“I don’t think I should leave you alone tonight,” Gatsby said. “Do you want to stay with me?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m fine.”

  “Then I’ll stay here with you,” he said.

  I wanted to say yes to having another heartbeat in the cottage with me, and to that heartbeat being his. And in a locked cabinet deeper within me, I might have imagined the warmth of his body next to me, kissing him in the dark.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t need that.”

  “Then at least let me help you clean up,” he said.

  “I’ve got it,” I said. “Really.”

  His nod was hesitant, and a little sad. It seemed to hold no pity, but what else could it be? Why else would someone like Gatsby want to stay here, with me, except that he was worried? And why else would he be worried for me except that I was Daisy’s friend?

  “Listen,” Gatsby said. “About your birthday.”

  “We don’t have to talk about it,” I said.

  Gatsby blinked at me.

  “It seems better if we don’t,” I said. “Doesn’t it?”

  “Sure,” he said. “It’s just that if I upset you at all…”

  “You didn’t,” I said. “We were caught up in the moment. Nobody meant anything by it. All in good fun, right?”

  I hoped he felt relief at that. I wanted him to know I didn’t expect anything. I didn’t want him to worry that I had attached any romantic hope to that kiss.

  Gatsby loved Daisy. I was Nick. I wasn’t the distant allure of a green light. I was close. I existed in the play script of Gatsby’s life for no reason except to facilitate his reunion with the girl he loved.

  “Good night, Nick,” he said.

  Within a few steps, he was a silhouette against the moonlit trees.

  “Jay,” I said.

  He looked back, the silvered lilacs framing him.

  “Thank you,” I said. “For today. For my birthday. For everything.”

  He waved and then vanished.

  CHAPTER XXI

  “Wisconsin, if I were you, I’d get yourself to Hexton’s office as fast as your plow can carry you,” Princeton said. “He’s incandescent.”

  “Carraway!” Hexton bellowed from his office.

  “Do you need a Bromo-Seltzer?” Princeton asked. “You look like you’re about to be sick.”

  But then Hexton followed up with “Are you riding your family’s ox here? Hurry it up!”

  The moment I obeyed, he shoved a sheet of paper in my face. “Remember this? Your big idea?”

  I examined the numbers enough to recognize them. “Yes.”

  He grabbed the paper out of my hand and threw it to the floor. “Well, it was genius! Up with the wheat, just like you said! We could paper my office in money off this one!”

  I stood silent, confused by the way his compliment sounded as angry as everything else.

  “Rises and falls with wheat!” Hexton shoved past me and out the door. “Benson! Go back to that hick town! I want a dozen more like this one!”

  Princeton leaned against a support post, grinning. “Diamond work, Wisconsin. You just might last around here after all.”

  * * *

  “Take those to the clubhouse, will you?” A man in knickerbockers slung a set of golf clubs into my arms. He walked off before I could object.

  I looked at Jordan. “Should I even be here?”

  Jordan sighed. “Every man in plus fours thinks he’s Prince Edward, doesn’t he?”

  I noted my mistake. Plus fours were longer than knickerbockers, I remembered, and more current. Gatsby had told me that, but I didn’t know how he kept it all straight.

  “And you’re my guest, remember?” Jordan said. “I say you should be here and therefore you should.”

  “I think the only reason they let me in is because they think I’m your caddy,” I said.

  “If they don’t like you being here, they can go pickle themselves,” she said. “You’re the honored guest of golf prodigy Jordan Baker.”

  “Then what do I do with these?” I asked.

  She shrugged, and the sleeve of her blouse fluttered. “Well, he didn’t tip you, so in my book that must mean they’re a gift. Keep them.”

  The golfers held their fingers to the wind, checking the direction and speed, and that wind blew the disconcerting lime of Daisy’s Le Jade toward Gatsby. The two of them stood close under a spectators’ tent.

  Each day, Daisy had drifted across the sound from East Egg to West Egg on the breeze of a different perfume, and she and Gatsby set to work planning the debut of the season.

