Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald Read online

  I was about to ask him whether he didn’t have golden retriever in his bloodline somewhere when Daddy pulled me aside.

  “Baby, it’s time you made your good-byes.”

  “It’s early.”

  “Regardless. Mr. Fitzgerald asked us three times to have one of those cocktails. He might show a bit more restraint.”

  I thought the cocktail was well worth the attention Scott was giving it—not that I could let Daddy know this. I laughed and said, “No, I’m pretty sure he won’t.”

  Daddy’s eyes narrowed. “I’m certain you gave him your regrets as well.”

  “Yes, sir,” I lied. “Well, I did have a sip of champagne—so’s not to be rude to our host. I’d hate for anyone to think you didn’t raise me right.”

  He wasn’t fooled. “It’s plain he’s unsuitable; I won’t have you wasting any more of your time with this boy.”

  Mama said, “Now, Judge, it’s her birthday,” and laid her hand on his arm.

  “I’d really like to stay, Daddy,” I said. “All my friends are here. How would it look if I left so soon?”

  He thought this over, then sighed heavily, as if his being sixty meant invisible forces like time or gravity pressed harder on him nowadays. “Tootsie will escort you home, then,” he said, eyeing Scott, who was now using empty champagne glasses to build a tower atop a table. “Are we clear about that?”

  “Yes, Daddy—but he’s a good person, you have to get to know him better is all. Things are different now than when you were our age.”

  Seeing my parents in the doorway, Scott left his tower to hurry over and shake Daddy’s hand, then kiss Mama on the cheek. “Thank you both for being here. Zelda is fortunate to have such parents as yourselves. And what a fine job you’ve done with her!” he said, looping his arm around my waist. “She’s remarkable.”

  “Hmph,” Daddy said.

  “Happy birthday again, Baby,” Mama said, hugging me. “We’re very proud of you. It’s hard to imagine that you’re all grown up now.” Her eyes were misty. “All of my children are grown.” She turned to my father. “Judge, you’ll have to help me understand how this could have happened.”

  “The usual way,” he said, taking her elbow. “Good night, Baby.”

  As soon as Mama and Daddy were out the door, Scott turned around, took my hand, and called over to Livye, “Dear girl, play us a tango!”

  * * *

  Daddy’s space in our otherwise feminine house was the library, a small room lined with dark maple shelves full of books. He’d inherited a great lot of them from his own father, then added to them liberally. He read serious novels and biographies and philosophy and history books, all of which he said helped him better understand the plight of man, an understanding that, in turn, helped him be a better judge. A man with my daddy’s intelligence and love of books should, I thought, be impressed with Scott’s ambitions, so during supper a few days after my party, I mentioned Scott’s novel.

  “He’s calling it The Romantic Egoist, and he hasn’t got a publisher yet, but a good one—Scribner’s—is considering it this very minute.”

  “Writing is a good pastime, a sign of an active mind—but it’s no way to earn a living. What does he mean to do as a profession?”

  “Writing books can be a profession,” I said, even though I wasn’t certain this was so. The only people I’d ever heard of doing it were very famous, and already dead. I said, “Charles Dickens—he did it. And Henry James.”

  Daddy’s sour expression was his response.

  Tootsie gave me a sympathetic smile. “Lieutenant Fitzgerald is a lively young man.”

  “Lively,” our father said, “will not put food on a family’s table either—and especially not when a great portion of whatever income he does receive goes to drink. His name—Fitzgerald—that’s Irish, you know. And I’ll suppose he’s a Catholic. I’m a fair man, but there are good reasons those people have the reputations they do. Baby, you don’t want to get ensnared here.”

  I bristled. “I’m not ensnared. He’s a good and talented person and I happen to like him is all, and I think it’s somethin’ that he’s going to get a novel published.”

  “Speculation, at best,” Daddy said, gazing at me over his glasses. “Supposing they do publish anything by such an untested writer—unlikely, but not impossible, I’ll give you that—then he’ll be flush enough to buy himself a new topcoat or some such thing. Wonderful.”

