A Handbag for Rilla


It was half past noon, which meant that Rilla Blythe should have been learning how to calculate the cosine of an angle. Instead, she was standing in front of Nita's Boutique on Park Street, riveted by the handbag on display in the window. It was perfect. Chic and well-made and the very shade of rich green that was made for Rilla, bringing out the red-brown shades of her complexion and what she thought of as her creaminess.*

"Oooo!" Olive squealed. "It's divine!"

Irene wrinkled her nose. "I don't know. Isn't it a little . . . dull? It looks like a granny bag, if you ask me."

No one had. Certainly not Rilla, who heard nothing but the siren song of Italian leather. It lured her inexorably into the shop, beckoning until she looped the handles over her shoulder and sighed into the mirror.

A saleswoman with an angular black bob and winged eyeliner β€” possibly Nita herself β€” took up where Olive had left off. "What a marvelous color on you! It suits you beautifully."

It did. Rilla turned one way and another, admiring the bag's luster, which was undimmed by the reflection of Irene's frown.

"It's very practical as well," Nita said. "Big enough to carry everything you need for the day, and there's a pocket here so that your phone is always accessible. We have a 5% discount for Redmond students, too."

Rilla blushed at being taken for a college girl. She could almost see herself as one, the sort of girl who carried a leather tote rather than a backpack, who popped into a boutique between classes without the slightest worry about being caught playing hooky. The bag fit snugly against her side, the leather picking up her body heat as if it were part of her already. The color was perfect, the feel was perfect, the price was . . .

Rilla sucked in a sharp breath. The price tag may as well have bitten her. She couldn't. Really, it was dreadful. Rilla's stomach dropped with disappointment. This was her bag, made and meant for her as clearly as if it had been designed on commission. How could she walk out of this store and leave it behind? But that awful price . . .

"You know," said Irene, "I believe I've changed my mind. Now that I see it up close, it's really a nice bag after all. Let me see how it looks on me."

Irene held out her hand and Rilla made up her mind.

"You can hold it for a minute, Irene," she said sweetly. "But I'm taking it home."

They stayed out all afternoon, searching fruitlessly for boots that fit Olive's exacting specifications and getting milkshakes at a perkily retro diner. Usually, Rilla would have gone for the Peanut Butter Fudge Supreme, but neither her stomach nor her wallet was up to the challenge. Rilla scrounged an assortment of change from the recesses of her wallet for plain vanilla, knowing that she was skating very close to the overdraft line, if she hadn't crossed it already. Still, every time she looked down at her side, Rilla knew she had made the right choice. This was confirmed when she posted an #ootd selfie to Instagram and had twenty likes within five minutes.

😍soooo cute

u look amazing!

❀️that bag!

The giddy feeling lasted until Irene dropped her off at Ingleside at an hour that could plausibly have been after swim practice. Standing in the kitchen with her friends gone and her phone out of sight, Rilla was assailed by qualms. The bright brass hardware and fetching little tassels that had been so elegant in the boutique seemed elaborate and fussy here. How had she ever imagined that she could carry this to school instead of her backpack? It was entirely too conspicuous. And that dreadful price tag!

Queasy panic surged and Rilla knew she must run back downtown and return the bag before it was too late. Should she call Jem? No, he couldn't keep his mouth shut. Too bad John didn't have a car. She'd have to call a cab and to hell with the overdraft fee. But first . . . Rilla reached for her phone to delete her Instagram post before anyone else saw it . . . and groaned.

NitasBoutique: Looks fab on you! πŸ’ƒ

Why oh why had she tagged the shop? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Hot frustration built in Rilla's sinuses, but she would not cry over a stupid bag! She might, though. If only she could get to her room without anyone seeing her!

Rilla was halfway down the hall when Joy rounded the corner. Oh, why was this godforsaken house always teeming with people just when you wanted it empty?

"Hey," Joy said casually. "How was your day?"

"Fine."

Joy's gaze sharpened and Rilla endeavored to affect an attitude of unimpeachable blandness. "Just going to get some homework done before supper."

Rilla might have slipped away clean except that she knocked the green bag against Joy's wheel on her way past.

"New bag?"

