A truck honked at us in strident offense as it narrowly missed Gatsby’s cream monstrosity coming around a corner. Tom looked as if the insult was personal.
“Well, we can’t stay here. Follow us over to the Plaza, at least we can talk above the muck and the noise there…”
It was one of those untidy and inelegant affairs, where everyone has some vague idea of what to do, but no real ability to force the issue, and half the people have secret opinions and the other half, in this case, Nick and Gatsby, were too easily swayed by one person or the other to decide.
We ended up at the Plaza where Daisy’s idea of renting five rooms for the five bathtubs actually seemed enticing for a bit, and then we ended up renting one of the grand suites on the seventeenth floor.
I never liked the Plaza all that much, though many of the people I ran about with did. The staff was always a little too stiff about me, a little too curious about who I was there to see, though of course the garden was charming and more at ease. Today at least, the man behind the desk was giving us all a certain look as we rolled in and demanded a place, as Daisy put it, to cool down and to make love. I wasn’t sure if it was Tom’s frigid Puritan looks or Gatsby’s wink that got us through, but the elevator attendant was nothing but cordial as we tumbled in and tumbled out, tipping him extravagantly.
The suite’s sitting room was broad and tall, but even when we threw open every window, we couldn’t cool it down.
“We should send for an ax,” Daisy said so decisively that I thought she might actually do it. “Bam, bam, two more windows in just like that, and it might cool down in here, God…”
Unbidden, I remembered her in her slip in the garden on a night almost as hot as this one. I remembered a shovel in her hands, and I shook my head. I didn’t want to think about that right now.
“No, send for ice instead, then we can make up some drinks,” I offered from the low divan by the window. I shamelessly took it up all on my own, leaving Nick to sit on the ground beside me, occasionally reaching for my hand to kiss it. His eyes kept darting between Gatsby and Tom, as if waiting for a fistfight to break out. I would have said it was too hot for such nonsense, but I had seen stupider things.
“Drinks,” Daisy said dreamily, drifting to the mirror to fix her flat hair. “Drinks would make this ever so much more bearable. The mint juleps were the only thing that helped at my wedding, Jordan, don’t you remember? Why, a June wedding in Louisville…”
From my angle, I could see just a sliver of her reflection in the mirror. To my heat-dazed eyes, her reflection seemed to glance at me, rounder and younger than Daisy was herself. She glared at me and then went back to studiously replicating Daisy’s pursed lips and useless attempts to put her hair back in order as I looked away. We hadn’t even had any of the demoniac.
Tom pulled out a bottle of whiskey I hadn’t seen him bring from the car, and he started pouring a measure into each of the gold-rimmed glass tumblers that the hotel provided for us.
“Let it go, Daisy,” Tom growled. “Don’t you know that the heat only gets worse when you talk about it?”
“Let’s talk about something else, then,” Nick said suddenly, reminding us all that he was there. It was his peculiar gift again, that he could fall flat out of existence when he was quiet and watching, because he was always watching.
“Oh, just leave her alone,” Gatsby said from his chair, watching Tom with a glittering look in his eye, “and all that after being the one to insist we come to town.”
Tom splashed some of the whiskey over the rim of the last glass, turning towards Gatsby like a wounded bull.
“What’s the matter with you, anyway,” he said. “Don’t think I don’t see what you’re doing, old sport…”
“Well, if you know, then certainly tell me all about it,” said Gatsby with interest, but Daisy made an exhausted huffing sound.