Beautiful Little Fools(54)
Jay’s eyes widened again, and they were such a bright shade of green, they reminded me of the glow of the Mediterranean outside my bedroom veranda first thing in the morning in Cannes. “East Egg,” he said softly, turning the idea of it over in his mind as he spoke. “Daisy is moving, here. To East Egg.”
“Yes,” I said. “Just across the sound. She’ll be practically close enough to touch.”
And though it was the day after Christmas, I smiled a little to myself, and I thought, Merry Christmas, Daisy.
Merry Christmas, Tom.
Detective Frank Charles December 1922
NEW YORK
CHRISTMAS WAS THE HARDEST TIME.
For one thing, every childhood memory he had of the holiday was wrapped up in Lizzie, in her sheer delight of all things holy, bright, and sparkly. Every year when Dolores started unpacking ornaments, hanging them on their tiny tree, he could picture Lizzie doing the same, could suddenly, clearly remember the sound of her laugh.
Christmas had gotten doubly hard for him these past three years, since Dolores had gotten sick. Now, it was a bona fide fact—they would never have a family of their own. Never have a little girl with a laugh like Lizzie’s or a little boy with Dolores’s sea glass green eyes to enjoy Christmas with them. It was just Frank and Dolores, and who knew how many years he’d even have Dolores here with him. Fifty-fifty. Three years had come and gone. But would four?
“Frank?” Dolores said now, as they sat on the couch together, listening to Christmas carols on the phonograph. “You look so far away. Are you thinking about the Gatsby case still? It’s Christmas,” she chided him.
He nodded, smiled sheepishly. Sure, better to let her think his mind was lost in the case than in imagining a bleak and terrible future without her. “Sorry,” he apologized and wrapped his arm around her. He pulled her closer, kissed the top of her head. Her hair smelled vaguely like the turkey she’d roasted in the oven for dinner and the cinnamon from the cake she’d made for dessert. Would this be their last year, their last Christmas? he wondered for the fourth year in a row. It felt impossible and also strangely inevitable.
Dolores shivered a little, and he pulled her tighter to him. It was chilly outside, drafty inside their small apartment. The fire glowed across the room, but it wasn’t enough to warm her. Dolores hated the cold.
He used his free arm to tap his cigarette in the ashtray on the end table, and then he thought about summer. About the vacation Dolores had always dreamed of, in East Egg. He’d love to give her one of those beautiful houses that backed straight up to the water, for just one summer. He’d been hoping this case would be wrapped up by Christmas, that he’d have collected his money from Wolfsheim by now and he could’ve given Dolores the summer of 1923 as a gift, a photograph of their rental house wrapped neatly in a box with a giant bow. Something to look forward to. Something to keep on living for.
But the case was far from being wrapped up, the money from Wolfsheim far from certain. Frank still had more questions than answers. Summer was months away, and Christmas was making him melancholy. Instead of the promise of summer, his Christmas gift to Dolores was a small square serving dish he’d been able to get from the sale table at Macy’s.
“Frank,” she’d said when she’d opened it earlier, clutching it to her chest. “This is beautiful.” And that was Dolores, always making the best of everything awful.
But instead, he wanted to give her the best. She deserved the best.
* * *
HE COULDN’T SLEEP that night, and after Dolores got into bed, he feverishly went through his notes again, lighting another cigarette. Then another. He poured himself a glass of the good bourbon that he’d been keeping for special occasions (there hadn’t been any of late). It was Christmas. That was enough. He took a large swig, and the bourbon burned his throat. After another, Lizzie’s laughter faded again; so did his worries about Dolores.
Here in front of him was the evidence, the interviews. The lies. If there was one thing he knew from his years as a detective it was that liars always made mistakes. He just had to figure that out in this case.
By 2 A.M., his thoughts had come down to this: If everyone had lied to him about the hairpin, except Jordan, why had Nick been so convinced that Jordan was an incurable liar? The two of them had been together for a time last summer, and he wasn’t sure how it ended. Still, Nick must know something about her.
By 6 A.M. Frank was convinced that the answer to everything was just a train ride away: Nick Carraway’s apartment on the Lower East Side. He walked into the bedroom, kissed Dolores on the forehead, and she rolled over and mumbled something incoherent.
“It’s early,” he whispered to her in response. “Go back to sleep, Dee. I have to go into work for a few hours, but I’ll be home for lunch.”
She mumbled something else, about Christmas, rolled over and fell back to sleep.
Now, he lit another cigarette as he got off the train a few blocks from Nick’s apartment. It was early still, just about eight. Frank hadn’t slept at all last night and had drunk too much bourbon. The early morning cold suddenly made him feel heavy with exhaustion. He really could use a cup of coffee.
What was he doing here? He felt like he was chasing a ghost, looking for answers that might not even exist. Chasing a goddamned paycheck that might not ever come.