Rilla did not stop to apologize or to explain, but hurried down the hall to fling herself onto her bed. The pale green duvet welcomed her with a soft puff. She lay still, listening to the milkshake gurgle in her stomach. Rilla pressed a hand to her belly and gave a little moan of disgust. Dairy only bothered her when she was on her period and she couldn't be due again β€” she'd just had it three weeks ago! She wasn't likely to forget, not when it had started the day of the swim meet against Kingsport West and she'd been four seconds off her best in the freestyle relay. Not that Rilla hadn't been very glad to get it of course, after . . . well, it was good to be certain. Still, the milkshake was hurting her and she wished she had grabbed a hot water bottle from the kitchen when she had the chance.

Homework held no allure. Neither did social media, though a quick check confirmed that her #ootd continued to rack up good numbers. Instead, Rilla put on some music and let Candy Crush sweep her away on a mindless wave of bright-hued oblivion. She lost count of the levels, relaxing into the repetition until a soft knock pulled her back to the world of stomachaches and unbegun essays.

"Who is it?"

"Hello, darling," Mum said, pushing the door open with a warm smile. "May I come in?"

Rilla sat up and gestured to the bed beside her. Mum sat.

"I had a text from Coach Oliver," she said lightly. "She hopes you're feeling better."

The squirmy feeling in Rilla's gut was strong enough now that it would have justified cutting practice on its own, but Rilla grimaced anyway.

"I . . . uhhh . . . I skipped swim practice."

"So I gathered."

"I just wasn't really feeling up to it," Rilla said, building castles on a grain of truth.

Mum frowned. "You've been a bit run down lately. Do you think you're getting sick?"

"I'm fine."

"I'd be happy to make you an appointment with Dr. Morello . . ."

"No, Mum. I just needed a break. I'm sorry about skipping practice. I'll apologize to Coach Oliver tomorrow."

Mum cocked her head as if deciding what to say. Rilla braced for a scolding that did not come.

"I'm entirely sympathetic," Mum said instead. "When I was your age, I used to love going on rambles through the woods when things got to be too much. Everyone needs a break sometimes and I'm sure Coach Oliver would understand. Just tell her the truth next time."

Rilla relaxed a fraction. Maybe it was true that Mum understood. Maybe she really would, if only Rilla would talk to her.

Looking back from the vantage of adulthood, Rilla sometimes wondered what might have happened if Mum had let that particular silence linger a bit longer. If they had sat in companionable fellow-feeling for a few seconds more, might Rilla have found her way toward sharing a confidence? If she had, would things have turned out . . . well, Rilla refused to think "for the better"! . . . but . . . different?

Instead, Mum reached out and brushed her fingers against the soft green leather of Rilla's new purse.

"What a lovely bag! I haven't seen it before, have I?"

"No," Rilla admitted. "I went shopping with Irene and Olive."

A little furrow deepened between Mum's brows as she perused the zippers and tassels, but the smile did not leave her lips until she noticed the price tag that Rilla had tucked into an interior pocket. Then she just looked at Rilla. Mum was some expert at looking.

"Do you think, Rilla," Mum said quietly β€” far too quietly β€” "that it was right to spend so much for a bag?"

"I paid for it out of my own allowance," Rilla said.

"That is not the point. Your allowance is based on the principle of a reasonable amount for each thing you need. If you pay too much for one thing you must cut off somewhere else and that is not satisfactory. But if you think you did right, Rilla, I have no more to say. I leave it to your conscience."

The threat of tears was returning, but Rilla stifled her discomfort with a temper β€” a cold, calm, deadly temper.

"Mother," she said haughtily, "I am sorry you disapprove of my bag . . ."

"Not of the bag exactly," said Mum, "though I consider it in doubtful taste for so young a girl β€” but of the price you paid for it."

Being interrupted didn't improve Rilla's temper, so she went on, colder and calmer and deadlier than ever, just as if her mother had not spoken.

". . . but I have to keep it now. However, I promise you that I will not get another bag until I graduate from high school. Even you" β€” oh, the sarcasm she put into the "you" β€” "cannot say that what I paid was too much when spread over three years."

"You will be very tired of that bag before three years, Rilla," said Mum, with a provoking grin, which, being interpreted, meant that Rilla wouldn't stick it out.

"Tired or not, I will carry it that long," Rilla said.

"If that is your decision, I will say no more about it," Mum said, rising from the bed.

"It is," Rilla said coolly.

When Mum had disappeared through the door, Rilla threw herself onto her pillows in a storm of tears, already regretting being sarcastic to her mother. She hated the bag already. But she had vowed to carry it until she graduated from high school and she vowed to keep that vow, cost what it would.


