Chapter Text
we were both young when i first saw you
love story
“You know, Meg,” probed Amy, skipping a little as she spoke, “Last week you said that if Jo was late one more time, you’d take away her library card.”
Meg, stalking down the sidewalk as a woman on a mission, puffed a little, unable to answer Amy from the exertion of both her stalking and anger.
“Don’t stir up trouble, Amy,” reprimanded Beth quietly, fiddling with the twist along the side of her head, “Or we all have to hear the dramatic wailing all night long.”
“I happen to like hearing Jo wail from time to time since she always gets whatever she wants,” responded Amy curtly, sticking her unshapely little nose into the air proudly as she followed behind Meg, the trio approaching the front doors of the high school.
“Ah, Miss Meg! Did you forget something?”
All turned at the sound of a voice, a teacher leaving the school building the same time they were entering it.
“Oh-Mr.-Brooke,” huffed Meg, her face purpling red as she tried to catch her breath, her knuckles turning white as she clutched her binder, “I just-my-younger sister.”
“You forgot your younger sister?” asked Mr. Brooke, running anxious hands over the length of his tie, and Meg managed to blush more, Amy looking up at her with wide eyes and open jaw.
“No, I-she’s supposed to meet us at the corner-so we all walk home-together-but she gets distracted in the library and then she reads for hours and we all worry,” explained Meg, having steadily caught her breath, and Mr. Brooke smiled and nodded, a flush consuming his cheeks as much as Meg’s.
“Well then I best not get in your way. I have lots of marking to do tonight anyway...you know, intern things,” laughed Mr. Brooke awkwardly, adjusting his bag on his shoulder, “I wish you ladies a good evening and I’ll see you tomorrow, Miss Meg.”
Meg laughed anxiously and nodded, watching as he continued making his way down the sidewalk, nearly tripping over an elevated crack in the concrete, before dropping her eyes to where Amy and Beth stared at her, Amy with a grin wider than a canyon and Beth with wide eyes and flushed cheeks.
“Neither of you say a word!” hissed Meg, grabbing onto the strap of Amy’s backpack and yanking her toward the doors of the school.
“Your teacher?!” giggled Amy, the thought of gaining the attention of a man older than she so enchanting to her, “Margaret March!”
“He’s an intern!” defended Meg, still hissing, “But I said not a word, Amy, and I mean it! I’m really steamed right now and I will snatch your paints as quickly as I take Josephine’s library card!”
Amy snapped her mouth closed, not even the most romantic of stories worth her paints, and Beth rubbed her nose, mumbling.
“Isn’t that illegal?”
Meg only whined in response, the equivalent of confirming it was, and pulled them deeper into the school until they reached the library doors, propped open despite the fact that all students had fled the building approximately two minutes after the bell.
Well... almost all.
“Josephine!” hissed Meg, smiling kindly at the librarian at the desk as she tiptoed deeper into the library, Beth ducking her head and scurrying past the stranger, and Amy curtsying daintily before she passed.
Jo, slouched over a table, six books in a stack while she was scanning the seventh, failed to hear Meg until Meg had stalked all the way to the table, hanging over Jo like a demon determined to plague her.
“Oh, Meg! There was a new shipment of books today and-”
“You were supposed to be at the corner nearly sixty minutes ago, Jo!” hissed Meg, looking around cautiously so as to not get in trouble, “Yet here you are!”
“I just forgot because Janine said-”
“Who is Janine?” asked Meg, scrunching her forehead, and Amy poked her head out from behind.
“Does Jo finally have a friend?”
“Oh, shut it, you little puke,” growled Jo angrily, glowering at a smug Amy, “Janine is the librarian and she said there was a new shipment and I just had to Meg, I had to!”
“No, what you had to do was be at the corner! So I will be taking that , thank you very much!”
Meg snatched Jo’s library card from the table, it’s surface worn away to non-existence and its cracks taped, and stuffed it into her pocket, Jo’s jaw dropping.
“But Meg if you take it now, I won’t be able to take out any of these books and-”
“And that’s the very point!” responded Meg, smiling happily, “Grab your backpack. We’re leaving.”
“Meg-aret! You can’t!” wailed Jo, sound cancellation be damned, “I need those books!”