  On the day they discussed the orchestra, she had spritzed on the orange flower, iris, and amber of Narcisse Blanc. As Gatsby’s gardeners spoke like poets of their vision for the grounds, each delighted nod of Daisy’s head emitted the soap-clean citrus, lavender, and rosemary of 4711. As they tasted cakes and custards for the dessert, laughing as they dotted each other’s noses with frosting and chasing me with handfuls of buttercream like snowballs, Daisy’s shoulder wafted the vanilla and vetiver of Shalimar. When Gatsby had his favorite florist bring a dozen towering arrangements for her to choose from, Daisy smelled of Narcisse Noir, the daffodil and lemon as fresh as nighttime after rain. Each perfume lingered in Gatsby’s gardens and rooms, a dozen fragrant ghosts.

  “You’re staring at them again,” Jordan said.

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “What are you apologizing for?” she asked. “It’s nothing to me. I just thought you should know it.”

  Today my cousin was wearing, of all things, a pink gingham dress and pink stockings along with it, the stockings embroidered with floral vines so dainty they were liable to run if you looked at them wrong. Pink gingham and pink tights. My cousin might as well have been going to a costume party dressed as a white girl. But she carried it off so well, a dozen socialites would be wearing the same at the next tournament. It was Gatsby I was worried about, the pale blush of his clean-lined suit. The men around here were in those voluminous plus fours, or in chalk stripe or seersucker.

  “They all make fun of him, Jordan,” I said.

  She started on her arm stretches. “What do you mean?”

  “They come to his parties and drink his liquor and then they make fun of his wallpaper,” I said.

  “Never mind them.” Jordan held an aluminum putter behind her, gripping it by both hands. “They all try so hard to look like they’re not trying so hard. See that one showing off his spectators? Or that one over there, so subtly taking his pocket watch out of his vest so everyone can see how expensive it is? And don’t get me started on the girls here. Did you know they buy dresses from Paris and leave them in their closets untouched for a year?”

  “Why would they do that?” I asked.

  “They call it curing,” Jordan said. “So nothing appears too new, too eager. It’s a hilarious amount of effort not to seem eager, if you ask me. Give me a new frock, I’m wearing it to my next party.” She twisted her body, still holding the club. “And as to the wallpaper, let them talk. They’re all proud of those fortunes hoarded in their accounts. They’d buy diamonds heavy as wrecking balls but won’t replace their own peeling wallpaper. Old Mayflower values. They think it’s such an accomplishment to be old money. And that’s how they say it too. Not that they have old money, but that they are old money. What does that tell you?”

  A white woman in a sky-blue dress waved a gloved hand to Jordan, and Jordan waved back. I hoisted the golf bag onto my shoulder, hoping Jordan wouldn’t notice me hauling it toward the clubhouse.

  On the way past the spectators’ tent, I snuck a glance at Gatsby and Daisy. The sun threw shards of light through the cut crystal of her glass, and he was looking at her like she was condensing all the stars into a cluster of ice cubes. To Gatsby, the fine dust of Daisy’s powder compact suggested a world that could be softened at the edges. Her voice dripped of money she didn’t have. The lightness with which she carried herself promised a lifetime of roses on the breakfast table.

  When Tom joined her at the tent, Daisy peered out from under her hat, the brim the color of the sky.

  “Is that your car out there, Gatsby?” he asked. “Interesting color. I prefer myself a blue coupe and leave the pretty shades to the girls, right, Daisy?”

  “Afternoon, Tom,” Gatsby said.

  Tom pointed at Gatsby. “You’d better be careful with the sun—you’re almost as brown as Nick.”

  Tension came into Gatsby’s fist, the one alongside his trouser leg. If I hadn’t been carrying a set of clubs, I would have told him not to bother. Tom had worn me out at the beginning of the summer. When I could help it, I didn’t listen to half of what he had to say.

  “A pink suit,” Tom said, eyeing Gatsby up and down. “That’s something, isn’t it? Have you got a wristwatch to go with it?”

