You Beautiful Fool

"You should be thanking me on your bare knees." The words were formed as a threat, but her voice was filled with humor, dark humor laced with sadness.

Gatsby turned around with a disbelieving look in eyes. His face twisted when he saw her. "What do I owe you?"

The woman's voice turned into a more professional tone, even some dislike appeared. "Your life, your so called business... the filthy bootlegging... your play as the great Gatsby." She slumped down in one of his comfortable European sofas. "Who dragged you out of the pool, who bribed George Wilson... most of all who toned down the media's interest in you and who allowed you to escape this dirty affair without a single scratch?" She lazily checked her nails and drew circles in the air with her naked foot. Under heavy eyelids she noted how his eyes traveled over her leg, before he turned his back to her.

His hands moved to the wound, the scar from the bullet. Not exactly without a scratch.

"What do you want? Money? Reputation? Should I drown you in dresses, jewels and gold?" His voice was slightly filled with panic.

So materialistic. So colored by his self made expectations.

She sat up straighter and ran a hand through her dark brown hair. "Did it work last time?"

He turned to face her again. "Pardon?"

"Did your materialistic offerings work last time... with Daisy?"

Many emotions ran through his face. "What do everybody expect of me?" He gestured towards the grand pictures and furniture in the room. He hurried to the glass door and opened it, revealing the beautiful view of the sea and his pool. The pool, she remembered how the water had been colored red that fateful day. Now the water was clear. Leaves danced around the area and was brought into the room by the wind. Gatsby's house was a shell of what it used to be, like Gatsby himself. "Gatsby has the best parties, he's the richest and-"

"You have to drop her." Both of them knew it was Daisy she spoke about.

"I can't."

"You must. She's going to kill you." Caring and devotion seeped into her voice, betraying her cause. "That is the only thing I'm asking of you. No presents, no dresses, no jewelry, just allow me to do a favor for you. I saved you, now you need to save yourself."

"It's impossible," he confessed. "She's on my mind every second, every day and night."

"If you had any idea of how much it hurts to hear you say that...?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean-, well of course I mean that it's hurting me to see you like this. I don't mean to be so hostile, I just want to..." Her voice died down, unable to say more.

An engine alerted them. Gatsby stepped out to the balcony, she followed him. Both of them gazed down to the gates of the mansion. A car had stopped there and a drunk couple stumbled out of the car. The woman shrieked and laughed as she instructed the man to bring out a camera. She posed before the gates as he snapped picture after picture. Some of her high pitched words were heard by them. "It's me with Gatsby's mansion, his fortune, ha! Look at me! I've got everything!"

The man lowered his camera and pointed towards them. "Look, baby, I can see Gatsby and some girl!" He turned the camera towards them.

Gatsby and the woman jumped out of sight. They waited there, hunched down in the balcony, until the drunken couple had left in their car and their drunken song disappeared.

"They are making fun of me."

"They're drunk," she pointed out with a soothing voice.

"Funny thing it is, people seem to love you when you have money but when you lose everything, they are gone in a blink of an eye."

She nodded, she knew who he was thinking about. "I'm still here, you know."

He gave her a long look. Something broke behind his eyes. She knew why, she wasn't the one he was expecting to stay. She knew she had to respect that, even if it tore her to pieces. With unstable legs she got up. "When you are sitting here, in your big, empty house while thinking of-, well, try to remember what I asked of you."

He snorted.

She sat down beside him again. Slender fingers held his jaw, keeping his head in position for a kiss on the cheek. It was soft and innocent. Nearly platonic at first sight, but it hid many emotions. After finishing it, she got up again and left him alone.

"Goodbye, Irma."