Gatsby and I

A story of Mr. Carraway

Having found this small yet ever so crucial detail, I looked at Celestina in even more awe than I had before. She was never mentioned by Fitzgerald. What the hell was going on?

She saw my puzzled expression and uttered:

"What up, Clara? Is it that I look incredibly good to you? Or is it that you Nebraskans aren't that fashionable? Bit of both?"

"Bit of both. You look real interesting and I ain't seen anything like this back home on the ranch in Nebraska."

"Ranch, eh? I think I heard of your father, Augustus Willows, one of the richest cattle farmers in the West. If you had it all well and good there, then why on Earth did you head East?"

Great. A Willows existed in Nebraska. Now I just had to make up a little story in order to be credible and I would have her trust forever. I would rather lie not to be considered insane. I knew where I was and I knew I had to lie a bit. So I went on:

"I was tired of life on the ranch where I had to work all day long and where I was cut off just because I am a girl. I wanted a taste of the city life, the notorious parties, the hustle and bustle, the assorted commotion, all the things related to the city. This curiosity, m'lady, drove me Eastward."

"You mentioned parties earlier on. After a half-year from a little bit of a conundrum I'll tell you about, there is still nobody who throws a party quite like Gatsby."

"Gatsby, you say?! But isn't he dead?"

"No, he ain't. I don't know what you heard and from whom, but he is still alive. As alive as daylight!"

"I saw it in something written by a guy called Nick Carraway, the one you mentioned."

"Let's go to my house. There you can have a seat, a glass of water and I can tell you exactly what the deal is with Carraway."

She took my hand and dragged me along the paved road for a few feet, then into the alleyway of a house that looked good and was smallish despite having two stories. It had big windows, white limewashed walls, a beautiful roof with black wooden tiles that were tarred up. On either side of the alleyway, there grew flowers that were arranged in arabesque shapes and in swirls. I admired those shapes.

"You like that, Clara? I made them. This is what I do for a living and I earn quite a lot out of it. I'm a gardener. They tend to call it something fancy, 'landscape artist', but I prefer 'gardener' since you deal with gardens. I'll take you in as an apprentice if you want. Y'aughta be in school, aughtn't you?"

"I just got here. But yeah, I aughta be in school. But up to now, I was homeschooled by my mother."

"Rosemary? Great woman she was. I hear she died from diphtheria. Truth or lie?"

"Right. She did have diphtheria. But she got caught in a storm and hit by a lightnin' bolt. So it's almost like she would have died from diphtheria."

"Complex story it is! So what are you? Seventeen? You sure look the part."

"Fifteen. Come, Celestine! Let's go inside!"

We went into the house and I admired the beautiful furniture, the spiral staircase somewhere near the end of the hallway, the cashmere curtains that once served as shawls which were now woven together in pairs to form them, and also that clock on the mantelpiece in the living room (which, like in the movie, was on the right) which looked just like in the movie. I touched that clock and Celestine saw me do it.

"I like this clock very much."

"That old thing? It hasn't been wound in ages! Why didn't I throw it away? It belonged to Carraway."

I sat down on the couch in the living room, opposite Celestine who was in the black armchair. She looked at me as if she had expected me to say something, anything at all.

"So you keep mentioning Nick Carraway all the time. Carraway this, Carraway that... What of him?"

"You read the diary, eh? Well let me tell you one thing. The ending bit was hallucination. Too much of the Green Fairy drove the man demented."

"What?! So the diary was indeed taken from a mental institution?"

"Yep. He became an alcoholic less than a year ago and took especially absinthe because it gave him hallucinations."

"So he was somewhat addicted to alcohol... Proceed!"

"Exactly. At the time he wrote the diary, he couldn't tell day from night and had that conundrum I mentioned earlier. Also, he believed that reality was in his dreams. In fact, it was Daisy Buchanan who died then. She was killed by her husband, too. But Nick? He went insane. I had no choice but to turn him in."

"Why you turn him in?"

"Because of the rumors I hate to admit it, believe it or not. But I am his sister. Celestine Carraway who married mr. Warwick and took his last name. But Warwick died a month after the marriage and so I am a widow. Ah, fate! How it turns things around..."

She looked away in a dreamy fashion, seemingly past the ceiling and into the eyes of God or of a saint. A tear trickled down her cheek and she elegantly wiped it.

"Seems like you've had it pretty tough," I told her.

" 'S all right," she replied looking back into my eyes. "Anyhow, because you can't, I'll gladly teach you to act, dress and speak like you were born around these parts. I'd have to cut your hair in order to change your looks. But it would hurt me to do so, that way I won't. Besides, your hair is already in a long bob, so I won't even need to touch it at all."

"I don't want to cut my hair, thank you. But your dress is really nice. I want one like that!"

"You're getting one. In fact, you're getting a whole bunch of 'em, if they fit you. I have some I don't wear anymore. Let me just find them. Be right back!"

She went away, down the hall and up the spiral staircase, to the second floor. I knew this would be my extreme makeover - 1920 something edition.