To this day, Nick and I argue about what I wore to that party. He remembers it as a costume event, with a country theme, and describes in detail a peasant outfit I supposedly wore that fit me perfectly and made me the most beautiful woman in the crowd.
I remembered wearing my gauzy gold and cream confection, with the peacock blue slippers and a gold bracelet. Yes, I remembered others in costume, but I didn’t mind not having dressed for the occasion. I liked swimming against that tide.
Nick and I disagreed over other details of this whole story, as you know by now. He insists Jay had yet to go to war when I married Tom, but Nick wasn’t really in my life at the time and relies on now faulty memories of things. Jay, as you know, was a fabulist, but on that memory we agreed. He left for war, and I married Tom.
Jay himself was in tails and patent leather shoes, and when he saw me, he took in his breath and stammered over his words.
“The Buchanans,” he managed to bluster as if a footman making an announcement upon our entering.
No one heard, of course. Not in that meleé.
How to describe it? It was a circus, but one you wanted to be a part of, not just observe. It beckoned you to enjoy life, to lift a cup, to sing a song, to dance, to laugh. It felt like a sin not to.
Nick’s description had been accurate. There were two bands, one playing all the latest popular tunes. On a big parquet dance platform, couples jounced to the animalistic rhythms of the music. Another band, somewhere upstairs, played waltzes and classical fare for those who couldn’t bring themselves to admit they enjoyed savage beats.
There was food and drink everywhere, and people doing outrageous things, wanting to outshine each other. Someone jumped into the pool in full dress just as we came out to that area, and as we made our way to a table, I watched a sopping wet woman, laughing hysterically, being pulled out of the pool by both her arms, one man on each side, her dress dangerously close to sliding down to her waist.
I half expected that army of jugglers I had joked with Nick about to pass by at some point.
Though Tom had ostensibly accompanied me to be my protector, he overcame that impulse quickly enough, along with his snobbish disdain, when he saw two attractive women by a bar and recognized them as moving picture stars. Of course, he had to get something to drink, and it took him nearly an hour to return as he engaged in laughing conversation with them.
I didn’t care. The whole thing was an emporium of fun and delight, and, like a patron at a museum, I wandered about drinking in each exhibit, pondering if I liked it or not, passing judgment on the artists who made up the tableau.
Sometimes I walked alone, sometimes with Nick, and often with Jay. Never with Tom.
Presently, Tom appeared at my elbow, holding out a glass of champagne. He polished off his in a gulp, then grimaced. “Not a good vintage, nor a good year.”
Buoyed by his pronouncement of personal superiority, he then moved on, deciding to be somewhat generous of spirit. “You do have to hand it to him, though. He might have no taste, but he knows how to make money. There is no way he could pay for all this using borrowed cash. A place like this. Parties every night. Why, he’s had palm trees brought up from Florida. See them over there by the pool? No one would do something this extravagant unless he’s got capital.”
Tom himself would never indulge in such ostentatious displays, but he somehow seemed to envy a man who did. Maybe it was the freedom of it, not caring if others thought you were showing off, but Tom stayed rigidly in his class, his one act of rebellion being his tendency to bed inferior women.
But I knew Jay didn’t think of all this as rebellion or ostentatious display. To him, it was simply a boyish sharing of his own happiness, at having achieved what he wanted. His display wasn’t a finger in the eye of anyone. It was an outpouring of pure joy.
“He’s got a good selection of liquor, too,” said Tom. “Talked to him ’bout it. A good deal, he said. Might use his man,” Tom added. This after he had just criticized the champagne.
We all moved to a table together and sat down—Nick, me, Tom, and Jordan. Jay was about somewhere, but I didn’t see him as Tom babbled on about investments, deals on liquor, and more.
In recent months, Tom had been talking more and more about “deals.” He seemed to think he was missing out, just letting his fortune accumulate the old-fashioned way, and he’d become interested in investing, growing his capital. Talking to his father about it, too. I let him go on. It was a better way of feeding his manhood than accumulating mistresses. Or pummeling them. And I picked up information from these brief conversations, especially when Nick was around to offer advice.
“Gatsby was telling me about buying stocks on margin,” Tom now announced. “Nick, you learn anything about that in all your midnight-oil burning at the Yale Club library?”
Nick reddened. “If you have the money, sure, buying on margin is a good way to accumulate a lot of stock quickly. It holds some risk…”
Tom clapped him on the shoulder. “Risk for those without money. Maybe I’ll talk to you about this some time. I have an idea we’re all going to need to fortify our homes, take care of ourselves, as the lower races attempt their ascent to the top.”
Before he could go on, a short, balding man in a constable costume nearly tipped over our table as he clumsily tripped and fell into it.
“Say, watch it,” Tom said, now rising to his protector role.
Jay caught sight of the problem, and rushed over, putting his arm around the fellow.
