Self-Made Boys--A Great Gatsby Remix by Anna-Marie McLemore

Author:Anna-Marie McLemore
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends

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.”

Daisy tossed a glance toward Gatsby. “Jay? Care to help show our Wisconsin boy that there’s nothing to be afraid of?”

Gatsby hesitated.

“If one of you doesn’t come in here with me right now I’m making a terrible scene,” Daisy said. But it was Gatsby’s arm she reached for, and she pulled him in.

As they spun, they threw their heads back. Her honeyed hair and her rose skirt floated behind her. His enchanted laugh sounded distant filtered through the glass. Every few seconds they spun near enough to leave nothing between them and us, and his laugh was clear and close. Then they kept spinning, and he went away again, and his laugh sounded as far as another planet. That laugh was a lighthouse beam, illuminating me and then leaving me unseen in alternating seconds.

I was a moon for him to throw sunlight on. In the glow of Gatsby’s gaze or laugh, I was luminous. When he directed the ray of his attention on my cousin—my beautiful, white-passing cousin—I was a cold and forbidding landscape.

The pursing of the lower half of Tom’s mouth stood in perfect opposition to the widening of his eyes. He wore such a scandalized look you might have thought Daisy had removed her dress and danced through the lobby in her slip.

Daisy and Gatsby had done something that not even Tom could miss.

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