I didn’t want to go. The dance was a big patriotic event put together by Louisville mothers to honor the boys about to go “over there,” but I hated pretending.
I thought it a foolish war, and even more foolish to celebrate it with a dance. Though I was only a young girl with no understanding of the world, I did comprehend one simple fact—that this particular war wouldn’t be over until one side had let enough men sacrifice themselves on the altar of Mars. Somehow, I knew that adding American soldiers to that pile would tip the odds in our side’s favor but at the cost of thousands of lives. That’s how I saw it: a huge pile of soldiers, and whichever side had the bigger pile won, because they wouldn’t run out before everything was all over.
It seemed like such a waste, and I will admit that back then, part of my anger and disgust was very personal. I knew the number of eligible men would diminish, meaning I’d have fewer choices.
I was courted by many. Dozens of beaux sought me out at dances and teas, croquet parties, polo matches, and strolls along the Ohio River where some stole kisses. Others were too timorous to even hold my hand.
So far, though, only a few men interested me enough to trigger daydreams of walking down the aisle with them. One was Rupert Templeton, a tall, lanky redhead with a penchant for reciting poetry. His poor eyesight was keeping him out of combat, but he still signed up to do some cartography and other desk-bound jobs. I liked his bookishness and dreaminess.
A more amorous beau was a man named Andrew Cash, and despite his last name, he was a poor New York soldier whose family owned a bakery. It wasn’t his poverty that made me think twice, though. It was that he was a Catholic. My parents would never tolerate that match, and I spent many hours wondering if that was why I found him attractive—he was forbidden fruit, and I always felt delightfully rebellious whenever I saw him.
Neither of these men, nor the parade of others who tried to win me over, had me swooning the way some of my friends did over their beaux. Malvern Haskell, one of my best friends at the time, talked only of her fiancé, Dewitt. And Helen Beaufort canceled all long-made plans to go out with her beau, Theodore Clarkson. I’d long ago stopped counting on her as a friend.
So I was angry at everyone—at my girlfriends for abandoning me for their gentlemen, at the war for simultaneously placing so many men within reach to tease me when fate might snatch them away in an instant, and at my own heart for never lighting up with anything but mild interest. I wondered if there was something wrong with me.
“Daisy, dear, are you getting ready?” My mother knocked lightly at my bedroom door and I rose from the bed where I’d been looking through a fashion magazine. Still in my robe, I opened the door.
“I’m not feeling well,” I said. “I want to stay home.”
She immediately held her fingers to my brow. “You’re not warm. Your color is good, and you took a drive with your friends earlier, didn’t you?”
Yes, I had. My mother knew me too well. I turned and went back to my bed, sinking into its soft surface, hands in my lap.
“I don’t want to go. I think the whole thing is silly, and I don’t want to be part of it.”
Mother walked over to me and sat beside me.
“Yes, it is silly, and I know it is hard to take part in something one doesn’t believe in. But these boys are leaving soon, and it will do them good to see some pretty girls before they head out. Think of it as doing them a favor,” she said softly. That musical voice of hers went up and down ever so slightly, making you want to listen to her forever.
“You can wear your pink chiffon,” she went on when I didn’t respond, “and stay just an hour, just long enough to smile and talk for a bit. You can say you’re needed at home and must leave early. Your father can pick you up at eight.”
“Tell a lie?” I asked, giggling.
My mother wrapped an arm around my shoulders and kissed me on the temple.
“It’s not a lie. I always need you at home,” she said. “You brighten my days.” Then she hugged me and kissed me again on the forehead. “Here,” she said, standing up, “let me get your dress.”
Knowing I had to stay only an hour, I quickly slipped into my pink garment. I favored simple clothes—I still do—with clean lines and no frills. This dress was a recent acquisition, bought at a New York house and altered by a local seamstress. It had a straight neckline and long transparent sleeves in filmy chiffon, an overlay of the same fabric that stopped a foot above the hem of the satin cloth underneath. The original design had a two-inch fringe of black thread at the overlay hem, but I’d had the seamstress remove that and a matching fringe collar, as well as the wide satin belt. Instead, it barely cinched my waist with a gold cord. I wore it with the thinnest gold necklace and a lapis lazuli teardrop pendant. I loved pairing deep hues with lighter ones.
It was warm that night, so I didn’t bother with a wrap. Father drove me to the country club in our Model T, as if he were my chauffeur. He loved to drive.
Before getting out, I gave him a peck on the cheek. As he rumbled away, I went up the steps to a wide porch circling the huge building. Already I could hear music from within, a dance tune with flutes and violins.
