“Why, Jordan Baker!”
I was already smiling as I turned because it was Miriam Howe, and everyone loved Miriam Howe. She was tall and lean with the far-seeing eyes of some fabulous savannah cat, and when she draped herself around you, it was better than wearing mink, not that anyone could think of mink in New York in the summertime.
That night, she was glamorous in a lilac silk sack dress that left her long throat and her soft white arms bare. Around her neck was a fortune in perfectly matched pink pearls, and the moment I saw them, I wanted to put my mouth to them and her skin underneath.
The band slowed down for “Lavender Blue Moon,” and I put my arm around her waist to lead her onto the floor. She let me lead, and we swayed together, more in time with the massive fans above our head than with the saxophone.
“Are you here with Nan again?” asked Miriam.
“No, Nan went off to Athens for the summer. Who knows who I’ll be when she gets back.”
Miriam gave me a slightly calculated smile, twin to the one I gave her.
“And you,” I said. “Still trying to get a ring out of Perry Sloane?”
“Oh darling, where have you been? Perry found God.”
“Scandalous,” I said with a grin, and so we were clear.
Miriam was a good dancer, at least as good as I was and likely better, so we stayed on the dance floor for a while. We were attractive together, and I liked the look of my body next to hers as we twirled past the tall mirrors. The last song was fast enough to make us both sweat, and when she threw her arm over my shoulder, we slipped against each other in the most intriguing way.
“Get me a ginger water, won’t you?” she asked. “I’ll find us a spot in back.”
I elbowed my way to the bar to get Miriam’s ginger water and to get a caipirinha for myself. I sipped at my drink diligently as I went to find Miriam, but by the time I got to the back, I could see that someone else had found her first.
His back was to me, and past his shoulder, I caught Miriam’s face, chagrined, nervous, and maybe a little hypnotized. Then the man turned around, and I could see that it was Jay Gatsby, sharp as a razor blade in a pale gray suit, buttons undone and the color high on his cheeks.
“There you are, Miss Baker. Miss Howe and I were just talking about you.”
One thing I liked about Miriam, she was never one to let grass grow under her feet. She was around Gatsby in a heartbeat, and she even made it look natural. She plucked the ginger water from my hand as she went by, gave me a significant look, and then was gone. At a loss for what to do, I took a slow sip of my drink, watching Gatsby over the edge of my glass. There was a bubble around us, as if the crowd could be ordered as nicely as his clothes or his shoes.
“Are they afraid of you or did you do something?” I asked, and he grinned.
“Does it matter? Come here.”
“I don’t have to,” I told him, gripping my drink a little tighter. He looked surprised.
“Of course you don’t. It was a request.”
No, it really wasn’t, I thought.
“Then make a request,” I said, staying right where I was. Around us, the other patrons were oblivious, not even watching us out of the corner of their eyes to report elsewhere later. He had done something, and the only comfort was that he hadn’t done more.
He looked at me for a moment, blank-eyed, and then he smiled. His eyes got soft, and so did his mouth, and it came to me that he had such a beautiful mouth. It was something I liked on men and women, a beautiful mouth that might kiss me or whisper secrets in my ear or open and let me kiss them …
I realized that I was flushed all over, and I just barely managed to stop my drink from tumbling from my hand. I swallowed, took a better hold of the glass, and gave him a look to tell him I knew exactly what he was doing.