Jordan was easy enough to spot on the course now, as no one else was out playing in this cold today. I found her preparing to take a shot on the ninth hole. I stood back, watched her for a moment. Her brow furrowed in concentration before she lifted the club, swung, and the tiny white ball flew through the air. Her power was impressive. And maybe a little terrifying, too.
“Daise, what are you doing out here?” she called out, noticing me watching. I waved and walked toward her. “Meet me at the next tee box,” she said to the caddie, then took her bag of clubs from him and handed them to me. They were heavy, and I sunk for a moment before righting myself. I hoisted them over my shoulder and walked with her to find her ball.
“Jay snuck into my room last night,” I told her, keeping my voice low. Though no one else was around to hear me now. “We were… together. All night.”
Jordan paused, put her hands on her hips, and frowned. Then she exclaimed, “Oh! There it is.” She walked around me to stand behind her ball. “Daise, nine iron.” She held out her hand.
I shook my head and thrust the bag of clubs toward her so she could take what she wanted. “Did you hear what I said?” I asked her. She took a club and positioned herself behind her ball, rocking her hips.
She swung and the ball flew through the air again, until it dropped, then rolled ever so slowly into the hole up ahead. Jordan smiled at her success, walked ahead, and picked up her ball. I walked after her. “Jordie?” I was practically shouting her name. She was my best friend. I wanted her to reassure me, to help me. The way she always did.
“What do you want me to say?” she finally asked.
Jordan had told me a few days after Adelaide’s party that she thought Jay seemed all right to have fun with, but not the kind of man I should fall in love with. You’re not going to marry him! she’d said, laughing. And I’d been turning her words over in my head ever since.
“I think I am going to marry him,” I said now, finally responding, weeks later. It felt as if Jay and I had taken that vow with each other last night. Not legally, perhaps. But we’d said it to each other, felt it with each other, and that meant something. That had to mean something.
Jordan put her club back into the bag, took it from me, and walked briskly toward the next hole, waving for her caddie to come back. I had to run to catch up with her. “Are you mad at me?” I called after her.
She stopped, turned around, and gave me a hard look. “Oh, Daise. We both know he’s not the kind of man you’ll marry. You’re young and beautiful and why would you give yourself away, just like that, to a soldier?”
Her words felt like a slap. “I thought you were my best friend,” I huffed angrily. “I thought you’d want me to be happy.”
“Daise,” she said somberly. “I do. That’s why I’m being honest with you.”
* * *
LATER THAT NIGHT, Jay tapped on my window again. I turned Jordan’s words over in my head, that Jay was not the kind of man I’d marry. Why would you give yourself away, just like that, to a soldier? I swallowed back a bitter taste rising in my throat. Now instead of anger, I felt doubt curling up inside of me, wondering if she was right.
Be good, Rosie had told me this morning. But wasn’t it good, to love a man for who he was, not what he was worth?
Jay tapped again, and I remembered how cold it was outside and ran to open the window.
“I missed you today,” Jay said, his voice husky. He climbed into my bedroom. A cold blast of air entered my room with him, and I shivered. He quickly shut the window, and then he clung to me, kissed my hair. I turned warm again. The heat of his lips radiated across my head, and my face turned hot. Jordan’s words faded away.
“I can’t stand being apart from you,” I said, standing up on my toes to kiss his mouth. He hesitated, then pulled back from me a little. “Jay…? What is it?” My heart thrummed with what I suddenly knew he was about to say.
He pulled me toward him again, kissed my forehead gently. “Daisy, Daisy,” he said my name softly, stringing out the letters like he was singing me a song. “I’m leaving in the morning.”
I’d known it was coming. Known since I’d met him. But still, hearing him say it out loud now felt like a punch, and I could barely breathe. He could not leave me. And so soon. How could he leave me so soon?
“Come to New York,” he said, his words tumbling out in a rush. “We can see the city together and get married there before I ship out at the end of January. You know I can’t offer you much now. But after the war, I’ll work hard, make a good life for us.”
I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself there, walking the streets with Jay. I’d been to Chicago before but never to New York. Even Chicago was so big, it made me feel small, anonymous. In Louisville everyone knew Daisy Fay, but in a big city, I could be anyone. I could be no one at all.
“I don’t know,” I said softly. What would Daddy say if I just left, like this? Worse, what would Daddy do? Jay didn’t have money, or a family name. As he said once, he only had himself to offer me. I loved him, I did. But Jordan’s words echoed in my head again: he’s not the kind of man you’ll marry. “I want to. I really do, but…”
“I’m not good enough for you,” Jay said softly.
“No!” I put my hand to his cheek and stroked his face gently. “Don’t say that, Jay. You must never say that.” But I felt an ache in my chest, an unfamiliar feeling of worry about my future. “It’s not that at all. It’s that… Rose is gone. I can’t just leave without saying good-bye.” That much was true. If I were going to follow Jay, marry Jay, I would not just abandon my sister without even an explanation. I’d promised her we would decorate the Christmas tree and I’d water her lettuce while she was away. “I’ll come to New York,” I promised him. “I’ll marry you. But after Christmas. I need to stay here to have Christmas with Rose.”
In response Jay held my cheeks in his hands, pulled my face in closer to his, and kissed me. It was a hard kiss, a hungry kiss. A kiss that seemed to make a promise I wasn’t sure that Jay could keep—that he alone would take care of me. That he loved me enough that anything was possible.
* * *
I HAD NEVER known what it was like to need someone, to feel a physical sensation of emptiness without someone. But once Jay was gone, I felt this hollow, this relentless pain in my stomach. It was hard to breathe and it was hard to eat, and I picked at my food during enough meals that Mother threatened to call Dr. Simms.
A week after Jay left, Jordan came over. Mother must’ve summoned her because she’d spent the whole evening before worrying I truly was ill when I refused to attend the Hillets’ winter ball, which I always loved. The following day, Mother announced she was going to have lunch across the river in Jeffersonville with her old aunt. And then, Jordan was here. She lay across my bed with me, stroking back my hair as I cried. She truly was the best friend I’d ever had, and I felt guilty now that I’d ever been cross with her.