The place was awash in flags, and the patriotic theme continued to the food tables, where a red berry punch bowl sat in a plate piled with blueberries and white frosted pastries. Red napkins sat next to blue plates and white cups. As I helped myself to the confection, I wondered where they came by it all.
I waved to some friends across the room, and when they came to talk to me, I told them of a fierce headache I was battling. “I doubt I’ll stay long,” I said.
“But you’re so good to show up when you’re not feeling well,” Candace said, squeezing my arm. She wore one of those fringed dresses so popular at the time, which made me glad I’d had them removed from my own frock.
“You look divine, though,” Lilith remarked, squinting at me. She usually wore glasses but had removed them for the occasion. “Are you going to bob your hair?”
We’d all talked about it—getting our hair cut short—and Lilith had pioneered the look in our group. She had thick dark hair, almost black, and the style enhanced her pixie-like features, but I wasn’t sure yet if it was for me. I had pinned my wavy locks at my neck, letting a few tendrils free.
“Not yet, Lil. Maybe I’ll do it once my soldier goes off to war,” I teased.
“What soldier?” Candace asked. “Andrew or Rupert? Or are you seeing someone new?” She always kept track of the boys, as if those of us who had two or more callers were hoarding them somehow.
“Neither. Someone new. I haven’t met him yet.”
They laughed. “Maybe you’ll meet him tonight.” Then she added, “I don’t think you’re ever going to bob your hair, Daisy. I think you just say that to keep us all interested.”
Candace could be such a prissy thing, tallying up boys and pointing out our “lines.”
“Well, then, I’m successful if you’ve remembered how many times I say it. You’re interested,” I countered. “You’ll be the first to know when I cut it!”
I excused myself after that and wandered outside, sitting on one of the long wicker couches. I was the only one there enjoying the dusk, listening to the music and laughter, thinking that I could soon go home and stop the pretending. I’d heard they might auction off dances. I cringed at the thought.
“Why are you all alone?” His voice came to me before he appeared because he was climbing the steps to the porch, hidden behind a massive boxwood. At first, I thought he was addressing someone else. It was a rude question, after all, but then he appeared, broad-shouldered in a brown uniform, hair ruffled from the breeze, his hat in his hand, and a huge open smile on his face. His question hadn’t been a mark of discourtesy. He was being frank.
“Why are you so late?” I said.
“My car broke down,” he said. “It’s actually not mine exactly. Some of us went in on it so we could get around when we wanted to. It’s a bright red touring car, but it doesn’t like to start in rainy weather.”
“It’s not raining,” I said, and liked how he just went on unabashedly telling me every detail, as if we’d known each other for ages.
“Oh, yes, I know. It rained yesterday, though, and that seemed to be enough to set her back on her heels. I think she’s a woman. Kind of temperamental.”
By then, he’d reached the porch and come over to me. Without waiting for an invitation, he sat down next to me, and I was ready to take offense when he immediately scooted away a few inches, as if realizing he had taken a liberty. He leaned forward, holding his hat between his knees.
“Where are your friends?” I asked. “The ones you bought the car with?”
“Oh, I didn’t buy it. I fixed it. I’m good at that, so I get to use it pretty much whenever I want. I’m James,” he said, holding out a hand. “James Gatz.”
“Daisy Faye,” I said, shaking his hand. His grip was strong and his hand calloused. I was sure I saw motor oil under his fingernails.
“So, you never answered my question,” he went on. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
“I wanted some air,” I said, then added, “I don’t much care for these events. All the patriotic songs. The flag waving. It’s all too much for me.” His honesty apparently had brought out my own, and I waited for him to lecture me on how much it meant to the boys and how important the war was, and how we were saving the world, but instead he just nodded.
“I imagine they’ve told you how you keep our morale up and all, you pretty girls.” He turned and gave me a quick smile. “Though it is true that looking at a pretty one like you does something for a man’s outlook.” His grin broadened. “I like your hair.”
I shrieked with laughter, then covered my mouth at such an unladylike outburst. His compliment was so sweet and genuine, although it could have been interpreted as more rudeness, as if my hair were my only attractive feature.
“I mean, I like that you haven’t cut it like a bunch of the girls have,” he went on.
“I’m going to get it cut, though,” I said, making the decision then and there. “For the war effort. Don’t they need hair for something?”
“I guess they could use it as sort of a decoy, you know, waving it over the edge of a trench so the Germans think there’s a pretty fräulein nearby.”
“How wonderful—to think of using one’s hair to tempt men to run to their deaths. I’ll imagine I am Helen of Troy.”
“At least they’d die happy thinking they were running to the likes of you,” he said, smiling.
“Where are you from?” I asked.
“West of here. Nowhere you would have heard of. It’s not where I’m from, though. It’s where I’m going. After the war, that is. I’m going to build things, houses and factories and even castles like this one.” He swept his arm around toward the country club, and I suppressed a smile that he’d likened the main building to a castle.
