She tried not to be envious or discontented, but it was very natural that the young girl should long for pretty things, gay friends, accomplishments, and a happy life.
—Little Women
The conversation with Andrea kept poking into my thoughts long after she left and I sat through an evening of spaghetti and dodging questions about my “interview.” If that was what it had been.
It was like eating popcorn and then spending days picking shards of kernel out of your gums. There were parts of our talk I was still digesting, and I wanted to have answers before Andrea approached me again. Assuming she hadn’t written me off as a boring teenager with nothing intelligent to say.
So yeah, I had some processing to do. Little things like Who am I? and What am I passionate about? The first opportunity for quality thinking came Wednesday afternoon. New Beth was being fitted for her costume, which meant I could stay after school for track practice. It was a distance workout, so double bonus. There weren’t enough miles between here and the edge of town to figure it all out, but an hour of pounding the pavement should at least shake loose a few clues.
While most of my teammates opted for a route that would take them along the access road by the highway where they could buy a Powerade from the gas station, I headed for the park.
“Jo. Wait up.”
I slowed but didn’t stop, glancing back over my shoulder as David caught up to me.
“Okay if I run with you?”
I jerked my head in a yes. Even though I’d deliberately set a bruising pace to keep other people from joining me, David wasn’t other people. I was glad he’d sought me out. It was further evidence that things between us had officially thawed, or cooled off, or settled—some state of matter.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Fine.”
There was a David-like lag, during which I probably would have been able to hear the thoughts churning in his brain if my breath hadn’t been whooshing in and out so loudly. “I thought maybe you were having a crisis.”
“Why do you say that?”
“You’re kind of hauling ass right now.”
“I have a lot on my mind,” I said, taking the pace down a notch.
We split up to jog around a woman pushing a double stroller. “School tours?” he asked as we met up again, feet hitting the sidewalk in sync.
“No.” I tightened my ponytail. “But thanks for reminding me of the worst day of the year.”
“Did something happen at auditions?”
“Nah. New Beth is awesome. She’s giving Amy fits.”
“And of course you hate to see Amy suffer.”
“It’s killing me on the inside.” I would have happily left it at that, but David was still waiting for me to fess up. “It’s more of a personal thing.”
“Oh. Sorry.” His shoulders hitched up toward his ears, like he was trying to disappear.
“You think I’m talking about my period, don’t you?”
“No?”
I might have laughed at David’s squirming, but I didn’t have the oxygen to spare. “It’s just.” Pound, pound, pound. “The future.”
He waited for me to go on. Which was tricky, since I was basically one giant question mark. I flapped an elbow at him. “What about you?”
“Me?”
“Do you have a plan? Big picture.”
“Uh, not really. I mean, I know some things.”
“Like?”
“I don’t want to be a billionaire industrialist polluting the environment and exploiting the poor.”
“Me neither.”
“There you go.” He grinned at me.
“I think my life plan needs to be a little more detailed than that.”
“Really? I thought we still had time to figure it out. Since we’re not even old enough to buy beer.”
“Greta Thunberg was a teenager when she gave that speech to the UN.”
“That was amazing,” he conceded.
At one point I’d suspected David of harboring a crush on Greta Thunberg—until he went for Meg, who was the least activist person I knew.
“It’s really two separate problems.” He held up two fingers like a peace sign while we waited for a break in traffic. “What do you want to do with your life, and what can you tell everyone else so they’ll leave you alone?”
“How about ‘I’m joining a cult’?” I suggested as we jogged across the street to the park. “Oh wait! I’m already in one.”
A partially paved path wound through the trees and around the grassy areas, far enough from the playground that we wouldn’t have to dodge little kids. Street sounds gave way to the chirping of birds as we started the loop.
“You like being outside,” David said. “And doing physical stuff. Maybe you can look for jobs where you get to be active, in nature.”
“So . . . lumberjack?”
“Worth it for the wardrobe.”
I tried to imagine telling Andrea I’d chosen a direction in life based on my deep love of flannel. Doing something ecological did appeal to me. I probably would have signed up for the environmental science class next year if it didn’t attract so many idiots in search of an easy C. Case in point: half of Meg’s friend group was taking it this semester.
“Do you think I’m a loser?” Even though I was deliberately not looking at him, I heard the change in rhythm as David’s steps faltered. “Am I going to be forty years old and still stuck here, acting out scenes from Little Women with my sisters?”
“That’s . . . pretty hard to imagine.”
I grunted, lunging sideways to avoid a fallen branch. “Did you know Andrea filled up a whole passport by the time she was twenty-three? I don’t even know how many countries that is.” It wasn’t like I’d ever seen a passport in person, much less held one of my own.
“Andrea?”
“The one who’s writing the article.”
David lifted the neck of his T-shirt to blot the sweat from his upper lip. “Pretty easy to do when someone else is footing the bill. Doesn’t she come from money?”
