Chapter 6
Dear Jay,
Your approach is not too direct, and no need to apologize for those guys, even if you were friends with them.
I’m studying elevator operation here. It’s not what I was hoping for, but I’ve learned to make do wherever I am. My parents
are both gone, so I don’t have much guidance.
I haven’t found many friends yet myself, but I get along okay with my roommate. I know the feeling of not being too secure
with your friends. I try to see the best in everyone, just to get along.
Thanks for writing to me.
Yours,
Nick
The following night, as I sat at my desk, signing my letter back to Jay, there was a loud bang on our door. “Open up!” screamed a voice.
I turned to look at Vinny who’d been practicing quiet notes on his tuba but was now frozen in confusion. Neither of us knew
what this was about.
I got up from my desk and opened the door to find Charlie Buchanan in a West Egg athletic T-shirt and gray shorts.
“Get dressed, little girls,” he said, banging on the door frame with a sinister smile. “It’s time for midnight football.”
He walked off and I poked my head out into the hallway. The other boys of the White House were flooding our dorm, knocking
on doors. Some were going into rooms and flipping over mattresses. This was unsettling for me, and all the barking was unnecessary
for a football game. The Blue House boys groggily exited their rooms, rubbing sleep off their eyes.
“Ugh!” Vinny groaned. “This old tradition.”
I ran back inside and grabbed my letter. I couldn’t have Vinny reading it if he got back to the room before me. “What old
tradition?” I asked.
Before Vinny could answer, another white boy in the hallway screamed, “Speed it up, princesses! Impromptu midnight games are
tradition!”
I went outside and saw them butt-slapping my dorm mates all the way to the locker room, at the bottom of West Egg’s recreation
building.
Once we were inside again, the white boys started taking off their shirts and admiring themselves in the room’s many mirrors.
Oh, how buff they were. Vinny and I were so puny as to be invisible.
I glared at the macho chaos under the light of the room, still in disbelief I was on my two feet and not snug in bed as I slipped into my shorts.
My eyes scanned the room and landed on Jay. What was he doing here so late?
He turned and saw me looking. I pulled up my shorts and debated whether to wave or not.
Jay gave a quick nod and left his locker slightly ajar as he hurried off to the bathroom stall. I pulled my letter out of
my pajama pants, which were resting in my locker, and folded it a second time in preparation to leave it in there while he
was gone.
My heart thumped with a scandalous thrill as I approached the locker. I glanced left, then right, as if crossing the road.
No one was looking, so I left the little note through the gap.
As Jay came back, I noted that his modest walk set him apart from his former friends. Charlie and Cannon walked chest-forward,
like they’d bulldoze anything in their way.
Jay was beautiful like them, but he walked not like he meant to conquer the earth but like the earth had conquered him. Sadness
radiated like sunbeams from his chest, ordering his limbs into a languid orbit.
Someone with so much money could not be as sad as he appeared to be!
When Jay reached his locker, he looked at the folded letter and glanced back to me. All I could do was stand there like a
dog waiting to be fed.
Move, Nick.
I closed my locker as Jay slipped out of his pants, the muscles in his legs flexing as he stepped into his shorts.
I followed the boys filing out of the locker room until we reached the sports field, down some stairs off the main campus.
Charlie’s entourage did knee rises and stretched their arms out to prepare for the game.
It became very clear that it would be the Blue House versus the White House, by the way the white boys separated themselves
from us for conditioning. I kept looking at the big guys from my dorm, like James—he was a future machine worker, and the
strongest and most confident we had.
James began corralling us into a huddle, asking questions, and assigning roles. He’d be quarterback, and the rest of us would
have roles that supported his throws, in the form of defense or running.
“Vinny, you running wide,” he said. “And Nick”—he pointed at me—“you gon’ catch. Keep your eyes on me, but run like hell.”
I swallowed with anxiety but nodded—he was right to assign me that role. If I tried to defend anything, I’d be crushed like
a beetle, so I’d run to catch the pass and rely on my housemates for the rest.
We lined up in the middle of the field for the start of the game, each team facing the other. And then James said, “Signal!
Hike!”
The boys clashed midfield, tackling and dragging each other through the grass. I circled the action and went long, getting
further than the others on our team. James spotted me and passed the ball. It soared above the stadium light, disappearing
and landing again in my hands.