  Katy entered the dining room and began clearing the salad plates while I was saying, “Don’t you think we should credit him for having initiative?”

  Daddy looked at me as if I was simple. “A man deserves credit when he accomplishes something of importance. Something that provides for the betterment of his life and his family’s life and, whenever possible, mankind.”

  “But books can do that. I know you think so, or we wouldn’t have so many of ’em in there.” I pointed toward the library.

  “Scott Fitzgerald is not Dickens, Baby. Nor is he James—who had family wealth, by the way, as do Edith Wharton and the rest of them. He’s not a scholar, he’s not a philosopher, he’s not a man of property or business or even politics. He’s—what? An Irish Yankee pup who enjoys liquor too much, didn’t finish college, and is about to be shipped off to the war with no apparent prospects afterward—assuming he comes back in one piece.” Daddy aimed his fork at me. “You had best set your feet on the ground and pull your head from the clouds, or one day you’ll find yourself living in a shack like some nigger, washing your clothes in the river and eating peas for dinner every night.”

  “My goodness, Judge, what an image,” Mama said. Then she patted my hand while saying, “Katy, we’ll have the roast now.”

  “Yes’m.”

  I wanted to pursue the argument but was out of ammunition. As far as I knew or could otherwise prove, Daddy’s opinion was indisputable.

  “You do not,” he continued, “want to ever have to work for your support.”

  And he was right, I didn’t. No respectable married woman held a job if she had any choice about it, not in Alabama. We girls were trained up knowing there was only one goal to worry ourselves about, and that was marriage to the best sort of fella who would have us. As many rules as I was willing to break, I never gave that one a minute’s thought. So the only thing for it was to make sure Scott would turn out to be right, and Daddy would turn out to be wrong.

  4

  “I can’t stay to eat, but I needed to see you,” Scott said.

  It was an October evening, and I’d been waiting on the front porch for his arrival. Scott had been doing a lot of waiting of his own: to know the fate of his manuscript, which had been rejected once, revised, and submitted again; to ship out—which we knew would happen any day now; and for me to declare him first and best among my beaux, a possible husband, something I was still reluctant to do. He had no intention of returning to the South when the war was over, and, much as I cared for him, I was having trouble with the notion of leaving it. Who would I be, away from Montgomery?

  Just the same, he kept riding the rickety bus from Camp Sheridan into town as often as he could get free. We’d go for long walks, we’d go to dances, he’d take me out for supper, and now and then we’d sit on the steps and porches of my friends’ houses sipping gin from the men’s flasks and telling stories, laughing the way only people who haven’t ever suffered real loss or hardship can laugh. We spent a good lot of time perfecting our kissing skills, too, which I’d warned him was not binding—“Else I’d have been married well before now,” I said.

  Most of this I hid from Daddy, because as old Aunt Julia used to say, “Trouble, it don’t need an engraved invitation.” She’d been born one of Granddaddy Machen’s slaves and was Mama’s childhood nurse before later coming to raise us Sayre kids; she said Emancipation just meant you had to get even better at looking out for yourself.

  Now Scott’s expression was grim, and his red-rimmed eyes suggested illness, or maybe a han
gover. He’d told me how the strain of waiting to ship out was taking its toll; he and some of the other officers had been spending their nights drinking corn liquor and talking about all the ways they’d vanquish the enemy, if they ever got the chance. Maybe that’s all this was. I hoped it wasn’t the horrible Spanish influenza everyone was talking about.

  “What is it? Are you ill?”

  He reached into his pocket and withdrew a folded sheet of paper. “In a sense.” He handed it over.

  The letterhead read Charles Scribner’s Sons, and I knew right away that his revision had not been sufficient. This letter was brief, apologetic, and seemed final.

  “Aw, I’m sorry. You worked so hard.”

  He sat down on the top step—drooped onto it, as if the rejection had softened his bones. “You know, I was the worst student as a kid. No concentration. And since my father has a name but no real money…”

  “Like us,” I said, going down the steps to lean against the rail. “Neither Mama or Daddy inherited much—which he says is best anyway, a man ought to earn his way himself.”