“Why do you say that?”
“Just an attitude, I guess.”
“You met her?”
“Your mom introduced us. When I stopped by your house to update her on the bridge.”
“Nice of you to humor her.” He looked like he wanted to say more, but I wasn’t interested in discussing my mother’s landscaping fantasies. “So you met Andrea.”
“Briefly.”
“And, what, she fired off one of those money guns and that’s why you think she’s loaded?”
He shook his head, but I could see the telltale crinkle at the corner of his eye. David thought I was funny. “She just seemed confident. Like someone who always gets what she wants. And doesn’t have to worry about paying for it.”
I thought of Andrea’s boots, her leather bag, the watch that was probably a status brand. If she was rich, then so was Hudson, though it wasn’t like he made constant references to his second home in Tuscany with the infinity pool or carried a big wad of bills in his pocket. Part of me wanted to ask David if he’d met Hudson, too, but it would have been like dropping a barbell in the middle of the conversation. Zero percent subtle.
“Maybe it’s because she’s accomplished so much,” I suggested. “And she’s kind of famous.”
“Did she tell you that herself? ‘I’m kind of a big deal’?”
I tried to shove him, but he leaped out of the way.
“I’m serious. She’s had a big life, out in the world. Like Margaret Fuller.”
There was a patch of mud in the path ahead. David fell behind me for a few strides until the ground was dry again. “Should I know who that is?”
“She was like Louisa May Alcott, but better. They lived at the same time, in the same places, knew the same people. Only instead of getting stuck at home and being her family’s cash cow, Margaret Fuller was this independent career woman who moved to Italy and shacked up with a hot young nobleman. Why couldn’t my mom have modeled her life on someone like that?”
“Is that the dream?” He glanced at me sidelong. “A hot guy with an accent?”
“Don’t forget the castle.”
“Fair. Although Alcott’s the one people still talk about.” Even panting with exertion, David sounded calm and reasonable. “Just because she didn’t move to Italy and shack up with Count Ravioli doesn’t mean her life sucked. I thought she ended up famous and rich.”
“If you overlook the mercury poisoning and chronic pain and all her hair falling out.”
David frowned at my ponytail, which was thick and heavy and making my head sweat like a sprinkler, though hopefully he couldn’t see that part. “Is that something you’re worried about?”
“No, I’m worried I’ll never figure out what I want because everyone expects me to stay here and keep doing the same thing forever. Like Louisa May Alcott. But with hair. Not that I’m obsessed with my hair.” No matter what Amy said.
A short spur of sidewalk branched off ahead, ending at a picnic shelter and drinking fountain. David tipped his head in silent inquiry, then veered off at my nod. The water was warm, emerging in a sluggish trickle. After I’d bent over to drink for what felt like ten minutes, I cupped my hand to splash my face. David waited until I’d finished wiping the drips off my nose and mouth to speak.
“Have you talked to your mom?”
I grabbed my ankle and pulled it up behind me as if I had an urgent need to stretch my quad, when in fact I was stalling for time.
“Do you need help?” David looked from my face to my leg, and then away again like he’d gotten caught doing something wrong.
“I’m fine.”
“We can do the partner stretch. If you want.” He wiped his forehead on the back of his hand, not meeting my eyes.
“Now that you’re lubed up?”
His cheeks flushed a deeper red as he rubbed his arm against his slightly less damp T-shirt. The mechanics of the two-person quad stretch we’d learned at practice involved lying on the ground while your partner braced one hand on your hip and used the other to grab your ankle and gently tug it toward your butt. The idea was that the one with the spasming quad could focus all their energy on relaxing tense muscles.
Because that was definitely going to happen if David straddled me, gripping my ass like a steering wheel. Just imagining it made my knee wobble so badly I almost tipped over and had to grab his shoulder for balance. He put a hand at my waist to steady me.
“Sorry,” we said at the same time.
“Why are you sorry? I’m the one who almost took you down.” I smoothed his shirt, hoping I hadn’t permanently twisted the neckline out of shape.
“Yeah, but I made it weird.”
“‘Hey, baby, let me stretch your quad’? Guys yell that at me all the time from passing cars. Anyway, I’m the one who brought up lube.”
David choked, covering his mouth with his wrist, and I took a step back, glad I’d made him laugh, and relieved we’d changed the subject. I knew he was trying to help, with my quad and my emotional troubles, but there was no point talking to anyone in my family. They were terrible listeners, too full of their own agendas to take in anything new. Not like David. You could spill your guts to him without worrying he’d freak or urge you to look on the bright side. Besides, Mom knew how I felt, and I knew she didn’t want to hear any more about it. Especially now, while she was desperate to impress Andrea with our performance as the perfect family.
I glanced at my watch. “Should we get going?”
It wasn’t really a question. I launched myself back toward the path, knowing David would follow.