Another Side of Paradise

by Sally Koslow

  1940

  Three weeks is how late I am. Every day I make a note in my new leather ledger. Scott notices me writing. May I see, he asks? Later, darling. At least a month from now when I’m absolutely sure.

  Dec. 3, Is it just nerves or could I be pregnant?

  Dec. 4, IF I’m pregnant I will be the happiest woman on earth. I will never 1) give my child to an orphanage, 2) shave her head, 3) berate her in front of others . . .

  Dec. 5, How will I tell Scott? He will feel tricked and furious, but after his anger ebbs, happy and proud, I am sure of it. New book, new baby . . . I love him. He loves me. We belong together. If there is a baby, how can it be wrong?

  Dec. 6, There might truly be a child growing within me, a living soul made by Scott and me. I am overwhelmed. Overjoyed. Scared. Shocked. Expecting???

  Dec. 7, I can win over Scott, but what about Zelda?

  This is where I stalemate. Scott has said, time and time again: he will always take care of Zelda. I respect him for his Ashley Wilkes honor, proper and right. He is a man of ethics. But since Zelda has left the sanitarium and Scott has recently assured me that he and his wife haven’t been sexual for years—and never will be again—must they continue to be married?

  He hasn’t practiced his religion since childhood. Is it inconceivable for them to divorce, as Johnny and I did when the intimacy of marriage ceased? If a child is on the way, Scott would want his baby, whom I’m sure is a boy, to carry the Fitzgerald name . . .

  Dec. 8, Francis Scott Fitzgerald, II. We will call him Frank, like Frank Sinatra. Blue eyes, like Scott, Mr. Sinatra, and me. Is Frankie better? Frankie Fitzgerald. Yes.

  Dec. 9, Francesca? Francine?

  Dec. 11, Do I dare write to Zelda?

  Dec. 12, I could never write to Zelda. It’s cruel and Scott will feel duped. I am out of my mind, shanghaied by hormones and doubt.

  Dec. 13, Aren’t I allotted a full measure of happiness? I must write to Zelda . . .

  Dec. 14, If I were Zelda, I would release him, so he could start anew and admit that our best times are long gone. I wouldn’t want my husband shackled forever.

  Dear Zelda . . . This is the hardest letter I have ever tried to write. You do not know me, but I say at the outset, I intend no harm. Scott and I didn’t mean to, but fate brought us together. For the last three and a half years . . .

  Do I dare send this letter?

  I do.

  Chapter 49

  1940

  I always wanted to be a dandy.” Scott winks in the mirror while I watch him straighten his bow tie. In honor of Christmas, less than a week away, he’s chosen a bright red, as if he is a cross between Baudelaire and Lucius Beebe, the New York society columnist. I am wearing one of my new dresses, a rustling violet silk. God willing, soon enough it will not fit.

  Tonight is the premiere for a movie banned by the Catholic Legion of Decency. “You couldn’t keep me away if I were on my deathbed,” Scott says. It’s the first gala we’ve attended in months. I’m ready for some sparkle, or at the very least, a waltz and a kiss under the mistletoe.

  We walk the red carpet. Scott looks smart—and more important, healthy. It’s been longer than a year since his heavy drinking and for the last day I haven’t heard his cough, which had become a public menace. He circles my waist in a gesture of pride and protection. If you only knew, I think, though I rather like concealing such a tasty secret and intend to until I’m entirely sure. No lightbulbs flash when we pass, but inside, we mingle in the palatial lobby of the Pantages Theatre and greet friendly faces. Among them are Barbara Stanwyck escorted by Robert Taylor, to whom Scott is remarkably civil. We admire the gilded sculptures in this shrine to Hollywood, and pay homage to the headliners, Rosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas. They’re poised, though most likely feeling the heebie-jeebies all stars must experience before a reckoning by their peers.

  We find our seats next to Alan and Dorothy. I admire the new pearls dripping down her black velvet bodice. Screenwriting is treating my friend well.

  “How’s the ticker?” she leans over to ask.

  “Ba-bum, ba-bum, ba-bum,” Scott says, tapping his chest. “He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day.”

  The curtain parts and reveals an inane plot in which newlyweds elect to endure three months of abstinence. “Heaven forbid ours lasts that long,” Scott whispers. I am glad to hear him once again gab during a movie, and there is plenty to critique. This Thing Called Love adheres to the Hays Code—with ample sexual innuendo.