“Steady there, old sport.” To us, he said, “This is Anthony Delacorte,” as if we should know who that was. “Big into imports, exports,” he added when he noticed our blank stares.
Anthony took that as an invitation to join us and promptly sat down in the only empty chair at the table. Jay beamed at me with raised eyebrows, standing behind Anthony.
I closed my eyes and gave my head the tiniest of shakes, trying to convey that I couldn’t get away from Tom right there.
“Jay here’s a great man, y’know. Not just a great frien’. He’s got good music, books.” Delacorte waved his arm, almost smacking a passing woman in an elaborate peasant frock who didn’t seem to notice. “Went to Oggsfur, y’know.”
“Oggsfur?” I asked. “What’s that?”
Jay looked down and suddenly left us, walking with a sense of taking over the band, as if he had to alert them to some special request.
“It’s in London. Or round there,” Mr. Delacorte informed us, shouting over the noise. “You haven’t heard of it? Most famous college in the world, by golly.” He looked at me with suspicion, as if I were teasing him.
“Oh, Oxford,” I said, finally understanding. “But Jay couldn’t possibly have gone to Oxford.” Not if he was making his fortune. Why would he waste time on college, even one like “Oggsfur”?
“Seen a pitt-chur of him there with some of his buddies,” the man said. “Go on, ask him. He went to Oggsfur’.”
I sighed and looked for Jay in the teeming swirl of humanity. He had disappeared. I had no doubt he’d spun that tale to friends, acquaintances, and business associates, and it saddened me while also igniting a fire of sympathy, a desire to defend him. In that story, he had been trying to impress, or at least fit in with the Toms of the world. Why do that, Jay? You don’t need to.
He shouldn’t feel the need to try to impress these people, especially people like Tom. Tom had gone to Yale, but I had met enough of his fellow alumni to suspect that their education had been more about making the right kind of friends than the actual pursuit of wisdom or any kind of meaning.
Tom wasn’t even listening by now, his gaze scanning the crowd for more suitable people to talk with. Soon, he went to the bar for a refill, and it wasn’t long before he was deep in conversation with a pale-skinned redhead in a dress of the same hues as mine.
Anthony Delacorte left our table, too, and Jay returned. This seemed to be a signal for Jordan and Nick to go, as well. They sprang up as Jay sat down, so the two of us were alone in that swirling throng of partyers. There were so many of them, making so much noise with laughter and talking and even singing that it felt as if we were alone. Jay placed his hand over mine and looked into my eyes.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“It has been several years,” I answered. “No. I mean since the other day. At Nick’s. I’ve missed you since then. I’ve counted every second.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” This was no lie, and I felt so comfortable here with him that it became even more apparent to me how much I pretended in front of Tom and others. With Jay, I felt relaxed. I became who I really was, even if I didn’t quite know who that was.
“Daisy, come over any time you want. Any time. I’ll always be waiting for you. Always.” He pulled my hand to his lips and kissed it.
There is nothing more intimate than two people in a noisy crowd. We existed in a place all our own, as if we were invisible to the throng around us, as if we were king and queen of this fairyland, and our subjects were cavorting secretly for our pleasure. If Jay had made love to me right there in that moment, I would have believed no one could see us.
Hours later, when Jay was interrupted by a servant asking a liquor supply question, the spell was broken. Nonplussed, Jay grabbed me by the elbow, looked around, and whispered, “Let’s go!” He nodded toward Nick’s place.
Did I know that, by accepting this invitation, I was crossing a line? Yes, even if I didn’t articulate it to my conscience. I burned for Jay. I remembered how he had touched me when we were young. He was my first lover. I’d been no perfect flower on my wedding night.
“Nick!” I cried, spotting him as we meandered toward the front door. “We’re going to sit on your steps and talk. Will you mind, darling, sounding the alarm if Tom comes looking for me, though I doubt that’ll be any time soon?” I moved to see Tom dancing with one of the moving picture stars now.
“Sure thing.”
“Thanks, old sport,” Jay said to Nick, and as soon as we were out of the light and into the shadows, he grabbed my hand and we raced like children down the little hill and through the small stand of trees that separated his property from Nick’s rented place.
Giggling and breathless, we neared Nick’s steps, and I knew, as Jay pulled me into an embrace and a long, deep kiss, that we wouldn’t be doing much talking here.
This, I realized was the moment when I discarded the last of my girlish rules. I knew it as soon as we stepped onto Nick’s porch and opened his door. There on the threshold, my mind was whispering yes over and over to my heart, and I felt no remorse, no guilt, not even a pinch of indecision.
Jay pulled me into an embrace at the door, and when he felt me respond with equal fervor, he began to kiss my neck, my shoulders, and my hands. I remember—oh, God, I remembered—what it was like to be adored so, to be cherished and treated as something fine and beautiful.
I felt fine and beautiful, the moonlight glinting off the gold thread on my shimmering fairy dress.