I held the leather to my chest and ran across the field, dodging one boy and then another. A skip here, a fake-out step there. Even Jay reached out to stop me, but I spun around him too and scored a touchdown.
Catching my breath, I turned and looked back on the people watching me, and knew immediately my athleticism had earned me
some standing with the guys of both houses. It made me want to get back out there and go again.
Yeah! Not so clumsy now, huh?
Six touchdowns in, the Blue House won the game. We had an edge in athletics, at least! And we all gravitated together to give
these manly half hugs once all was said and done.
But white boys didn’t like to lose. That became clear when we got back to the locker room and Cannon Cleary screamed, “Didn’t
know you could run like that, Nick! You’ve got such a girlish figure.”
There were laughs here and there. I chose silence. I didn’t want to be mean in return. But my God, did I secretly wish to
be stronger and bigger like they were so that they could never say a thing. Even though I was fast, I was still being chumped
for not looking the part.
Jay was walking out of the showers and going to his locker—the way he stomped around the crowd made me think he was angrier
at the slight than I was. “Do you ever leave people alone, Cannon? I swear it’s like you spend all your time focused on someone
else. Focus on you.”
There were some oohs as people took sides on the back and forth. They both looked the part. Cannon’s muscles ripped smoothly through his defined, lean build. Jay was shorter, but with broad shoulders and a powerful chest—his entire torso was robust and balanced with strength.
“Says the guy who’s inserting himself into something that wasn’t about him,” Cannon spat back.
“It is about me,” Jay said. “I see you bullying someone, I’m going to say something.”
“Oh, brother.” Cannon rolled his eyes. “So fake righteous—isn’t your father a conman?”
The room went watchfully silent.
Gatsby? I thought. A conman? What did that mean? Well, Jay did say his father gave “donations” to that juice joint we went to. And they sold alcohol
there. But that wasn’t exactly conning.
Jay wasn’t fazed by the comment and continued packing his gym bag. “You’re benefiting from my father’s junior cop program,”
he said, plainly.
“That’s beside the point,” Cannon said. “I know a spin when I see one and no one makes millions through charity. He built
this school to make it look like he isn’t a crook.”
A crook? The West Egg pamphlet said Gatsby Sr. built wealth through peer-to-peer investing. Whatever that meant, it sounded legit! But perhaps not very moneymaking.
“You know nothing about him,” Jay said, his voice quieter now.
“Of course not—he makes sure to stay out of sight, doesn’t he?” Cannon stepped up to Jay. “We all know that’s not for no reason.”
The room held its breath, watching as Jay didn’t back down. He looked angry, and for a second, I thought he might swing at
Cannon.
But he didn’t. He held his ground, and when he spoke, his voice cut through the silence with a cold peace. “Anyone who talks
so loudly on things they don’t know about is a fool.”
He left Cannon with a final glare before slamming his locker shut and striding out of the locker room.
Cannon just snickered, his smugness not faltering.
And I stood there, trying to place the emotion I had for Jay, which had sprung up unexpectedly while watching the encounter.
Admiration? Loyalty? It all started because he stood up for me. He didn’t know me well, and yet he’d been there immediately
as if to fulfill some preexisting duty to me.
As everyone else filed out of the locker room, the usual chatter carried on. I ran forward after standing in disbelief for
what felt like a lifetime of pondering.
I couldn’t catch up to him in time. The last I saw of him that night was from the back. He shrank in the distance beyond West
Egg’s main field, his silhouette collapsing down the front steps and out of sight.
Was there a shift between us? Was I imagining it?
West Egg may have felt more like a battleground than a haven, but at least in this battle, I had an ally.
Another surprise midnight football game came around a few days later, as the White House boys were challenging us to a rematch to avenge their honor. On the night of our next game, I found a letter in my locker.
I pulled it out, making sure no one could see me, wondering if it occurred to Jay how intimate this method of communication
was?
Dear Nick,
Thanks for writing back. I’m very sorry to hear your parents are no longer with us. I can’t imagine what that must be like.
My mother lives in London. My parents both went to university there, and Father wanted to move to New York after I was born,
but Mother couldn’t stand the trouble that Americans give interracial couples.
Father is drawn to places he can help make better, but Mother just wants to be comfortable. I don’t know who I agree with