There weren’t any saloons like this in Rockvale either. It was getting harder and harder to get a drink anywhere these days, and since the Eighteenth Amendment had passed in Congress just this month, I suspected it was about to get harder still. But Myrtle was more persistent than me, and she’d finally gotten a bartender’s attention. She pushed her way to the front so she could get us drinks, while I found an empty stool and sat down.
A soldier was sitting next to me, and I couldn’t help but stare at him. He was handsome, with broad shoulders and clipped blond hair, but that wasn’t what made me stare. It was the expression on his face as he read a piece of paper he was holding in his hands, like someone had punched him. The words he read took away his air, and he grew pale.
“Are you all right?” I asked him, shouting above the music.
He lowered the paper, startled. He hadn’t realized there’d been anyone else in the crowded room, much less sitting next to him.
“Sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t help but notice you looked upset.”
He nodded slowly, picked up the glass in front of him, whiskey I presumed, and swallowed it all down in one fast gulp. Then he grimaced. “You ever loved anyone, Miss—Sorry, I didn’t even ask your name.”
“Miss McCoy,” I said. “But please, call me Catherine.”
“Jay Gatsby.” He held out a hand to shake. His grip was firm, his fingers both strong and decisive. “So have you, Catherine? Have you ever loved anyone?”
I shook my head. I’d dated a few boys in Rockvale, but kissing them had made me feel nothing. And unlike Myrtle, I hadn’t come to New York for a man. I was not here for love. I did not want an apartment over a garage in Queens and a backyard chicken for my birthday. I wanted a job in Manhattan, maybe a roommate. I wanted music and dancing and excitement and… autonomy. I wanted to be keeper of my own life, ruler of my own destiny.
“Then you wouldn’t understand,” Jay Gatsby said now. But then he kept on talking, as if perhaps changing his mind midsentence about what I might understand. “She isn’t coming. She promised me she’d come and we’d get married here before I left. But…” He held the paper up in the air. “She’s not coming.” He sighed and folded up the telegram. And I wondered about the girl who’d decided to rip his heart out, just before he shipped overseas. What a careless shrew.
“Well then, she’s not worth it, is she?”
Jay shook his head. “You’re wrong, Catherine. She is. She’s everything.”
“I’m sorry, Jay,” I told him. “But I say you deserve better than a girl who’d treat you that way.”
He grimaced again just as Myrtle made her way through the crowd carrying what looked like two gin rickeys. She appeared in front of me, breathless, sweating, and she handed one of the drinks to me. Her brown eyes lit up a little, as if here, inside this crowded and loud saloon, she remembered how it felt to be truly alive.
Jay Gatsby stood, offering Myrtle his seat. She thanked him and took it, sipping on her gin with a little half smile, as Jay went to move toward the exit.
“Jay,” I called after him, hopping off my stool to catch up. “Don’t go dying in this war, all right?”
He grimaced again. “I’ll try not to.”
“And when you get back to New York after… look me up.”
Detective Frank Charles August 1922
NEW YORK
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Please state your full name for the record.
CATHERINE: Catherine Margaret McCoy.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: And exactly how did you know the deceased?
CATHERINE: Myrtle Wilson was my sister.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Not Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Gatsby. Mr. Jay Gatsby.
CATHERINE: I don’t know him. I never met him.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Are you sure, Miss McCoy?
CATHERINE: I’ve heard of his parties, of course. Everyone’s heard of his parties. I’m sure you’ve heard of his parties, Detective?
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: But you never met him, personally?
CATHERINE: Never.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: And what about your sister, Myrtle? Did they have any kind of… relationship?
CATHERINE: My sister was a respectable married lady. I don’t like that question.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: I didn’t mean her any disrespect, Miss McCoy.
CATHERINE: Didn’t you?
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Have you ever shot a gun, Miss McCoy?
CATHERINE: Yes.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Unusual for a lady, isn’t it?
CATHERINE: I… grew up on a farm in Illinois. I promise you every farm girl in Illinois has shot a gun.
* * *
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Please state your full name for the record.
JORDAN: Jordan Baker.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: And how did you know Mr. Gatsby?
JORDAN: I didn’t, really. I went to a few of his parties this summer. Me and half of New York. (laughs)
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: But you conversed with him at these parties. One night you even spent a few hours with him alone… in his study.
JORDAN: No. That never happened.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Nick Carraway says it did.
JORDAN: Nick is an incurable liar.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Nick said the same about you.
JORDAN: Have you ever loved a woman you couldn’t have, Detective? (long pause) Well… have you?
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: This isn’t about me.
JORDAN: Isn’t it?
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: So you weren’t with Mr. Gatsby, Mr. Carraway, and the Buchanans the night of Mrs. Wilson’s accident?
JORDAN: I never said I wasn’t.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: You just said you didn’t know Mr. Gatsby.
JORDAN: I promise you, Detective. No one really knew Jay Gatsby.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Do you know how to shoot a gun, Miss Baker?
JORDAN: I know how to shoot a golf ball.
* * *
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Please state your full name for the record.
DAISY: Daisy Fay Buchanan.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: And how did you know Mr. Gatsby?
DAISY: He was my… my… cousin Nick’s friend. His neighbor.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Where were you yesterday afternoon, Mrs. Buchanan?
DAISY: I was at home, with my husband and my daughter in East Egg. We have a lovely estate there on the water. I’m sure you know it? We were packing. We’re moving to Minnesota imminently.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: This is a move you’ve been planning for a while?
DAISY: Of course. These things take time, Detective.
DETECTIVE FRANK CHARLES: Do you know how to shoot a gun, Mrs. Buchanan?
DAISY: (laughs) Now, what kind of a question is that to ask a lady?
“FRANK, COME TO bed. If you’re reading those interviews again, I’m gonna think you’re stepping out on me with one of those women.”
Frank sighed and shut his notebook. How did Dolores always have a sixth sense about what he was doing, even from the other room? Probably because he’d been talking about this case—these women—all through supper with her. And after nineteen years of marriage, she knew what was both his best and worst trait—he didn’t know how to leave well enough alone.