Beautiful Little Fools(74)

She hesitated for a moment but then she finally agreed. I knew she longed for Tom; I knew if Tom telephoned right now or swept in here and carried her off into the night, westward, she would leave me—and Duke—without even looking back.

But that didn’t happen. Instead, she cleaned up her face in the bathroom. She gave me hug, and picked up her bag, and then I walked downstairs with her.

I helped her get a cab to take her back to Queens, and just before she got in the car she turned back to me, she hugged me fiercely. “Give Duke a kiss from me, will you, Cath?”

I didn’t know it then, but those were the last words she’d ever say to me. The last moment I’d ever see my sister alive.





Daisy August 1922

WEST EGG




ONE SATURDAY IN AUGUST, WHEN it was almost too hot to breathe, Jordan insisted in the middle of the afternoon that we were going out.

“Now?” I said, lying on the couch, fanning myself. “Must we really, Jordie?”

July had rolled lazily into August, almost every day a repeat of the one before. The monotony of summer broken up only by an occasional party or polo match. Tom swore to me a few weeks ago he wasn’t seeing his woman in the city any longer, and yet, last night and the night before, the phone had rung on and on and on during supper. Jordan had looked at me, sipping her gin and tonic, with worry all over her face. I supposed that’s why she was demanding something of me this afternoon. She was concerned.

“Yes,” she insisted now. “You need to get out of this house, Daise. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

I sighed and told her I’d go get ready. It was easier to go along than to argue with her, and besides, maybe she was right. Maybe getting out of here would do me some good.

I fixed my hair and my face, and then I found Pammy to say good-bye. She was eating a late lunch with her nurse. In spite of her nurse’s cries that she was a mess, I smothered Pammy’s plump, sticky cheeks with kisses as she erupted into a fit of giggles, and I wondered, for a moment, if maybe this was all I truly needed to cheer me.

“Daise,” Jordan interrupted, sounding impatient. “Let’s go.”

“Mama’s going out for a bit with Aunt Jordan,” I told Pammy. “But I won’t be gone long, precious.” She turned back to her nurse and her lunch, unperturbed. Still, I stared at her for another second. She was so beautiful and happy, blissfully unaware of her father’s indiscretions or her mother’s misery.

“Come on, Daise,” Jordan said, grabbing my arm and leading me out front. “I’ll drive.”

I got in her car and Jordan quickly revved the engine and swerved down the drive. I remembered again why I didn’t like to drive places with her. She was a terrible, reckless driver. And I wondered briefly as she spun out onto the main road if she might hit something, and if we might both die. Then Tom would be truly free to be with whomever he wanted, and what would happen to Pammy? That thought burned up angrily inside of me.

“Jordie, slow down,” I insisted, my fingers tensely clutching the door of the car. “Where are we going in such a rush?” She didn’t answer me, but she eased back on the gas a little and I exhaled. Then she made the turn toward West Egg. “Nick’s?” I asked.

Jordan and Nick had been getting along swimmingly all summer, and I’d wondered if there might even be wedding bells in their future.

But she swerved the car now down the main throughway in West Egg Village, finally sputtering past the turn for Nick’s driveway. And then it hit me, where she was taking me. Not Nick’s. Jay’s. She was taking me to Jay Gatsby’s.



* * *



LAST WEEK, WE had all gone to a party at Jay’s. He’d sent over a personal invitation for me and Tom, addressed quite formally to The Buchanans—and Tom, curiously, had insisted we go. Or maybe not so curiously at all as Jordan had let it slip upon viewing the invitation that we had both known Jay back in Louisville, once.

Knew him how? Tom had asked, blowing a ring of smoke from his cigarette.

Daisy knew him very, very well, Jordan said with a little giggle, and I had to kick her under the table. But it was delightful to see the deep crease of the frown on Tom’s face at that moment. Tom’s jealousy was somehow both his best and worst quality.

We went to that party, Tom and I. And I danced a foxtrot with Jay when he asked me to, all the while keeping my eyes on Tom, on the bright red spread across his cheeks, the fire burning up his gray-blue eyes. Jay was whispering to me while we were dancing, but I couldn’t make sense of what he was saying. I was so busy reveling in Tom’s beautiful, reckless jealousy.

On the drive back to East Egg that night, Tom had reached across the seat for my leg in the back of the limousine, ran his fingers up under my dress, high up my thigh, reaching up inside my undergarments. “Tom, stop.” I’d pulled away, but my skin felt like fire, and the truth was, I wasn’t sure I’d wanted him to stop at all.

“I’m done with her,” he’d whispered in my ear then. “I promise you, Daisy. It’s only you I want. Only you.”

And for a minute, I’d believed him. His fingers crawled back up my thigh, under my undergarment, stroking me until I couldn’t help myself, I let out a moan. Tom’s face softened, and he looked like that man I married again.