He’d frowned and massaged the gun with his drunken fingers.
Every fiber of my being had told me to grab my suitcase then, to run, to go back to the city. Maybe Cath’s couch wouldn’t be so bad? But George would only follow me there. And I’d told Cath I’d trust her, wait it out here. Wait for Tom to come and take me westward like he’d promised. Anyway, if I turned and ran, I was pretty sure George would shoot me.
I’d forced myself to smile, to walk toward him. It took every ounce of strength I had to lean in and rub his shoulders. “Darling, it’s so late. Let’s go to bed.”
He’d stared up at me, his eyes glassy, desperate. But he’d let go of the gun, and he’d stood, wrapped his hands around my neck. At first he’d moved his fingers gently, massaging my collarbone with his thumbs. But I knew what was coming and a shiver erupted through my body. His hands began to squeeze. Tighter and tighter.
“George… I… I can’t… breathe.” I’d gasped for air, and he’d squeezed tighter still. I saw colors in flashes: purple and blue and yellow. Everything was bright and yellow.
And I’d thought: the yellow car had erupted into my colorless ashy life like a sliver of sunshine, once, leading me to Tom. All it had to do was come back, save me.
* * *
AND THEN, THERE it was again.
Just after dusk on the hottest night of the year. Darting forth from the twilight. A lightning bolt. A flutter of hope. My savior. My escape.
I ran toward it.
Daisy August 1922
NEW YORK
JAY KEPT HIS PROMISE AND didn’t say a word as I drove out of the city. I focused on the road, and it calmed me, sobered me. I rehashed all the night’s arguing in my head, and suddenly it all felt so silly. So childish and stupid. Tom and Jay blind with rage and jealous and fighting, over me. I wanted neither one of them.
“Daisy,” Jay said softly, as we approached the ash dump, “if you left him, I could give you everything you ever wanted. And I’d never hurt you the way he hurts you.”
I thought about him forcing his hand up my dress by the pool, his girl, Catherine, running blindly down the steps of his veranda, mad as hell. “Wouldn’t you, though?” I said softly. Every man, every wealthy man, was surrounded by temptation and need and burning with some sort of unquenchable desire. It occurred to me I might’ve wanted to love Jay again now if he were still poor, if I’d known there was a purity to his feelings like there had been back in Louisville. But he and Tom were cut of the same cloth. I wanted nothing to do with either one of them.
“What can I do to prove to you how much I love you?” he said, sounding desperate. “Tell me, Daisy. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it.”
I shook my head. “Jay,” I said. “You have to stop.”
“I’ll never stop, Daisy.”
His words felt like a punch, a god-awful truth settling in my stomach. And it hit me—East Egg was not going to be my permanent home. Jay would never stop gazing at my green light, across the sound. He’d never stop following me, chasing me. Tom would love it until he would hate it. He would desire me until he forgot about me. The realization overwhelmed me, and I lowered my eyes from the road for just a moment. Only a moment.
When I looked back up, we were approaching Wilson’s garage, and there was a flash, a red streak of a woman, running out from the garage and waving her arms. That voluptuous body, plump cheeks, swirl of red hair. I knew her. I’d never met her before, but here she was, running toward me. “That’s Tom’s woman,” I gasped.
She ran toward the car, like she had a death wish. And I thought, everything Tom touches wants to die.
And then what happened next seemed to happen both in slow motion, but also so fast I could barely see straight enough to try and stop it. Jay jumped across the seat, pushed my hands out of the way, and grabbed the wheel.
The car hit her with a horrifying thump, and I watched her catapult through the air, screaming, bleeding, clutching her breast.
Jordan August 1922
EAST EGG
BLOCKS BILOXI.
His name was still rattling around in my head.
I’d fallen half asleep on the hotel suite’s couch while the men got into their little row, and Blocks came to me in a semilucid dream. He reached for me, I screamed, grabbed the aluminum putter. And Daddy’s face. Oh dear, sweet Daddy’s face. And then Blocks had morphed into Jay Gatsby saying, Jordan, I’m going to tell everyone your secret. Had I dreamed that, too, or had he actually said that out loud inside the suite?
“Jordan.” Tom woke me with his brutish, drunken voice, and I jumped up. “Let’s go.”
I looked around. Daisy was gone. Jay was gone.
“What happened to Daise?” I didn’t dare ask Tom because I could tell just by the way he’d said my name he was still inflamed. But I whispered the question to Nick as we walked back out to the street. It was twilight now and the air had finally cooled the smallest bit. I took a deep breath, but my lungs still burned.
“She left with Gatsby, about a half an hour ago,” he said, frowning.
And, yes, that was the obvious answer, but I supposed the real question was why? “Did Jay say something to her, about me?” I asked. My voice faltered a little. I was still a little sleepy and a little drunk and altogether unsteady on my feet.
Nick frowned, impatient. “I told you she loved him, didn’t I?” There was something surprising in his tone, almost a little snide, a little I told ya so. I didn’t know Nick had it in him to be vindictive.
I sighed and lay down in the back seat of Tom’s coupe and closed my eyes again. Blocks, Jay, Tom, Mr. Hennessey. Even Nick. They were all the same, weren’t they? They all wanted nothing more than to ruin me. It was utterly exhausting to be a woman.
* * *
I WOKE UP again when the car came to a sudden stop.
I sat up, expecting the bright lights of Daisy’s East Egg mansion, but instead everything around me was smoky and gray and up ahead I saw the flashing lights of a police wagon. Tom got out of the car and walked toward the trouble, and Nick leaned his head out of the car, expectantly.
“Where are we?” I asked Nick.
“In the valley of ashes,” Nick said. I frowned. “Corona,” he clarified. “There’s been some kind of a wreck.” He paused. “Tom’s woman lives here,” he said thoughtfully, pointing to Wilson’s garage off to my right.