Anne sat at her vanity, pausing over a pot of moisturizer. She had never quite succeeded in blotting the seven freckles from her otherwise excellent nose, but she was quite pleased with her complexion otherwise. At 52, her fair skin was still reasonably firm, with only a few indelible crinkles left by a lifetime of laughter. Years ago, Susan had given Anne a stern lecture on the importance of the various masks and potions that she had shipped in special from Seoul. Anne, who could not read Korean, had no idea what was in any of the salves she slathered on her face morning and night, but they certainly seemed to work and Susan had been seen to nod with satisfaction at the state of her skin.**

Tonight, Anne had sighed through her nightly regimen. Ordinarily, it was great fun to imagine herself a fairy queen anointed with pearls of moonshine, or else a powerful crone whose glamours must be replenished before the first star set, lest her true form be revealed. But not tonight.

What were they going to do about Rilla? It was true that everyone needed a break sometimes, but Rilla flitted from holiday to holiday with precious little work in between. Gilbert said she was a lily of the field β€” she toiled not, neither did she spin. It was true that Rilla was the only one of Anne's flock who was wasn't ambitious. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing but Rilla had no serious ideals at all β€” her sole ambition seemed to be to have a good time. Of course, a young girl should have plenty of fun, but Anne wished Rilla could show at least a little sense of responsibility. Cutting swim practice was one thing, but that bag! Rilla really was abominably vain, and even if that particular apple hadn't fallen very far from the maternal tree, Anne couldn't help but fret.***

It had taken Anne Blythe nΓ©e Shirley many years to acclimatize herself to having money. The poverty of her childhood was a constant, nagging worry that did not vanish just because she was warm and fed in the present. The jewel-bright bottles of retinol serums and exfoliating creams spread over her vanity were the sort of little luxuries she'd had to teach herself to buy, each one a tiny, still-astonishing declaration that they had enough β€” even extra. But her children had grown up in a world where sweets and pretty clothes and movie tickets and sports equipment and tuition were about as remarkable as clover in June. She and Gilbert delighted in giving them that sort of life, but now Rilla was shirking responsibility and spending truly dreadful sums on frivolous fashions that she'd discard in a month. What were they going to do?

"You're doing an awfully convincing impression of She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named," Gilbert said as he emerged from the washroom.

"Sorry?"

"You've perfected the art of sighing. I thought I'd come out to find Aunt Marβ€”"

"Gilbert Blythe! Don't you dare!"

He grinned. "Sorry. Rough day?"

Anne's shoulders drooped. "I'm just worrying about Rilla," she admitted.

Gilbert stood behind her and finger-combed her hair as she retold the afternoon's events. He gave an involuntary tug when Anne quoted the dreadful price tag.

"I know, darling, I know. But it's not the money that troubles me. If you had heard the way she spoke to me β€” so sarcastic! She's been listless and irritable lately and I don't know whether to give her more space or push her to do better."

"You said she wasn't feeling well," Gilbert said, frowning at their reflections. "Did she say anything more specific?"

"No, not really. She's been tired, I suppose, but you've been saying she's rather outgrown her strength β€” she's really absurdly tall for a girl just turned sixteen."***

"Maybe the swim team is too much of a strain."

"It shouldn't be. Gertrude encourages them to beat their own times, but she isn't a tyrant."

"Anything wrong with her metatarsals?"****

"Oh, Gilbert, I didn't ask! What a thing to say."

Gilbert shrugged at their reflections. "Hormones are a hell of a thing at her age. Any age, really."

Anne scowled at the mirror, though this had little effect on the twinkling hazel eyes. "You have no idea how infuriating it is to have your every emotion blamed on your hormones. Rilla is proud and stubborn and that doesn't have anything to do with the time of the month. Did I mention that she vowed to carry that silly bag until she graduates from high school, just to prove me wrong? I almost wish she'd do it, if only to see her follow through with something for once."

"She's still very young," Gilbert said. "No need to rush her growing up."

He rubbed his thumbs over Anne's shoulder blades with light, firm pressure. Anne didn't particularly want to be soothed. Something was wrong and she didn't quite know what it was, let alone how to set it right. Should she give Rilla more space? Or suggest that she take on more responsibility? Perhaps she could encourage her to form a new club at school, if swimming didn't hold her interest.

"You're thinking awfully loud," Gilbert murmured. "Let it go for now. Tackle it again tomorrow. A new day with no mistakes in it yet, right?"

