Beautiful Little Fools(71)

“I have a date tonight,” I finally said to Aunt Sigourney, an attempt to mollify her a little. But even as I said those words, all I could think about still was Mary Margaret. The warm feel of her skin, the sweet and sour taste of her, the rich sound of her voice. She was getting married. Grief really was a river. And now I was drowning again. Aunt Sigourney’s words were tugging me underwater and holding me there, making it nearly impossible to breathe.

“Well, try not to muck it up, Jordan.” Aunt Sigourney emphasized that, her final point, by tapping her cane on the hardwood floor. Then she turned to shuffle off into the dining room to eat her own early supper.



* * *



A FEW HOURS later, sitting across the table from Nick at the Plaza, I was highly distracted. And I was most certainly about to muck it up.

I fiddled with the diamond pin in my hair and thought about Daisy, back in East Egg. After leaving Aunt Sigourney’s I’d longed to skip this dinner with Nick, flee back there, tell her the truth about Mary Margaret, the whole entire truth. But what was the whole truth, exactly? That night in Atlanta with Mary Margaret felt like a fever dream now, all these many months later. She was getting married. Maybe it had never even happened at all.

“Jordan,” Nick said now, interrupting my thoughts. “Did you hear what I said?”

“Hmm?” I murmured. I took a sip of my water, wishing it would sting my throat, numb my thoughts like gin. Nick wasn’t Tom or Jay. All we had to drink with dinner was water and too-tart lemonade.

“Daisy and Gatsby. I was saying, I think she might leave Tom for him.”

I laughed, nearly spitting water across the table. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, coughing, sputtering for air for a few seconds. Well, listen to Nick. In Daisy’s life all of one summer and here he thought he was some kind of expert on her. But Nick wasn’t there when Rose died, or when Daisy got so drunk before she married Tom she tried to punch me, or at Daisy’s sweltering hot wedding when I saved her from Blocks Biloxi, or on her beach in Cannes. What did he know about Daisy?

“You should’ve seen them together at my house a few weeks ago,” Nick insisted now. “They’re in love.” Nick looked practically doe-eyed when he got so emphatic. Another girl might have found it adorable, in a foolish sort of way. But it did nothing for me. And really Nick was no better than Tom or Jay, or any other man who believed that whatever he wanted, whomever he wanted, was simply his for the taking.

I thought of Daisy, the night after she’d been to Nick’s little setup. I’d found her sitting in Tom’s study, clutching his gun, staring out the window at Jay’s bright obnoxious party. She certainly hadn’t been acting like a woman in love. In fact, seeing her there, that fragile, it had terrified me.

“Anyway—” God, Nick was still going on. “Jay made me promise to bring you back to his house tonight after dinner, so you can help him. I’ll take you there when we’re done. I have my car.”

“Really, Nick,” I said curtly, “are you dating Jay Gatsby or are you dating me?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Nick’s face turned bright red.

“I think it’s a very logical question,” I shot back. “Given that here we are on a date and you can’t stop talking about Jay Gatsby.”

His cheeks were positively beet-colored. “I thought you’d want to help Daisy. Since she’s your best friend and all.”

“Exactly.” I guzzled my lemonade, wishing it were gin, puckering my lips at the tartness. Across the table Nick just stared at me, like he wasn’t at all sure what to make of me. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”



* * *



AFTER DINNER WE drove toward West Egg in silence. Maybe Nick finally understood there wasn’t really anything between us. Or he was just afraid to say anything more to me about Jay and Daisy. Or maybe he realized that, if we didn’t talk about Daisy, we didn’t have anything much to talk about at all.

“Jordan,” he finally spoke, when he stopped the car in front of Jay’s house. He reached his hand up to touch my hair, his fingers lingering on the diamonds on Daisy’s pin. “I…”

“Please don’t,” I said, pulling away. I was tired and not in the mood. And I definitely couldn’t muster up the will to kiss him back if he kissed me. “Why don’t you go on home, Nick. I’ll go in and talk to Jay and then I’ll telephone you in the morning. I’ll get a taxicab back to East Egg.”

“But… I…” A mild protest sputtered out of him, but then he gave up and simply nodded. We stared at each other another moment, not speaking, but from the look in his eyes it seemed like he finally understood me. He knew there was no way in hell I was telephoning him in the morning.



* * *



“YOU LIED TO me,” Jay said, the second I stepped foot in his study. He sat behind his desk, nursing a whiskey. From the way he strung his words together, I suspected it wasn’t his first.

“Me? Lie? Never.” It was warm in here and I let out a little laugh and fanned myself as I sat in the empty chair across from him. “Don’t you know I’m a respectable southern lady, Mr. Gatsby?” He snorted a little, and I was annoyed I’d listened to Nick, come here at all. I leaned back into the leather of the chair and sighed. “What do you want, Jay?”