  By the time I got back from the clubhouse, Daisy had left Tom’s side. She and Jordan were off in a pool of dappled shade. They were holding hands, and even though I couldn’t hear her from this distance, I knew from Daisy’s smile that she was talking in that soft, reassuring way of hers. Jordan was nodding, breathing deeply enough that I could see it.

  I may not have known much of how friendships between girls worked, but the scene was calm and sweet in a way I couldn’t miss—Daisy was helping Jordan settle her nerves. She was both talking her up to the task in front of her and making her laugh so that she’d have a moment of forgetting it. It had the even quality of a routine, something they might have done before many past tournaments.

  Daisy squeezed Jordan’s hands and then let them go. With one last nod, Jordan took on her socialite’s posture and walked out toward a crescent moon of waiting reporters.

  “Jordan Baker, what cold cream do you use?”

  “Over here, Jordan, is that a new rouge, what’s the color?”

  “Jordan, is it true you wear orange toenail polish for good luck?”

  I knew Jordan set fashion as much as any debutante. But I couldn’t imagine Walter Hagen getting so many questions about his hair tonic or whether his lucky socks were plaid or diamond-checkered.

  “Ms. Baker,” I called, loud enough that she looked past the reporters.

  “I see we have a fan with a question of his own,” Jordan said. “Young man, what would you like to know?”

  “Is it true you played your first majors from the men’s tees?” I asked.

  “Of course not,” Jordan said. “That’s an outrageous lie, and I won’t have you spreading it.”

  The crowd gasped.

  Jordan’s face beamed the light of a chandelier. “I drove from seven yards behind the men’s tee,” she said, and the crowd bore her up on their thrilled laughter.

  Between holes, Tom greeted Yale friends and business associates. Daisy and Gatsby gathered up those stray moments like sunlight in their hands. They pinched away blades of grass and threw them at each other, green catching on Daisy’s hat. They tried sips of each other’s drinks.

  When Daisy saw Tom had his back turned, she pressed her thumb to her rouged lips and patted the blush of color onto the apples of Gatsby’s cheeks. “There, now you look sun-flushed.”

  That was enough for Jordan, who found me between the twelfth and thirteenth holes.

  “Do something about your boy, Nick,” she whispered, a putting cleek clutched in her hand. “He’s being reckless. Look at the two of them.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Then stop him,” she said. “I can’t concentrate worrying about him like this. Tom’s right there. And his friends aren’t all as stupid as they look.”

  “What do you want me to do?” I asked.

  “I don’t care if you borrow two sets of clubs so you can both go practice your drives,” Jordan said. “Don’t make me bite my nails over what a fool he’s being. I have a new manicure.”

  The next time Tom excused himself to greet an acquaintance, I blurted out, “You know, I had a teacher who taught me all about the physics of golf.” Nerves nearly made my voice crack. “It’s very interesting.”

  Tom laughed. “You really are just a head and nothing else, aren’t you, Nick? Well, I suppose we need a few like you watching the markets.”

  But it worked. I involved Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby in an intermittent conversation about the arc of the swing and the angle of the shot, cementing myself as an absolute bore. Tom stayed, his presence dulling the shine of the afternoon, so much so that Daisy and Gatsby stood an arm’s length apart.

  * * *

  “We had to wait out your adoring public,” Daisy told Jordan after the gloved clapping ended.

  “Jordan Baker the Tournament Taker,” Tom said.

  “Oh, as though you were watching,” Jordan said. “You treat every country club as an office.”

  Daisy looped her arm through Jordan’s. “I know you’re the best at it,” she said. “But really, how do you stand this game? It’s punctuated walking.”

  “Only to those who don’t understand the art form,” Jordan said. “Come on, I need to change. I’m just soaked from being out in the sun.”

  “No false modesty,” Gatsby said. “You’re fresh as a lemon blossom, and you know it.”

  “Stop trying to get me to marry you, Jay Gatsby.” Jordan grinned over her shoulder. “I’m never going to fall in love with you.”

  “You can’t blame a man for trying, can you?” Gatsby asked.

  Jordan leaned into Daisy. “I have my blue Lanvin, the one with the peach flowers. I’ve been too many hours in sensible linen. Let’s sparkle a little.”

