Later, Nick told me that, after I dove, Tom raced to the promontory, ripped off his tie, and prepared to bolt into the water after me, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He stood there, trembling with fear, Nick said, until he shouted that they needed to get the boat, and they hurried together to the pier.
By that time, I’d swum a good twenty feet out, but the current was strong, and, despite what my husband thought, I was no fool. Drowning in the Sound while my husband and cousin watched might have given me some pleasure, imagining their terror at the sight, but not enough to rip free of life itself.
I turned toward the pier just as Nick and Tom unmoored the boat and sailed my way. In a few minutes, I pulled myself over the side, dripping wet but feeling wonderful. Strong. Capable. Intelligent.
Unapologetic.
“I used to win prizes for my diving back in school,” I said after Nick handed me his jacket. “And I’ve been wanting to make that dive ever since we moved here.”
Tom said nothing, but he gave me a look combining sympathy with disgust, and I knew a visit from Dr. Prinz would likely be on the schedule the following day.
Dr. Prinz did come by, but I managed to explain to him what a good athlete I was, how I loved swimming—something Tom could verify—that I had known the depth of the water and wasn’t taking a risk when I dove. I even lied and said I’d made the dive before when no one was looking, and it was a wonderful form of exercise—good for both my mental health and physical health.
I don’t know if he believed me, and he seemed a little frightened of me. Once he determined I was healthy and not in danger of harming myself, he packed up his bag as quickly as he could and left.
The stock market went back to punishing me as much as rewarding me, so Tom’s envy abated. He talked of us moving again, maybe back to Chicago because he said his father seemed to be ailing, and he wanted to be closer to him.
“Chicago is so cold,” I said one afternoon when I wished I could go over to Jay’s. But Tom was staying in. He was doing that more and more, and I think it was deliberate, to keep a closer eye on me.
“New York is cold, too, at least in the winter.” We both sat in the large parlor fronting the Sound, Tom with his latest book on the racial wars yet to come, me with a fashion magazine.
“Then we should head south,” I said. “Florida. I’ve always wanted to see Florida.”
He stared at me, and a malevolent sneer lifted up his lips. “Why, that’s not a bad idea, dear. Just the two of us. We can leave Pammy with your mother, or Nanny. A second honeymoon.”
My heart chilled. Tom’s suggestion of leaving Pamela behind was an implicit threat. He was telling me he could direct our daughter away, whether I liked it or not.
I met his stare and said, as lightly as I could, “If we go to Florida, I would be absolutely horrible company without our daughter.”
That ended that conversation.
For me, it was time for a final decision, and because Tom stayed close to home, I wasn’t able to get over to see Jay for several days, and only then for a short visit, on the pretense of seeing Nick to discuss “family matters” that would bore Tom, I told him.
“We have to get away, darling,” Jay told me, holding my hands as we sat in his study.
I’d told him how awful Tom had been to me, about diving, about how I wanted to get my life back somehow, all the things I’d loved to do before marrying.
“I can make it happen in an instant,” he said. “You can paint, dance, swim, dive—all of it. I’d buy you a building full of studios, and install a diving board as high as you want for a thousand different pools!”
“I know.” I looked down.
“Then let’s stop waiting,” he pleaded, kissing my hand. “Let’s just leave.”
“I have to do it when I can be sure I can take Pamela with me.” I waited to hear if he’d object and was relieved when he didn’t, though I would have preferred he endorse that position with vigor. I always seemed to be testing him on this lately.
“Europe or the South Seas? Which suits you?” he asked, his tone now jaunty. “Or would you rather stay in the States and go somewhere wild? Or we could go to Mexico. I know a great little town there with a villa we could rent. Sunshine and ocean views. Wonderful food. Music. You’ll love it.”
Again, I waited for him to add, “And Pamela, too. Pamela would not only love the weather, but she’ll be brown as a berry by summer’s end.”
But he never said any such thing. Instead, he walked to the window, stared out, hands in his pockets, and planned our future. When I indicated mild interest in the Mexico plan, he described the villa in more detail. It wasn’t as “grand” as “this place,” but it had “charm” and lots of rooms, great “fixtures,” and even a new garage that would accommodate three cars.
As he went on, I envisioned myself lolling about that mansion, and a great heaviness came over me as I realized I’d be trading one gilded cage for another. One job for another.
In my heart and mind, it was clearly time to leave Tom. What I couldn’t quite bring myself to do was decide whether I needed to leave Jay, too. I wept inside at the prospect.
He had given me my old self back. He’d given me the best summer of my life. He’d given me hope and sparked in me little flashes of courage.
“Better hurry on over to Nick’s,” he said, staring out the window. “Tom’s driving up.”
There wasn’t enough time to scurry over to Nick’s. Besides, he wasn’t there anyway. My visit to him had been a ruse.
Instead, Jay and I meandered out of his front door together, very casually, and then strolled over to Tom’s car in front of Nick’s cottage.
“Hello, old sport,” Jay said jauntily.
“Nick wasn’t here!” I cried, going to Tom. “He must have mixed up the time. Or maybe I did,” I added, playing the fool.
“She stopped in to see if he was at my place,” Jay said, smiling, and it felt as though we were supplying too many details.
