The Great Gatsby | A Winrina Story

East Egg

[A/N. Homophobic language and references to domestic violence.]

"Ryujin, I could positively eat you alive!" Karina, my second cousin, shouted as I entered the room. She jumped to her feet and kissed me on the cheek. "Tom must be consumed with jealousy about our secret love!"

I smiled. "He should be jealous. After all, I just follow you around like a puppy."

"Did you hear that, Tom?"

"Hear what?" Tom replied, reading the newspaper.

"Ryujin and I are terribly in love, you know."

Tom lowered the paper. "You can joke, but there's a Doctor Arthur, in Austria, I think, and he says that women like you -- not like you are now -- can be cured with a stern hand, just like I cured you. He wrote a book called Dissecting Unnatural Affections, and everyone ought to read it. See, he says that men and women of that lifestyle are trying to get their hands on our children, if you can even imagine. Now, I'm not cruel, Karina. I say we surgically sterilize them and then lock them up. It's really the humane thing to do, to take them away from their temptations."

"Ryujin, Tom has become a philosopher since you last saw him. An Old Money Socrates. His family is worth a king's ransom yet he somehow thinks that life is unfair. Give him a problem, and he'll give you a solution. Or at least give you enough babble to sound smart for ten minutes."

"Karina, I won't have you carrying on like this in front of Ryujin."

There was an awkward silence.

"Karina," I said, "While I'll never forgive you for not letting me know you'd be here on East Egg, I will still do you a favor. I was wondering if you wanted to come to tea this Saturday."

"Oh, Ryujin, I'd absolutely love to! I can't wait to see your humble little cottage where our dedicated writer is working on her masterpiece."

"I'm just a junior bond salesman on Wall Street," I protested jovially. "I couldn't write a book if I wanted to, and believe me, I've tried."

"But you are poor, right? How boring if you were just another rich person. What I think is that you need to fall madly in love. I'm going to find someone for you, Ryujin, and then I'm going to lock the two of you in a bedroom until you come out in love."

Something about Karina's vision was so happy and contagious that it was impossible not to get drawn in. "Cousin, if you think that's the best way to set me up, then I'd be ridiculous to refuse."

We sat down for a wonderful lunch of sandwiches, cheese, fresh fruit, and of course, champagne.

"So, Ryujin," Tom asked, wiping his mouth, "What's it like living with all that tacky new money over there in West Egg? I don't know how you stand it."

Before Ryujin could answer, the phone rang in the hallway. Everyone seemed to freeze as the phone kept ringing and the servant stood next to it, wondering what to do. Tom walked to the phone and Karina rushed outside through the doors that led to the massive patio. She sat on the steps, her chin in her hands.

"Life is terribly brutish, Ryujin. We start out so young and the horizon seems a million miles away, but then one day when you can finally touch it you realize that it's only made of construction paper and finger paints."

"What brought this on?" I asked as I put my arm around her. "I look around and all I see is someone who has what she always wanted."

"What I want, Ryujin, is a husband who is faithful to me. And I'd prefer that his mistress not call during lunch."

"I've known Tom since Princeton and while he can be a little... strong-minded, I can't imagine him cheating on you. Who would ever cheat on the world's most glamorous socialite, Mrs Karina Buchanan?"

Karina wiped tears from her eyes. "Ryujin, you're a 100% peach, do you know that? I'm probably wrong, like you said, and in any event I shouldn't be talking such rot with my favorite cousin."

"That's more like it."

Karina looked out at the ocean, squinting. "Yes, Ryujin, Tom has another woman. Sometimes I just have to say it. I'm like all women, Ryujin. Dismissed, ignored, and dependent on the nearest male brute to feed myself, and of course, you have to be a grateful little bird and keep singing in your glittering cage."

"I'm very sorry that you're in pain, Karina," Ryujin said. "No one has the right to treat you this way. Would you like me to talk to Tom?"

"That's so very kind, but it will just make him more disagreeable, if that's possible, and no one, and I mean no one, disagrees with Tom Buchanan. If you do, well, just be quiet and follow him, because he knows all the places in the house where the noise won't wake the guests."

I was sick to my stomach. Tom was the heir to a family fortune made during the Civil War and having something to do with making shoelaces for the Confederacy. Apparently, at the time, there was talk of corruption and price gouging by his ancestors, but the Buchanan's simply ran back into their money and waited 25 years for the scandal to go away.

Karina took Ryujin's hand and sighed. "I just wish, so terribly, that I could be the cousin you once knew. We used to have such amazing times playing when we were children."

"I feel very fortunate that we lived near each other back then. Do you remember that tree we used to climb all the --"

"I've not been cured, Ryujin, despite what Tom thinks."

"I was hoping that that was true, Karina," I said. "Nothing about us requires a cure."

"Look at who I was five years ago, Ryujin, compared to now. I used to be so happy all the time. But then a girl hits 18 and she has to be married off and sold like a car or a boat. At that exact moment, I had the great misfortune of having Tom enter my life. The minute he figured out that I didn't like him or any man for that matter, he realized that if this secret got out, he'd be ruined, so instead he decided that I could be controlled with shame, humiliation, and violence..."

In college, Tom was a gifted athlete, All-American in both football and track. But even then, there was a growing streak of arrogance and domination. He didn't play sports to win, or to perform well. He played sports because it let him hurt people.

Ryujin wondered if he felt the same way about love.