  “He should. And my parents hoped I would, if I could just get serious about school. My aunt suggested Newman prep and paid for everything. Princeton, too. It was quite generous of her,” he said flatly, picking at a hangnail. “But I hated that I was hardly better than a scholarship case. All my school friends with their millionaire fathers, their houses, their trips abroad, their society galas … why couldn’t I have been born one of them?” He looked over at me, and I shrugged. “I wanted a place at their tables. My writing was supposed to get me there—not the millions, there’s no hope of that, but the prestige. In America, you can invent your way to the top of any field. And when you do—well, you’re in.” He pointed at the letter still in my hand. “That, my dear girl, is the end of a dream.”

  I led him into the yard to get us out of earshot of whoever might be lurking near the porch’s windows, then sat down on the grass. He plopped down next to me.

  “Aren’t there other publishers?” I asked.

  “Scribner’s was my best chance.” He lay on his back, face up to the mauve sky, and sighed. “I might as well let the Huns use me for target practice.”

  “You’re being ridiculous. You’re as good a writer as there is. These Scribner people, they’re just not smart enough to see it. Prob’ly a bunch of stuffy old men whose shirt collars are too tight.”

  He smiled dimly. “They are a conservative publisher.…” But then the smile drooped, too. “My ideas are too radical. And my style—it’s not traditional enough.”

  I put the letter on his chest. “This Mr. Perkins doesn’t think so, though.”

  Scott sighed again. “It doesn’t matter what Perkins thinks if the answer’s still no. God, I’m a failure. I should’ve taken orders—did I tell you? Monsignor Fay, my mentor, my friend, he’s always felt I had a calling. I put him in the novel—which of course no one will ever read.”

  He sounded so desolate. I thought for a minute about how I might get him out of this gloom and back to his usual upbeat self. Maybe an appeal to his pride would work on him the way it had often worked on my brother. Tony was so moody, and tough talk did more to boost his moods than sympathy did.

  I said, “Now really, is that what you want me to think? That you’re a failure? Not only a failure, but a quitter? Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, lately of Princeton University, is nothing but a weak-willed, washed-up has-been. Is that it?”

  Scott sat up on his elbows and peered over at me, brow wrinkled, lips pursed. I raised my chin and gave him my most serious expression, the one I used when tutoring elementary-school children about poetry. You had to make the kids think you were fully sincere—especially, say, when it came to William Blake and his brightly burning tiger. They so often got off track about that tiger. Was it really on fire? Did it die? What made it burn? Was it lightning? Was it God? I had to make them believe that poetry was serious business; they’d come upon limericks soon enough.

  Scott, here, needed to believe that his reputation with me was at risk. I gave him a disapproving glance, then looked away.

  He said, “You do know I’ve taken a turn or two on the stage, don’t you?”

  “You did tell me that.” He’d been active in Princeton’s Triangle Club, writing scripts and lyrics and acting in several shows.

  “Yes, so, right now, see, I’m playing the part of the Dejected Young Man. Honing my performance skills. A fellow has to keep in practice.”

  I forced myself not to smile as I turned toward him again. “You’re not a failure, then?”

  “No,” he said heartily, sitting upright. “Of course not. I’ve had scores of things published in my schools’ newspapers. Poems, lyrics, stories, reviews. A list as long as my arm. I wrote a musical! This is nothing. A minor setback. I can try again.”

  “That’s pretty much what I was thinking. So you’ll stay for supper?”

  “I’d hate to disappoint your father.”

  * * *

  On the day Scott’s regiment shipped out, my sister Tilde, who’d now come to stay, too, while her husband was gone, found me sulking on the front-porch steps.

  My closest sister by age, Tilde was twenty-seven years old, confident and capable, mother to a sweet baby boy named for his father. She was a real Gibson Girl type. Nothing ruffled her. With her dark-blond hair, her spectacles, her decisiveness, she looked and sounded a lot like Daddy.

  She sat down next to me. “Scott’s gone, then? Tootsie told me.”

