The Chosen and the Beautiful

by Nghi Vo

I had always thought that Daisy was like the rest of us Louisville girls, liars every one for the right cause, though of course you would never convince any of us of what one right cause that should be. Now I could see that she was no kind of liar at all, as her hand came out to touch Gatsby’s face right in front of her husband. “Oh,” she said in faltering tones. “Oh but you look so cool…” At the last moment, she pulled back. That feeling of disaster that had hung over us all day finally disappeared, because the disaster had come. And Gatsby, who turned out to be nothing more than the son of a dirt farmer and his half-Chippewa wife, who had constructed a palace so profoundly beautiful that we need never look for the truth, simply forgot to lie with any part of his body in that moment. In that moment, they were alone together in the dining room, in the mansion, in the state, in the country, in the world, and the rest of us were left to beat our fists on the wall outside.