“I think it’s quite marvelous,” Daisy said faintly. I caught her startled glance as if she were only now realizing that she had brought her husband to her lover’s house, and I gave her an aggressive little shrug because there certainly wasn’t anything I could do with men like Gatsby or Tom.
“I was just thinking that I didn’t know anyone at all,” Tom drawled, determinedly unimpressed. The easy arm he kept over Daisy’s shoulders looked like it got a little heavier. “I’m not so fond of parties where I don’t know anyone…”
“Oh well, surely you know her,” Gatsby said, pointing like a guide at the zoo.
We followed his arm to where Anna Farnsworth languished beneath the ghostly lights, the illumination giving her a flickering phosphor tint. She had just appeared in The Girl on the Strand, utterly scandalous. It was common tat around New York that an old wizard had made her from a whole garden’s worth of peonies. He should have made her out of something more sturdy, because she was looking wilted under the August heat.
We didn’t talk about that, of course, but Gatsby let on that the man standing over her and sprinkling her with seltzer water was her director. He led us deeper into the garden, pointing out that star or that politician. I hung back, letting them get ahead, and after a moment, Nick returned to me.
“All right?” he asked, and I plucked the green ticket out of his hand.
“Honestly,” I said, a little tartly. “No one’s giving out green tickets this summer.”
They entitled the bearer to a kiss, a talk, or a secret from the giver, and Nick’s hand had already become stained with the cheap ink of Daisy’s name. I tore it to little bits and dropped the bits into a half-empty flute of champagne sitting on the edge of a concrete planter.
“Jealous, darling?” asked Nick with amusement, and I waved my hand dismissively.
“Of course, painfully,” I told him. “Always. Anyway, that’s a strange to-do between the three of them tonight, isn’t it? I shan’t want to stand too close to that.”
It was true. There was something fraught in the air between all three of them, not just between Gatsby and Tom as might be guessed. I was worried about Daisy, but then none of my experience with her had anything in the world to do with stopping her.
Nick didn’t seem to share my opinion, looking after them as they walked towards the dancers on the canvas floor.
“I don’t know,” he hedged. “Are you worried?”
“Only for my own good time,” I said a little sharply, but I sighed when he looked back at me with some guilt.
“Go on if you are going,” I said to him.
“I won’t if you’re cross…”
I put my fingers to the corners of my mouth, lifting them up.
“No, no cross here, darling,” I said. “I shall entertain myself with these very entertaining people, and I shall come find you later. Though when I do find you next, I am sure that I will be perfectly demanding and in need of your attention.”
Nick smiled with some relief, lifting my hand to his lips in a brief salute.
“You’re a doll, Jordan Baker,” he said.
“Rather not,” I responded, but he was already gone.
I was a strange combination of bereft and relieved when he was gone. Even after all our time together, I hadn’t quite resigned myself to being a couple yet, half of an equation when the male half could somehow continue as a whole without me. He was gone, I felt more myself, and to celebrate, I downed a surprisingly strong French 75 and took another with me for company as I wandered through the playground Gatsby had made of his home.