Chapter 22
We coordinated the scheme for weeks, each of us stepping firmly into roles as final details fell into place. Daisy, with her
ability to charm her way past doors in Buchanan’s house, had been scouting out any more potential safes, taking note of where
he stashed his ledgers and cash. Her findings shaped our plan, pinpointing the exact places I would hit while the party kept
everyone distracted.
Zihan had been working out escape routes, sketching and resketching maps of Buchanan’s estate and the surrounding waterways.
Meanwhile, I kept us organized, pulling everyone together when nerves threatened to tear us apart.
Jay threw himself into the invitations, spending hours in the Chronicle office late at night, perfecting the gold geometric borders and ensuring every name in Gatsby’s network—from business partners
to students still lingering in the city—received a gilded invite.
JOIN US to Celebrate the
Engagement of Jay Gatsby Jr. and Daisy Whitley
The Gatsby RESIDENCE
135 W GATE Dr., Huntington, NY 11743
April 14. 9–12 p.m.
All are invited!
When Uncle Beet and Auntie Lorraine saw the invitation, they pulled Daisy aside, shaking their heads over the news.
“You’re not serious, Daisy,” Uncle Beet said, his face all wound up with worry. “Getting married so young? To a man . . .
like this?”
Auntie Lorraine surprisingly wasn’t much softer. “We thought you’d take your time, look around, find the right person. But
he seems like he’s got a bright future. I suppose that’s worth something.” She gave a small sigh, trying to mask her disapproval.
Daisy only smiled, smooth and unaffected. “Trust me—he’s everything I need, Mom. He’ll give me the life I’ve always wanted!
And maybe a little more.”
They exchanged a look, but they knew better than to push further. Even if they didn’t understand her choice, they couldn’t
argue with the security that a rich boy provided!
Some tension in the air lifted with Auntie and Uncle’s blessing. It allowed us to get down to the real work, which happened
in my room, where we went over blueprints and scrawled notes like battle plans.
Jay’s hesitancy never truly left despite everything he knew about the havoc Buchanan brought to Harlem. When I shared the implications of his ties to the Blue House burning, it wasn’t enough to steel Jay completely either.
After the invitations were delivered, all Jay wanted to do was hide in my room and talk and play board games. So we sat on
the floor the day after his arrival, playing Uncle Wiggily.
Jay was overthinking as the game went on, and I worried that nothing would induce him to speak until out of nowhere he said,
“I still have my doubts.”
“Please don’t abandon this now,” I said. “It’s too late.”
“I just feel nervous.”
“I know. Me too. When we leave here, it’ll all be over.”
He played with a little green piece in the shape of a rabbit. “But it won’t,” he said. “They’ll be after us. Would you kill
the people after us? We never even got that far.”
“I wouldn’t kill anybody,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“They’d kill us,” he said, in a deadpan way. “We’re tempting death—don’t you feel that?”
“Just think brightly. Please.”
Jay was just whining. I knew he didn’t mean it. We’d already gone to the trouble of duping his father into the party. It couldn’t
be for nothing.
“Don’t you think we could elope and find jobs—wouldn’t that be far more romantic?” Jay said. “We don’t have to do it this
way.”
I wanted words to melt from his mouth more like a rockslide come to kill me and less like a fudge sundae. Because I wanted
to do everything he said, against my best interests.
Daisy and I had planned this. We all had agreed to it. Why plan it if we weren’t gonna follow through?
“Buchanan’s done too much harm,” I said, and that was my final answer.
The game was ruined now that we were bickering back and forth, so I went off to Daisy’s room. I knocked and then listened
at the door and heard the shower running from the bathroom.
I opened the door lightly and was greeted by her floral scent. And then I just stood in the middle of the room, not truly
knowing why I came.
“Well?” Jay said. I turned around and found him standing behind me. “If we are going to do it, you’ll have to find something
to wear to the party then.”
I smiled and went to Daisy’s closet and pulled down a flapper dress. I took off my pants and shirt, careful to catch Jay’s
eyes trailing my body and his small smirk, which instantly made our bickering disappear.
I slipped into her dress and checked myself out in her mirrors. “What do you think of this?” I asked Jay as I spun around.
Jay fell on her bed and rested up on the pillows. Arm leaning over his stomach, he gave me this hungry smile. “Ravishing.