“What I need is to complete a 1500 to 1800 word essay for Mrs. Kettling by tomorrow and I wanted to be starting it nearly half an hour ago, but you didn’t think about what other people needed, did you, Jo?” answered Meg hastily, failing to wait for a response before turning on her heel and marching from the library, Amy following proudly behind with upturned nose.
“It’ll be alright, Jo. She’ll give it back soon enough,” soothed Beth, picking up Jo’s backpack by its broken strap and holding it out to her before hurrying to keep up with her other sisters.
Jo, annoyed, puffed a stream of air from her lips so as to launch her frizzled bangs from her face, her arms crossed angrily, Meg having reached the front desk and apologizing to the librarian for any disruption.
“Just like Meg to apologize,” grumbled Jo, tossing the still working strap of her plain black backpack over her shoulder and looking to where a slim boy stood, scanning the shelf in determination, “Well, come on then. We ought to be going.”
“Are you sure? I thought you were intent on finding, uh, Of Mice And Men by-”
“Nah. I’ve read it before. It’s just been a while. Keep up!”
Jo called - harshly, she’d admit, but who could blame her when she lacked a precious library card? - over her shoulder as she slunk moodily from the library, giving Janine a salute as she passed.
“You almost left without me!” huffed the boy, having caught up to Jo outside the library, and he fought to get the second strap of his backpack over his shoulder, hopping along beside her awkwardly.
“I told you to keep up. If you chose not to, that’s your fault,” argued Jo mercurially, her arms having crossed themselves again and she slumped as she walked.
“A fair enough admonishment albeit slightly harsh,” conceded the boy, his strides wide as he hopped beside Jo - his good and indulgent nature bothering Jo’s sour one - and Jo huffed when Meg called over her shoulder.
“Oh, Jo, don’t wallow! You still have books at home and, if you can be at the corner on time tomorrow, I’ll give you the card back. I have enough to look after with Marmee away to keep track of your broken piece of plastic.”
“Well, I think that Jo should have to go without things. Aunt March always says that actions have condolences!”
“Consequences,” corrected Beth, fiddling with a dandelion she had picked from the side of the path they now tread.
“That’s what I said,” concluded Amy confidently, “and so I think that Jo ought to exfoliate!”
“Expiate, Amy, and don’t talk too big for your britches,” reprimanded Meg, “We all have things to expiate for and, as Marmee says, there should always be room for gra-”
“Ugh, are we home yet? My feet are so sore they feel like cantaloupes!” whined Amy, throwing her head back as she wailed, and Jo glowered at her from behind.
“Maybe your feet wouldn’t be so sore, you little puke,” growled Jo angrily, “if you wore proper shoes to school instead of those ridiculous cat heels.”
“They are called kitty heels, Josephine March, as any lady of condolence-”
“Consequence,” interjected Beth again.
“-would know! And I simply have to wear them because, as you all know, I have the most elegant feet of the family and they make that May Chesterfield so jealous she turns positively green ! In adequation-”
“Addition,” from Beth once more.
“-Marcus Bloomsberg said they make me the perfect height for kissing and, since I am in the sixth grade now, I must begin preparing for a career full of kissing so that I may be the best painter and kisser in all of the world when I tour it.”
“Amy, that is a horrible thing to say,” scoffed Meg, “Marmee won’t have one of her girls traipsing around the world leaving a string of broken hearts.”
Amy continued declaring all the feats she was planning to achieve on her ‘tour de monde’, finding her imaginings took her mind off her aching feet, as Meg and Beth listened and Jo continued along at the back of the group, the boy bumping her shoulder after a while.
“What do you want?” asked Jo huffily, looking across the road to where a little boy was playing in the yard as his mom raked the final leaves into a garbage bag, the first snowfall reported to come on the weekend.
“In reference to Of Mice and Men , what are your thoughts on the impossibility of the American Dream?”
Jo frowned but looked up at him all the same.
“My thoughts?”
“Yeah. Do you think Steinbeck holds water in his declaration of its impossibility or-”
“First of all, you’re going about this all wrong,” argued Jo, uncrossing her arms to wave them about, “Steinbeck never declared anything and that’s where the great power of his writing lies. He left all interpretation to the reader, as any writer who is serious about their trade should. Hemingway’s Hills Like White Elephants is an impeccable example wherein Hemingway never states anything about an abortion or even a baby. However, Hemingway uses the idea of ‘white elephants’ in two ways: the first is the fact that a white elephant is a commonly used phrase for something that is expensive, useless, and impossible to dispose of and the second is that of addressing ‘the elephant in the room’ or having the conversation neither the man nor the girl desired to have. Yet ! Hemingway states neither because that is the power that separates a good writer from a great one.”
