“Oh but we’ve not even had cigarettes yet, surely we should let everyone—”
“You’ve all been smoking through lunch,” said Tom the athlete. “Let’s go.”
I dragged Daisy up to her bedroom （“Oh, just a little touch-up and hats, of course!”）， and I soaked a cold cloth for her in the bathroom. She took it, dabbing at her eyes and her red face.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said vaguely, more doubtful than she had been before.
“I don’t know either,” I said, “but Daisy, make a decision. You can’t have them both, you know. You can’t live in East Egg for Tom and your parents, and row across the Sound to Gatsby’s as soon as the sun sets.”
“But of course I can,” she said as if scandalized. “You just don’t know, Jordan. It’s not just double lives. It’s triple, quads and quints…”
She wasn’t drunk. That was the horror of it.
I was tempted to make our excuses, but then she dropped the clammy cloth on the floor and rushed past me, dragging down her boxes of clothes and hats from her closet. Coats and capes scattered over the floor, and she handed me one round little metallic gold cap while taking the other for herself.
“Come on,” she said. There was a heat to her that put the day to shame, as if she were burning up with fever from within. “Oh Jordan, come on!”
Nick, Tom, and Gatsby waited for us patiently in the drive, Tom being tiresome about the cars, Gatsby running out of patience, and Nick looking subtly panicked. I wanted to tell him it was just people behaving badly, that what would be cause for years and years of stiff necks and pointed spurns in St. Paul would likely be forgotten in a season. Tom was still going on; for some reason, he wanted to drive Gatsby’s car to town.
“Well, you take my coupe and let me drive your car.”
“I don’t think there’s much gas,” Gatsby said, and Tom’s face grew hard even as he smiled.
“Plenty of gas,” said Tom. “And if it runs out I can stop at a drugstore. You can buy anything at a drugstore nowadays, can’t you?”
There was an uncomfortable shuffling silence. I fingered the gold cap in my hand, wondering if it would be better for all concerned if I faked a fainting spell and had to be carried inside. Disasters had been averted with less.
“Well, golly, that’s fine,” Daisy said with a laugh that was almost natural. “Jay and I can take Tom’s coupe, and Tom, you, Nick, and Jordan, meet us in the city. That will be fine.”
Everything that happened afterward wasn’t worth it to see the look on Tom’s face, but everything that had happened up until that point definitely was. His jaw dropped, he turned even redder, and if he had had a cigar, I was sure he would have bitten it right in half.
Before he was quite over it Gatsby helped Daisy into the coupe, dashing as a cavalier earning his lady’s favor, and she glanced back at us as they roared off, giving me and Nick a wink and a jaunty wave.
Then of course Tom had no choice but to pile Nick and me into Gatsby’s cream-colored Rolls, Nick next to him and me stretched out in the back, and set off for the city eating their dust.
It’s all very well for Daisy, I thought with irritation. She got to drive in with Gatsby. Nick and I were stuck with Tom’s growling that swung between righteous fury and a self-pitying whine. I tuned it out until we got to Willets Point in Queens, the ash yard. It was entirely uninteresting, of course, except for the Wilson Gas Station that I knew from Nick driving me back and forth.
“Say, shouldn’t we stop for gas?” I asked, sitting up.
“We’ve got enough to get us to town,” Tom said dismissively.
“Oh stop, for goodness’ sake,” I exclaimed. “I’m not going to walk in this heat if you run out.”