  At the after-party we remain wallflowers until the band strikes up “I Could Write a Book.” “My cue,” Scott says as he stands, bows, and reaches for my hand. It’s been more than a year since we’ve circled a dance floor. I close my eyes as the soloist sings, “ I could write a preface on how we met, so the world would never forget.” Precisely what Scott is doing.

  When the music ends, we hold each other on the dance floor, my eyes closed. I’d like to make this feeling last forever.

  Thanks to a handful of phenobarb, Scott sleeps late but wakes cheerful and drinks the coffee I bring him in bed while he makes notes for his sixth chapter. I arrange pine boughs on the mantel and string lights on a thigh-high tree I bought at a lot on Pico—no giant spruce this year for Scott to strap to the top of his car. I stand back and breathe in the evergreen scent. Under the tree two gifts wait, one for me from Scott in tartan paper and for him, a box with a big red bow. Nothing extravagant, a cashmere cardigan in cadet blue. As a favor to his most dogged patient, Dr. Nelson, who will be traveling over the holidays, is paying Scott a visit this afternoon with his portable cardiograph. Assuming good news—knock wood—I look forward to a holiday with music on the phonograph, simple meals I’ll cook myself, and Scott reciting poetry, and writing and reading more of Tycoon.

  The doorbell rings. It is Frances, who drops off Scott’s mail, which she piles on a table by the door. She wishes both of us a happy holiday and adds, “Scott, your Princeton Alumni Weekly arrived, by the way.”

  That’s not all. While the two of them chat, I check. Amid the bills I see an envelope addressed to Scott in Zelda’s loopy handwriting. My stomach lurches, and I doubt it’s morning sickness. In this letter there could be a piece of news that will transform my life. I feel quashed by joyous excitement along with what-have-I-done? shame spiked with be-careful-what-you-wish-for curiosity.

  I am restless, and need to get out of the house. “How about sandwiches for lunch?” I call out to Scott.

  “I could go for a turkey on rye, Presh, if you don’t mind walking to Greenblatt’s.”

  I welcome the outing, though it’s the shortest day of the year and we’re only a few more hours away from darkness. When I return, Scott has settled into my green armchair with his magazine. The letter from Zelda, I notice, remains unopened. I choose a record and place it on the phonograph, Beethoven’s Third Symphony, Eroica—as grand a piece of music as anyone has ever written—kick off my shoes, relax on the sofa, and try, unsuccessfully, to put the letter out of my mind. Fortunately, Scott interrupts my train of thought.

  “1941 might be Princeton’s best football team in seasons,” he says.

  This is a topic on which I have nothing to contribute beyond “I certainly hope you’re right.” I smile and return to my biography of our friend Ludwig, who is beginning to lose his hearing, poor savant. I reread the same page three times.

  A few minutes later Scott looks up. “You know, Sheilo, I think Tycoon’s going to be big.”

  “I think so, too. I truly do,” and not simply because it’s both love story and blistering exposé. With this novel, Scott has been restored to top form, his writing steeped with cinematic imagery, and I can’t imagine a better book about the movies. Monroe Stahr is a true businessman hero, Jay Gatsby plus genius. I also admire the way Scott described his heroine when he wrote to Max, “dowering her with a little misfortune because people don’t sympathize deeply with those who’ve had all the breaks.” The
re, there.

  “When the royalties start rolling in I want us to leave Hollywood,” Scott says. “I’ve had it. I’d like to volunteer as a war correspondent, should the United States join the fight.”

  “I pray it doesn’t come to that, but if you really would go abroad, I’d do the same. We could work side by side.” If only Scott’s health would be restored to allow this kind of patriotic adventure.

  “I was hoping you’d say that, intrepid Sheilo, and when the war is won and Hitler’s moldering in his grave, how about Paris?”

  Paris, for me, recalls Monte and deception and I’d worry that for Scott, Zelda will lurk in every café. “I’m all for leaving Hollywood, but not Paris.”

  “London, then? We could lend moral support to your countrymen—help dig them out.”

  “I’m finished with London.” Too much history. “How about going East, so I can still work and we’ll be on the same coast as Scottie?”

