But then he looked away, bent down, removed his shoes and socks, rolled up the bottoms of his pink trousers, and walked toward the water. “Come on, Daisy. We’ll just put our feet in.”
Sitting at the edge of the pool with his trousers rolled, he looked innocent, like a little boy. I slipped my own shoes off and dipped a toe in carefully—he was right, it was the perfect temperature. I let my feet sink in next to his, and I sat down next to him, swirling the water gently with my toes.
He moved his foot closer and tapped his toe gently against mine. “Do you remember when I climbed up into your bedroom in Louisville? The way we felt when we were together.” Jay covered my foot with his foot, moved closer and trailed his fingers across my knee.
“Oh, Jay.” I slithered away from him, splashing a little water. “I’m no longer the girl you knew in Louisville. And you’re not that man, either. You have so much to offer now. I bet there are a thousand women in New York who’d want to be with you.”
He moved closer to me, undeterred. He put his fingers on my thigh and gripped hard so now I couldn’t slither farther. “But Daisy,” he said, squeezing my thigh through my dress, “I only want you. All I’ve ever wanted was you. And you want me too. I know you still do.”
It would be so easy to surrender to him, to kiss him, and let him pull off my dress and to dive headfirst into his pool. How easy it would be to betray Tom the way he had betrayed me, over and over and over again. How easy it would be to ruin him with the knowledge that I’d been with another man. When Jay leaned in all at once, kissed me hard, on the mouth, I was still thinking about Tom’s red-hot jealousy. And I let him kiss me for a minute without pulling back.
“I’m going to make you remember how to feel good, Daisy,” he breathed heavily. “Erase the last three years.” He slid his hand under my dress, ran his fingers roughly up my bare calf.
“Jay,” I protested.
He ignored me, moved his hand up higher, my knee, my thigh.
“Jay, stop,” I protested again, trying to move his hand, but he wouldn’t budge.
He pushed his hand all the way up my thigh. His lips were on my ear, his voice a whisper, but also a command. “You love me. Say you love me.”
In that moment I realized that I was going to betray Tom, here, now, whether I wanted to or not. And maybe it would be easier to just give up, to give in. To pretend to love it. To pretend to love him again. If I pretended hard enough, could I feel something again, for real?
“Tell me you love me, Daisy.”
“I… I…” I felt hot tears running down my cheeks.
“Jay Gatsby!” A woman’s voice screamed Jay’s name from the veranda, and he froze. I pushed him off me and jumped out of the water shaking with relief. I wiped at my cheeks and fumbled with my shoes.
A gorgeous wisp of a girl flew down the veranda steps. She wore a bright red sleeveless dress that matched her beautiful strawberry bob. She looked at me, opened her mouth a little, shook her head.
“Jay Gatsby,” she said his name again. Now her hands were on her hips as she moved toward the pool. “Why, I can’t leave you alone for a second, can I?”
“Catherine,” Jay finally spoke. “Daisy’s here.”
She glared at me, then frowned. “Daisy Buchanan.” She said my name like it was something distasteful, dirty. I didn’t relish the idea that she thought she knew me when I’d never seen the girl before in my life.
“I was just leaving,” I said. I wasn’t sure how much time had passed but I hoped to God Jordan had come back for me and was waiting out front. If she wasn’t here, I’d escape to Nick’s.
“Daisy, don’t go.” Jay stood and reached for my arm, but I yanked away, hard. “Daisy,” he cried out my name again.
Catherine’s eyes shot me daggers, and I didn’t know why, but all of a sudden I started laughing. I laughed and laughed so hard that I almost couldn’t breathe. Jay had spent the summer chasing after me, staring at my green light, inviting me to his parties, begging me to be with him, practically forcing me to be with him. And here he already had another girl. A goddamned Catherine.
I finally stopped laughing, and then I felt like I might cry again. “You men are all the same, aren’t you?” I said.
“Oh, Daisy, no…” Jay protested.
But I spun on my heel and ran up the stairs to the veranda, too fast for Jay to get out of the pool and catch me. And besides, I didn’t think Catherine would let him.
As I ran out front of his house, down the path to Nick’s, I promised myself I would never come back here again.
Catherine August 1922
WEST EGG
“YOU RUINED EVERYTHING,” JAY YELLED in my face, grabbing onto my shoulders too hard, after Daisy ran out. “Goddammit, Catherine.”
It had thrilled me a little to make a show of things in front of Daisy. He deserved it, after all. But I hadn’t expected such rage from him in return. I struggled to pull from his grasp now, but he held tighter, harder. I finally broke free and rubbed my shoulders a little.
The months I’d known Jay, the months I’d been with him, his touch had never been anything but gentle. But now his anger was red-hot, dangerous. I was pretty sure his fingers had left marks on my shoulders. Daisy was right about one thing. All men were the same.
“You’re a fine one to talk,” I finally shot back at him, regaining my composure and remembering why it was I’d gotten a taxicab all the way out here to West Egg in the first place. I rubbed my shoulders again. “And how about, nice to see you, Cath.”
“It’s just… Daisy…” His voice trailed off and he stared behind me into the house, hoping maybe she might come back.
The truth was, Daisy wasn’t half as beautiful as I’d expected her to be, and she hadn’t appeared half as enamored with Jay as he was with her. And if it hadn’t been for the way Jay had brought Myrtle into all this, I may have even felt a little sorry for the way I’d behaved, and for the forlorn way he looked now, like he was realizing he’d just lost her all over again. But then I thought about the crack of Tom’s fist against Myrtle’s face, her nose spurting blood, and I remembered my anger. “You ruined my sister’s life.”
“What?” Jay finally stopped spinning and pining after Daisy and he seemed to hear what I’d said to him. “What are you talking about?”
“You set Myrtle up with Tom Buchanan, Jay,” I said. “And he’s the last man Myrtle needs. He’s worse than George.”
“Set her up?” Jay shook his head, confused. “No, I just wanted to stage some photographs, that’s all. I paid her simply to sit and talk to him on a train.”
“You sent my sister to meet a wealthy, philandering man on a train,” I yelled at him. “What did you think was going to happen next? Of course she’d fall in love with him.”