Beautiful Little Fools(63)

That night, just before her wedding, though, Daisy was so drunk her mother had called on me for help. I’d only been back in Louisville for a minute, and I’d arrived at the Fay house, breathless and sweating, feeling out of my element in what had once been my most familiar surroundings. Mrs. Fay asked me to get Daisy sobered up for her bridal dinner, and I’d found Daisy in her room, blubbering uncontrollably on, waving her hands in the air nonsensically.

Daise, I’d finally said, taking her by the shoulders, shaking her a little. Enough! And then she’d lashed out at me, tried to punch me in the face. I’d ducked and she’d punched the air instead.

Drunk Daisy was the worst kind of Daisy, and a few hours after dinner, after Nick had gone home, I was lying in bed, still worrying about her. I’d excused myself not too long after supper, claiming I had to be up early in the morning to get to Westchester for a tournament. Now, the house was quiet, too still, and I was wide awake, suddenly sober and swimming in the weight of my own lies. I supposed I’d have to wake up early in the morning, pretend to drive off to the tournament, and then invent a story about how I’d done to regale them with over supper tomorrow night. If I kept this up all summer, it would be exhausting.

“Jordie.” Daisy rapped softly on the door now. “Are you up?” Her tone was surprisingly light, not angry, despite her words being a little slurry.

I cleared my throat. “I’m awake,” I called out. “Come on in.”

The door opened and Daisy stumbled in. She was still dressed in the sheer white dress she’d been wearing all day but now it had slipped a little down her shoulder, showing a hint of her brassiere. Her hair looked disheveled, mussed, but only on the one side, where she’d removed the hairpin earlier to give to me. I imagined whatever mess she now looked on the outside could only be half as bad as she was feeling on the inside.

I pulled back the covers and patted the spot next to me in the bed. Daisy crawled in and lay down beside me. I rolled on my side and played with her hair, stroking it with my fingers, the way I always used to do when we were those carefree girls back in Louisville.

“Oh, Jordie.” She sighed. “I thought everything was going to be different here. But Tom is never going to change, is he?” She paused, and I twirled a lock of her silk hair around my forefinger, before resting it gently against her ear. “Did you hear what Nick said, though, about his neighbor? Gatsby, he said. Do you think it could be him, Jordie? After all this time, could Jay Gatsby really be right here, just across the sound?”

“I don’t know,” I lied. My fancy dinner with Jay Gatsby six months earlier was hazy in my mind now. Escargot and illicit French wine. But I distinctly remembered telling him about Daisy’s move to East Egg. I’d thought he might drive out here, visit her, upset Tom a little. I hadn’t expected he would move just across the sound from her, ingratiate himself with her cousin. “Would you even care if it was him, Daise?” I asked her now. “You haven’t seen him in so many years.”

“No… yes… maybe. I don’t know.” She sighed again. “I do wonder sometimes if I made a big mistake marrying Tom, you know, Jordie?”

I closed my eyes, and I could suddenly envision the shape of Mary Margaret’s naked shoulders shimming in the moonlight, just across the bed from me in Atlanta. My hand reaching for her, reassuring her that everything was going to be all right. She had no reason to be afraid. “Everyone makes mistakes,” I said softly.

“But I have a daughter.” Daisy said it breathlessly, as if she still could hardly believe it herself. “It’s not only about me anymore, Jordie.”

It suddenly occurred to me Pammy must be old enough to talk and walk by now, but I hadn’t caught sight of her since I’d arrived in East Egg. In my mind she was still the little babe she’d been in Cannes. I hoped to god her nurse here in East Egg was old and horribly unattractive.

I opened my eyes, and Daisy had propped herself up on her elbow on her side, while she’d been talking. Her eyes, a little glassy from the gin, were wide, searching mine.

She reached up and stroked my cheek with her fingers. “My dearest, sweetest Jordie. Thank heavens you’re here,” she said softly.

Her thumb made a soft circle around my cheekbone, and my face warmed. “Are you still drunk?” I asked her. This Daisy, though, was so different from the last drunk one I’d witnessed, years ago, just before her wedding. Her anger had been replaced with a still sort of melancholy, an unusually soft longing.

“Maybe a little,” she admitted. Her thumb swirled across my cheekbone and then grazed my lips. She giggled. She was definitely drunk. More than a little.

“You should go to bed,” I told her. “But drink a tall glass of water first. You’ll have a killer headache in the morning.” I should know. It had happened to me a few times, or maybe, a few hundred.

“Can’t I just sleep here with you, Jordie?” She strung her words together like a pouty song. Then her thumb moved down my chin and traced the front contours of my neck. I heard myself moan softly, and I bit my lip to try and keep from making another sound.

Daisy giggled again, then moved across the bed and kissed me softly. She might’ve been going for my cheek, but her drunken aim put her lips somewhere just on the corner of my mouth, the side of my chin. Then she lowered herself down on the bed, put her cheek on my shoulder. “Oh Jordie.” She gave another big exhale. “You’re the only one who really loves me, the only one.” She was murmuring now.