Gatsby Girls

By Carl Reader

Gatsby Girls, a sequel to the classic novel The Great Gatsby, continues the saga of a Jazz Age dream gone wrong, that of Jay Gatsby for Daisy Buchanan. The dreamer is dead, but Daisy is unrepentant and plans an abortion before leaving her drunken, abusive husband, Tom. She enlists the help of a gangster, a drugged friend, and Nick Carraway, but her scheme fails and another deadly tragedy ensues.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Carl Reader
• Release date: Nov 16, 2009
• ISBN: 9781102467823

Carl Reader

Carl Reader trained as a journalist at Temple University and has worked as a reporter, photographer and editor in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Montana. He's published short stories in literary magazines and on the Internet and has self-published a children's Christmas story called THE TWELFTH ELF OF KINDNESS.That book was partially published in Russia under the Sister Cities program. He's also self-published a novella called THE PERSECUTION OF WILLIAM PENN, which has been well-received in several college libraries. He works as a professional photographer and freelance writer.

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Prologue

Many years ago, my mother gave me some advice I not only think of often but live by, sometimes foolishly.

When you meet a strange man, dear, don’t fear him immediately. Use caution, but acknowledge that man is the only predator that at times has designs on us other than cruel ones. Some men are actually quite pleasant, and he might be someone who wishes you well, or someone who’s fearful of the feelings he holds for you, or simply a man who is afraid of himself and needs company. In any case, at least talk to him, give him a chance, unless it’s dark and late and you are alone or he has a gun or displays a clearly twisted vision. You can relieve a great deal of suffering in the world by the kindness of at least talking to strangers.

You might think it odd advice from a mother, when mothers should always protect their daughters, but my mother had a great heart (she adopted three of us on a maid’s salary), and it was neither dark nor late and I was not in a bad place at all when the stranger called out to me. It was just before the university gates on Nassau Street in Princeton at the best of times, spring when the blossoms flow so voluminously off of the trees on campus they might be pink and white and red waterfalls. Even though most people these days gleefully and openly demonstrate how uninterested they are, in nature and man, I trust strangers because of the words my mother left me so many years ago. This stranger’s voice was so cracked, so damaged and high, like a wine glass destroyed by a diva, that I couldn’t help but stop when he called me by name, even though I didn't see him yet.

Betsy! Betsy Buchanan!

Maybe he did know me, maybe he was a customer at the diner from years past who had grown so wrinkled and thin I no longer recognized him, for when I turned he was as emaciated and old as anyone I have known, but he had a fine quality to his skin, as though it was superior parchment from the Middle Ages, and it marked him as aged and wealthy but durable. He wore a long black formal wool winter coat and a ridiculous Homburg hat, as though he was headed for a soiree soaked in Moet Chandon and populated by ancient rich people, and he appeared to be the reflection of a man I might have married years ago for his money, when I did that sort of thing. He might have been a man I had abused thoughtlessly and abandoned and who now pursued me for one final masochistic chance at happiness, although I didn't remember anything about him and was certain I didn't know him. He was the sort of old man who disappeared into his clothes. But then I looked carefully as his smile lit when I walked toward him, and I recognized a very pleased and happy creature with clear light blue gems for eyes, fine white hair, unmarked pale skin and highly shined black leather shoes. Unhappy older men never have shined shoes, for shining shoes is one drudgery they will not agreed to, just so that they can at last appear presentable, so here was a man happy with himself. He might have been the most innocuous and lovely old creature I had ever seen, a wealthy deer in the headlights. So much for my guilt born of ancient abuses. Guilt was wasted on him.

I’ve been running after you even since you left Chuck’s Restaurant he said, his voice quite a bit stronger, but still friendly.

Have you been following me? Suddenly, I was angry he had chased me, for whatever reason. Can’t I even eat chicken wings in peace?

He stepped back, and looked like a guilty little boy.

I didn't mean that. I apologize. You made it so difficult to catch you, despite the fact you're filled with chicken wings, I had to run after you and shout. I never saw a woman walk with such incredible speed. Super-charged Buicks don’t move as fast as you.

I tried not to let myself laugh at the stalker's joke.

I walk fast for a living. I work as a waitress in the diner on Route 1. I have to move fast if I want to make money at my job, and I wanted to see the trees in bloom on campus before sunset. I don't normally talk to strange men who call out to me on the street.

Well, you can slow down now. I won’t keep you, so you don’t have to be afraid of missing your trees. I have something for you.

His fatigue from stalking me had given his voice a raspy quality as the words piled up, as though the wind rushing by his aged vocal chords had damaged them by their soft spring frictions. He was carrying an old cardboard box, damaged and slightly dirty, and my heart sank when I thought what sick things might be in the box, that several pairs of my old underwear and bras might show up in that box. Suddenly, the box stank of what could be a real, harbored and hardened perversion masked by a lovely senility. My eyes must have glinted with the hate for the undesired surprise he held out for me.

Don’t back away. You will want this. You will want it very badly. I know you want it badly.

About this time, I deemed as untrustworthy my habit of depending on strangers, for tips, for friendship, for anything. Now he was telling me how badly I wanted it, as all perverts do.

I’m here to look at the god damn trees on campus, not be told what I want badly by a sick old man. I don’t want it badly. What I need is to see those trees after the day I’ve had, not what's in an old, dirty box held in an old, dirty pervert's paws.

That might have been harsh, but situations like this teach you such things as harshness.

His voice could not have softened more.

It is an old box because it was your mother’s possession, and now that you are old and you see it, she appears even older to you. It’s all relative, you see, but believe me, it’s full of light. It’s not like Einstein and his light, always the same. The older you get the older the lights of the past gets, too. It can’t catch up with you, only in a way, this way.

And with that he handed the box to me, and my startled hands accepted it, only barely understanding what he was saying. I lay out my hands flatly to allow the decrepit man’s token gift of Einsteinian theory to settle into my grasp.

Read it by June. Then I’ll call you and I'll have something more for you. But you must read it by June, practically memorize it. It will mean everything to you. It will make things clear.

And he turned away.

Wait a minute. I’m supposed to read what? Why? This? Why should I? What for? What is it? How will I know it’s you when you call? How do you know my number?

I lifted the top off of the box, and in the soft spring twilight of Princeton I saw that the box did indeed contain a manuscript, yellowed and torn, but typewritten on a fine grade of paper. My heart softened and melted when I realized I was once again close to my mother.

My name is Nick Carraway. Your mother gave me the manuscript years ago, to give you when I found you. Now I’ve found you. It’s almost over.

Wait. What’s almost over? Will you wait? Tell me what's almost over and what this is all about.

But his back wasn't speaking to me. He disappeared into the throng of computer-carrying students turning left through the main black wrought-iron gate for study time, flowing against the young human current. I can’t say he was forcefully pulled back with them, but he did disappear, as smoke disappears into such fine air as this, and I had no clue where the magician went. Down a low incline in the sidewalk, a block away, the traffic light on Washington Avenue turned from red to green, and for some reason, I felt mesmerized by that distant green light at the end of the block. I stumbled toward it, indifferent to the blossoming trees of Princeton now, seeking the old man who had appeared from and then disappeared into a new ancient past.

Shaken and trembling by the presence of a ghost, I realized I had my mother’s words left as a gift from him in my hands, and now understood why she had so long ago given me her advice about strangers. Perhaps she had foreseen this day and this old man with fine parchment skin and a story for me. Why hadn't she told me she was a writer?

I went home to read, dreaming of dogwood blossoms.

One

I didn’t tell Tom