9

SAILING AWAY

Within the hour, Laurie and Jo set off on their adventure. Laurie procured a poorly made umbrella at twice the usual price. (“Forty cents, Teddy! That’s what I would have to earn, for the price of a few steel ribs and a shoddy bit of oiled cloth!”)

Now properly armed against the elements, they roamed onward, down the length of Broadway, in search of a particularly Parisian tea-room that the elder Mr. Laurence had made them promise to visit.

Before long, they reached the edge of a great, crowded wharf, and beyond it, the even greater gray harbor. Beyond that, the vast expanse of the Atlantic yawned at them.

“Ho, Jo! Look!” Laurie gave a shout and pulled Jo excitedly toward the broad platform before them, over to the place where the wooden walkway was crowded with passengers and families and friends, whole streams of people arriving and departing, along with the loved ones assembled to see them off and welcome them home again. Sailing ships of all stripes floated there, great three-masters meant to cross the Atlantic and a number of steam vessels as well, including the famous sidewheel steamer the SS Baltic, one of the fastest ships ever made. The dock was a threshold, teeming with people going to and fro. Like a train station, she thought, only a thousand times bigger and more frightening.

Laurie let go of Jo’s arm and stepped across the walk, leaving both his friend and their umbrella behind, as if the ships were magnets and he was powerless before them. The scene did not have the same effect upon Jo; the longer she stood watching, the harder it was to know if she was exhilarated or terrified.

She closed her eyes and tried to decide the matter for herself. She knew she was being ridiculous. She’d always wanted to go to Europe; she couldn’t imagine anything she’d wanted more. So why did the sight of the shipyard set her spinning? Was it the feeling of freedom all around her? Or the feeling of being trapped in some way?

I’m not afraid. And I’m not being wild and queer. I’m not. It’s Teddy who’s being strange, ever since we arrived. Strangely charming. Strangely gallant. Strangely handsome.

What’s so very wrong with that?

But now all Jo could feel was the fluttering nervousness beneath her ribs, the great knotting lump that should have been her nearly empty stomach, the goose-bumps pricking up along the seam of exposed flesh at her wrist, just beneath her new linen puffed sleeve. The thought of all that water beneath her, the fathomless dark depths of the ocean and herself in it, cold and alone . . .

“Smell that!” Laurie took a great whiff of air, wagging his head. He looked back at her. “Come closer! You’ve got to feel it!”

As she stepped forward to his side, she could see what he meant; the wood-planked platform was vibrating beneath their feet as the crowd shoved between and beyond them.

Now the two friends stood side by side at the edge of the harbor. She angled the umbrella to cover them both, but he didn’t even notice.

“It’s such a city, Jo!” Laurie’s face was ruddy with excitement, just as it had been all day. “And those enormous steamships. Beyond them only the big, wide ocean. Then nothing at all until London and Paris and Rome, whatever we want.” He was in one of his moods.

Unstoppable and unapologetic, Jo thought. She had come to know his moods well, and to love them better.

She kept her eyes on the ship nearest them, which steadily swallowed a ramp full of departing passengers into a shadowy opening in its hull. It swayed in its berth with the rocking motion of the waves.

“Shall we join them?” Laurie took her gloved hand in his warmer, larger one.

She let her eyes flicker over to him. His face was sparkling with mischief; he didn’t seem to notice the change in her mood at all. “Is that a question?” she asked.

He squeezed her fingers. “Every boat is a question, don’t you think, Jo? Whether or not to get on and sail away, forever and ever, world without end?”

Jo couldn’t help but smile. He looked like one of Meg’s pupils, all wonder and eagerness at the thought of tigers and India and gangplanks. “No end at all?”

“Why not?” He said it again, eyes still on the steamer ship. “Don’t you just want to climb that ramp and go?”

She tilted back the umbrella for a closer look. “Is that what you want, Teddy? For me to wave you off with this rather fetching new lawn pocket square your grandfather gifted me? Cry adieu from the dock while you sail off to the high seas?”

“Don’t be daft, you turnip-head. You’d be standing next to me on the very tip-top deck. The highest one.” He scrutinized the Baltic, then pointed. “That one, I think. Right up . . . there.”

She considered the specks lining the upper deck of the vessel in question. “It’s awfully high.”

“For you?” He scoffed. “Not high enough. If I know my Jo, you’ll be captaining that ship by the end of our first day at sea.”

“Then we’ll make it to London in no time. Perhaps we’ll make it in time to see Little Women in the West End.” She laughed.

“We’ll sail this fine, seaworthy vessel down the Thames ourselves!” He saluted the sea briskly. “Aye, Captain March! Next is Paris! You shall have your shipwreck yet, Milady Authoress!”

