It was a moment, just one simple moment when I suddenly felt at peace. Jordan and I, we could lie like this, forever and forever, holding hands and feeling the warm breeze on our faces.
Then I heard the telephone ringing in the distance, interrupting my fantasy. I sighed and let go of Jordan. “Can’t your butler answer that?” she intoned sleepily.
I shook my head. “It’s probably Mother.” It had been a few days since she’d called and the snow goose loved to check in at the most inopportune times.
I rose and answered the telephone still feeling warm: “Buchanan residence,” my voice tumbled out lazily.
I heard breathing on the other end of the line.
“Hello,” I said more sharply. “Anyone there?” I heard the abrupt click, but I still said hello one more time into the dead space. Then I pulled the phone away from my ear, held it in my hand for a second, and just stared at it. “Dammit,” I said softly.
“Daise, my goodness. You sound like a sailor.” Jordan laughed. She’d drunk down her gin, and her eyes were still closed. “Who was on the line?”
“Wrong number,” I said, and I went back and sat down next to her.
She picked up my hand again and squeezed it. “Damn all those wrong numbers to hell.” She giggled a little.
I opened my mouth, poised to tell her the truth, but then I couldn’t make the words come out. It was as if saying it out loud would make it undeniably true. And I wanted so badly to believe still that everything would be different here than it was in Lake Forest. That East Egg truly could be our permanent home.
* * *
A LITTLE WHILE later, Tom walked back into the house from the stables, and Jordan and I still hadn’t moved a muscle from the couch. The breathing on the other end of the line had magnified in my head, become something bellowing in the hour or two since it had happened. Tom leaned down and kissed my cheek. He reeked of sweat and whiskey, and I flinched. He acknowledged Jordan by patting her on the head, like a dog.
“There was a telephone call for you,” I said, sitting up to glare at him, not able to keep the anger from burning up my voice.
“A wrong number,” Jordan slurred, tracing her finger around her sweaty glass.
“Yes, very, very wrong.” I shot Tom a withering look.
He shrugged, pretending he didn’t understand the implication, that the breather on the other end of the line was a woman, calling for him. Two and a half months. We had only been here two and a half months!
“Daisy,” he said, changing the subject altogether. “Your cousin’s coming for dinner in an hour. Shouldn’t you get ready?”
“Ready?” I laughed. “I’m ready enough right here.” Sure, I was in a day dress, not an evening dress, and I was lying on the couch holding on desperately to my dear, sweet, slightly drunken Jordie. But I wasn’t going to let Tom decide what I did at the moment.
“All right.” He frowned, then shrugged. It would be hard for him to care less about me if he tried.
“Dinner with your cousin?” Jordan’s voice slurred a little. Her eyes were still closed and she’d missed the bitter dynamic between me and Tom altogether. “But we just ate lunch,” she exclaimed.
“It’s four o’clock in the afternoon,” Tom said, sounding disgusted, and I didn’t at all like his tone.
“You stink,” I said to him. “Go wash yourself up. Or else Nick might think I’ve married a polo pony not a polo player.”
Tom shot me another look. And then he clarified to Jordan that he’d known Nick in college, that Nick had stayed with us for two nights once in Lake Forest.
“I’d say this cousin, Nick, already knows you married a pony,” Jordan said, snorting a little, amusing herself. And then Tom just shook his head and walked off upstairs.
Jordan opened her eyes, turned back to me. “Who is this cousin of yours, Daise?” she asked. “And how come I’ve never heard of him before?”
I told her: Nick Carraway was a second cousin, once removed, Daddy’s cousin’s son. He was a few years older than us, and I’d never known him very well. He’d been raised in Minnesota and we’d only met once as children, in Chicago. Later, he was at Yale with Tom and then in the war without him. He hadn’t ever been to visit us in Louisville and hadn’t been able to make it to my wedding, either. I couldn’t even remember why now. Other than the two pleasant enough days he’d visited us in Lake Forest, I truly didn’t know much of Nick at all.