We made it home, and I’d rarely been so glad to stumble through the front doors of Pilcrow House. No time to rest, we headed straight up to the attic to dig through our costume closet.
Flapper dress? No, a bit too flashy for me. I found a black drop-waist cocktail dress, silk and sequins but blessedly free from ticklish fringe. I put my hair in a bun at the nape of my neck and added a sequined headband.
For Duke, there was my grandfather’s old tuxedo, which I hoped would fit.
“Ready,” I called out.
“Two minutes, love,” Duke called back. “I might need braces. Or glue.”
“Oh yeah, Pops has about twenty pounds on you.”
I found a pair of black suspenders and handed them through the dressing room door.
“Earlier you said Burners leaveThe Great Gatsbyalone. What’s the story on that?” Duke asked from inside the room.
“Honestly, I think it’s because they like the depressing ending, which tells people to never dream big. Gatsby takes a bullet for the woman he loves, and Daisy walks away scot-free and goes back to her husband. The title of the book could’ve beenWhy Bother?”
“Not the most cheerful of endings,” Duke agreed.
“As usual, the Burners are missing the point if they really believe that’s what the story means,” I said while adjusting my stockings.
“Are they? What do you think it means?”
“Gatsbyisn’t about the death of the American dream,” I said as I applied my lipstick in the mirror. “It’s about a man who wants to write his own story, not let someone else write it for him.”
“A lovely sentiment, my dear, but the man was a bootlegger,” Duke said. “A nobody from Minnesota who wanted to cut the line and achieve greatness without actually doing great things.”
“You’re being very judgmental.”
“I’m English. Of course I am. You only like him because he’s handsome and he sacrificed his life for the woman he loved. Although, for the record, she did not deserve it.”
Nick Carraway, the forlorn narrator ofThe Great Gatsby,has said as much himself.They’re a rotten crowd…You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.
Then again, Nick Carraway was undoubtedly in love with Gatsby, which may have clouded his judgment.
“Not true,” I said. “Actually, I like him because he tried to escape the life he was born into, and there is something noble about that. Sound familiar?”
“Surely you’re not talking about moi?”
“I’m not talking about me, am I?” I said. “You were the one born into an aristocratic family. You didn’t like it, and now you’re in Chicago working as a detective. Sounds like you wrote your own story.”
“Hardly, darling. If I were writing my own story, we would not be having this conversation.”
“What would we be doing instead?”
“I have an extensive mental list, none of it fit for mixed company. Are you ready? Brace yourself. I look devastatingly handsome, and you might have a fit of the vapors.”
“Hit me,” I said.
He threw open the dressing room door.
While I looked like a modern gal playing dress-up in her great-grandmother’s closet, Duke, who had the Roarin’ Twenties in his fictional veins, looked like he was born to wear a tuxedo. He’d even slicked back his hair. He looked dapper, debonair, and ready to dance.
“Wow,” I said. “I am vaporized.”
“Rainy, love, you look absolutely beautiful.”
He took my hand and spun me in a quick, dizzying circle.