  I may not be part of Scott’s treasured youthful memories, but we can build decades of new ones. He is, after all, just forty-four. We’ll live in harmony, without the intramural competition that dogged his marriage. I can imagine the home we would make for the two—or three—of us. Laughter. Books. Music. Work. Warmth. Sex.

  Instinctively, my hand goes to my stomach. Perhaps also a child.

  “I didn’t think you’d want Manhattan or Long Island,” he says, reeling me back.

  “How about Connecticut?”

  “There you go. Westport, perhaps, where I lived after This Side of Paradise. That book was a bestseller, so it would be a lucky charm to return. I’ll ride the train with Max, and torment him all the way to Grand Central.”

  Wherever our future takes us, for the first time I can see it shimmering ahead.

  Scott returns to his football for a few minutes, looks up, and says, “I need something sweet, Presh. I think I’ll walk down to Schwab’s for ice cream.”

  “You might miss Dr. Nelson. How about a Hershey bar?” I’ve squirrelled one away next to my bed.

  “Fair enough,” he answers. I walk upstairs, get the chocolate, and hand it to Scott.

  “Want a Coca-Cola with it?”

  “Perfect.”

  I’m in the kitchen when I hear Scott shout. I smile as I imagine him cheering for Princeton at the victory he is reliving against Yale. But when there is a second sound, more of an animal howl, almost muffled by the rising crescendo of Eroica, I run to the living room. Scott is standing. He lurches toward the hearth and grabs the mantel. I’m afraid he will fall into the fire I kindled when I returned from Greenblatt’s, but he totters backward, tumbles with a thud, and lands splayed on his back. From someplace deep in his throat I hear a short, low gurgle.

  A piece of paper has fallen from his hand.

  “Scott! Scott!” Now it’s my turn to scream. I run to him, afraid he might have suffered a concussion. He doesn’t answer, and when I reach him, I see he has fainted. Oh my God. I need to revive him. I slap his face, but he stares strangely and fails to respond. I slap him again. Nothing.

  I’ve watched enough movies to know what Scott needs. I rush to the kitchen for the brandy I’ve stashed in the back cupboard, decanted into an empty vinegar bottle. I don’t give a damn if it pushes him off the wagon. I race back, and try to pour the liquid straight down Scott’s throat, but his mouth is clenched. He’s out cold. The alcohol trickles onto his sweater.

  “Wake up! No! Scott, wake up!”

  I reach for his wrist and fail to find a pulse. I’m frantic, not sure if I’m looking in the right place. I can almost hear him say, Don’t get hysterical, Sheilo. You have your talents, but nursing isn’t among them . I drop his hand, smeared by chocolate, and dial Dr. Nelson’s number, which I know by heart. Of course there’s no answer—he’s most likely in his car, on his way over now. I hate leaving Scott alone, but I will need to find a neighbor. I dash out into the hall and bang on the door of the building manager’s door.

  “Mr. Culver! Mr. Fitzgerald’s fainted! Come quick!” My voice is as loud as I can make it. Fortunately, our neighbor is home.

  Henry Culver runs faster than I think a fat man can move. He kneels next to Scott, who is eerily still, disguised as a waxwork figure, and puts two fingers on the inside of his wrist and waits. Holding his wrist, Mr. Culver looks at me as I crouch by his side.

  “I’m so sorry, Miss Graham,” he says gently, “but I’m quite sure Mr. Fitzgerald is gone.”

  I swirl in an eddy of confusion. “Whatever do you mean, gone?”

  “I’ll call the police and the fire department. Where is your telephone, dear?”

  “Please use the one in the kitchen,” I manage to say.

  “Scott, oh Scott,” I wail as I bend next to him and lift his beautiful head in my hands. My tears wet his face. “Darling, what happened? What have I done? Don’t leave me! Scott, Scott, Scott. I love you, sweetheart.” I tenderly rock him and stroke the high forehead I know so well.

  A letter is lying next to him, only one paragraph long. I read it quickly and toss it into the flames.

  What was Scott’s last word? I’m quite sure it was perfect.

  Epilogue

  1959

  I gently remove photographs from my office wall. It’s time to pack.

  Here I am beaming as a young mother, holding an infant Wendy . . . with Marilyn Monroe, two bosomy blondes disproving the myth that no one in Hollywood makes a close friend . . . Robert Taylor cooing over my own sweet baby boy Robby—grist for the rumor mill . . . Scott in Tijuana wearing a sombrero, looking ridiculous and dear. And there I am in England during my year as a correspondent, pounding on a typewriter, all sensible shoes and tweed.

