As we pulled away, I saw an unlikely woman with flaming red hair dressed in lemon yellow. She came out of a garage door, a cigarette between two stiff fingers, and a dark fingerprint smudging of ash already on her skirt. She watched after the train with something I could only term a contemptuous longing, and I swore for a moment that our eyes met.
I forgot all about her when we pulled into the station stop at Lilac Hill, still a mile away from Daisy’s house. I thought about ringing her to send a car for me, but I summoned up a cab instead. Lilac Hill was a little more stiff-necked about such things than we were in the city. It took almost twenty minutes before I could find a cab that would take me, and when I did, I tipped the driver, a silver-haired Black man, as extravagantly as I could.
I should have called, I thought, as I made my way up the broad front steps. I don’t even know if she’s in.
The Buchanans’ butler, at least, did not look surprised to see me, and he had one of the men take my small bag to the guest room I customarily used before escorting me to the blue and ivory solar that was generally kept for Daisy’s use.
The room’s tall windows were open to the Sound, and I looked out over the water. From where I stood, I realized with some discomfort that I could easily see Gatsby’s mansion, the white walls gleaming even across the misty distance, the glittering gold beach and the pier that stretched out from it.
He stands on that pier, I thought suddenly. He stands there, and he looks across the water, and he looks across the years to when she was his and when she will be his.
I was startled from my strange thoughts by a crash, followed by an outraged shriek. I flew to the door, throwing it open just as the butler appeared again with an icy glass of limeade and a small plate of water crackers and cucumber slices. He wasn’t a big man, but he wore his importance like a barred gate, and there was no getting around him.
“Madame will be with you shortly,” he told me, his face serene. “In the meantime, I have brought you some refreshments. Would you care for some reading materials?”
“Just the Post,” I said reluctantly, and I sat back down. I had no doubt that if I tried to leave the solar again that he would be there like magic, hemming me in.
He brought me the Post, and I thumbed through it impatiently until Daisy made an appearance, blowing in like a gale from some wild place. She moved so lightly, her color so high, that I had to glance down to make sure that her kid slippers touched the ground.
“Oh Jordan, what a delight, what a wonder!” she cried, reaching for me. “I had thought you had quite forsaken me! Now that Tom has thrown me over, I must look to my real friends, mustn’t I?”
I was usually quite immune to Daisy’s flights of fancy, but this one made me blink twice. Before she appeared, I had heard a great stomping and slamming, followed by an inarticulate shout of the kind I associated with football matches.
“Thrown you over…？”
Her hands fluttered like shot birds, her mouth red and smiling. She couldn’t be bothered to tell me the details, so she told me the very heart of it instead.
“Oh he will go out with that girl this evening. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care about me.”
This then was why Daisy kept me. Unlike her other friends, I didn’t tell her that it would be all right or swear vengeance or offer her a way to be so beautiful he would never turn from her again. It wouldn’t be all right, there was precious little vengeance a woman like Daisy might have against her man, and she was already so beautiful. Instead, I offered her something else.
“Listen,” I said, looking around. “Take me someplace safe. Someplace you trust.”
Her eyes shone, and she took my hand.
“Oh, an adventure? Jordan, you dear, you always know what I need.”
“Maybe,” I said.