Beautiful Little Fools(14)

“Mary Margaret Smith,” she said with an easy drawl, walking closer to me. “Sorry to stare, but your swing is to die for.”

“Oh.” I let out a nervous giggle. I’d been so focused on my own game for the past nine holes that I hadn’t paid attention to any of the other competitors up until now. I had no idea what Mary Margaret’s swing was like or why she thought mine was to die for. “I’m Jordan Baker.” I moved toward her, held out my hand to shake. She took it—her hand was small, her fingers delicate, but her grip was strong. “I’m from Louisville.”

“Nashville,” she said. She smiled, revealing perfect pearl-white teeth. “Well, Jordan Baker from Louisville, I hope I’ll see you on the tour in May.”

I nodded and felt a surge of confidence that I would be on that tour, after all. Maybe it was that someone else besides Daddy had been impressed by my golf game for the first time, or maybe it was that Mary Margaret seemed so kind and easygoing, I knew immediately we would be friends.

“Hope to see you, too, Mary Margaret from Nashville,” I called after her. She stopped walking away to turn back and give me another smile.



* * *



I CAME IN second in the tournament, and two weeks later, back in Louisville, I received a letter from Mr. Hennessey, head of the Women’s National Amateur Golf Tour, inviting me to join the tour in May. As soon as I opened the letter up, read it, I wondered if Mary Margaret had gotten one, too, and I wished I’d asked for her address or phone number in Nashville. Or that her last name wasn’t Smith, so it would be easier to track her down.

Daddy was so excited when I showed him the letter, he jumped out of bed and howled, forgetting all about the sciatica. It took him a full minute to remember, that’s how excited he was. Then, suddenly, he winced in pain.

I reached for him, to help him back to bed. “Now, Daddy, don’t kill yourself over this. It’s only a golf tour for ladies. Who knows how long it will go on, and if they’ll decide to keep me once I’m there.”

“Don’t be a half-wit, Jordan,” Daddy said, almost breathless from the pain. “Of course they’ll decide to keep you. You’re going to be the star of the whole league.”



* * *



“YOU’RE LEAVING ME?” Daisy said later that day, when I showed her the letter. “I can’t believe you’re really leaving me, Jordie.”

Daisy’s face had taken a different shape since Rose had died. Maybe it was because she hardly ever smiled anymore. It was hard to remember the way she was just six months ago, early last fall, when she was going on about love and marriage and running away with Jay Gatsby. Now Daisy looked pale, and too thin. She’d told me about all the money troubles her daddy had left behind, and lately all she could talk about was finding a wealthy man to marry, someone who could pay off her daddy’s debts and keep her mama in their house. I’d told Daisy that maybe money and happiness weren’t one and the same. But when I’d said that, she laughed at me.

“I wish I could take you with me,” I said now. And I really did wish that too. Even if all the other women were as nice as Mary Margaret, and even if Mary Margaret were there, well, she wouldn’t be Daisy. No one could ever be Daisy.

“Sometimes it feels like everyone has just gone and left me all at once,” Daisy said. Her voice was wistful, and I couldn’t tell if she was talking about me going on tour, Rose and her daddy dying, or Jay going off to war. There was a new crop of soldiers at Camp Taylor this spring, but I hadn’t seen Daisy talking to a single one of them.

“I’ll come back to visit, Daise,” I promised her. “And you know we’ll always be best friends. We’ll always find a way to see each other, no matter what.”

Daisy offered me a half smile. “I just never thought it would be so hard, Jordie,” she said softly.

“What’s that?”

She shook her head, and I reached up and smoothed back her hair. It looked a mess today—she had it back in a bun, but wayward wisps flew all around her face. I wondered if she’d given up on the egg yolks. “What’s so hard, Daise?” I tucked her flyaway hairs back behind her ears.

“Life,” she finally said. She sounded sad, and she sounded tired. “Growing up. Being an adult.”

I pulled her to me in a hug. I wished I could help her. If I won out on the tour, I’d eventually get some money. Not a lot, but something. “I’ll save up whatever winnings I can and send them to you,” I told her now, clinging to her fiercely. “Don’t do anything foolish while I’m gone,” I added.

But not even a month after I left, I received a letter from Daisy telling me she’d done it. She’d met the wealthy man who was going to save her.

Jordie, she wrote, I’m going to get Tom Buchanan to marry me, and then everything will be good again.





Daisy 1918

LOUISVILLE




“YOU HAVE TO MEET TOM Buchanan,” Anabelle said, grabbing onto my arm and pulling me out onto her moonlit balcony.

It was the end of April, and the air was thick with the smell of azaleas. With Jordan away, I’d forced myself into a sudden and quite vapid friendship with Anabelle this past month. Everyone knew her daddy came from the wealthiest family in Louisville, and she threw the most decadent parties. But Anabelle also had a persistent and silly laugh that reminded me of air escaping too fast from a balloon, and it was hard to force myself to laugh along with her rather than roll my eyes. Even when she said Tom’s name now, she let out a hollow giggle. I sighed, missing Jordan again. But I allowed Anabelle to pull me out onto the balcony. It’s why I’d befriended her in the first place, why I was here at her party tonight.