Chapter Text
I truly thought that my days of excitement and exhilaration were over when the leaves started to turn hues of ochre and amber, but the parties didn’t stop when the water of the Long Island Sound became too cold to swim in. I spent most of the fall working on my novel; the one I was planning in the blue, leather-bound notebook I had received as a belated birthday gift, sent in a brown paper package and bound in silvery twine, from back home. My back ached from long hours hunched over my desk, and I was recommended to get some of my writing done away from the cluttered ambiance of my home office, which I sometimes achieved on a bench in the city park, or while waiting for the train, but my most frequented spot was my neighbor’s place.
Even when not flooded with partygoers, there was something damn near magical about the palace he called home. It had no defined shape, as though each room were built on its own, with the utmost care placed into it. The gardens were always as lush and green as a far-away jungle, untouched by the western man, and the strings of lights that seemed to spiral like whirling constellations illuminated the grass in such a way that it evoked imagery of beloved childhood fairy-tales in all who saw it. The building and its grounds fascinated me almost as much as its owner did; I had sketched it many a time, with hopes to include a nice image of it among the pages of my breakthrough book (well, what I hoped would be my breakthrough book, anyway), or so I told myself. The little, cynical voice in the back of my head called me sap, because I wanted to get every aspect of Jay Gatsby’s life into ink on a page. He spilled into my every thought, like light pouring from a great chandelier: he was a beacon. When he ever invited me to use his study for what my family considered little more than a hobby, I accepted without hesitation.
As months passed, and I recollected the events of the summer in simile and metaphor, my dear neighbor seemed to take more and more interest in my writing. Often, he would appear stooped over my shoulder to correct some minor detail I had forgotten, smiling all the while and bombarding me with praise. Even when never-before-heard symphonies roared downstairs, he made it abundantly clear that he preferred my simple company and eloquent manner of storytelling. We would reminisce, which, in turn, sparked new ideas, a system I did not have access to back home in Minnesota, where the only writers I knew had no intentions of critiquing me.
“You have certainly gotten a lot done,” he commented one day, early on in November if my memory serves. I had arrived at his house a lot later than I normally would have due to a prior duty involving a should-have-been-brief phone call with one of the fellows I worked with. Gatsby was standing beside my chair, carding through the ink-sodden pages. “Seven chapters?”
“All the way up to the accident.” I set down the bag I had carried with me, full of extra stationary and a pair of gloves I wore when the weather cooled. “That poor woman.”
He bit his lip thoughtfully, before admitting: “I never knew her.”
“I met her briefly,” I answered, shrugging off my coat and draping it over the chair. “You’ve read…is that the second chapter, or the third?”
“Second.” He affirmed, chuckling lightly in that way he did, as though I was the only person in the world worth laughing at. “I know your book better than you, old sport!”
“Laugh all you want, I’m just glad someone’s interested,” I admitted, nothing but truth in the statement. It was an honor for someone I considered next to godliness to enjoy my senseless rambles to such a degree. I slipped into my chair, positioning myself below Gatsby, who was normally a few inches shorter than me.
“Why wouldn’t I be? Not everyone has a modern-day Shakespeare as a neighbor, you know.”
“I appreciate the compliment. Hand me that, will you? I want to rework that second chapter. I never described the little dog in too much detail, and its paws were so striking in the moment. I’ve been thinking about it all morning.”
He handed over the manuscript and watched intently as I flipped back seventy-odd pages, finding the place of interest eventually. Brushing against my shoulder, Gatsby laid a finger on the corner of a page in the early thirties among the total I had written.
“This, here,” he stated, almost inquisitively, “I wanted to ask about this. The, ah, the photographer.”
I winced. I was a very honest man, I prided myself on it to a point that Jordan (and several others I knew) had deemed unhealthy, and thus had no desire to leave out any event of the summer that I could recall. I had left it vague on purpose, though, all while praying that it would be viewed as platonic by any prospective reader. The story would not have made sense without it, anyway, how else would I have been beckoned to leave that apartment? I eyed Gatsby with caution, his demeanor giving off no hint to what he may have been thinking, nor what emotion was brought on by those thoughts.
“What about him?” I hoped my tone came off as more confident than it sounded from inside my own head.
“Well, what in the world happened with him?” Gatsby’s laughter sounded forced now, awkward. “And, I don’t know, how was the art?”
“Fine, all fine, from what I remember.” We both blinked in the uneasy silence, before I finished with: “I was drunk.”
Gatsby left it where it was, nodding solemnly. “I suppose literature is meant to make you wonder, isn’t it? It’s not really fair that I should have all the answers, even if the author has spent nights under my roof.”