Anne let herself be persuaded away from the mirror and into bed. She slipped between the sheets β€” good sheets, crisp and clean and silky against her bare legs β€” and settled herself against the pillows with her reading glasses and her ARC of Lincoln in the Bardo, which was shivery and sad in a way that usually made Anne want to revel in its melancholy. Canadian Woman wanted the review in time for its 2017 Lit Preview, but Anne had been savoring it, rather than picking it apart.

She turned to the marked page, but her eyes slid over the words without absorbing them. Anne caught herself before she sighed again, but traded the book for her iPad. Gilbert frowned over the top of his own book β€” Crichton again β€” though he didn't bother rehashing his disapproval of "blue light" at bed time, for which Anne was grateful. Instead, he craned his neck to look as she opened her email and clicked on Walter's latest.

"How is he?" asked Gilbert, who received Walter's newsy emails but not his more literary correspondence.

"He's well. Still in Thailand. He's sent along some drafts. Want to hear?"

Gilbert hesitated half a second, but settled on, "Yes, of course." That made Anne feel better already; Gilbert was nearly as much of a dunce at poetry as she was at geometry, but he'd always made a point of listening to her poems. He tended to fixate on meaningless mundanities and was an outright clod when it came to form or metaphor, but he offered a fresh perspective unencumbered by literary expertise. Besides, he was willing, or at least willing to be willing.

"He's titled this one, 'Switchback,'" Anne said as Gilbert climbed into bed beside her, "and he says it was inspired by a real experience in the Himalayas, so that ought to please you."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Anne gave her husband a mischievous smile. "It means that you have a sparkling gift for finding prose in poesy."

"Thank you!" Gilbert said brightly.

He laughed over Anne's show of dismay, and settled into his pillows as she began to read:

"Switchback"

by Walter Blythe

I tramp this switchback road in heavy boots
And leave my prints to mingle with the dust
Of others who have passed along this route
And faded with each cleansing mountain gust.
I do not need to close my eyes to see
Their weary column on this beaten track
With pebbles plinking down the dusty scree
And damp exhaustion blooming on their backs.
One turns and beckons me to fall in line
As if he knows me well and I know him;
I take the place behind him as we climb
And share each heaving breath and aching limb.
I follow over every rut and stone
But gain the final, craggy peak alone.

After the last line, Anne left a long, sonorous silence like the interval after a church bell. Poems needed to breathe.

When she looked down at Gilbert beside her, he contorted his face into a show of effort.

"So . . . it's a poem about hiking?"

Really, some things were hopeless!

"I'm kidding!" Gilbert protested. "It's . . . well, it's . . . it's a sonnet."

"Well spotted."

"Do you think maybe it's a bit . . ." Gilbert groped for a diplomatic word.

"Eerie?"

"I was going to say morbid."

Anne scanned the poem again. Gilbert might not have much use for the Gothic, but Anne understood the pleasure of a thrill. She did not often write Walter's sort of thrills herself, but she could appreciate that they came from some fundamental yearning of his soul.

"Not morbid," she said. "Sensitive. Dramatic, maybe."

Gilbert chewed this over for a moment. "You don't suppose he actually sees that sort of thing, do you? You said it was inspired by a real experience."

Anne was not quite sure what to say to that. She did not actually believe in clairvoyance, not really, but there had been times when she had wondered about Walter. It was perfectly natural for children to have imaginary friends, of course, but she had never quite shaken the suspicion that a 4-year-old would have had a difficult time imagining an elderly lady named Florence who loved horehound candy and Buster Keaton. How did a 4-year-old even know the name Buster Keaton? It did not bother her much, though. After all, Anne had had Katie Maurice and Violetta in her own childhood, when the line between imagination and reality had been blurred. Walter's permeability had never quite closed as other people's did, but that was what made him a poet.

"I think there are different sorts of reality," she said, returning the iPad to her nightstand.


Notes:

*Rilla of Ingleside, chapter 10, "The Troubles of Rilla" β€” many of the quotations here are from that chapter, some of them lightly edited.

**Do you think that all those over-harbour MacAllisters and Crawfords and Elliotts could scare up a skin like Rilla's in four generations? They could not." Rilla of Ingleside, chapter 1, "Glen Notes and Other Matters"

***Anne, re: Rilla in Rilla of Ingleside.

****A rare menstruation joke from AOGG canon. Anne of Ingleside, chapter 40.