Beautiful Little Fools(89)

Halfway into the woods, I heard the sound of another gunshot, erupting into the air. And it was so close, so deafening again, that I thought, at first, I had done it myself, by accident.

But then I heard another sound, an unmistakable, horrible sound: my dear sweet Daisy screaming.





Daisy August 1922

WEST EGG




I DIDN’T RECOGNIZE THE MAN, aiming his gun straight at my head. But from the terrified look on her face, Catherine did.

“You,” he said to me. “You did this.” His voice was gravelly and drunken, and it was really just my terrible luck that I’d run into an unhinged vagabond in the woods, on the one morning in my life that I’d finally, finally figured everything out.

“George Wilson, put the gun down,” Catherine said, a feeble attempt to sound commanding. Her voice trembled, betraying her. George Wilson. She did know him.

George shook his head. “She killed Myrtle and now it’s her turn.”

Myrtle. Wilson’s garage. George Wilson.

I inhaled sharply and put my hand to my mouth. This man was not a vagabond. He was Myrtle’s husband. This was the man she betrayed with Tom? What a sad, terrible life she must’ve led.

“Jay Gatsby killed Myrtle,” Catherine insisted sharply. She stood up straighter, tucked a strand of fire-colored hair behind her ear, and looked altogether instantly more composed than I felt.

“No.” George shook his head. “They both did.”

Catherine shot me a penetrating look and I bit my lip. What could I say to her that wouldn’t cause George to shoot me dead right here, in these woods? Well, yes, I was in the driver’s seat but Jay had grabbed the wheel. You were drinking, Daisy, Jay had said. Everything was blurry.

It would be an awful way to die, to be shot and bleed out like a deer, hunted and filleted, underneath these oak trees. And what would happen to Pammy? I let out a little cry.

“George,” Catherine was saying now. “Why don’t you go up to the house. Jay Gatsby’s up there. He’s the one you’re angry at. He’s the one who did this. Yellow Rolls-Royce. The detective told me. That’s his car.”

George shook his head and waved his gun in the air. “He’s dead,” George said flatly. “Someone else got to him first. Maybe it was you, Cath.” He laughed, almost sounding maniacal. “But you don’t have the guts to shoot a man.”

He was dead? Jay was dead? I knew I should feel something, but all I felt was cold and empty and desperate to get out of these woods, to get back in my car, and speed across the village to the bright open safety of East Egg.

George stopped waving the gun, raised his arm, pointed at my forehead. If I turned and ran, I’d never reach my car. He’d shoot me in the back. “I have a daughter,” I said, my voice stretched and desperate. “A little girl. Pammy.”

“George, come on,” Catherine pleaded. “Put the gun down.”

“It was Gatsby’s car, but you were driving it,” George said.

“Daisy wasn’t driving, were you, Daisy?” Catherine turned to me when she spoke.

Jay was dead. Only the two of us were in the car; only the two of us knew exactly what had happened. He’d grabbed the wheel. You were drinking, Daisy. I won’t let you go to jail. I shook my head. “It was Jay,” I said. “Of course. It was all Jay.”

“You killed her,” George yelled at me, sounding delirious now. But he knew what he saw. I could lie to Catherine all I liked, but George had seen me, me in the driver’s seat as the yellow Rolls-Royce had sped through Queens. “She was mine, and you took her from me.” George was half yelling, half crying.

But he was wrong. She wasn’t his, and she wasn’t Tom’s, either. She was just a woman, just a poor, stupid fool of a woman. Just like me.

His finger reached for the trigger, and I squeezed my eyes tightly shut, waiting for it: the sound of the explosion and the burst of pain that would soon rise in my chest. I heard Rose’s voice so clearly in my head. Be good, Daise.

I tried, Rosie. I really tried. I wanted to. I was going to be. After today I was going to be.

The sound of a gunshot crackled in the air and I screamed. I waited for pain, for blood. But a moment passed, and I felt nothing at all.

I opened my eyes, and Catherine stood a few feet away from me, a gun smoking in her trembling hand. George was on the ground, the top part of his head in pieces. A sight so gruesome and revolting that I turned away and gagged.

“I killed him,” Catherine said, her voice stretched in disbelief. “All those times he hurt Myrtle, and now… I killed him.”

George had been wrong. She did have the guts to shoot a man, and thank goodness for that or I’d be dead. “You had to do it,” I said softly. “You had to do it.”

“Daise!” Jordan’s voice shot out of the woods, somewhere just behind us. Catherine and I were still standing there, eyes locked, unmoving. Somewhere in the background a siren wailed, and then another.

Jordan ran out from the trees, saw me. “Oh my god, Daise, I heard the gun, and I heard you scream.”

“I’m okay,” I said. “I’m really okay.” But my voice trembled so much my words came out more like gibberish.

Her eyes suddenly caught on George’s bloody, broken head.