  Following Scott’s death, everything we’d shared seemed to have been swept away like a pile of dust. I needed to escape. He believed I could report on the war, and once again, he was right. With Scott as my emotional compass, I took myself to London. The city was as battered as I, but I found solace where resilience ruled. I didn’t return to Hollywood until the war ended.

  Now, after all these years of bustle and bluster, I’m decamping again, from my home in Beverly Hills to a sleepy Connecticut village not far from Manhattan. Hollywood is less amusing at fifty-five than at thirty-five, though I continue to inflict my signature ripostes upon the reading public. My columns, with twenty million readers—published in more papers than Hedda and Louella combined—earn me movie star money. Five thousand dollars a week, with my fame enriched by my own television show.

  Gossip has been good to me. People would rather scoff at the foibles of others than examine their own lives. They always did. No wonder Scott wrote fiction. I can picture him in the frayed green armchair that will also be moving East. He is a revenant, back from the dead, blowing smoke rings. This is how I’ll always remember him, his handsome face younger than my own, ready to break into a laugh. As for me, I need a bit of blonding and weeks of dieting; menopause and Danish pastry have stolen my waist.

  An antiques agent came by last week to bid on my Faulkners and Wolfes and O’Haras and Hemingways. When he saw that I owned a complete set of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s first editions, the man’s eyes bugged out: he offered me as much for my collection as all the other novels together. Not for sale, I informed him.

  After Scott died, it didn’t take long for the skeptics to come around. Resurrected, he became the patron saint of English majors, with no liberal arts education complete without F. Scott Fitzgerald. Biographies, doctoral theses, lectures, Gatsbyesque anointed as an adjective, albeit one Scott would never use. Not bad for a man who died believing he was a failure, with a final royalty check of $13.13—for books he bought himself.

  Scott would call this “peripeteia,” a sudden reversal of fortune. This takes me back to our College of One, from which I never got to graduate but has made all the difference in my life. I will always continue the education that Scott started, because it grows, giving me strength and ballast. I have dreamed, wandered, gotten lost, a
nd invented myself again and again, ultimately as a woman able to raise two children alone. Where I used to be tough outside and soft inside, I am now soft outside and tough inside.

  With the walls stripped bare, I turn to my desk. Tenderly, I lift my scuffed leather ledger, its pages filled by outlines and lists, and tuck it in next to Beloved Infidel, the memoir Scott urged me to write.

  When I told my story, did I reveal the truth? Occasionally. Honesty and I have been known to intersect on numerous occasions.

  I think of the Seder I attended last year. When my hosts recited the prayers—in the wrong order, with faulty pronunciation—the Lily Shiel within me couldn’t help herself, and corrected them. Little did my friends know they’d invited not a secret biblical scholar, but the winner of the Jews’ Orphan Asylum’s Hebrew prize. But my background isn’t for public consumption. Let my tombstone read Sheilah Graham, Unreliable Narrator. I can live with that.

  Half-truths notwithstanding, my book became a bestseller. Framed and sitting on my desk is its New Yorker review by Scott’s friend Bunny Wilson, with my favorite part underscored: The very best portrait of Fitzgerald that has yet been put into print. Not every critic, of course, agreed. Dorothy trashed the book in Esquire. Jealous shrew. She also bashed the movie, although in that case, I agree. Gregory Peck was no Scott—too tall, too dark-haired, too stiff, not even a convincing drunk. And Deborah Kerr, twice as elegant but half as earthy, playing me? “Why’d you ever cast her when you could have hired Marilyn?” I ask aloud.

  “Whomever are you talking to?” says a voice false with concern.

  I laugh and turn. “Don’t mind your old mother, Wendy.”

  “Sorry, Mom.” I am not Mum or Mummy. My son and daughter want a thoroughly American parent. “But I worry about you.” She rolls her eyes as young women have forever. “I wanted to tell you Princeton called. Their boxes need to ship tomorrow.”

  I have decided that Scott’s letters, notes, and poems aren’t mine to keep. They should belong to the world, for scholars to study, and I’m donating them to his college for the library that’s being established in his honor.