  I picked apart a white cape jasmine bloom, dismembering the fragrant, silky flower and dropping its petals between my bare feet on the wooden plank. I looked over at Tilde. “Why do they do it?”

  “What, volunteer?”

  “Yes, that—and have wars to begin with. Why do they still think anything can be accomplished by having a bunch of young men meetin’ up in fields and woods and towns, all shootin’ at each other like it’s goin’ to prove that one side is righter than the other, all just for who gets to keep that field, or this river, or those buildings? Why does John care if the Germans get a chunk of France? Why does he care about that more than he cares about you?”

  Tilde laced her fingers together over her knees. “Men don’t think of it that way. They believe they’re showing us their character. They’re fighting for our benefit.”

  “How do I benefit from this war? How do you? Nobody’s invadin’ Montgomery, or any place in America.”

  “The war brought you Scott.”

  “And now it’s taking him.”

  “Be patient, Baby. You’re so young—you don’t have to pin your hopes on any one man yet.”

  “Don’t you like him?”

  “From what little I’ve seen, I do. Though the way Mama tells it, he does seem to be like a little boy running around and yelling, ‘Look at me! Look at me!’”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  “I worry, and so does Mama, that the two of you would wear each other out,” Tilde said. “Anyway, the thing to do is wait and see what happens. I know you enjoy his company quite a lot, but even so, maybe he’s not the one for you.”

  Thinking of how much better I’d feel if Tilde was right, how much simpler my life would become, I said, “I wish he wasn’t, but I’m afraid he probably is.”

  5

  1 November, 1918

  Dearest Zelda,

  I write from Long Island, still stuck in port until my men are done with the ’flu and we can proceed at full capacity. The other officers and I pass the time with bad poetry and pretty good bourbon, wearing our overseas caps in the hope that we can will ourselves into health and action. Dear, dear girl, I miss your smile and the sound of your voice and the soft, rosewater scent of that delicate spot on your neck, just below your ear. Funny how eager I was to get to France before I knew that spot existed.… Now I’m just ready to be done with this damned war so that I can do what I’m truly meant for.

  Desirously—

 
; Scott

  Not wanting to think about what awaited him in France, I kept my reply cheerful. I told him I’d begun an oil-painting class at the encouragement of Mrs. Davis, who’d been my art teacher at Sidney Lanier High and thought I’d shown real promise. I wrote, “We spent the entire first day learning to pronounce the technique terms Grisaille and Chiaroscuro, which don’t exactly roll off the Southern tongue.” I related a tale of how on the previous night I’d had two heavily spiked drinks before a dance at the Exchange Hotel and had subsequently climbed onto a tabletop to demonstrate steps to a sassy Negro dance called the Black Bottom before one of the chaperones pulled me down. I said,

  The nice old woman informed me with great seriousness that it’s a scandalous dance, and I told her with equal seriousness that she was preventing me from fulfilling my promise. Darling heart, do you think I could be good for anything besides entertainment? I hardly think I want to be—but of course it’s you who I want to entertain most. And so I’m putting my sordid stories in my diary like always, so that you’ll have some good reading when you do get back.

  He’d been gone all of three weeks when I came home one Monday to find Mama, all three of my sisters, and Marjorie’s husband, Minor, surrounding Daddy, who was holding a newspaper before him like a trophy.

  I shouldered in next to Tilde for a look. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s over!” Tilde said, wrapping her arms around me. “The Huns surrendered!”

  Daddy tapped the paper with the back of his hand, then turned it toward me. It was an Extra edition and proclaimed PEACE. Fighting Ends! Armistice Signed. “This morning, Paris time,” he said. “We are victorious!”

  Tilde said, “Tony and John and Newman are coming home!”

  And Scott, I thought, awash with relief. He wouldn’t have to sail the rough Atlantic to face the brutal enemy, would never be wrapped in those bandages I and so many others had rolled, would not be mired in muddy foxholes risking injury, infections, parasites, death, while I waited in my own kind of limbo for the war to end.