I took a firm hold on her arm, because after all, there was a chance that she might have tried it. She had that edge to her that was revealed sometimes, when things got strange or hard.
There was a part of me that wanted to let her go. After all, it would all have been the same in the end. Even if I refused to let her fly, we could take her roadster south in East Egg, north in West Egg, and then we would be there. Outside, the rain pattered gently onto the concrete, onto the grass and the earth. I imagined her dashing from the roadster, the wings of her robe flaring behind her as her hair took on the raindrops like dew. She would ring the doorbell, and for some reason, he would answer it. They would look at each other, reach for each other, crashing together in a way that could have set the entire world deaf if they could only hear it.
I remembered Jay Gatsby’s request at the Cendrillon, however. I remembered the intent look in his eyes, his refusal to take any kind of shortcut, to act in any way like a sensible man, and I took a firmer hold on Daisy.
“He won’t want that,” I said with a helpless shrug, and the laugh she gave me was brittle with humor.
“I can’t be expected to wait,” she said. “Why dear, how deadly dull and proper!”
She was worn out after her fight with Tom, however, and I convinced her to come with me to her solar for a glass of champagne. We sent back down to the drowsy kitchen for a plate of crackers and cold salmon smothered with cream and dill, and we dragged the sofa to the windows, where the thunder had come to join the rain. One particularly powerful stroke lit up the world from Daisy’s lawn to West Egg and to the city beyond it. In that flash of brighter than bright light, I saw Gatsby’s mansion across the Sound, still lit up boldly against the summer darkness that draped down on top of us.
I thought of how the party-goers must be shrieking in the rain, how the gentlemen’s fine suits would be ruined, how the sleeting water would plaster silk dresses to their wearers’ bodies. Then it came to me that, no, there was no party at Gatsby’s tonight. The place buzzed with light, but that light wasn’t shining for anyone besides Gatsby, if he cared at all. It burned without illuminating or warming, and all of that emptiness made me a little ill, a little dizzy.
Daisy stared into the rain, crushing a cracker into crumbs. After a moment, she picked up a strip of fleshy pink salmon with her fingertips, rolling it into a tight little bundle before setting it on a cracker and giving it to me. The salty richness of the fish and the buttery crispness of the cracker grounded me a little, and so I made one for her.
Sometime after one, we both heard a thin wailing echo through the house behind us.
“A ghost,” Daisy said without interest.
“No,” I said, tilting my head. “That’s Pammy. Listen, you can hear her nurse singing to her.”
“I never wanted her. Tom may keep her after this. He gave me a diamond bracelet for her when the doctors told us she would live. I’ll give it back to him, and her as well.”
This was all uttered without rancor, but also without the thoughtlessness that accompanied so many of Daisy’s pronouncements. She said things, they lit up gold in the air, and then they fell to nothing like so much cigarette ash. This wasn’t something that floated around inside her head and then out her mouth. This was something she had put away somewhere dark, where the light wouldn’t fade it, where no one could talk her out of it.
I didn’t say anything, taking her hand in mine, and we watched the storm roll over the Sound.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Nick, good boy, called the next morning, and Daisy took his call on the ivory-white phone in her bedroom, half-dressed and me with my chin on her shoulder listening close. He didn’t seem to notice how high and tight her voice was when she greeted him with her customary gaiety, passing a few easy words until he got to business.
“Listen, Daisy, I was thinking you might come over to my place this Saturday, around about three for tea.”