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“Do you think she’ll love it old sport?” Gatsby asked, wringing his hands.
“I’m sure of it,” Nick replied, gazing at the expensive set of pearls Gatsby was presenting to him. While he knew about as much about women’s fashion as he did computer science, he could tell that the necklace was of high quality. At least a hundred pink pearls were strung together by gossamer-thin silver thread, resting in a book-sized black velvet jewelry box for daisy to keep it in. It must have cost a small fortune—pocket change to Gatsby but extremely impressive to everyone else.
Gatsby didn’t seem to agree, “What if she has pearls she prefers? Oh, why am I kidding myself, I know she already has pearls. Tom got her a string twice as long for their wedding—Oh God, Nick, am I a fool? Should I go and try to get something else really quick?”
“Daisy’s meant to be here in 5 minutes,” Nick sighed at the man’s antics, “You don’t have time, and besides, she will adore the pearls because they are from you.”
Nick has been roped into yet another clandestine meeting between Gatsby and Daisy, essentially acting as the excuse given to Tom as to why Daisy is in the West Egg. Tea with Nick, come to mean conversation and passionate love with Gatsby. By all rights he doesn’t need to be here, but Gatsby requested, and Nick is a simple man against a whirlwind of anxiety and charisma.
Gatsby raised an eyebrow, “What does that change?” he asked.
“What does what change?”
“The necklace being from me.”
Taken aback, he tried to explain to Gatsby why a present from him might hold some value in its own right, “Well—er—think about it this way, you put thought into this,” he gestured to the gift, “correct?”
A puzzled look crossed his attractive face, “I don’t know, probably?”
“Probably?” Now Nick was confused. How could he not know?
“I mean,” Gatsby started, talking with his hands as he often does, “I tried to think about it. Pink is Daisy's favorite color—not actually her favorite color—but her favorite color to wear, and she told me once that she hated wearing anything too bulky so that’s why I went with a shorter chain. And, well, it’s quite a silly thing but her birthday is in June, you see, and—well, each month is assigned a jewel of sorts and June’s is the pearl. It’s sentimental but—”
“Gatsby,” Nick interrupted, “You put thought into this.”
Gatsby looked at him with wide eyes, uncertain, “Are you sure?”
“Yes, I’m as sure as I am the fact that she’ll like it. She’ll like it because you put thought into it. It shows you care, and that matters more than the things itself.”
A smirk spread across the other man’s lips, “My old sport, I didn’t take you for such a romantic.”
Feeling himself flush, he retorted, “You're one to talk.”
Gatsby chuckled and rolled his eyes, a little bit more at ease from his previous anxiety. Completely unneeded anxiety, given that when Daisy arrived she absolutely adored the gift.
“Oh. My. Lord. JAYYY!” she squealed, throwing her arms around Gatsby’s neck, “These are so very lovely. They must have cost a fortune.”
“Only the best for you Daisy,” Gatsby replied, looking onto Daisy with immeasurable fondness, as if she hung the stars for him and he was merely paying her back what he could.
Gatsby helped her put on the pricey gift, and she wore it for the rest of the day as far as Nick knows. It was becoming suffocatingly heterosexual, what with the two of them fawning over each other, so he made his excuses to leave his own house pretty soon after Daisy arrived and only arrived back after she left.
“You were right, old sport, she loved them,” he told Nick as they walked to Gatsby’s house together, “She absolutely loved them”
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Having to pay the train fare twice in a day wasn’t ideal, but Jordan promised to pay for dinner if he paid for transport, so he dealt with it.
Jordan only arrived just as the train was starting to move, but he saved her a seat because even if she’s not his real girl he’s going to treat her well.
She theatrically gasped as he offered her the seat he saved next to him and said, “My love! How considerate,” in an airy, very Daisy-like tone.
“Only the best for you,” he replied, not looking up from the newspaper at her arrival. They figured out very quickly that pretending to be in a romantic relationship was always going to feel extremely awkward and over the top, so they made a little game of who can go more over the top. A way of extracting some fun for themselves out of the societal requirement of courtship. Almost immediately after that revelation, they realized Gatsby and Daisy were an easy source of material.
They lightly laughed together, and she sat down next to him, turning her body away from him to tuck her purse away in the small carry-on in the corner. She launched into some diatribe about how her golf career was going, and he couldn’t really care less so he just nodded along to her. That is, until she sat upright and he got a good look at her.
“Jordan,” he interrupted her, staring at what was hanging around her neck, “Where did you get those pearls?”
Glancing downwards, she stated, “Daisy gave them to me for winning that tournament I was just telling you about. Why do you ask?”
The crinkle of the newspaper being crushed in his fist was his reply. He then composed himself and asked, “Daisy gave them to you?”
She raised a delicate brow, “She said they reminded her of me.”
The paper was crushed even further
“She said they reminded her of you,” he said, voice raising as his anger did. He felt his insides boiling at his cousin, at her sheer gall and audacity regifting something she only recently received. Something she received from Gatsby.
“Is something wrong Nick?” she asked.
“Gatsby gave those to Daisy, did you know that?” He said all at once, the words escaping him without full permission.
She looked surprised, then rapidly became more and more offended. She lifted the pearls, scrutinizing them, “And here I thought she was being thoughtful,” she scowled.
“AND HERE I THOUGHT SHE CARED!” Nick burst out, enraged on Gatsby’s behalf. How cruel, how callous does one have to be to toss out gifts with nary a thought, handing them out to anyone nearby. He knows—he was told—how much thought was put into that gift and he saw how frantic Gatsby was, practically praying she’d like it. And it seemed like it did.
“Calm down!” Jordan hushed him while taking off the pink pearls, “Do you want to give them back to him?”
She held the pearls out to him in offering, and he reared back as if they would burn him, “I can’t! Gatsby thinks Daisy adores them, he’ll be heartbroken.”
“Well I don’t want them anymore,” she said, grabbing his hand and pressing the necklace into his palm, “They’re tainted now.”
Nick was conflicted. He couldn’t force Jordan or Daisy to keep them—neither of them deserved such a thoughtful present, but he couldn’t give it back to Gatsby or throw it away in good conscience. So he stuffed the expensive string in his coat pocket and resolved to keep them in his house. They burnt a hole through his jacket the entire night.
When he got home he took the pearls out and went to fling them under his couch somewhere, but something stopped him. Just. The sheer hope in Jay’s eyes when Daisy lit up at his gift, swearing to the high heavens that it was the greatest thing since Noah’s flood. It wasn’t the pearls' fault. The necklace—and all it represented to Jay—didn’t deserve to be hidden at all. But none the less it must, so Nick gently folded the pearls into a handkerchief so they were completely hidden and gave it a home in his bedstand.