Jo burst out laughing. “Oh, you’re such a boy, Teddy!”

“Why, had you forgotten?” He took another deep breath of the salty, steamy harbor air. “Don’t I look like one?” He turned toward her now, offering his face up for inspection. “Eh?”

She regarded the familiar features of his face for a moment, then sighed. “Who knows?”

“I beg your pardon?” He sounded insulted.

Jo reached up to pinch his cheek with one damp kid glove. “If you want to know the truth, dear boy, sometimes I forget you have a face at all.”

“Hey now!”

“Sometimes you just look like . . .” She considered it.

“Like what?” His eyes met hers.

She shrugged. “I don’t know . . . like me, I suppose?”

“You?” He quirked an eyebrow. “That’s a new one.”

“It’s not, actually. Not remotely. I just don’t tell you half the things I think.”

“Not half?”

“Not a fraction.”

“Now, that’s hardly fair, seeing as you know my innermost thoughts.”

Jo smiled. “All right, then. To me, you look like . . .” It was hard to put the truth into words, even if it was just a truth about her dearest friend. “I don’t know, me, but not me, exactly. More like . . . an appendage?”

“Your foot? Maybe a hand? I’m trying to decide how insulted to be.”

“No, Teddy. A soul . . . or maybe a sunburst? Like sunshine itself. Like the sun.”

It sounded ridiculous. There was nothing Jo hated more than not being able to speak the truth, especially not to those she loved best. Especially not to Laurie.

But the truth is a hard thing to speak, especially when you don’t know it yourself.

“A ball of flame and light? Are you a blind goose? What else do I look like? Better yet . . .” Laurie caught her fingers in his, and her stomach tightened. He pulled her toward him until they were face-to-face, a still island in a circle of crushing passersby. “What does this look like to you, Jo?”

There it was. The current that ran between them, whenever she let it. Whenever he walked into the room, or even passed in front of his window all the way across the lane from hers, it was there. She felt it now. Crackling with fire, with life, with something. Some unspeakable Teddy-ness. Every time she glanced his way or caught his eye by accident, it was another trembling tilt of the candle, another drop of hot wax against cold fingers. She didn’t know if it was pleasant or painful, only that it was . . .

You know exactly what it is, honestly.

Why do you lie to yourself? To him?

How long do you think this strange truce with the truth will hold?

“What does this look like?” The words came from her lips before she realized she was saying them. She took a step backward, smiling awkwardly. “Happiness. Summertime. Childhood. My best friend . . .” She stopped short, ducking away beneath their shared umbrella, looking down at her muddy boots.

You little idiot, you’ll ruin everything. You have to fight it. Fight or run!

“Jo,” Laurie began, from the other side of the umbrella. His voice was low.

She could hardly breathe. What’s the matter with me?

“This is silly,” Jo finally said, clutching at the umbrella handle, shivering. She felt light-headed, like the storm was closing in on all sides. “It isn’t letting up, Teddy. The weather. Perhaps we should head back to our rooms. Change out of these wet clothes.”

Laurie beamed. “Jo, I have to tell you something. Another surprise.”

“Perhaps I’ve had enough with your surprises. Perhaps not today.” She looked away, down the street. “Look—is that the tea-room? Can you imagine, this whole time, it was right there.”

“Jo, just listen—”

She kept her eyes fixed on the glass doors of the little restaurant. “And we can’t stay long. We’ve got tickets to a show tonight, don’t we? The opera? Isn’t that surprise enough, already?”

“Si. Verdi, the Italian master.” His voice tensed as it always did when he recounted any of the operas his beloved mother had treasured in his youth. “La Traviata, the tale of the fallen woman, something the Italians pride themselves on knowing quite well, if memory serves.”

And like that, the moment had passed, just as it always did. She could sense the hurt in his voice; he was sulking. “But Italians aside, your biggest surprise is tomorrow.”

“Bigger than Meg and John Brooke?” Jo poked him between the ribs. “Come on, let’s go stuff our faces with pastries and tea, and you can tell me all about it, Teddy. Please. You know how you love spoiling your own surprises.” She felt like she was begging and she didn’t even know why. She wanted to hike up her muddy linen skirts and bolt.

But it was too late. The umbrella was sliding out of her hands. He was taking it from her. Taking her will and her courage with it.

Don’t.

The umbrella was in his hands now, all forty cents of it.

The rain was going to fall. There was nothing she or anyone could do to stop it.

That was the nature of rain.

“Don’t be afraid,” he said.

“I’m not,” she answered. Then she turned and fled.