Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

  “Is this French music, then?” I asked Scott, almost yelling in order to be heard.

  He nodded. “From the fin de siècle—so not modern, but when the girls move like that”—he pointed with his chin—“who cares!”

  We found a tiny cocktail table and fitted ourselves around it. George sat between the sisters, with Scott and me to their right.

  I leaned closer to Scott and said, “Now will you tell me the surprise?”

  “Soon.”

  “I know ‘soon’ with you, mister.”

  “And it turned out to be worth the wait, didn’t it?”

  We’d all had a couple of cocktails by the time the revue finished. I was feeling pleasantly light-headed and altogether happy with the night so far, so much so that I’d nearly forgotten that there was supposed to be anything more to it.

  Scott looked at his watch. “It’s almost nine; let’s go on upstairs.”

  “They’re meeting us?” George said.

  Scott nodded. “I reserved a booth.”

  “Who’s meeting us?” I asked.

  “A couple of Nathan’s friends.”

  I grinned at George. “Four girls?”

  “Your high esteem honors me, doll.”

  Scott told me, “But I ought to set this up for you first.”

  “You ought,” George agreed. “Drawing it out is far better than unloading all at once.” This made the sisters giggle.

  “So then,” Scott said, turning to me, “I’ve been in touch with some people who work in the pictures—”

  “Who?” Mary said. “Can you introduce me?”

  “And me!” Suzanne said.

  Scott rolled his eyes. “Upstairs,” he said close to my ear, nudging me to stand.

  George grinned and put an arm around both Suzanne and Mary. “We’ll find you later,” he said. Somehow, I doubted that would happen.

  Onstage upstairs in the Palais Royale, a young woman in a shimmering aqua gown crooned some sentimental tune. The whole room seemed wrapped in soft orchestral swells. Here was a nightclub like the ones I’d seen in illustrations; right away, I understood why Scott had chosen to put this one in the story. The wide, long room had deep brown walls, a broad stage with footlights, a pit for the orchestra, and a dance floor large enough to fit fifty people or more. The entire rest of the room was tiered, with eight or ten rows of plush and intimately lighted booths. I guessed that anyone who sat in them would appear lovelier or more handsome than they actually were, as a simple matter of reflected glory. I’d liked the vigor of the Moulin Rouge; here, though, I felt instantly more sophisticated, more desirable, fully worthy of the stares I was receiving from women and men both.

  The maître d’ led us to a big U-shaped booth at the edge of the dance floor. A man and woman who had been seated there stood up when we approached. Scott introduced them as John Emerson and his wife, Anita Loos. The names were new to me, and I glanced at Scott, expecting more information. He said nothing more, just stood there rocking back on his heels with his hands shoved into his pants pockets.

  John Emerson, middle-aged, thinning hair, rectangular in face and body, stared at me and shook his head. “Unbelievable.”

  “Sorry?” I said.

  “He told me you were screen-ready—and your photograph wasn’t bad. But now I see you have real dimension, and there’s something nice, something vulnerable yet mysterious, about your eyes.” He turned to his wife. “What’s your read?”

  Anita was a little younger than John—thirty or so, I guessed, and pretty, but in a dark, studious way. “I can’t disagree.” She sounded almost sorry, or sad.

  “Thanks, I guess.”

  “Let’s sit, shall we?” Scott said.

  When we were settled, John Emerson said helplessly, “And will you just look at the two of them together. You were right, Scott. I think we can pursue this further.”

  Scott said, “Fantastic!”

  “Y’all will forgive my manners,” I said, “but just what the devil is going on?”

  John Emerson laughed. “Mrs. Fitzgerald—”

  “Zelda.”

  “Zelda, tell me, how would you like to be a moving-picture star?”

  “What, me? Gosh,” I said. “There’s something I never considered. Where I come from, actresses are pretty common—that is, they don’t have good families or good breeding—with Tallulah Bankhead being the exception. Course, Tallu having grown up with her father always gone, and her mother dead since just after her birth, and only her aunt to raise her and Gene, well, all that just made her seem common—”

  A man appeared at our table then, and we all looked up. He was an oval-faced fella, fine enough in form but with features that, together, added up to ugly. You imagined him as having been one of those poor, homely children that even other children avoid, the sort who then gets too much attention from his mother and none from his father, whose burning desire as he grows up is to make everyone respect him one day.

  This man was well dressed, and his manner was silky as he said, “So delightful to see you here, John, Anita. Can you forgive the interruption? Mr. Fitzgerald left word with my secretary that you’d all be here tonight.”

  Scott jumped up and proffered his hand. “You’re Griffith!”

  “Indeed. I had the advantage in recognizing you from the magazine portraits. They hardly did you justice, even that new one in Vanity Fair—why, you should be starring in pictures, not writing for them.”

  “Why not both?” I said, warming right up to the situation that seemed to be unfolding for us. I held out my hand and said, “Mr. Griffith, I’m Zelda, Scott’s wife.”