The breath of relief I heaved felt like a fifty-pound weight being thrown from my chest. “That’s right, don’t be greedy.” I poked him jokingly in the arm, and now, even with the fact that I struggle to recall the afternoon, I am almost certain I saw him blush.
“What are you going to call it once it’s done?” Gatsby didn’t even seem to be talking directly to me, but I understood his meaning well enough. “The book, I mean.”
I hadn’t given much thought to a title, but I wasn’t about to admit that. It needed to be something deep, something that connected to the novel’s deep themes of inequality and unreciprocated love. It needed to be perfect if I was going to hand him a first-edition copy.
“Something like…” My voice trailed off as my neurons fired at record pace, trying to piece together a sensible title. Why on God’s green earth was I incapable of talking to my neighbor without it being some act on par with pleasing some deity in need of sacrifice? “Among Ash-heaps and Millionaires.”
We were standing in front of his house, feet kissed by a thin blanket of snow, the first snow, in fact, of the year. It was the third of December, and I was nearly finished with my first draft. Gatsby, meanwhile, was supervising his staff absent-mindedly, as they hung evergreen garland from every overhang of the great roof. I was called upon only for company.
“I like that.” He said. “It’s long, but it’s…what’s the word you use, old sport?”
“I use a lot of words,” I shrugged, and offered: “Articulate?”
“Perhaps.”
There wasn’t a sound, other than the rustling of the wind through the trees, now completely barren of leaves, save for the pines and firs. I was less prepared for winter than I initially considered myself, it seemed, as I was standing and shivering in an unbuttoned jacket the color of coffee with too much milk. I risked a glance at the man beside me, wrapped snugly in a wine-red coat, a far cry from his usual blues and golds, but a welcome change, because it contrasted nicely with his azure eyes. He shuffled slightly in the snow, making little indents where his feet had been. I noted as well how his cheeks turned rosy when the winter wind hit them, as did his nose, which reminded me of a kitten’s at the moment, dotted just faintly pink. The slight breeze had ruffled his honey-hued hair and added to the felinity of his current semblance, causing the chilly sunlight to tabby-stripe it with a reflection of chestnut brown. A cloud’s shadow passed by overhead, and it only got colder. As he exhaled a powder-puff of condensation, he shifted his weight closer to me.
“You’re warm, old sport.” I felt his shoulder touch my upper arm, and if the December atmosphere didn’t redden my face, my proximity to a higher power certainly did. I wanted to slap myself: I had gone through all the trouble of erasing and striking through any part in my novel I had considered too close to the truth, for my honesty, unfortunately, did not reach every corner of the box I shoved myself in, and here I was, about to lose it all to a man I had watched nearly kill himself trying to sleep with my cousin!
“I…yes, I run warm.” God, Nick, stay mature about this. You aren’t some schoolgirl infatuated with the baker’s son or any of that moving-picture nonsense. He’s a man. You’re a man. Be a man, Nick, be a man.
I avoided his gaze, directing my line of sight instead to the picturesque gray-blue sky. After a minute or two, the gently tumbling clouds blessed us with crystalline snowflakes, which drifted down, only in pairs to begin with, but as time went on, the downfall grew heavier. It was only when the air in front of us was dyed a shade of cotton-white that Gatsby took notice.
He turned toward me rather abruptly. “Shall we go inside? I could have a meal fixed for us while we try out new titles for that masterpiece of yours, to see how they roll off the tongue?”
If I were in my right mind, I would have taken him up on the offer, but fifty percent of the thoughts racing through my mind like the wild horses of the great plains were something vaguely along the lines of ‘Please, please, please, do not fall in love with him. He’s had his heart broken one too many times.’
“Old sport?” He nudged me, repeating himself again. “Is everything alright? I apologize if I said something wrong.”
“No, no, it’s…it’s nothing you said.” I promised half-heartedly. It was technically correct; he hadn’t said a word that implied negativity, I had simply looked a little too hard into what was, in each and every sense of the word, an otherwise completely usual conversation! “I just think I ought to head home. Your house looks wonderful, as always.”
As I turned to leave, that degrading, condescending little homosexual voice in my head begged me to take one final look at the beam of glimmering light through the falling snow. He was frowning slightly, which looked utterly unnatural on his reddish lips, and I was homesick for the summer, and for his lovely smile. He looked hurt, my heart, and the voice, chiding me for being the reason why.
“I’ll see you soon, Mr. Gatsby.” I added hesitantly.
“Just call me Jay, old sport.”