What did I deserve? That didn’t seem to concern Tom as much.
I’d watched the sun rise over the garden, and a new clarity had suddenly washed over me. Jay had grabbed the wheel from me in the car, and Tom was constantly grabbing the wheel from me in our life. Enough. I wanted to be in control. I wanted to drive my whole entire life, all on my very own.
“I’m leaving you,” I’d said to Tom all of a sudden, as dawn broke.
He’d laughed a little, like he didn’t believe me.
“I’m done,” I said. And I was.
Tom stared at me, his mouth a gaping hole.
But the thought of it, the delicious thought of it. Being free. Being in control. It burgeoned up inside of me like the yellow roses in the garden that had suddenly opened their faces to the sun last week. I could just get up, and I could leave. I could catch a train later this afternoon to Louisville with Pammy, and I could stop being Tom’s wife. Just like that. I could be Daisy Fay from Louisville again and Pammy’s mother. Away from Tom, I could make sure Pammy wouldn’t make the mistakes I’d made, that she would never marry anyone like Tom, or date anyone like Jay. That she could grow up strong and fearless. Nobody’s fool.
“You’re not going anywhere, Daisy.” Tom laughed again.
“I mean it, Tom. I’m really and truly done,” I’d insisted, petulantly.
We’d locked eyes and I’d refused to look away. And perhaps he’d finally believed me, because then he’d gotten up, stormed out of the house angry as a hornet, leaving to go god knows where.
But it didn’t matter anymore. His absence already freed me.
I drank a cup of coffee to wake myself up, and I’d hatched a plan in my mind. First, I would go to West Egg, talk to Jay. Tell him once and for all to leave me alone. Tell him that I never wanted to see him again, that I was leaving, and he’d better not follow me. Then I’d pack up Pammy’s things, and we’d get on the train to Louisville later today.
It was a fine plan, and I’d felt lighter than I had in years as I’d floated up the stairs to tell Jordan.
* * *
AFTER MY BATH, dressed in my funeral black, I finally made it out to the garage. Tom’s blue coupe was gone. So was Jordan’s car. I hoped she wasn’t too disappointed in me. She had frowned when I’d told her of my plan earlier, and I hoped she would still love me once I was a disgraced woman. A divorced woman. But it couldn’t be helped. This was what I had to do.
“Beautiful morning, isn’t it, Mrs. Buchanan? But it’s going to be another hot one,” Ferdie said, pausing from his work polishing the white coupe. “Can I drive you somewhere?”
“No, Ferdie. I’m driving myself today,” I insisted, even though the thought of driving again made my hands shake a little. It didn’t matter that it was bright outside now, that I was completely sober. I could not forget the sound of her body as it hit the windshield, the look on her face. Oh, that god-awful look. But I was driving myself from now on, no matter what.
“Are you sure, Mrs. Buchanan?” Ferdie asked. “You look a little tired.”
“Get me the keys,” I insisted, obstinately. “I am perfectly well.”
Ferdie complied, and I got into the white coupe and turned the key. I took a deep breath and gripped the wheel too tightly, but then I drove down the long drive slowly.
I stopped before turning out onto the main drag and lit a cigarette to calm myself. I took a few puffs and hung my left arm out the side.
And then, altogether calmer, I drove toward West Egg, the warm morning air swirling against my face.
Catherine August 1922
WEST EGG
I SPUN THE FORD INTO Jay’s drive, still breathing hard and crying, so that his house was blurry in front of me. It had only been a few days since the last time I was here, when Jay told me he’d never cared about me at all, but now it felt like a lifetime. I’d been hurt and angry when I left then, both at him and at myself for ever believing anything good about him. But I never would’ve thought that he was evil, that murder bubbled up inside his veins, that just a few days later he would kill Myrtle with his car and that he wouldn’t even stop.
Myrtle was dead. Myrtle was really dead. I put my head down on the steering wheel and wept uncontrollably, unable to stop myself. Until I heard the sound of tires on gravel behind me, and I suddenly sat up.
I glanced in the mirror, a white coupe had pulled into Jay’s drive, and unmistakably there she was in the driver’s seat, pale and dewy and red-lipped: goddamned Daisy Buchanan.