  “Of course you are!”

  I’d soon learn that this Mr. Griffith was D. W. Griffith, who along with Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford had recently formed a company called United Artists. He sat down next to Scott, and before long the five of us were immersed in conversation that had nothing at all to do with literature, which I’ll admit made a nice change of pace.

  There were more cocktails, more music, and then the dancing began. Anita claimed to be tired and urged John to dance with me. He obliged, and then when we got back to the table, Scott and Mr. Griffith were gone.

  An hour passed before Scott returned, alone. He had fire in his eyes. “We need to go,” he said, reaching for my hand. “Good night, Anita, John—thanks for keeping Zelda out of trouble.”

  John said, “We’ll talk next week.” Scott only nodded and led me out.

  “What is it?” I said, having to almost run to keep up with him.

  “Taxi,” he told the doorman, then said, “What is it? It’s Dorothy Gish. She needs a new movie.”

  “And Mr. Griffith—”

  “Will pay me ten thousand dollars if I can write up a suitable scenario.”

  While Scott stayed up all night sketching out ideas, I fell asleep to the happy thought that everything was possible, anything might happen, and circumstances could change with speed and drama no one in Montgomery would ever have believed. The Montgomery girl I still was on the inside kept wanting to stop and gape, to take in the wonder of the scene or event. The New York woman I was becoming, however, didn’t have time for that girl. That girl was provincial and immature and frivolous; I was all too willing to leave her behind.

  * * *

  Scott wrote the scenario with his usual gusto, and two weeks after he’d gotten the assignment, he’d finished it.

  “Let’s get lunch out,” he said, moving the curtain aside to look out the window. Central Park was now a half-naked forest of faded golds and deepening browns. The sky above was steely gray. “I’ll see who’s free to join us. Grab your coat and we’ll go to that Irish place on Broadway for shepherd’s pie.”

  He wanted to walk, saying that after being cooped up all that time, he needed fresh air and exercise. “I’m susceptible to lung ailments, you know.”

  I didn’t know. What I did know was that outside, the biting wind stole my breath and guste
d into my skirt and through the weave of my wool coat, and made my nose drip and my eyes water. With gloved hands, I dabbed my eyes frequently as we walked, hoping to keep my mascara from striping my cheeks.

  At the restaurant, we entered the vestibule and I said, “Thank God! Another minute out there and my eyeballs would’ve frozen over.”

  Ludlow was waiting inside the door, at the end of the bar. His cheeks were ruddy and he still had his scarf wrapped around his neck. I said, “Hello there, Ludlow! You look like Hans Brinker.”

  “And you look distraught, though still beautiful—Fitz is beating you, isn’t he?’

  “Torturing me, in fact. He insisted we walk here!”

  “You brute!” Ludlow said.

  Scott gestured for me to follow the maître d’, saying, “Obviously the South breeds sissies. Up North you build up a resistance.”

  “I don’t need a resistance, I need a Caribbean villa. Right, Lud? I should have a villa.”

  “And a new husband.”

  “What you need,” Scott said as we were seated, “is a fur coat. Ankle length and, what, ermine? Otter?”

  “Oooh, yes, that’s exactly what I need!”

  Ludlow said, “What has he sold this time?”

  “Nothing yet,” I said sorrowfully.

  Scott frowned. “This woman has no faith in me.”

  Ludlow declared, “This woman has too much faith in you.”

  “This woman needs a fur coat,” I said.

  After we’d placed our orders, I said, “How nice it must be to be covered in fur all the time. Animals have it good that way, don’t you think? A day like this is nothing to them; nature insulated them exactly right for their surroundings. Why do you suppose humans persist in living where it’s so cold that we’d want to cover ourselves up with another animal’s skin and hair? It’s sort of queer, isn’t it?”

  Ludlow nodded. “Not to mention expensive.”

  Scott had brought a bottle of brandy, which the three of us shared. As I polished off one glass and was into a second, the notion of actually owning a fur took hold of me as if of its own accord; I just couldn’t stop talking about the subject: all the kinds, who wore them, what I liked, whether men should wear them, and Scott and Ludlow encouraged me.

  Our food arrived, and Ludlow asked Scott, “Say, have you had a chance to read the smash-hit novel Main Street? They say Sinclair Lewis started out like you, Fitz, writing popular stuff for the magazines—he really built himself a following that way.”

  Scott’s mouth tightened. “Nope, haven’t gotten to it yet.”

  “He’s been too busy,” I said cheerfully, “working so that he can buy me a fur coat.”

  By meal’s end, I was nicely warmed in every way and ready to face the elements. Ludlow left for an appointment with some investment adviser, and we headed back to Fifty-ninth. I wasn’t paying any attention to the route we took home. We pushed against the wind, me chattering on about which movies I liked or didn’t and how I might like being an actress and what Tallu had done and what she’d written me and how everyone back home secretly found her exotic and wonderful while saying that she’d—Oh, isn’t it so, so sad—gone astray.