Simply ravishing! Wear it to the party and Father won’t even be able to tell the difference between you and Daisy!”
“I’ll need eyeliner! Bracelets and anklets!”
I tried on another dress, and then another. I was on dress number three when Daisy came out of the bathroom in a towel, hair
dripping and slicked back.
“I thought I heard voices!” she said. “Why are there boys in my r—?” She stopped when she saw me and tilted her head like she’d spied a curious animal in the woods.
She was now in on my private universe as a glamorous woman!
“The bust is far too big for you,” she continued, calmly.
“I know you’re girly on the inside, Nick, but you can’t quite fill that out.
Mama can alter you a dress if you really want one, and in a color that matches your skin tone, because that’s not it! ”
I laughed and fell over. Somehow, Daisy calling me girly took all offense out of the term. I attempted to take off the dress,
and Daisy helped me to pull it off my ankles.
I looked up at the light of her closet, all the fancy clothes. “Girls have it so easy. All you need is this one piece and
some shoes, and you’re set to attend any swanky event.”
“You try being a girl one day—in public—and see what you say then.” Daisy hung her garment and pushed Jay and me out her door
so she could dress.
But she was free from her dread or had found a way to carry it. She didn’t find the crust of all her fears in the corner of
her eyes in the morning. She was still bubbly, despite the plan! What I’d give to be like Daisy.
Our ease with each other found once more, Jay and I spent the rest of the day together at the park, in the courts, on the
empty lots, just talking. I stayed totally connected to him until the night, but when I expected him to go back home, he asked
to spend another night.
We snuck inside and I locked the door of my bedroom, so I didn’t have to worry about anyone barging in on us. Then I got under the covers of my bed with him.
I held him this time, and we pressed our faces into two pillows. I whispered, “Will you tell anyone about how close we’ve
gotten?”
“I won’t,” he promised.
Daisy could easily talk about her engagement to a man without a second thought. She could announce her love to her parents
without fear. I couldn’t even entertain the thought of telling Auntie and Uncle I shared something romantic with Jay.
Would anyone be left in our lives who cared, in the end? We’d be leaving soon—forever.
“I’m glad he saw us in bed,” Jay confessed in a whisper. “I don’t want you to think I regret choosing you. I just worry, because
being with you has made me realize what life can be, when I truly connect to myself. I never knew anything before.”
I rested my arm on top of his. “No one knows anything. Everyone’s messed up and trying their best.”
“You get it,” he said, with a quiet laugh. “Of course you do. There are not enough words to express how much you mean to me,
Nick.”
Such beautiful words only scared me. I knew I was worthy of them, but I also didn’t. There was a giant crack in the window
to my heart. I was fixing it, slowly but surely.
I said nothing and just silently worried about losing him. I needed him now, more than anything, and I’d need him forever.
I almost believed Jay had fallen asleep after his confession, but then he shuffled in my arms and went down to fetch something from out of his pants, which he’d left lying at the edge of the bed. It was a folded letter.
“Read it,” he said, handing it to me.
I turned around and sat up.
Dear Tom Buchanan,
If you are reading this, know that your crimes have caught up to you. We have the evidence that you plan to destroy Colored
communities of Harlem and replace them with a new white gentry. Your wealth depends on it, but your reputation depends on
keeping the peace with the integrationists whose missions work against yours. Therefore, you are a fraud.
Your time in this city is ending. We will come for your positive press and reveal what you did to the West Egg Academy—a school
you helped set up and then helped to destroy. We will expose this information to every news outlet with cited sources unless
you appear at the party of Mr. Jay Gatsby’s on April 14, 1922, and meet us face-to-face.
Sincerely,
X
I didn’t know what it said about Jay that this letter had been tucked away all day, before we’d even argued about actually
doing this.
“It’s the missing piece to our plan.” He watched my eyes move across the lines of his letter.
“Buchanan’s always unpredictable. And it looks like he’s about to have another falling out with my father.
We mail this and he’ll still come to the party in spite of their squabble.
We’ll have the house all to ourselves. You and Zihan take the boat I built across the water, slip in while they’re busy, and by the time they realize what’s happening, it’ll be too late. No turning back.”
Jay nodded with a silent pledge to continue forward. And his readiness made me even more eager to give the corrupt man everything
that had been coming to him.