“’Gratulate me,” she muttered. “Never had a drink before, but oh how I do enjoy it.”
“Daisy, what’s the matter?” I asked uneasily. She hadn’t a reputation for drinking, but I figured she did it in private company, with those she trusted more than the rest. Now though, I could see she wasn’t lying. Her face was slack and her eyes slitted, too careless of her looks to be anything but honest. I had never seen her like that before, and I felt as if some cold finger were numbering the bumps of my spine.
In answer, she reached into the wastebasket by her bed, and to my surprise she pulled out a string of creamy white pearls, graded so that the smallest was the size of a pill bug and the largest the size of the ball of my thumb. Tom had presented her with the pearls just seven weeks ago, and she had worn them at the announcement dinner. They were a little too pale for her coloring, washing her out, but something about the light made them look ruddy in her hand.
“Here, dearest,” she said, taking my hand and folding the pearls into it. “Take ’em downstairs and give ’em back to whoever they belong to. Tell ’em all Daisy’s change’ her mine. Say: ‘Daisy’s change’ her mine!’”
She met my eyes when she said it, pleading with me and making me think of March. Somehow, I got the idea that this wasn’t something I could fix with the right connections. I could see a thin sheet of onionskin paper in her hand, crumpled so only the ends emerged from her fist. I pocketed the pearls because I didn’t know what else to do with them, and I tore my eyes away from the letter because I could tell that Daisy would not suffer to have it taken from her.
I sat on the bed next to her, rubbing her back for a moment, trying to think. My mind spun like a whipped top, and I was distracted by how she curled up against my hip, still crying with a helpless and burnt-out sound that tore at me.
“It’s the bridal dinner tonight,” I told her. “Don’t you want to go, Daisy?”
She shook her head, crying into the coverlet. She looked so small, as if she wished the world would go away and leave her be. She was Daisy Fay, soon to be Buchanan, however, and that wasn’t going to happen.
“Daisy,” I said, almost begging. “Please. Please get up. People want to see you.”
I sounded like a little idiot, but the truth was I was frightened. Daisy’s tears were like a deluge, flowing in sheets down her face, and I thought of the fact that if they were allowed to do so, those tears would drown exactly one person, and that was Daisy herself.
Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe if she breaks enough, something true will come out.
The thought shocked me with its gibbous nature. I didn’t know how to deal with it, so I stuffed it in the same pocket as the pearls, and put it out of my mind.
It became very clear, very quickly that there was no way that we could get her ready for dinner in half an hour. Her face was a blotchy red mess, her eyes swollen from tears, and somehow in the middle of it, she had raked long scratches into her thin arms, not breaking skin but leaving raised red welts on both wrists.
At some point, Daisy stumbled to her feet, pawing at my pocket for the pearls.
“I’ll go tell them myself,” she swore. “If you won’t take them I will. I’ll take them to the … I’ll … I’ll…”
A confused look came over her face. She shook her head.
“I have to go to the bridal dinner,” she said in surprise. “Oh God, I need to go, I don’t…”
Her hand was still in my pocket where the pearls were. I didn’t know what she thought then, if she needed to go as Tom Buchanan’s fiancée or as someone else entirely. I didn’t trust it either way, and after a moment, I could tell that she didn’t either.
“Jordan…”