Beautiful Little Fools(92)

“Catherine,” Tom said now. “Is that you?” He held out his arms to give me a hug, but I took a large step back. “You object to giving me a hug?”

“Yes,” I said. “You must know what I think of you.” I glared at him. Jay might have been driving the car, but it was Tom and George who’d driven Myrtle to such depths of desperation that she’d run out of her apartment that night, chasing what she must’ve believed was her last escape.

Tom opened his mouth, then closed it again. “You know I loved her,” he said. “I went to clean out the apartment before we left the city, and I sat there among her things and the dog biscuits and I cried like a baby.”

I stared at him for another moment, picturing Myrtle’s blood on those very same hands he’d just used to reach for me. “You don’t love anyone but yourself,” I said. “And furthermore”—my voice rose in pitch, so I was almost yelling at him now—“if you ever see me walking again on the street, just pretend you never saw me at all. Keep walking by. You disgust me, Tom Buchanan,” I said. One final, fleeting shot to the heart.

Then I spun on my heel and turned and started walking the long way home. Maybe Tom watched me walk away, surprised or hurt or angry. Or maybe he just kept on walking that arrogant walk, toward wherever it was he was going.

Either way, Tom Buchanan was behind me now. And I didn’t look back.





Jordan January 1923

SANTA BARBARA




“MISS BAKER!”

I heard his voice as I walked off the green and I stopped walking, my breath catching in my chest. He’d followed me, all the way here, all the way to California?

I turned and faced him, forced a smile. “Hello, Detective.”

Detective Frank Charles stood on the edge of the course, sweating in his three-piece suit. He tipped his hat, and I looked down, averting eye contact.

It was hot today, exceptional for a January day in Santa Barbara. Eighty degrees! And I had spent it tangled in a delightful day of golf and sweat and sunshine. I was in second place after round one—finally making my way back to the top after losing ground in my game for months and months.

Aunt Sigourney had passed away last September, and with the loss of my last family member came control of my entire inheritance—Daddy’s money and hers, and the old bird had built up quite a nest egg over the years. After making a more than exorbitant donation to Mr. Hennessey, lo and behold, I was invited back on the tour, and I was quickly rising up the ranks again. Jerralyn still hated me, and it was almost refreshing, the familiarity in the daily glares I received from her over breakfast.

Daisy moved to Minnesota only a week after that hot death-filled morning in West Egg, and we had written each other only the occasional letter since, filled with only the most mundane details about the weather. I missed her desperately, but I knew I had to stay away from her now to save her. To save myself, too.

I looked back up and Detective Charles was still staring at my face, like he could see right through me, like all my innermost thoughts were visible to him on an X-ray. It was disconcerting, to say the least.

“My, you’re a far way from Flushing, Detective, aren’t you?” I finally said, laughing a little, nervousness catching in my throat. This was the second time he’d come to find me in the past few months, and that was after he’d questioned me relentlessly in the days after Jay Gatsby’s death. They felt like a haze now, those days, and who could even remember what I said then.

Every paper had reported that Jay Gatsby had been murdered by a grieving George Wilson, who’d then taken his own life. The case was officially closed. This detective’s continued morbid, pesky fascination with it, and me, made no sense. But I couldn’t help swallowing back the fear rising in my chest at his presence, nonetheless.

“I needed to talk to you again.” Detective Charles pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit it. He offered one to me, but I shook my head. We weren’t friends; I wasn’t about to share anything with him.

“Well, I’m very busy,” I said flatly. “In the middle of a tournament, as you can well see.”

“Let me buy you something to eat,” Detective Charles said. “I found a good little diner around the corner. Nothing fancy. We can talk.”

“Why, Detective, are you asking me on a date?” I said flippantly.

He held out his left hand, showing his thick gold wedding band. “I’m a happily married man, Miss Baker. It’ll be twenty years this summer.”



* * *



I SAT IN a shiny red booth across from the detective and tried to be patient as he deliberated over the menu and finally ordered only a piece of cherry pie. “Miss Baker?” he said.

“Nothing for me,” I told the waitress. What I really needed was a G&T. But I couldn’t order one here. Anyway, I hadn’t touched the stuff since the summer, and I wasn’t going to start again now, in the middle of a tournament. Now that I’d clawed my way back, I wouldn’t let anything stop me. I’d gotten sidetracked the past few years by love and friendship and gin. And my true love, my true life, was golf.

“She’ll take a piece of the pie, too,” Detective Charles said.

“How do you know I even like pie?” I asked when the waitress walked away.