“Hi, cousin!” she replied, waving when I reached the gravel road, her voice bright.
“What are you doing here? Whose... car is this?” I asked, gesturing to the sleek black automobile behind her, which gleamed like polished onyx.
“Oh, it’s my boss’s,” she said, casting a quick look at the car. “Well, one of his cars. He let me borrow it.” She glanced down at her wristwatch, a glimmer of silver and diamonds flashing. “I’m being stonewalled by Jay Gatsby. He hasn’t been returning my calls, but I figure if I just show up here during school hours, he can’t run away from me.” She gave a small laugh at herself.
“Jay Gatsby, the founder?” I asked, disbelief in my voice.
“No,” she said, rolling her eyes with affectionate exasperation. “Jay Gatsby, the son.” Her voice lingered on the word, her expression becoming thoughtful, and then she smiled at me again, her fingers tightening around her watch. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was something there—some secret connection to Jay she wasn’t naming.
When Daisy waved to someone behind me, I turned to find Jay coming down the brick stairs. Little gold accents on his green school vest caught pieces of the sun like bicycle blinders.
“Hello, Daisy,” Jay said, his eyes lighting up slightly as he walked up to us. When he turned to me, he swallowed, as if monitoring himself. “Nick?”
“Hi,” I mumbled, suddenly hyperaware of my appearance, from my untidy hair down to my dusty shoes—everything feltuncomfortably visible under his sharp gaze and the sunlight.
I looked away, the sense of being an outsider among them taunting me. I was new, and they seemed like they’d known each other for a while.
“You two,” Jay said, swinging an index finger between us. “You’re related, aren’t you?”
Daisy didn’t answer in the affirmative right away. Instead, she said, “Why do you ask?” as if she wanted to draw him into a game.
Jay looked at Daisy and then me. But his eyes lingered on me as he said, “I see a resemblance. A softness in the face.”
Daisy looked at me, as if she expected me to say something. When I didn’t, she didn’t either. It was as if there was some secret agreement between us that we should hide the true nature of our relationship, just in case. In case of what, I was not clear.
“Don’t try to distract me, Jay.” Daisy gave him an expression that was half annoyed, half affectionate, as she latched on to his arm. “I’ve been calling you for days. You never pick up the phone!” Her tone was chiding, but the cadence told me this was their usual dance.
Jay smiled, amused. “I got busy. You know how it gets.” His casual shrug seemed to say it all, as if she should understand his world already.
“Okay, well, we need to talk.” Daisy opened the passenger door, then skipped around to the other side to hop into the driver’s seat. “Nick, do you want to go for a spin?” she called out.
“Oh, I have after-school things...”
Jay threw his bag over the top of the car and vaulted over the side, landing easily in the passenger’s seat. “Come with us!” he called, his tone relaxed, but I caught a small challenge in it. “We love the farmer’s market downtown. The bell’s rung, and who wants to spend more time here than they need to?”
They both looked at me, and I felt drawn to their connection. The pull left me with no choice. I joined the magnetic pair in the car, intrigued about their relationship.
We took off, into the noisy streets, and drove until the roads went from wide and empty to crowded with people the further we went into the city proper. Here was the part of town where the people wore suits and hats as a necessity. They were the advertisers and the bankers, all about their business. There were more white people here, but it was still mixed. The streets were adorned with statues—memorials, stroked by trimmed clusters of trees.
“You coming to UNIA on Thursday?” Daisy asked Jay as we drew closer to the market.
“Won’t have time,” Jay said, looking back at me briefly to see if I was listening. “Other stuff to attend to.”
We parked in an alley by a colorful fair of fruits and vegetables. Part of the road had been closed off to make room for it, sheriffs on horses blocking the cars.
Daisy hopped out first. “No one will hijack the car if we leave it here, will they?” she asked Jay, as if he were the tour guide of New York himself.
“If they do, Buchanan’s got more where this came from,right?” Jay smiled ironically and swung himself into the pedestrian traffic of the fair.
Daisy followed him and I trailed after her, taking in the produce carts little by little, the labels on watermelon bins that saidlocally sourced, the giant bags of peanuts and popcorn—
“Dragon fruit alert!” Jay screamed very suddenly. And he drifted off to grab the last of a pink fruit from a bin.
“How do you know him?” I asked Daisy in a subtle way, because it felt easier to do when Jay was distracted.
“We met in Garvey’s group—the UNIA,” she answered. “It’s empowerment. We do book clubs, art shows, cabarets. All in the community who believe in true liberation from the powers that be are welcome!”
“Ah yes, Garvey,” I said. “I’m familiar. Pa used to get his papers sent to us.” Marcus Garvey was a speaker who’d attracted good and bad attention for his theory that living separate from white people would help Negroes more than living among them. “So, have you met Garvey too?” I asked her as we sauntered through the market.
