I didn’t tell Daisy but I was less worried about Daddy and his sciatica and more worried about the tournament itself. What if I didn’t do well and I didn’t even make it to the tour? This was it, my one real shot to play golf. The only genuine opportunity I’d have as a woman. If I didn’t make it, then I’d return home to Louisville and do… what? I had no desire to spend the spring going to parties, looking for a rich husband the way Daisy planned to. I had no desire for any kind of husband. Wealthy or otherwise.
“I don’t know, Daise,” I’d said, as we waited at the station earlier. “I’ve never played outside Louisville before. I might not even be any good.”
The train pulled in, and I’d taken my suitcase from Daisy, shifting it to manage with my clubs. Daisy gave me a fierce hug, crushing me against her. “I’m proud of you, Jordie,” she’d said into my hair. “I really am, you know.”
I’d offered her a wan smile and stepped on board, but even as the train had started moving, my entire body had still felt warm from her compliment.
* * *
I ALWAYS FELT different on the golf course. The sky was bluer and the grass was (quite literally) greener. I could breathe deeper, and when I swung a club, watched my ball slice the air, I felt a heady sensation of lightness. It was like floating on the river on the warmest of summer days. I couldn’t imagine anything feeling more right than the moment when my club connected with the ball and made it soar.
“Nice shot,” a woman’s voice said as my ball rolled into the ninth hole, the last one of the afternoon. I’d finished the day three below par.
I turned, and one of the other competitors stood behind me. She was tall, taller than my five foot six, and dressed in a white sweater and skirt, like mine. She had pale brown hair, similar in color to Daisy’s (but not as shiny, of course), and she wore it back in a tight, high braid.
“Mary Margaret Smith,” she said with an easy drawl, walking closer to me. “Sorry to stare, but your swing is to die for.”
“Oh.” I let out a nervous giggle. I’d been so focused on my own game for the past nine holes that I hadn’t paid attention to any of the other competitors up until now. I had no idea what Mary Margaret’s swing was like or why she thought mine was to die for. “I’m Jordan Baker.” I moved toward her, held out my hand to shake. She took it—her hand was small, her fingers delicate, but her grip was strong. “I’m from Louisville.”
“Nashville,” she said. She smiled, revealing perfect pearl-white teeth. “Well, Jordan Baker from Louisville, I hope I’ll see you on the tour in May.”
I nodded and felt a surge of confidence that I would be on that tour, after all. Maybe it was that someone else besides Daddy had been impressed by my golf game for the first time, or maybe it was that Mary Margaret seemed so kind and easygoing, I knew immediately we would be friends.
“Hope to see you, too, Mary Margaret from Nashville,” I called after her. She stopped walking away to turn back and give me another smile.
* * *
I CAME IN second in the tournament, and two weeks later, back in Louisville, I received a letter from Mr. Hennessey, head of the Women’s National Amateur Golf Tour, inviting me to join the tour in May. As soon as I opened the letter up, read it, I wondered if Mary Margaret had gotten one, too, and I wished I’d asked for her address or phone number in Nashville. Or that her last name wasn’t Smith, so it would be easier to track her down.
Daddy was so excited when I showed him the letter, he jumped out of bed and howled, forgetting all about the sciatica. It took him a full minute to remember, that’s how excited he was. Then, suddenly, he winced in pain.
I reached for him, to help him back to bed. “Now, Daddy, don’t kill yourself over this. It’s only a golf tour for ladies. Who knows how long it will go on, and if they’ll decide to keep me once I’m there.”
“Don’t be a half-wit, Jordan,” Daddy said, almost breathless from the pain. “Of course they’ll decide to keep you. You’re going to be the star of the whole league.”
* * *
“YOU’RE LEAVING ME?” Daisy said later that day, when I showed her the letter. “I can’t believe you’re really leaving me, Jordie.”
Daisy’s face had taken a different shape since Rose had died. Maybe it was because she hardly ever smiled anymore. It was hard to remember the way she was just six months ago, early last fall, when she was going on about love and marriage and running away with Jay Gatsby. Now Daisy looked pale, and too thin. She’d told me about all the money troubles her daddy had left behind, and lately all she could talk about was finding a wealthy man to marry, someone who could pay off her daddy’s debts and keep her mama in their house. I’d told Daisy that maybe money and happiness weren’t one and the same. But when I’d said that, she laughed at me.
“I wish I could take you with me,” I said now. And I really did wish that too. Even if all the other women were as nice as Mary Margaret, and even if Mary Margaret were there, well, she wouldn’t be Daisy. No one could ever be Daisy.
“Sometimes it feels like everyone has just gone and left me all at once,” Daisy said. Her voice was wistful, and I couldn’t tell if she was talking about me going on tour, Rose and her daddy dying, or Jay going off to war. There was a new crop of soldiers at Camp Taylor this spring, but I hadn’t seen Daisy talking to a single one of them.
“I’ll come back to visit, Daise,” I promised her. “And you know we’ll always be best friends. We’ll always find a way to see each other, no matter what.”
Daisy offered me a half smile. “I just never thought it would be so hard, Jordie,” she said softly.
“What’s that?”
She shook her head, and I reached up and smoothed back her hair. It looked a mess today—she had it back in a bun, but wayward wisps flew all around her face. I wondered if she’d given up on the egg yolks. “What’s so hard, Daise?” I tucked her flyaway hairs back behind her ears.
“Life,” she finally said. She sounded sad, and she sounded tired. “Growing up. Being an adult.”
I pulled her to me in a hug. I wished I could help her. If I won out on the tour, I’d eventually get some money. Not a lot, but something. “I’ll save up whatever winnings I can and send them to you,” I told her now, clinging to her fiercely. “Don’t do anything foolish while I’m gone,” I added.
But not even a month after I left, I received a letter from Daisy telling me she’d done it. She’d met the wealthy man who was going to save her.
Jordie, she wrote, I’m going to get Tom Buchanan to marry me, and then everything will be good again.
Daisy 1918
LOUISVILLE