I’ll try to remember.”

  “It’s all right,” Laurie said, his fingers still grazing hers. “I won’t let you forget.”

  Jo’s teacup clattered in her hands and she stood up, not knowing what else to do. “Stop. Stop talking foolishness. I’m going to write and you’re going to open your Plato or I’ll cast a spell and banish you away to college forever.”

  He raised both hands. “Not another word.”

  8

  A PROPER WEEKEND

  Between Grandfather’s tea and her own pounding heart, Jo had completely forgotten the promised surprise.

  But when, at last, Laurie agreed to go do his reading, Jo went upstairs to her small, plain room in Mrs. Kirke’s boarding house, and there it was.

  Not so much it as she—

  “Christopher Columbus!” Jo exclaimed.

  Because it was Meg. Still holding her gloves in one hand. Sitting in the worn wooden chair by the window, peering out at the crowds of people passing by on the street below.

  For a moment, Jo stared in disbelief. Truly, the day had been surreal enough that she thought it entirely possible she was imagining things; to that end, Jo wouldn’t have been surprised to open the door and see President Grant himself sitting there.

  “Took you long enough!” Meg cried.

  Jo smiled at the sisterly scolding. Not President Grant.

  “Meg? Meg!” She flung herself across the room and into the arms of her older sister, almost before Meg could rise to her feet. “But you hate trains! And cities! And crowds! And . . . whatever are you doing here?”

  “What do you think? I’m your surprise.” Meg looked annoyed. “Did he not say? Oh, fiddlesticks! Laurie was to tell you there was something waiting for you upstairs. And that something was to be me. I don’t know why he had his heart so set on the trick of it. I took a later train and just arrived, and Laurie made me sneak up the back stairs, that scamp.”

  Jo laughed now, finally catching on to the joke. “He made you sound like a parcel of clothes! That ridiculous boy.”

  Meg smiled back. “I did bring you a parcel,” she said, now pointing to a paper bundle on the bed, tied with twine. “Mama Abba had them made up for you but forgot to slip them into your bag. She’s not so good at surprises as Laurie, I suppose. So here I am.”

  “Mama! Oh, no, I hope she didn’t spend too much.” Jo began doing the frantic mental calculations every writer did in their head every month, especially the sort who worked at The Tall Taler.

  Meg put a gentle hand on her sister’s shoulder. “No, Jo. It’s a gift from old Mr. Laurence. For your first trip to New York City. What a gentleman. He made certain Mama Abba was the one who chose your things, to make sure she—and you—would approve.”

  Jo smiled at the thought of her mother folding the little bundle before her. It was a relief, to be sure, but still, to have Meg come all this way just to deliver her a bundle of clothes seemed a tremendous lot of bother. “Did Mr. Laurence come with you? I can’t imagine Mama Abba would let you come alone. Or that you would dare attempt it.”

  Meg blushed a deep pink, looking back out the window. “I didn’t. Not exactly.”

  Jo gave her sister a queer look. “Then how—exactly?”

  Meg’s mouth twisted into a half-smile that she couldn’t suppress, though Jo could see she was trying. “John—Mr. Brooke was my escort.”

  “John?!”

  “Mr. Brooke, Jo.”

  Jo found it hard to even imagine the long hours of a rattling train ride down the Hudson Valley sitting across from the solemn and silent John Brooke. “How tedious your trip must have been! You really should have ridden down with Teddy and me.”

  “Actually, he was . . . very kind. I feel like I know him much better now, and he seemed pleased enough to spend the time with me.” Now the pink spots on Meg’s cheeks deepened into a particularly becoming shade of rose.

  Jo touched her sister’s face. “I expect so. Especially if you were blushing like that all the way to Hudson Station!”

  “He was being a gentleman. That’s all,” Meg sniffed. “Obviously.”

  “Obviously.” Jo gave her sister a teasing look. “I just hadn’t expected to see my literary matchmaking have such an effect.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Meg pulled off her bonnet, shaking her curls free to her shoulders. “It was nothing. And both Mr. Brooke and I are only here because it was Laurie’s idea. He thought the two of us would enjoy a little escape, as he called it.”

  Two? Of us?

  “But that old brick? He hardly speaks! How did you manage hour upon hour of conversation?”

  Meg pulled loose the ribbon of her bonnet. “We managed well enough. He’s friendly, if a bit shy of me. After all, let’s recollect the whole English-speaking world thinks you want us to marry.”

  Jo scoffed and fingered the twine on her bundle. “I’d hardly say the whole English-speaking world cares about John Brooke. If any of my readers care a whit, I suspect it’s only about you.”

  Meg smiled, folding her bonnet on the neatly made bed. “We had a bit of a laugh about it, at first. The awkwardness of it all. Once that was out of the way, we found all kinds of things to discuss.”

  “What sorts of things?”

  “What it’s like to be tormented by having a writer of books in your family. What it’s like to be tortured by having a scamp in your tutelage.”


  “Well, that surely took hours.” Jo rolled her eyes.

  “It did.”

  “Wonder of wonders,” Jo said, crossly. She flung Meg’s discarded gloves onto the floor and took their place on the opposite chair. “Well, I can hardly imagine old Babbling Brooke with us for an entire week. I hope this isn’t Teddy’s way of trying to marry you two off in real life.”

  “I imagine it was Laurie’s way of being kind. Really, Jo, I don’t know why you think everything is a marriage plot! It’s only you who thinks about marrying everyone off all the time!”

  But to Jo, it was a plot, and an obvious one. Much worse, it was a betrayal. Theodore Laurence, she thought, don’t you dare play matchmaker with my Meg.

  “I could never be interested in Mr. Brooke, anyway,” said Meg.

  “Why not?” asked Jo, surprised.

  Meg flushed, as if she had already made up her mind. “Because.”

  “Because he’s poor like I wrote in my book, and ‘Aunt March’ thinks you’re throwing your life away? Oh, Meg, that’s just fiction. You can marry anyone you please, even dull old Brooke if you truly want to,” said Jo.

  “Of course I can’t,” said Meg. “I must find a Laurie of my own.”

  Jo was stunned. “A what?”

  “Marrying well is the only way I can help the family. You help with your writing, Jo, but what can I do? I’m not a famous author like you.”

  “Good heavens, I’m not famous by any means,” said Jo, even as that statement was becoming less and less true. “And you mustn’t speak that way. It’s not becoming, and it’s not the Meg I know.”

  “Don’t look at me like that,” said Meg. “Like you think I’m . . .”

  “Amy?” Jo couldn’t resist.

  “A . . . a trollop!” Meg snapped. Jo raised an eyebrow. Her sister was flustered. “It isn’t the very easiest thing, you know. Having American authoress Josephine March for a sister. Being the other March sister. The one who didn’t die. The one who isn’t renowned. The one who isn’t an artist, or a scamp!”