I sighed and lay down in the back seat of Tom’s coupe and closed my eyes again. Blocks, Jay, Tom, Mr. Hennessey. Even Nick. They were all the same, weren’t they? They all wanted nothing more than to ruin me. It was utterly exhausting to be a woman.
* * *
I WOKE UP again when the car came to a sudden stop.
I sat up, expecting the bright lights of Daisy’s East Egg mansion, but instead everything around me was smoky and gray and up ahead I saw the flashing lights of a police wagon. Tom got out of the car and walked toward the trouble, and Nick leaned his head out of the car, expectantly.
“Where are we?” I asked Nick.
“In the valley of ashes,” Nick said. I frowned. “Corona,” he clarified. “There’s been some kind of a wreck.” He paused. “Tom’s woman lives here,” he said thoughtfully, pointing to Wilson’s garage off to my right.
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.”