Tom’s woman? Here? We’d stopped for gas at Wilson’s earlier on the way into town, but Nick hadn’t said a word then. I’d always pictured the woman on the other end of the telephone as wealthy and refined, like Daisy. Somehow it made it worse to know that she was sad and poor, restless, wanting. I felt certain Tom had made her a thousand promises he would never keep. And taking her west had to be one of them.
Nick got out of the car, too, and walked up ahead to the crowd, where Tom was standing. But I lay back against the seat, closed my eyes again. The afternoon ran through my memory, hot and horrible and drunken. Bits and pieces of conversation and yelling tumbled around in my head and it was hard to tell if it was real or a dream. Blocks Biloxi and Jay and Tom. And Daisy. Why had Daisy left me there like that? What had Jay said to her?
After a little while the men got back in the car, rigid and silent. “What happened?” I asked. Neither one of them spoke for a moment.
“She was killed,” Nick finally said, softly. “Myrtle Wilson was killed.”
Myrtle. Tom’s woman?
“He didn’t even stop the car,” Tom cried out. “He didn’t even stop the goddamned car.”
I shook my head, confused.
“Gatsby,” Nick turned and whispered to me. “He hit Tom’s woman with his car and didn’t even stop.”
* * *
I DID NOT sleep at all that night, and by six a.m. when the morning light had just begun to erupt above the sound outside my window, I had made myself sick with worry. For myself. For this woman I’d never met who Jay had run over and killed with his car. If he’d done that to her, what would he do to me when he learned I hadn’t really been trying to help him this summer at all? The worry rose up, acidic in my throat, and I had to run to the toilet to vomit.
When we’d finally made it back to East Egg last night, I’d walked inside the house, and Daisy had been sitting at the kitchen table, crying into a bowl of fried chicken. I’d run to her, but she’d pushed me away then, saying “Jordan, I can’t. I just… can’t.” Her words had stung like a slap, and then Tom ordered me to leave them alone. I’d gone up to my bedroom—what other choice did I have? But I’d lain awake all night, restless.
Now, hours later, I lay on the bathroom floor and leaned my head against the cool porcelain, my stomach lurching even once it was empty. There was nothing left. I had nothing left.
I suddenly heard Daisy calling my name. I stood quickly and splashed water on my face and ran back to my bed.
“Jordie.” Daisy walked into my room, breathless. My stomach roiled again, and I held my breath, waiting for her to snap at me like she had last night, but instead, she climbed up on the bed and wrapped me in a hug. I held her tightly, fiercely. “Last night was just…” She pulled back, shook her head, and bit her lip, unable to finish her sentence.
I pulled her back for another hug, buried my face in her hair, and somehow it still felt as soft as corn silk and it still smelled a little bit like gin but like lemons, too. It soothed me and my stomach finally calmed.
She sat back and offered me a wan, tear-streaked smile. “I’ve come to say good-bye.”
“Good-bye?” I whispered.
“I’m leaving Tom, Jordie.” I shook my head, not understanding. “It was last night… It was the final straw. Jay and I were driving and then that woman… Tom’s woman…” She buried her face in her hands, like she had been picturing the gruesome scene all night and she couldn’t picture it yet again. Not another time. “And after I got home, I kept hearing Rosie’s voice in my head, telling me to be good. How can I be good with Tom? I can’t, Jordie. I just can’t. I never will.”
She leaned across the bed and kissed me softly on the cheek. Her lips were warm, and they felt like sunshine and my childhood in Louisville, and I wanted Daisy to stay right here with me, forever.
“I’m going to go fix myself up now and go see Jay,” she said. Jay. His name felt so abrasive, so awful, that the rest of her words rushed through my ears, thick and blurry and nonsensical. “… And then we’re going to get ready to go,” she was still talking. “But I’ll write you as soon as we get settled, all right? You’ll come visit us when you get a break from the tour, won’t you, Jordie?”
Jay? Us. The words spun around in my head, making me dizzy, and I closed my eyes to try and understand what was happening. She wasn’t just leaving Tom. She was leaving Tom for Jay. But Jay had just killed a woman last night. She wouldn’t be safe with Jay. She would never be safe again. No matter what Jay would try to do to ruin me for it, I had to stop her now.
“Daise, wait!” I called after her.
But when I opened my eyes, it was too late. She was already gone.
Catherine August 1922
FLUSHING, NY
“A MORGUE IS NO PLACE for a lady,” the portly mustached coroner insisted as I demanded to be let inside.
“I’m not taking no for an answer,” I spat back, my voice shaking through my tears.
I’d been in a deep and gin-soaked sleep when the telephone had rung at six o’clock this morning. Helen had answered it, shaken me awake. “Cath.” Her brown eyes had loomed above me, wide-eyed with fear. “A detective’s on the line for you.”
I’d sat up in bed all at once, the startling revelation that my deepest fear had come to fruition. Had George finally hurt Myrtle so badly that she was in the hospital?
Two hours later, I was at the morgue in Flushing, and Detective Charles was asking me to sit down before he would tell me what was going on. “I don’t want to sit down,” I’d flared at him. “Just tell me what happened. Where’s Myrtle?”
The words dead, car, didn’t stop reverberated senselessly in my head. Mr. Wilson had been too shaken up to call me, he said, and that’s where the detective had stepped in. His words were unexpected. Certainly untrue. “Let me see her,” I’d demanded. “I have to see her.”
And then Detective Charles had led me down the stairs, to the cool, dark basement morgue. The smell of formaldehyde and death turned my stomach, and I’d turned away from him and suddenly started gasping for air, trying not to wretch.
“Here.” The detective kindly handed me a bucket, and I turned away from him to vomit into it. And that’s when the coroner walked out, insisted that I not be allowed inside.
“I’m fine now,” I said firmly. “I’m not taking no for an answer. I have to see my sister.”
Detective Charles looked at me. He was tall, with brown hair peppered with gray. But his face still looked young, and I suspected the gray hairs were more a consequence of his job than his age.
“I haven’t been in myself yet, but I think they got her cleaned up,” Detective Charles was saying now. His voice was calm, even. Perhaps death no longer shocked him, he’d seen it too many times. “But it still won’t be pretty, Miss McCoy.”
I crossed my arms in front of my chest and stepped in front of the door to the morgue, resolute. I wasn’t going anywhere until they let me see Myrtle.