“You are a wilful child, and you’ve lost more than you know by this piece of folly.”
—Little Women
When I walked into the kitchen Wednesday evening, Amy and Mom were sitting at the table, heads bent together as they studied what appeared to be another press release. My sister was twirling a red pen between her fingers. Circles and slash marks dotted the page.
I wondered how they were selling the casting change. New this summer: a different Meg! Like we were Happy Meal prizes and someone out there would be desperate to collect the whole set.
This was probably a good time to tell them about some other changes, so they didn’t have to send out back-to-back announcements. All I had to do was open my mouth and say—
“Holy crap!” Amy pointed at me. “Your one freaking beauty.”
I pressed a hand to the back of my neck. It was weird to feel exposed skin. My eyes slid to my mother, trying to gauge her reaction. Right now, she seemed to be stuck on shocked. Maybe in a minute or two she’d work around to telling me I looked okay.
“I cut my hair.” Not exactly news at this point, but no one else was saying anything. Maybe I should have put it in a press release.
“We’re doing the hair scene?” Amy’s face screwed up in thought, probably wondering how she could make Jo chopping off all her hair more Amy-centric.
“I hadn’t planned on it.” Mom’s eyes were still wider than normal. “Jo?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you keep the hair?”
“What?”
“That they cut off,” she explained, like that was the confusing part.
“Ooh, that would be dramatic.” Amy rubbed her hands together. “We could glue it to a comb, and then in the middle of the scene, snip”—her fingers made a cutting motion—“it all falls down. The audience gasps!” She made a sound like a garbage disposal.
“I didn’t keep the hair.”
Amy shook her head, like this was yet another example of my constant failure to anticipate her theatrical genius. “What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t do it for the show.” It hadn’t occurred to me that my family would assume my haircut was an homage to Little Women Live! Which was probably foolish, but I had other things on my mind.
My sister settled back into her chair, studying me. “So, what, you wanted to be less attractive?”
“I like short hair. I’ve always wanted to try it.” I shrugged. “Laurie likes it.”
“No he doesn’t!”
“He said so himself.” What he’d actually said (after a double take), when I ran into him coming out of the Burrito Express next to the cheapo haircut place: Whoa, JoJo! You make a hot dude!
“These things happen in the life of a woman,” Mom told Amy. She was getting on top of the narrative—figuring out an uplifting spin. “At some point we all experience the urge to do something radical to our hair. Especially after a breakup. You should have seen my bangs the summer before college!”
We were seconds away from busting out old photo albums. “I cut my hair for a reason.”
Mom nodded, a sympathetic half smile curving her lips. “I understand, Jo. It was a symbolic gesture.”
“No, it was a practical decision.” I jerked my chin at Amy. “Like she said.”
Amy laughed. “I never told you to do that to yourself. Do I look like someone with zero taste?”
Forcing myself not to get sucked into another round of Amy ’n’ Jo Go to the Mats, I turned to our mother. “I sold it.”
“Oh, Jo. You didn’t have to do that.” Mom’s eyes welled up. “I told you, we’re going to figure it out.”
I shook my head, annoyed I couldn’t pause to enjoy the swing of my newly shorn hair. The style was asymmetrical, a pixie cut on one side and closer to a bob on the other. I’d thought it was cool and even kind of cute until these two reacted like I was in a full-body cast with a face full of scabs. “I needed the money.”
“Am I the only one in this family who isn’t a criminal?” Amy asked the ceiling, slapping the table for emphasis.
“I used it for a ticket. To New York.” It turned out Amy was right: you could sell long hair that had never been chemically treated for hundreds of dollars—enough for a one-way trip on an airline I was pretty sure had been in business longer than a week. “Just like in the book.”
I tacked on the last part in case that made it easier for them to swallow.
Mom put a hand to her throat. “I don’t understand.”
“Book Jo sold her hair to buy a ticket for Marmee, not herself!” Amy stabbed a finger at me, like we were in a courtroom and she’d just caught me in a lie.
“I guess I’m not exactly like her, then, am I?”
“That’s for sure.” I could see the calculation in my sister’s eyes: Was that enough of an insult? It took her a couple of blinks to decide. “Because you’re totally selfish.”
“I’m allowed to think about myself. Someone has to.”
Mom placed a hand on Amy’s arm, silently telling her to zip it. “What’s going on, Jo?” You can tell me anything, her tone said. I won’t get mad. It would have been perfect if I’d been a three-year-old who’d broken her toy and then tried to hide it.
I squared my shoulders. “If Meg can leave, so can I.”
“We can talk about next summer, possibly, but there’s no way we can have both of you gone at the same time.” Mom made a helpless gesture with her hand, like it was outside the realm of possibility. Not even worth discussing.
“We have more cousins.” Apparently I needed to spell it out. “Jasper said he’d do it.”
“Jasper?” If my sister’s jaw dropped any lower, it would hit the table.
“Why not? He was a great Beth.”
She looked from me to our mother. “Is this a trick question? Because my leg warmers could play Beth.”
“I think it would be interesting,” I countered. “A different angle on all the times Jo wishes she were a boy.”
“Let’s set all that aside for a moment.” Mom made a sweeping motion with one arm. “You can’t go to New York by yourself.”
“I won’t be alone. I’m going to stay with Andrea and Hudson.”
“They invited you to visit? Now—with the summer season about to start?”
I couldn’t tell who she felt more let down by, Andrea or me. It might have softened the blow to know the answer wasn’t quite that clear-cut. If you added up all the times Andrea had said things like, If there’s ever anything I can do or Look me up when you’re in the city, the invitation was strongly implied. But I had a feeling that if I explained that to Mom, she would insist on calling Andrea. “She needs an assistant.”
“What about Mr. Underfed?” Amy asked.
“Hudson doesn’t want to work for his mom. He hasn’t for a long time.” I didn’t explicitly draw the parallel between his situation and mine, but Mom’s flinch suggested it came through loud and clear. Which wasn’t what I was trying to achieve. It’s not about you, Mom. Somehow, I didn’t think shouting that at her would help.
“It’ll be a good experience,” I said instead. “A great opportunity for . . . making connections. Networking.”
Amy snorted. “Pretentious, party of one.”
“I just want to go somewhere, see new things. Why is that so wrong?”
“There’s more to life than wanting.” Mom shook her head sadly. “We have responsibilities to other people.”
That was the difference between my mother and Andrea in a nutshell. Mom was stuck in Little Women mode, where desire was a thing to be shoved aside in favor of doing your duty—as defined by someone else. Do this; don’t do that. Andrea understood that sometimes you had to be bold. Decide for yourself how to live.
I felt the ice inside me creeping from my heart up to my head. It helped shut out the devastated expression on Mom’s face, and the guilt trying to sink its claws into me. Standing up for myself was not the same as being a jerk.
“I bought the ticket with my own money. I didn’t steal from anyone.”
“And yet you still managed to totally suck,” Amy retorted.
“But Jo.” Mom fixed me with a pleading look. “You’re Jo.”
“No, I’m not. Not really.”
“Been saying that for years,” my sister huffed.
“It’s just so sudden. Where did all of this come from?”
I stared at my mother. Had my lips been moving with no sound coming out? This was why I had to leave. They were never going to listen to me otherwise.
Amy threw herself on our mother, wrapping both arms around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Marmee. I’ll never abandon you. I’ll play all the parts if I have to.”
Mom patted Amy’s shoulder, but her smile was distracted. “You and Beth. Or rather . . . Liliana.” The pause suggested I wasn’t the only one who’d forgotten New Beth’s real name.
Amy sat back. “I wouldn’t count on her. You know how Beths are. Always one foot out the door.”