  “I brought my gold rayon floss,” Daisy said. “The Madeleine Vionnet. It’s rose and copper all at once. It’s glorious. What do you think of all the going back and forth between rich colors and the pastels? Do you think it’ll keep?”

  “Oh, I think it’s seasonal,” Jordan said. “Is that a new handbag?”

  “I needed something big enough to hold that cute little pistol Tom gave me,” Daisy said. “All the purses I had were barely big enough for a compact and a lipstick.”

  “You’re carrying it around with you?” Jordan asked.

  “Of course,” Daisy said.

  “Not loaded, I hope,” Jordan said.

  “Yes, loaded,” Daisy said.

  “Whatever for?” Jordan asked.

  “In case Tom wants to go to the range at a moment’s notice. He thinks I don’t like a present unless I fasten it to my person at all times.” Daisy gave Tom a playful look back. “Remember that pair of yellow shoes he bought me? The ones with the double straps? He was awfully offended when I didn’t wear them days in a row.”

  “Well, didn’t you explain it to him?” Jordan asked. “Cora practically writes love letters to those green d’orsay heels and even she knows you can only wear a bright shoe like that a few times a season.”

  They went on murmuring about hats and the smallest bags a woman could carry, gloves and summer-weight jewelry, curved heels, dropped waists. I knew skirts and shoes from my mother and cousins, but this was a language as unknown to me as shorthand directions around the city.

  “What are they talking about?” I meant to ask Gatsby but accidentally aimed the question at Tom.

  “Who knows?” Tom said. “They change clothes a thousand times a day. It seems you need a different dress to write a letter than to go for a stroll than to take a telephone call. Don’t try to understand women, Nick. You never will. I gave up years ago.”

  “I don’t think they’re so hard to understand,” Gatsby said.

  “You hear that, Nick?” Tom asked. “Mr. Pink Suit’s here to give you the finer points of ladies’ day dress. Ruffles, collars, bows, embroidery, all of it.”

  A laughing song rose from the space between Jordan and Daisy.

  “Nicky.” Daisy rushed over to me. “Jordan and I just remembered the most amusing thing and now I have to know.” She circled around the back of me so she could put her hands on my upper arms. “Have you ever been inside a revolving door?”

  “There’s one in the building where I work,” I said.

  “But have you gone in it?” she asked.

  “There are perfectly good ordinary doors on either side of it,” I said.

  “So that’s a no?” she asked.

  “That’s a no.”

  Daisy got that look that always told me to brace for what was coming next.

  CHAPTER XXII

  “I’m not going in that thing,” I said.

  “Don’t you want to write your mother back home and tell her that you spun in the revolving door of the Plaza itself?” Daisy asked.

  “Was this really worth going out of our way?” Tom asked.

  “Hush, Tom,” Daisy said, and then returned to me. “Nick, you’re a man of science, so you should appreciate that revolving doors have a scientific purpose. I thought you of all people would want to engage close up.”

  “I know the purpose,” I said.

  I’d read a paper about revolving doors. They had them in Chicago too. The way they spun pockets of air helped relieve the stack effect inside a building, the pressure that grew more intense the taller a structure got. That didn’t mean I wanted to get inside a moving door that could knock you down as easily as it could take you anywhere.

  “I’m not going in on principle,” I said. “It seems like you might never come out.”

  “But you do, and I’ll prove it.” Daisy shoved the first panel of brass-framed glass. She picked up speed, singing a song that bounced off the interior doors too much to be understood.

  Daisy’s charm flew out those revolving doors. Hotel guests looked on, amused by this diaphanous girl.

  Daisy slowed to a stop. “See, Nick? Now come on in with me.”

  “No, thank you,” I said.

  She gave an actress’s sigh with her whole body. “Fine. Then who’s coming in? Tom?”

  “I’m not participating in this,” Tom said. “This whole affair, it’s just silly. Nick didn’t even want to come.”

  “Fine,” Daisy said. “Jordan?”

  “And risk tearing the Lanvin?” Jordan ran her fingers over the organdy of her skirt. “Not even for you.”