Tom, still sitting in his coupe, looked at the car I’d driven here—a Ford that wasn’t nearly as sporty. Thank God I had thought to leave it at Nick’s and not at Jay’s.
“How convenient,” Tom said.
I leaned on his side of his car. “What brings you here?” I kept my tone light and sweet, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to talk to my husband in the presence of my lover, as if I was the most innocent woman in the world.
“Nick called,” he said, “and when I said you were supposed to be visiting him, he seemed confused.” His gaze flitted between us. “Said he must have forgotten and to offer his apologies.”
Good old Nick, thinking quickly.
“I was just about to come back,” I said.
“Hop in, darling,” Tom now purred. “I’ll have someone come retrieve the other car.”
“Oh, that’s silly, dear. I’ll drive it back. I’ll follow you,” I said, starting to go for the Ford, but he reached out and grabbed my arm.
“No, I actually think it’s silly for you to be here alone. Worse than silly, actually. Disrespectful.”
His last word hung in the air, and it was clear he was claiming his property—me.
Jay took a step forward as if he was going to brawl, but I held up my hand.
“Tom’s right. I should be going.” I looked at Jay and mentally pleaded with him not to roil the waters. “Thank you for keeping me company while we waited for Nick to show up.”
Still, Jay came toward me and opened the passenger door, and I’d barely made myself comfortable before Tom roared us away.
I couldn’t get to Jay over the next few days. Tom stayed around the house all the time now. He even insisted on spending time with me. We went sailing one day, swimming the next, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that he had figured something out and needed to decide how to deal with it. He was just looking for more clues to solidify his case, like some zealous prosecutor getting ready to go to court.
This made me even more anxious to leave, afraid of what his ultimate plan would be—confrontation? I didn’t know what I would say. I practiced denials and confessions that I discarded. No, I had not betrayed him. How could he think that? Or, yes, I had enjoyed time with Jay, but how could he blame me when he himself was not blameless? It all felt weak and thin.
If Tom did accuse me, it wouldn’t end well. Admitting his wife was unfaithful would be a blow for him to absorb, and I knew he’d fight back in some way, even physically.
This forced me back to thinking of running away with Jay. He would know how to get us some place safe where Tom couldn’t find us. I wasn’t confident enough to do that on my own. Not yet, at least.
I felt my daydream of a summer had turned into a nightmare, and I slept fitfully, woke scared, and felt uncertain. All that new-found confidence disappeared.
Now I was committed to retreating to Mexico with Jay, if only to get away from Tom. After that, I didn’t know. But it was the first step. I merely had to let Jay know the when and where.
But how could anyone think at all of anything? Summer decided to hurl one last burst of awful heat at us at the end of the month, as if to say “see what happens when you wish me gone—I’ll show you.”
When you opened the door, all you felt was an oven-like blast and no breeze. There was no sailing now, and no swimming either as the skies promised lightning each afternoon, taunting us before cruelly holding back rain.
The day was all about waiting for the night, knowing that even its darkness would offer sweaty sheets and damp pillows.
I awoke one of those mornings, sighed, and planned to do nothing but look for escapes of the more immediate kind. A swim. A cool bath. Another bath perhaps.
I thought of penning a note to Jay, telling him to let me know when he wanted to leave, but I was too afraid it would be intercepted. I didn’t know if I could trust any of our household staff. I kept Pammy near me a lot, so much so that the nanny even complained that it was better for the child if I didn’t interfere with her regimen.
Tom was suspicious of me, and I was growing suspicious of everyone else.
I had to get away. I was even at the point where I calculated how much time I would need to pack up our things and get over to Jay’s. I thought I could do it all within twenty minutes. Was that enough time to elude Tom’s clutches? What if Jay wasn’t there when I arrived? Then what?
That night at dinner, Tom pointed out that Gatsby had shut down his parties, and word in town was he’d hired new staff so no one would gossip about a lover he’d taken.
There was a long pause as he looked at me across the table.
Oh, I didn’t stir a bit. I didn’t blink. I couldn’t give him any hint of embarrassment or fear, even though it curdled my stomach.
“Well, it’s nice not to have all that tomfoolery going on in our backyard, don’t you think, dear?” I said. And please, pass me the roast. “Maybe he’s gone out of town.”
I desperately wanted to know if Jay was there. I was hoping for information, for Tom to say, oh, no, the man was still over there, he’d seen him. Then I’d know I could drive over in the morning, maybe even tonight.
The next day, however, he did give me some more information about Jay. Or rather, he told me he had decided to invite Jay to lunch, along with Nick and Jordan, to talk over some business opportunities, he said. I sensed another purpose—perhaps an examination of my interaction with Jay, a sleuthing for clues about our relationship, or even some public humiliation of me. The blistering heat pulled good sense and reason from me, and I couldn’t think of a way to avoid this encounter. At least I would see Jay, and maybe there would be a private moment when we could plot our departure.
Other than diving into the Sound again and swimming over to Jay’s pier, I couldn’t conjure up another plan. So I resolved to just get through it, to become the porcelain figure bending toward her rugged cavalier, wait for the heat to end and cool reasoning to return, and then put the final touches on my escape plan.
Yet, like an oracle of old, I sensed it coming—disaster.