Later that night, Carolyn gives me back my book.
“Wow, you finished it already?” I ask.
“Yeah, I pretty much devoured it.” She laughs. “I can’t believe I’d never read it before.”
“I know, so good, right?”
She nods. “So good.” There’s a pause, and then she says, “So, um, I hope you don’t mind, but I marked my favorite part. In pencil, don’t worry.”
Mind? I’m suddenly giddy—I get to find out what her favorite part of my favorite book is! I begin to flip through the pages. “Which part?” I say, but she stops me. Her hand rests on mine, and this time it’s deliberate. And she doesn’t move it away. My mouth suddenly goes very dry.
“Wait until the next time you read it,” she says. “It’ll be like a little surprise.”
I just nod, because I’m incapable of speech right now. We’re practically holding hands!
She smiles and walks away, her ponytail swinging behind her.
I change into my nightgown, dive into bed, and quickly write some nonspecific crap in my journal about the Bible study day being interesting. I’ve learned my lesson. From now on my real feelings are staying where they should have stayed all along—locked securely away inside my head.
I close the journal and look at the clock—fifteen more minutes before lights out. I grab The Great Gatsby. Like a kid who knows where her parents hid the Christmas gifts, I’m faced with a moral dilemma: skip ahead to the big reveal or revel in the anticipation?
I choose option B and start on page one.
***
Because my reading time is so limited, I don’t get to Carolyn’s favorite part until two nights later.
There’s a bracket marked around one short paragraph on page 24—a paragraph I’ve honestly never given much thought to. It’s when Daisy is telling Nick about the birth of her daughter. She says she wept when she found out she’d had a girl, and that she hopes she’ll be a fool, because a beautiful little fool is the best thing a girl can be in this world.
I read the paragraph over and over, trying to devise some meaning, some clue as to why this, of all the amazing moments and quotes in the book, is Carolyn’s favorite. I stare at the page, desperate for this clue into Carolyn’s mind.
By the time the prayers are said and the lights are turned out, I’m no closer to an answer. Even though I don’t know why Carolyn’s favorite part is her favorite part, I still love knowing that it’s her favorite part. And I want her to know mine. I use the small ration of moonlight shining through my window to underline a passage of my own.
I give the book back to Carolyn the next morning. She takes it but stares at me, confused.
“I thought it would only be fair for you to know my favorite part too,” I say.
She grins. “Cool. So what’d you think about mine?”
I try to come up with something smart to say, an insightful literary analysis of what F. Scott Fitzgerald was trying to say by having Daisy wish for her daughter to be foolish, something to show that I completely understand why that line spoke to Carolyn so much…but I fail miserably. “Honestly,” I say, defeated, “I have no idea what to think. I don’t really get it.”
Carolyn laughs and explains as we go downstairs to meet the boys. “I just love how Daisy totally gets the whole societal-pressure thing. Like, back in the twenties, a woman could be one of two things: a subservient wife or a carefree airhead. But Daisy isn’t either of those things—she’s too smart. So she doesn’t fit in, you know?”
“Yeah.” I’m hanging on her every word.
“But even she knows there’s no point in fighting the gender roles that have already been set up by society. So it’s all she can do to wish that her daughter fits into the mold, because her life will be a lot easier. Like an ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em’ kinda thing.”
I’m nodding like crazy, unable to believe that I never understood that until now. Especially now, with all this gender stuff we’re being put through. I always thought Daisy was being ridiculous, wishing for her daughter to be stupid. But what she really wants for her daughter is exactly the same thing Carolyn and I want for ourselves—to fit in.
***
The next day, I get the book back again. This time I don’t wait—I immediately open to page 100, where my all-time favorite Gatsby moment is waiting.
Gatsby has been obsessed with staring across the bay at the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, as if that light were the one thing connecting him to her despite their distance. It made him feel close to her, like a part of her was right there with him whenever he gazed at it. But now that he and Daisy have finally found each other once more, the green light has gone back to being just a green light. Gatsby’s count of enchanted objects has diminished by one.
In the margin beside the words, Carolyn has written, Amazing. Goosebumps. In a good way. :) PS—turn to page 56.
Her handwriting is terrible and adorable.
My heart skips a little as I flip through the pages. I feel like I’m on a scavenger hunt or something—searching for an unnamed treasure.
I get to page 56, and when I see what she’s written, I laugh out loud. The other campers look at me, annoyed. Before my outburst, the room was silent, the girls scribbling away in their journals. “Is there a problem, Lexi?” Deb asks.
“Nope,” I say, suppressing the giggles. “No problem. Sorry.”
I glance at Carolyn—she’s giggling too. I grin and press a finger to my lips.
Carolyn has underlined the line where Nick admires Gatsby’s tanned skin, attractive face, and perfect haircut, and she’s written, Oh my God, Nick, why don’t you just marry him already?? in the margin.
I write beneath that, So you see it too? Nick’s in love with Gatsby, right?
Carolyn’s response, the next day: Oh, big time. Check out page 54. And on page 54, she’s marked the long paragraph where Nick does literally nothing but gush over the perfection of Gatsby’s rare, understanding, reassuring, irresistible smile.
Jeez, Carolyn has written. I think somebody needs an intervention!
I write back, I’ve always thought Nick was gay. You know, the way he’s always describing the men as effeminate or feminine or handsome, and never paying attention to any girls except Jordan, who’s sporty and “small-breasted.” The margins are too small for a comment this long so my note crosses over to the next page. But I thought maybe it was just me projecting. And I couldn’t exactly ask my English teacher! :) Go to page 44.
On page 44, I bracket off the strangest, most up-for-interpretation passage of the whole book, and write, Did you notice this?
…I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.
Oh my God, I can’t believe I missed that! Carolyn writes back. Nick totally had sex with pale, effeminate Mr. McKee! It’s all there in the ellipsis!
Our exchange goes on like this for days. Carolyn and I can’t talk about this stuff in the open, so we save these discussions for the book. Apart from that first conversation we had about Daisy’s daughter, we never speak about Gatsby aloud. As far as everyone else at the camp knows, the only thing we use the book for is reading. No one knows about our secret method of communication.
Over time, the pages of the book become more and more marked up—asterisks, underlines, brackets, dog ears, and a huge mess of notes in the margins. But it just makes me love the book even more—it becomes more than just a book; it becomes a symbol of my relationship with Carolyn.
If relationship is even the right word. I don’t really know what’s going on between us. As far as I can tell, she’s still fully committed to the de-gayifying and the work we do during the days, and I’m…well, I’m trying my hardest to do the same. I’m still trying to make the “choice” each day to not love her. It just keeps getting harder.
The conversation eventually moves away from Nick’s sexuality and into more serious subjects. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, for example, bring up the subject of God.
Do you believe in God, Lexi? Carolyn asks.
Yes, I write back. Though lately I haven’t been so into the idea of someone else telling me what my relationship with God should be. You?
I don’t believe in anything. Atheist through and through. And churches weird me out.
You know this is a religious camp, right? :)
If there were such a thing as a secular conversion camp, I would have gone there instead!
I go to church with my mom every Sunday. But it hasn’t felt totally right since before my dad got sick. I think now the only church I really belong to is the Church of Art and Fashion.
I like that, she writes back. I guess I belong to the Church of Running. And now the Church of Gatsby. :)
When I read that last part, an incredible warmth fills me, right down to my soul.