Jo inhaled, having hardly paused for breath, and shook her head.
“All the same, I digress.”
“Agreed,” chuckled the boy, earning a swift swat from Jo before she continued.
“My thoughts on the American Dream match the cynicism of Steinbeck. Lennie, George, Candy, and even bitter old Crooks dream of a life different than the one they have. They dream of happiness untainted by the woes of this world and freedom to follow everything they’ve ever longed for. Such hopes are for fools, no matter how loud the call of some American Dream. And thus Crook’s bitterness proves more true than George thought at the beginning. Freedom, happiness, even safety are unobtainable in full. You’re never fully free, never fully happy, never fully safe. And even if you get all you’ve ever wanted, you can’t get there without cutting down everything in your way. So you get what you want, but you lose all that you had. It’s a very-”
Jo froze when Meg, Amy, and Beth had all turned to stare at her in alarm. Meg was shocked, Amy awestruck, Beth terrified, and Jo scowled, annoyed at the interruption.
“What?!”
“Jo, who is this?” hissed Meg, covering her mouth and jerking her thumb at the boy standing by Jo as if he wasn’t only two feet away and still able to hear her.
“Huh? Oh, this is Teddy.”
“How long has he been there ?” asked Meg, forcing a smile onto her face when she glanced at the boy.
“Uh...since forever?”
Interrupting the conversation, the boy shuffled forward and waved a little.
“My apologies for not introducing myself. Terribly rude behaviour on my part, but I didn’t want to interrupt the conversation you were having. My name is Theodore Laurence, but I prefer to just go by Laurie, and I’m your next door neighbour. First house on the hill- the white one.”
“Oh! You’re um the Laurence boy! The rich-I mean, the bohemian- I mean, the Italian-or-”
“Good God, Meg,” snivelled Jo in disgust, Laurie laughing it off as if it were nothing, and Meg flashed Jo an irritated gaze.
“How did you find the likeness of Jo then? Or perhaps I should declare you cursed with it,” teased Meg, continuing their walk and pulling Amy along by her backpack, the girl so enraptured with the older boy she had done very little but stare at him since she noticed him.
“Well, Jo-”
“Ah bup bup! I will tell the story!” interrupted Jo, “And you’ll all be pleased to know I was a good person!”
“Wow,” drawled Amy, trying to keep her feet from catching on one another and sending her tumbling forward before wailing dramatically when Jo swatted the back of her head, “Meg!”
“So I was headed to the library after the lunch bell rang, right? And I see this loser-”
“Oh, Jo,” tsked Meg, mouthing an apology to Laurie who shrugged.
“-getting picked on by Alan and Sammy! They’re calling him gay and a foreigner and whatever and so I’m like ‘listen, bitches-”
“You shouldn’t use that language, Jo,” mumbled Beth shakily, her hands trembling as she continued fiddling with her dandelion.
“-I could always tell him about insert embarrassing story here that is inappropriate to say in front of Amy-”
“Hey! That’s mean and I just know you’re gonna tell Meg once you banish me off to bed!” whined Amy, still being dragged along by her backpack strap, but Jo paid her no mind.
“-and they were all ‘let’s go’ and ‘the Italian twink isn’t worth it’ and-”
“What does ‘twink’ mean?” asked Amy before pouting when Meg shushed her.
“-so then I said to Teddy that he had to stick up for himself or they were just going to keep doing it and then I said ‘but until you figure out how to do that, you can always hang with me in the library’ and then we went to the library but the new shipment hadn’t arrived yet so we grabbed a Guinness Book of World Records, sat on the bean bag chair, and made each other guess the records! Anyway, it proved itself to be lots of fun and then we found out we had History together so we sat beside each other and Teddy doodled me a blue-footed boobie, my favourite animal!”
“You spent that much time with Jo and didn’t pull all of your hair out?” questioned Amy, looking up at Laurie in disbelief, and Laurie laughed.
“Well you tell me, Miss March. Do I have a large bald spot atop my head?”