“What about you?” he asked. “What are you aiming to do?”
I cocked my head to one side, ready to give the answer all the girls of my age would give. To marry. To bear children. To run a household. But I stopped and instead said, “I want to be loved. Wildly and extravagantly. Absolutely worshipped and never forgotten.”
He looked up at me with a bright eagerness, and I knew in that instant he was applying for the job.
We sat and talked there well after the hour my father came by. I saw him sitting in the Ford in the drive at the foot of the steps, reading the newspaper, but Jay—he insisted I call him that even then—continued talking. He didn’t talk to me like the other boys who were so eager to make sure you knew how smart and clever they were.
No, Jay asked me about myself. Had I any sisters or brothers? Were my parents alive? Had I lived in Louisville all my life? Did I want to see other places?
No boy who had courted me had wanted to know so much about myself. I didn’t even know the answers to many of his questions. They made me think. And by the time I decided to put my father out of his misery and join him in the car, I felt as if Jay were already on the road to adoring me.
“Will you be here next Saturday?” he asked. “It’s another dance, but not one of these big war effort shindigs. Just the regular punch and cookies affair.”
I smiled. “Yes, yes, I will,” I said. “But you might not recognize me. With my bobbed hair.”
“Oh, I’d be able to pick you out of a flock of bobbed heads,” he said, grinning. “You’re the prettiest of them all.”
Though I engaged in a dozen other activities the following week, I thought often about that dance. I swam at Lilith’s beautiful lake house. On our bright veranda, I painted a picture of bold red geraniums I’d been working on for some time. I took a dancing lesson with Mademoiselle Larchon. And during everything, I thought of what I would wear and whether I should really cut my hair before the event.
Rupert and Andrew and a few other boys came by to call, but they made me feel restless. So I begged off strolls and outings, claiming a headache. Jay didn’t come by. He didn’t know where I lived, of course, but it bothered me he hadn’t tried to find out.
As I brushed my hair the Thursday before the dance and winced at the knots in my unruly tresses, I finally made a decision. I found a pair of scissors and sheared it off, straight across from my chin all the way around the back. Grabbing a mirror, I looked at what I’d wrought. It was shaggy.
“Mother!” I called, hurrying into the hall. “Oh, my!” she said, her eyes wide as I entered her bedroom. “We should fix that,” was all she said. “I’ll summon Mrs. Dale.”
In a half hour, the woman arrived. She was a tall, stylish brunette who provided fashion advice and arranged coiffures for many in our social set, usually from her small shop downtown.
She passed no judgment on my hair, just worked away, snipping at my rough ends, then shaving my neck. When she was done, I had a cloud of hair around my face that, like Lilith’s bob, showed off my features to advantage.
“I’d been wondering when you would want to do this,” Mother said.
“She looks very chic,” Mrs. Dale said, putting away her implements. “It suits her. She won’t have to do a thing to keep it nice, not like some who must curl it or straighten it. Many regret the choice. I had a girl come in—Bernice is her name, from the other side of town—who did it on a dare. She’s the plainest girl, so she needed a full long crown of hair to make her something special.” She smiled, though she didn’t smile often, and patted my shoulder. “You’d look beautiful in any style, my dear.”
I saved a lock of my long hair before Mother had the maid clean up the debris, and placed it in a small beaded box on my dresser.
That Saturday, I wore a jewel-red silk with a dropped waist and lace cap sleeves. I sported the lapis lazuli again and adorned my hair with a white diamond clip.
When I walked in the door of the country club, Jay was already waiting there. He had arrived a good hour early, he told me, to make sure he didn’t miss me if I decided not to stay long.
“Look at you, all patriotic,” he said, taking my hands in his. “Red, white, and blue.”
I smiled. “And with bobbed hair.”
“Oh, you did something to your hair?” he asked, and I was about to gently hit his shoulder when he laughed and said, “You look mighty fine, like a real princess. I hope you won’t mind being escorted by a man who’s yet to earn his own noble rank.”
It was my turn to laugh. It was just like Jay to act as if one could earn one’s way into nobility. “I don’t mind at all. I’ll just pretend you’re already a prince.”
I danced every dance with him, and when he wasn’t waltzing me around the floor, we wandered outside along the porch and the paths under heavily scented magnolias.
He kissed me for the first time there, under those plump blossoms, and I knew all at once why my other beaux had left me cold. I hadn’t fallen in love with them.
That night, I gave him the beaded box with a lock of my hair in it. A few weeks later, in that magnificent red-colored car he’d bragged about, I gave myself to him, becoming Jay Gatsby’s lover.