“I shall have to toil and moil all my days, with only little bits of fun now and then, and get old and ugly and sour, because I’m poor, and can’t enjoy my life as other girls do.”
—Little Women
The weeks between school tours and the start of the regular performance season were usually the calm before a storm—a brief respite from total immersion in Little Women Live! We ran a limited rehearsal schedule, supposedly to accommodate finals and term papers but really because it reduced the number of work hours for Laurie and Beth, saving us money on payroll. This year it felt like disaster had already made landfall, leaving everyone battered.
To Mom’s relief, Meg would still get her diploma, assuming she passed all her classes, but she wasn’t allowed to walk across the stage in her cap and gown (which had already been rented, no refunds allowed) or participate in any other graduation activities.
With Hudson gone and no idea how to patch things up with David, I spent a lot of time going on long runs alone. Whenever possible, I made an excuse to miss family dinners, eating leftovers later at night. The menu was heavy on rice and beans, an unfortunate combo with the scratchy toilet paper Mom bought in bulk. It was anyone’s guess which would kill us first: credit-card interest or hemorrhoids.
One evening I was headed for my room with a bowl of off-brand cornflakes when I stumbled across Amy in the darkened hallway. Literally—I braced the hand not holding my bowl against the wall, steadying myself from the impact. “What are you—”
“Shhhhh!”
I took a moment to assess the situation: light under a doorway, muffled speech, Amy being a creeper. She was eavesdropping on our mother. My initial theory was that Mom must be talking to Meg, but the rhythm of pauses made it clear this was a phone call. Also I knew Meg was in the tub, because the bathroom door had been locked for ages, and the whole upstairs smelled like lavender and eucalyptus.
“Who’s she talking to?” I thought I was whispering. The attempt must not have been up to my sister’s Super Spy standards, because she tugged me down the hall to my room and closed the door behind us.
“It’s Dad.” She opened her eyes so wide, I once again questioned whether Amy had learned human behavior from watching cartoons.
I licked milk off my hand. “And?”
She started to answer, then broke off, pinching the end of her nose. “It reeks in here. Are you trying to kill me?”
I kicked a pile of dirty running clothes toward my closet. “One, I didn’t ask you to come into my room. And two, I sweat.”
“Yeah, but do you Febreze?”
“Focus.” I snapped my fingers in her face. “What’s going on?”
She tipped her head back and shook out her hair. I recognized her Speech Incoming face. “They’re talking about Meg.” Pause, inhale, significant glance. “And her troubles.”
I was tempted to grab Amy’s eyebrows and hold them still to stop the aerobics routine happening on her face. “You know about it?”
“Meg’s life of crime? Duh.”
Secrets never lasted long in this house, between the listening at doors and the pathological need to talk about our inner lives (while totally ignoring all the external issues). “So what’s the deal?”
“Unknown. But something’s definitely going down.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious.”
Amy crossed her arms, expression smug.
“What?” She was probably faking, but there was a slim chance she’d uncovered valuable intel.
“I don’t want to bore you. Since you already know everything.”
What would it be like to have simple conversations with your family, instead of jumping through a flaming hoop every time you tried to ask a question?
“Fine.” Amy sighed like she couldn’t take any more of my begging. “I’ll tell you. Before she called Dad, Mom was on the phone with Aunt Joyce.”
Okay, that was surprising. Our mother and her only sister had been on the outs as long as I could remember. Which was weird, considering they were both obsessed with old novels. Aunt Joyce was on the English faculty at a small liberal-arts college a few hours away. Her husband was also a literature professor, and four of their five kids were hard-core readers. The youngest, Jasper, was more like me: trying to lead a normal life despite being surrounded by book-loving freaks.
Amy dropped onto my bed. “It makes sense, when you think about it.”
“What does?”
“Mom reaching out to Aunt Joyce.” She stretched out full-length, punching my pillow a few times before folding it in half.
“Make yourself comfortable.”
“Thanks.” Her ability to selectively tune out sarcasm would have been impressive if it weren’t so annoying. “Who else are you going to turn to when your life is in the crapper?” After a second or two she added an “ahem” to let me know I was missing my cue.
I shook my head.
“Your sister,” Amy supplied. “The beauty of the sisterly bond—”
“Nope. We’re not doing a scene.”
“Mom prolly hit up Auntie Joyce for some cash monies, okay? Since Meg is a kleptaholic now.”
“Uh-huh.” Several things about this theory struck me as sketchy, beyond the non-words. First and foremost, I doubted our cousins had much money to spare. Amy must have read the doubt on my face, because she quickly changed the subject.
“I’m surprised David hasn’t been around more. Now that your little city boy is gone.”
“I don’t see why that would matter.” I managed to say this without an eye twitch, even though talking about the two of them together felt like bending a finger in the wrong direction.
“You might want to crack a window. The smell of BS is getting pretty strong.”
“That’s actual manure. It was mixed with the compost.” I picked up the old pair of running shoes I used for yard work, carefully turning them over to inspect the treads. Probably I should have taken them off outside.
Amy launched herself off my bed, pulling the comforter halfway onto the floor. At the door she spun to stare at me. “I guess we’ll see who really knows this family.”
Another downside of spending your formative years onstage: no one could simply leave a room. It had to be An Exit.