My hands shook, holding her letter now, remembering the way it had felt to slap Tom across the face that night, the way I’d threatened him then. The next morning at breakfast, before Daisy came down, he’d promised me it would never happen again. It had been a terrible mistake. Never again, Jordan, I swear. Liar. Tom was a goddamned liar.
I continued reading Daisy’s letter, rage hot behind my eyes. They would be moving to East Egg, Daisy wrote. And this would be a permanent move. At last we’ll live near each other again, Jordie! East Egg was on Long Island, a short drive from the city, just across the sound. Daisy and I would practically be neighbors again.
I felt a strange mix of emotions at that thought. Happiness, sure. But it was tinged with dread. I longed to return to those carefree Louisville days, when Daisy and I would lie on her bed and laugh. But that was the past. I was twenty years old and ruined. I had nothing, no one. And Daisy had tethered herself to that wretched man.
But then I imagined just being with Daisy again, laughing. Would I even remember how to laugh? The thought of it now brought me the smallest bit of cheer. Just enough so that I finally responded to her letter. I told her to let me know as soon as they arrived. I’d come out to East Egg to visit.
* * *
THE DAY AFTER Christmas, Aunt Sigourney knocked on my door in the middle of the afternoon. I’d just gotten back from my walk and I sat on my bed, my fingertips still tingling, my cheeks ruddy from the cold. We’d spent Christmas together yesterday, cheerlessly, without either a tree or presents. Aunt Sigourney said she didn’t care much for celebrating holidays. I desperately missed Daddy, who used to make such a big deal of Christmas every single year—I struggled to understand how Aunt Sigourney was truly his blood sister.
“Jordan,” she called out now. “There’s a man here to see you.”
A man?
She opened up my bedroom door and slowly stepped inside, thumping about with her dreadful cane. “A suitor, perhaps? He says you have dinner plans.” She cast me a toothy smile. There were so many things I was tempted to say to her in response, but instead I sighed and walked past her to see what the heck was going on.
Jay Gatsby stood there in Aunt Sigourney’s living room, looking somehow both affable and arrogant. He wore a different suit today, a pale gray one, but the material didn’t look any less fine. How many expensive suits did the man own now?
“What are you doing here?” I asked him, sharply.
“I’ve come to take you to dinner,” he said. “You promised me a dinner and told me to look you up at your aunt’s, remember?”
I didn’t remember it exactly that way at all. I shook my head. “I’ve already eaten dinner.”
“No, she has not,” Aunt Sigourney piped up cheerfully from behind me. “And she would love to go to dinner with you.” She gave my shoulder a little push. “Go ahead, Jordan. Go freshen up and get your coat. I’ll entertain your young man.”
Jay cast her a warm smile, and I realized he’d become just the kind of man that old ladies loved to fawn over. It didn’t seem right and it didn’t seem fair that Jay Gatsby had turned himself into this while I had gone and lost everything. But I supposed I was stuck going to dinner with him or I’d have to sit here and watch Aunt Sigourney drool over him all night.
I sighed and grabbed my coat. “All right, fine,” I said. “Let’s go to dinner.”
* * *
AN HOUR LATER, Jay sat across from me at Le Chez, the most expensive restaurant in lower Manhattan. He’d reserved us a table in a private room and had them send out the meal prix fixe: caviar and escargot, a soup course and a salad course, a medium rare, buttery steak, and even an illicit and expensive bottle of French wine, the likes of which I hadn’t tasted since I’d been at the Buchanans’ chateau in Cannes. I wasn’t sure how Jay had gotten possession of such a treat. I took a delightful sip and wondered whether it was worth telling Jay I had no interest in him before we finished the bottle. I kept my mouth shut. Might as well enjoy this dinner, if I was forced to be here.
“Jordan,” he said, after I’d downed a glass of the Sancerre. “I need to ask you something.”
My cheeks felt flushed as I looked at him. His eyes were earnest, and he must’ve gotten a haircut since the last time I’d seen him on the street, because now that his blond hair didn’t fall in front of them, I could see the intensity of their greens.
“You and I…” I told him, my words feeling loose, slippery against my tongue. They escaped me, slurry. “Are never gonna happen.”