Beautiful Little Fools(13)

“Business was good,” Mother clarified, her voice hardening. She spoke words but they were devoid of meaning. “But your father had formed… quite a habit with the horses apparently.”

“Horses?” Daddy always loved the Kentucky Derby, but who in Louisville didn’t? “What do horses have to do with anything?”

“He lost everything,” Mother said quietly. “Betting on horses. You and I have almost nothing but this house, Daisy Fay. We’re penniless.”



* * *



I LAY IN bed later that night, holding Jay’s letter in my hand, tracing over his neat script with my forefinger. Wait for me, Daisy… I love you, Daisy.

It was chilly tonight, and Fredda had lit a fire in my bedroom. I walked over there now, held Jay’s letter out, and dropped it into the flames. I watched the edges of the paper turn yellow and blue, Jay’s words hot with fire. Then they were gone.

I could not let Mother sell the house. I tried to imagine where we might go and what might become of us, penniless, homeless. To Mother’s old aunt in Jeffersonville? Her house was abysmal, small, ugly, and run-down. Though she was just across the river from us—she was a world away from Louisville society, our tree-lined streets and Victorian mansions, my parties and Mother’s afternoon teas.

I was the pretty Fay, and who was I without the good Fay? Rose had told me so many times I should be good, but what if all I needed was to be pretty? I could use my looks to help Mother, to help myself. If Adelaide Cummings had married a multimillionaire from Chicago—why couldn’t I?

I knew what I had to do. I knew how I would fix everything.





Jordan 1918




THE TRAIN RIDE TO CHARLESTON felt long, and I chewed my fingernails down to the quick. Daisy would chastise me, if she could see my stubby, nearly nail-less fingers now. But she wouldn’t see them for at least a week. In fact, maybe they’d grow back enough that she’d never even know.

The whole entire train ride, I kept on thinking about what had happened to Rose and Mr. Fay on a train, and maybe that’s why the ride felt so long. My stomach turned, considering how Daddy would feel if I returned to him a mangle of body parts in a box, not a golf champion.

And then that was the other thing that kept me biting—golf.

Daddy had paid to get me this spot in a women’s golf tournament in Charleston. If I played well, then I might be invited to join the newly established women’s amateur tour. But what if I really wasn’t good enough? Daddy swore I was, that this money (how much money, he wouldn’t tell me) was the best money he’d ever spent. I was just seventeen, but golf was the only thing I truly loved. The only thing I wanted. What if it didn’t want me in return?

It was hard to think all these thoughts on the long lonely ride, and as I chewed on my thumbnail I wished Daddy were sitting next to me to ease my nerves, or give me a stern warning to calm myself down. He was supposed to be here. But his sciatica started acting up this past week and I’d left him back in Louisville, in bed.

I can’t go without you, Daddy! I’d insisted yesterday.

To which Daddy had said, “Jordan Baker, I am ordering you, as your father, get on that train.” Then he added. “And bring home a trophy.”

Well, that shouldn’t be hard at all, should it?

“Try not to worry,” Daisy had said to me earlier this morning, as we walked toward the station together. She’d helped me carry my bags. “I’ll look after your daddy while you’re gone, Jordie.”

I didn’t tell Daisy but I was less worried about Daddy and his sciatica and more worried about the tournament itself. What if I didn’t do well and I didn’t even make it to the tour? This was it, my one real shot to play golf. The only genuine opportunity I’d have as a woman. If I didn’t make it, then I’d return home to Louisville and do… what? I had no desire to spend the spring going to parties, looking for a rich husband the way Daisy planned to. I had no desire for any kind of husband. Wealthy or otherwise.

“I don’t know, Daise,” I’d said, as we waited at the station earlier. “I’ve never played outside Louisville before. I might not even be any good.”

The train pulled in, and I’d taken my suitcase from Daisy, shifting it to manage with my clubs. Daisy gave me a fierce hug, crushing me against her. “I’m proud of you, Jordie,” she’d said into my hair. “I really am, you know.”

I’d offered her a wan smile and stepped on board, but even as the train had started moving, my entire body had still felt warm from her compliment.



* * *



I ALWAYS FELT different on the golf course. The sky was bluer and the grass was (quite literally) greener. I could breathe deeper, and when I swung a club, watched my ball slice the air, I felt a heady sensation of lightness. It was like floating on the river on the warmest of summer days. I couldn’t imagine anything feeling more right than the moment when my club connected with the ball and made it soar.

“Nice shot,” a woman’s voice said as my ball rolled into the ninth hole, the last one of the afternoon. I’d finished the day three below par.

I turned, and one of the other competitors stood behind me. She was tall, taller than my five foot six, and dressed in a white sweater and skirt, like mine. She had pale brown hair, similar in color to Daisy’s (but not as shiny, of course), and she wore it back in a tight, high braid.