Jay lifted me into his arms and took me to the guest bedroom, where, in our eagerness, we stripped each other until we were in the bed. Here was a lover who made me feel as if I was the only woman on earth he could ever have.
Whether inspired by drink, Jordan’s talk, or my own musings on fidelity, I no longer had any doubts. I had tolerated Tom’s wandering. Now he’d have to tolerate mine. But unlike him, I wouldn’t flaunt it, and at least my choice was our equal in wealth if not in status.
From across the way, we heard the muted sounds of the party, music from the pool area and the upstairs salon creating discordant melodies, a pure line of Mozart on strings interrupted by the slide of a trumpet pulsating up the scale to some victorious wail of ecstasy. We heard laughter and the occasional crash, perhaps of a tray or glass. We heard a woman yelling, as clearly as if she were next to us, “Just shut up about it!” And I thought I picked up the splash of the pool—perhaps another woman had imitated the first.
It felt like the best place on earth. In Nick’s guest room that night. Just on the very edge of frivolity, it was close enough to enjoy without having to witness its distasteful details, letting its waves lap at our feet, not drowning in its depths. This was what I’d craved, a sweet sample of exuberant life, at a distance, to keep me safe.
I wanted to stay there forever, close to home, yet far enough way, close to those I loved—Pamela, and, yes, Jay—and not cut off from the hubbub of life that could make it so much fun.
After our passion had exhausted itself, he asked softly, “Why didn’t you wait for me?”
I was stroking his cheek as he tried to balance on his elbows so as not to crush me with his weight. He was still finely muscular, like a statue of a Greek god. I wondered if he boxed or lifted barbells. I reached up and touched a firm shoulder.
“Oh, Jay,” I said. “I thought…I didn’t think you’d…”
“Make it home?” he answered and sat up, grabbing and holding my hand, bringing it to his lips again.
His gestures were gentle, not angry, just like his tone, so I nodded in the dim light.
“I was so afraid then. Of so many things.”
“Aw, Daisy, you had to know you’d see me again. I would have done anything to get back to you. We all had gals we wanted to return to.”
“Not everyone returned,” I said.
“You didn’t get my letters,” he said.
I paused. His letters. I’d received one the night before my wedding to Tom. I didn’t want to tell Jay I had read it. That seemed too cruel to both of us, after we’d just found each other again. I wanted to be the woman who would have stopped her wedding after reading such a letter, and I didn’t want him to know I wasn’t.
“On the eve of my wedding to Tom,” I said on a breath. “One—just one—arrived then. The night before.” This was sufficiently vague, I decided, not suggesting I’d read it, only that I had received it.
He leaned back, taking this in, and then pulled me to him. I rested my head on his strong shoulder, and we didn’t speak. He kissed me on the head, just as Edouard had done to his wife at the speakeasy, and this, too, felt right, part of the balancing of my world.
I don’t know what Jay was thinking, but he seemed to accept my statement as a suitable explanation, even if he had preferred another outcome. At last, he said, “But you never loved him.”
So that was the calculation he had been making, the conclusion he’d been finding his way to. Sweet man, he needed to hear I loved him alone. Had he been equally faithful, I wondered? Surely not. Why did men think they had the right to claim uninterrupted devotion from women they would forget in an instant whenever they themselves found a charming substitute? But Jay hadn’t forgotten me, I reminded myself. He had built a life around not forgetting me.
“Oh, Jay, I was numb.” The night before my wedding and the day of, I was someone else observing all that was happening, a smile on my face, little sparks of joy flashing from time to time, but nothing that started a fire like this one—the one we’d just enjoyed. I’d been a different person then, and I didn’t want to talk about that girl with Jay. There was only this Daisy in this moment.
He hugged me tight and kissed the top of my head again, satisfied.
We lay there for quite some time until I heard footsteps rustling through the brush on the border of Jay’s property, so we promptly dressed and walked to the front steps, holding hands. We sat down and Jay lit a cigarette for me.
When Nick approached, it looked as if we had been there, just talking, for the past hour.
“Tom’s looking for you,” Nick said. I saw his eyes gleam in the light spilling from Jay’s mansion. “Wants to go home. Sent the chauffeur, who’s out front.”
I stood, and Jay handed me my wrap, which had fallen onto the steps behind me, gently pressing it around my shoulders. He placed a bold kiss on my cheek, and I leaned into him for a last embrace.
Together, we headed back to Jay’s mansion, where Nick and I found Tom and Jordan in the main hall. Jay followed shortly after, as if he’d been somewhere else on the property. Soon we were all scurrying to the car, hastening inside, the cool night air erasing any dark moments from before.
“Don’t hesitate to come back anytime!” Jay called to us, but I knew he was speaking only to me.
As we pulled away, I reached out the window to wave. I knew Jay would be standing on the steps watching.