Beautiful Little Fools(35)

His name rang a bell, and I did remember our meeting, a little. I had said that, hadn’t I? That he should look me up, after the war. Should we meet at the same saloon? I’d finally asked him, breaking my silence on the other end of the line. Do you remember it?

He said a fellow never forgot the exact place his heart broke in two, and only then did I remember that telegram that he’d held in his hands that night.

I looked at him now. He was handsome, I would give him that. Tall with broad shoulders and clipped blond hair. His skin was sun-kissed, golden; the summer sun had been kind to him. “You look exactly the same too,” I lied now, because I still didn’t truly remember. So much had happened since then, and my goodness, he’d fought in a war and had returned right here, miraculously unscathed. “Exactly the same,” I repeated, as if saying the words twice would make them truer.

He smiled. He had nice straight white teeth. “Let me get a drink,” he said. “And I’ll join you.”

I nodded, sipped my gin rickey, and watched him walk away to order something. My throat burned a little and my face grew hot. Not from the gin but from this overwhelming sensation that maybe I’d made a mistake, that I shouldn’t have come here. Shouldn’t have accepted his invitation at all. When I went out, it was always with Helen, or the other women I knew from the office or from the cause. I didn’t want a beau—I enjoyed my life, living it exactly as I saw fit. And now I grew worried that by accepting his invitation to meet tonight, I’d given him the wrong idea.

He was back in a few moments with what looked like a whiskey, and I bit my lip, held up my gin to clink glasses. We both took a sip and swiveled on our stools to face each other. “I have to be honest with you, Mr. Gatsby,” I said firmly now.

He touched my arm gently. “Please, call me Jay.” His voice was soft and kind, and I faltered for a second, took another sip of gin.

“Anyway, Jay,” I continued, “it was nice of you to telephone me. I’m glad to see you’re alive and well. But I’m not looking for any kind of relationship. Not dating. Certainly not marriage.”

He laughed, a deep, hearty laugh, shook his head, and downed his whiskey in an impressively large gulp. “Well, that makes two of us,” he said, placing his empty glass on the counter. “I should’ve made myself clear over the telephone. I’m just back in New York from a stint in Oxford after the war, and I don’t know too many people here yet. I thought it might be nice to have someone to talk to while I had a drink. That’s all.”

“Oh.” I let out a nervous laugh, not sure whether to feel embarrassed I’d said anything at all or annoyed that the thought of dating me hadn’t crossed his mind. Mostly, I just felt relief, and a little warm and relaxed from the gin. I smoothed my hair behind my ears. “Well, all right,” I said, smiling. “So shall we talk about something else now?”

“And have another drink?” he suggested, raising his arm to signal to the bartender we’d like two more.

“Talking and drinking,” I said, finishing off my own glass.

Perfectly harmless.



* * *



I WOKE UP the next morning, sunlight streaming in through the tear in the middle of my blinds, assaulting my eyes. My head throbbed, and I groaned, remembering, slowly: the gin. How many gin rickeys had I had? One, two, three… had I had more than three? I couldn’t remember after three. And… Jay Gatsby. He’d poured out all his heartache about his girl marrying some rich fellow while he was away. He’d drunk enough so his words were thick, slurry: Daisy-buchanan coming out as one long drawn-out, sad word. I drank until I told him about Myrtle’s bruises, my worries for her living out by the Corona ash dump with George, which was something I hadn’t even told Helen up until now. What time had we stopped drinking and said good-bye? I couldn’t quite remember that, either…

I suddenly felt a hand on the small of my back, and I startled.

Oh no. We hadn’t said good-bye last night at all, had we?

His hand slid up my naked back now, tracing my spine. “Good morning,” Jay whispered in my ear, his mouth close enough that I could feel his breath on my cheek, his thumb caressing my neck.

I sat up quickly and wrapped the sheet around my chest. I faced away from him, toward that annoying too-bright tear in the blind. What had I done last night?

I closed my eyes for a moment, breathed slowly in and out, tried to imagine the path we would’ve walked to stumble back to my apartment from the speakeasy, but I couldn’t remember actually walking that path. In a flash I remembered warm, wet lips pressed hard against my neck. I reached my hand up now and the skin felt tender.

“Catherine,” Jay said my name softly and sat up. He reached for my shoulders, rubbing them gently.

“Just drinking and talking, hmmm?” I said. I most certainly remembered that’s what we’d agreed to, before we’d downed too much liquor and somehow ended up… here.

“Drinking and talking,” Jay repeated. His hand traced back down my spine slowly and I shivered a little. He leaned his face in close to my hair, kissed the nape of my neck. “And this, too,” he whispered. “It doesn’t have to mean anything,” he repeated. “We could just… get together from time to time.”

“Get together?” I laughed a little. “Is that what people are calling it these days?”