“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.
* * *
JORDAN TURNED OFF the car in front of Jay’s house now, and I pushed away the memory of that other night, the last time I was here. Tom’s jealousy, his sudden craving for me. But all that was superseded by his need for this woman in the city, I supposed. Or else why had she called so many times last night during supper? He’d lied to me. He wasn’t done with her at all.
“What are we doing here, Jordie?” I sighed as I stared at Jay’s sprawling estate in front of us.
“It’ll make Tom awfully jealous. And serves him right after all those telephone calls through supper last night.”
“But Tom doesn’t even know we’re here,” I said.
Her face twisted a little, somewhere between a frown and a smirk, an expression I couldn’t quite place. “Well, I left a note on his desk to let him know exactly where I’ve taken you.”
“You’re positively wicked, Jordie.” But it warmed me a little to picture the look on Tom’s face when he walked into his study and read Jordan’s words.
Seeing Jay again was the last thing I felt like doing, and I wished Jordan and I could’ve simply taken a drive and then lied about it. I was about to suggest such a thing when Jay walked outside, came right up to the car. “Daisy!” he exclaimed, opening up my car door and tugging gently on my arm to pull me upright. “Come on in.”
“I’ll drive around and come back in an hour,” Jordan said. And then she sped off into the heat of the afternoon, abandoning me, before I could protest.
“I’m sorry to just drop in on you like this uninvited,” I said to Jay, suddenly feeling nervous to be here with just him. The last time we’d been all alone, at Nick’s house, I’d felt so powerless that it had sent me spinning in Tom’s study later that night. “I don’t know what Jordan was thinking. I could walk next door to visit Nick.”
“I won’t hear of it.” He grabbed my arm, as if to say that now that I was here, he would never let me go again. I shifted back, out of his grasp, uncomfortable. “I have your favorite tea,” he spoke quickly. “The kind you used to like back in Louisville.”
“Chamomile?” I asked. He nodded. It was really Rose’s favorite tea, not mine; she used to make it all the time for both of us, and the truth was I hadn’t drunk it in years. It tasted and smelled and reminded me entirely too much of her. “I’m really not… in the mood for tea,” I said. I eyed the path to Nick’s and fought the urge to break into a run. I wasn’t at all wearing the shoes for it.
“Well, we can have lemonade instead. Come on, we’ll sit out back. Reminisce about the good old times we had.” He stared at me, his eyes refusing to move from my face. And I supposed it was either that or stand out in the hot drive for the next hour waiting for Jordan to come back while he stared.
I relented and followed him into his house and through it, out onto the back veranda, and down the steps to his large sparkling pool.
“The water is the perfect temperature, and I’ve barely gotten to use it all summer,” he said. “We should go in!”
“I don’t have my swimsuit,” I said quickly. Though we were outside, surrounded by the woods on one side, the sound on the other, and a great big blue expanse of summer sky above us, I suddenly felt trapped. What had happened to the lemonade? The reminiscing?
Jay stared at me now, his eyes roaming my body, a little glassy like he was remembering the way every inch of my skin looked naked. I felt my face turning hot. Everything about Jay felt suffocating, all-consuming. He would push and push and wouldn’t stop until he claimed me, would he?