Beautiful Little Fools(52)

I wrote her back that I was here, in New York, for Aunt Sigourney. That Aunt Sigourney needed me. It was entirely a lie. Aunt Sigourney would’ve been overjoyed if I’d left her house to go stay with Daisy.

Daisy’s letters kept on coming after that, but I left them sitting in an unopened stack on my bureau.



* * *



ONE DAY IN December, I was walking through the village. The air was chilly, but I hadn’t thought to put on a heavy coat, and my cheeks stung from the wind. Still, I kept walking and walking, one foot in front of the other, counting city blocks in my head. I was up to seventeen when I heard an unfamiliar man’s voice, calling for me. “Jordan,” he shouted. “Jordan Baker?”

It had been so long since anyone had called my name. I thought about the last time, that last day in Atlanta when the announcer had said it at the tournament: Jordan Baker in the lead after the first round. Tears stung hot in my eyes and I sped up, walked even faster.

“Jordan Baker!” the man called again, and then I heard footsteps pounding behind me. Was he chasing me?

I stopped abruptly and spun around. He slid to a stop. I didn’t recognize him at first, but, maybe there was something vaguely familiar about him. He was tall with blond hair that fell across his forehead, casting a shadow over his bright green eyes. He stared at me for a moment and then broke into a smile. “Jordan Baker, that is you.”

“Excuse me?” I said quickly. “I don’t know you.”

“Jay,” he said. “Jay Gatsby. We met in Louisville, before the war.”

Jay Gatsby. That soldier Daisy had been ready to run away with. He looked different now. Older and broader shouldered, and better dressed. He wore what appeared to be an expensive gold suit, a red silk tie. I remembered my quiet disdain for him back in Louisville when I was still a na?ve girl of sixteen who could never have understood how much her own life would crumble. And now it occurred to me that I disliked Tom so much more than I’d ever disliked Jay. That Tom had done exactly what I’d feared Jay would once—hurt Daisy.

“Let me buy you dinner,” Jay said now. “We could catch up.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I have plans.” I had no plans, other than having a silent meal with Aunt Sigourney. But dinner with Daisy’s old lover sounded like the most detestable kind of dinner.

“Maybe another night then?” he suggested.

“Maybe,” I said, not really meaning it at all.

“Where are you staying?” he asked. He moved his stance, so he was blocking my way, and now it seemed he wasn’t going to let me by until I told him. He was taller than I remembered, pushier too.

“With my aunt, Mrs. Sigourney Howard,” I told him. “She’s in the book.” Then I pushed past him, walked briskly, until I turned the corner and he was completely out of sight.



* * *



WHEN I GOT back to Aunt Sigourney’s, I thought about writing Daisy, telling her who I’d run into on the street. Isn’t it funny? I might write. That poor soldier I’d thought would ruin your life once—now he lives in New York and owns an expensive gold suit.

But instead, I finally opened the stack of letters she’d sent me and read through them all. She went on and on, at first, about all the gay parties she was attending in Chicago. She loved Lake Forest! The baby was very happy in Lake Forest. Tom had a stable out back for his ponies and played polo nearly every day. But then, in her latest letter, her tone suddenly shifted. She wrote that they’d be leaving Chicago, soon after the first of the year. Tom had had an… indiscretion. I read that word and remembered in a flash that night in France, Tom’s face buried in between the nurse’s legs. It felt like a hundred years had passed since then, not just a year and a half. Guilt washed over me. I should’ve told Daisy what I saw. Why hadn’t I?

My hands shook, holding her letter now, remembering the way it had felt to slap Tom across the face that night, the way I’d threatened him then. The next morning at breakfast, before Daisy came down, he’d promised me it would never happen again. It had been a terrible mistake. Never again, Jordan, I swear. Liar. Tom was a goddamned liar.

I continued reading Daisy’s letter, rage hot behind my eyes. They would be moving to East Egg, Daisy wrote. And this would be a permanent move. At last we’ll live near each other again, Jordie! East Egg was on Long Island, a short drive from the city, just across the sound. Daisy and I would practically be neighbors again.

I felt a strange mix of emotions at that thought. Happiness, sure. But it was tinged with dread. I longed to return to those carefree Louisville days, when Daisy and I would lie on her bed and laugh. But that was the past. I was twenty years old and ruined. I had nothing, no one. And Daisy had tethered herself to that wretched man.

But then I imagined just being with Daisy again, laughing. Would I even remember how to laugh? The thought of it now brought me the smallest bit of cheer. Just enough so that I finally responded to her letter. I told her to let me know as soon as they arrived. I’d come out to East Egg to visit.



* * *



THE DAY AFTER Christmas, Aunt Sigourney knocked on my door in the middle of the afternoon. I’d just gotten back from my walk and I sat on my bed, my fingertips still tingling, my cheeks ruddy from the cold. We’d spent Christmas together yesterday, cheerlessly, without either a tree or presents. Aunt Sigourney said she didn’t care much for celebrating holidays. I desperately missed Daddy, who used to make such a big deal of Christmas every single year—I struggled to understand how Aunt Sigourney was truly his blood sister.