Nick asked me if I was worried, and I took him dancing at the Preston when I hate dancing at the Preston because I wanted to answer him even less. I told him that the Manchester Act had nothing to do with me, that I couldn’t even remember being from anywhere else, and his response—“Prove it”—made me so angry that I ran off the floor and went home with Jodie Washington. She kept me for a few days until her boyfriend came back from his European tour, and by then, I was ready to make up with Nick, so it mostly worked out.
We were becoming something of an item, written up when the gossip papers were having a slow day, which was pleasant. He was proving surprisingly resilient to the kind of pressures that had crashed me and Walter. Anyway, it helped that I had gotten myself kitted up with a cap through one of Aunt Justine’s friends, and that was at least one catastrophe I didn’t have to worry about any longer, though Nick, charming thing, told me he didn’t worry too much about what we did as long as he was doing it with me. I even mostly believed him, though I was making no further headway on bringing him to the Cendrillon. I wondered if, after Gatsby, he had outgrown that sort of thing, but I doubted it. I had never known of anyone who did, though of ones who said they had, plenty.
It was a beautifully clear night halfway through August when the whole city seemed to pull up roots and head for Gatsby’s palace. A ghostly little whisper suggested that we stay to enjoy the deserted clubs, but instead I followed Nick home with my new dress—white satin beaded with opalized beads in shivery blue—in the back seat along with some essentials. I had, willy-nilly, started to stay overnight at Nick’s, braving the disapproving looks of his maid and the unreliable water of his bathtub. We were playing house, we both knew it, but it was a good game when played with someone who could be as calm and as sweet as Nick was.
Gatsby’s mansion spilled light from every window, from every door, and that night, from every tree. Something at the heart of the trees on his property gleamed, and I saw more than one beautiful girl up in the branches, trying to grasp that sweet and lovely light with their hands. They came up empty, and while most gave up, a Black girl in a moiré silk dress remained up in the bare branches, her dress like a cocoon and her face stained with tears for seeing her desire so close and yet so untouchable.
By the water and in the tall grass were fireflies. At first, they made me think of the long slow nights of the Louisville summer, but when I looked closer, I could see that they were another species entirely. Instead of a sweet soft lime green, they glowed a deep red, and when I caught one in my hands, I saw a brassy metallic sheen to the wings and pincers that clicked at me threateningly before I let it go again.
Nick and I went arm in arm, and just inside the garden, we met Daisy, who was with Tom of all people. She wore a blue gown overlaid with a sheer fine net of crystal, and the crystals—teardrops and brilliant—were echoed in the tiara perched so sweetly on her head. Tom in black looked around aggressively, and I felt Nick stiffen next to me. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t like Tom either, but that could certainly wait for later.
I hadn’t really seen Daisy since that day at Nick’s. I tried once or twice, but she had made herself scarce, wrapping up in a kind of silken solitude that never suited her unless there was a secret someone there with her. She leaned over to give me a distracted kind of kiss on both cheeks, but when she addressed Nick, her voice was strained, and shaded behind the blue of her eyes was a small and animal worry. She took his hand and folded a green ticket into it with a tremulous smile as Tom looked on indulgently.
“Oh Nick, if you’d like to kiss me at any time tonight, simply come give back, won’t you? I’m handing them out tonight…”
I could see the green slips sticking from the clasp of her purse, see the absolute ease with which Tom regarded that exchange, and then Gatsby was among us like a fox among the chickens, a smile too wide and toothy on his face. The look he gave Daisy was so fond that I almost thought he would give away the game right there, but then he turned to Tom. He was coldly, vividly triumphant, and he spread his hands out as if to encompass the whole world that belonged to him.