Laurie leaned down, butting Amy gently with his head, and she giggled, Meg grinning, and even Beth cracking a smile before Jo yanked Laurie’s arm.
“Look! We’re home! Not that I’m thoroughly excited because I have nothing to read! ” hollered Jo, Meg glancing around frantically in case they had disturbed other homes.
“You can always borrow any book from my library,” offered Laurie, shrugging, “It’s very extensive. Thousands of shelved books.”
Jo gasped, staring at him in awe, but Meg whimpered.
“Oh, Laurie! She was supposed to not have books so she’s at the corner on time!” reprimanded Meg defeatedly, but before Laurie could utter an apology, Jo gripped his arm and yanked him down the sidewalk, away from the path leading to the March household and up the hill toward the Laurences.
“Well, he already said I could borrow!” called Jo over her shoulder, pulling Laurie behind her as she ran, “I’ll see you all later because I’ll be over at Teddy’s!”
“Jo, it’s rude to just invite yourself into people’s-and she’s gone,” finished Meg, inhaling and shaking her head as she watched the pair of them, giggling as they ran, Laurie much faster than Jo.
“Let her have this one, Meg,” advised Beth, moving toward their front door, “Look at how happy she is.”
And Meg watched, noticing for the first time that Jo was happy to have gained a friend, a feat not common to one as outspoken as Jo, before turning down the path after Beth and beckoning Amy along.
“Isn’t Laurie just so romantic?” sighed Amy but she earned no response, Meg having flung herself at the table to begin working on her essay and Beth already situated at the piano.
Amy huffed in slight annoyance before rushing up the stairs and into her room, looking out her window to see Jo and Laurie as they bounded up the stairs leading to his large house and inside its vastness.
“He’s so charming,” breathed Amy to herself, her breath fogging up the chilled glass, “He talks so elegantly and gracefully with his ‘my apologies’ and ‘terribly rude behaviour’ and ‘it’s very extensive’ and did you see the way he dresses?”
Amy moved away from the window to sit on her bed, picking up one of her dolls and fiddling with its braids as she spoke to it.
“Oh, Bridget, my kitty heels were nothing compared to the lavishness of Laurie. He was wearing leather dress shoes, grey dress pants, and a black polka-dotted dress shirt. He dressed so elegantly. Ooh, and his socks had little sharks on them! The look on May Chesterfield’s face if I arrived at school dressed in such lavish clothing.”
Amy flopped backward onto her bed, holding her doll above her face.
“And he smelled like the woods in summer and his hair-so soft and wavy-and his eyes beg to be painted and-”
“Who are you talking to?”
“Jo!” Amy shot up into a standing position, clutching her doll to her chest as she felt it’s racing lub-dub underneath her ribcage. “You terrified me! I thought you were over at Laurie’s house.”
“I was, but then I came here to grab my splashing outfit because Laurie and I are going to go splashing in the pond behind his house.”
“Can I-” began Amy, throwing her doll on her bed, but Jo scowled and shook her head.
“No. Teddy and I are splashing alone and you haven’t even opened your schoolwork yet. Oh, but I think he’s brought over some cinnamon buns his butler made. Fucking simp.”
Jo rushed from the door and Amy scowled, annoyed she was left out of the splashing, before Meg called up to her.
“Amy, Laurie’s brought over some cinnamon buns! Come down and be thankful for them?”
Amy sighed at Meg’s constant goodness but obeyed all the same, stomping down the stairs to see an amused Laurie in the entrance, looking - to Amy’s annoyance now - lavish in even his splashing outfit.
“Thank you for the cinnamon buns,” offered Amy quietly, glowering at Jo who fought to get her rubber boots on when her bucket hat kept falling in her eyes.
“You’re most welcome, Miss March.”
Amy looked at Laurie with wide, mesmerized eyes, unable to repress her blush when he called her Miss March. Like people did with Meg .
“Alright, Teddy, let’s go!” declared Jo, fixing her hat as Meg called after them.
“No being at the pond after dark! That includes you, Theodore Laurence! I’ll be damned if one of you gets hurt!”
“Il tuo desiderio è il nostro comando! Your wish is our command!” responded Laurie, closing the door behind him, and Amy sighed wistfully.
Laurie Laurence is going to be my trouble , she thought, or perhaps my ‘tour de monde’.