  “What do you s’pose Montgomery will say about me? You can bet there’ll be gossips claiming I only married you so’s to get to New York, where I could get discovered.”

  “I rather like that scenario; it recasts me as sympathetic.”

  “Aw, the folks there all like you just fine—’specially now. It’s change they don’t like. And actresses.”

  “Here we are.” Scott grabbed my arm and stopped some fifty feet from the corner, which confused me for a second. Then he tugged me toward a doorway and I saw that we were at a furrier.

  “What are we—”

  “You need a fur coat.”

  “Deo, wow, that’s a wonderfully nice thought, and I know I went on and on about it, but really I just needed some brandy.”

  He said, “All right, then, I need you to have a fur coat,” and led me inside.

  Oh, didn’t I have the grandest time wrapping myself in every kind and color of fur! Some were little more than elegant shrugs; some fell to the waist; some were swingy numbers that hit midthigh. The one that went home with us, though, was substantial in every way. It was made up of gray-squirrel pelts, with a full collar and wide cuffs, big, round buttons at the waist, and went down to my knees. The moment I slipped into it, I knew we were meant to be together. Scott wrote a check for seven hundred dollars as if he bought fur coats every day of the week, and then when we left, we walked six blocks out of our way so that I could “try it out,” not to mention show it off.

  Back in our apartment, we spread it on the floor in front of the fireplace and made love right there, right then in the middle of the afternoon.

  I was blissfully certain that I had everything I could ever want.

  17

  Nov. 6, 1920

  My Dear Sara,

  Your account of that Woman Movement meeting almost shames me, as all I’ve been doing lately is crowing about how my husband’s novel was the number one book for the whole entire United States in October! If I were to die today, my headstone would read, “Proud Wife,” and my death would probably be at the hands of angry feminists.

  I do realize I ought to consider doing something more with my time, but I can’t help it, I really am proud of him and I can spend entire days just on grooming and dressing and then meeting friends, whereby I tell them Scott’s fabulous news.

  Besides which, it’s such great fun to have great fun—the few feminists I’ve met here wear long faces and dingy clothes and need hair dye desperately. Maybe I’ll buy a case and distribute bottles to these poor needy women. I want to do my part to support the effort.

  You are the best of them, an exception in every way, and I’m proud of you. In fact, I’ll toast you at tonight’s dinner party—the hostess is some cosmetics heiress who’s sure to miss the irony of my doing so there.

  Please stay out of trouble, for once. All my love,

  Z~

  * * *

  Tilde and John invited us to their house in Tarrytown for the day. The last time we’d seen them was in summer, not long after the baby was born. Tilde had been tired and irritable at the time, and a bit skeptical, still, about Scott and me. We could see it in the way she studied us with that intense, piercing gaze of hers, like she was analyzing our every word and move. We hadn’t stayed long. Long enough, though, that now Scott felt the need to fortify himself before going over there again.

  That fortification started with wine at lunchtime and continued with a steady stream of gin consumed throughout the drive, during which he sang Christmas-carol tunes but made up new lyrics to go with them.

  “You should’ve been writing those down for me,” he said as we parked in Tilde’s driveway. “What was that line, from ‘O Little Town of Bethlehem’?” He paused to recall it, then sang, “‘How gayfully and playfully the Christmas gifts are given / We do our parts to spare the hearts of all those but the heathens.’ What do you think? A holiday music revue? That’d be right up George Cohan’s alley.” He grabbed his notebook and began writing down the lines.

  Tilde saw us from the front window and waved. I said, “Can’t we do this later?”

  Scott ignored me and kept writing, so I climbed out of the car and went inside without him.

  Tilde and John’s baby, now six months old, was the sweetest thing imaginable. “Give him over,” I said the second I stepped into their little brick house. It was a chilly day, crisp and cloudless; inside, the scent of apples and cinnamon simmering on the stovetop made the house seem even snugger and more inviting than it was. The baby had his own snuggly smell, like warm milk and rose-scented soap. I was wearing the squirrel coat and opened it so that I could tuck him right up against me. His skin was pure silk velvet. I put my nose up to his soft neck and inhaled deeply.

  Tilde’s older boy, little John, hovered close to her, one hand
clutching her skirt—a skirt that was as long as ever, and more matronly than I’d seen her wear before. She was not even thirty yet, and already she looked middle-aged.

  She said, “You remember Auntie Zelda.” He shook his head and pulled her skirt in front of him like a curtain. “Our nurse has the day off,” Tilde said apologetically.

  “We don’t mind a bit, do we?” I said to the baby, who gurgled happily in reply.

  Scott came in then, still humming the song’s tune. “Greetings, Palmers,” he said, shaking John’s hand heartily.

  “How about it, you two?” my brother-in-law asked. “When can we expect a Fitzgerald cousin for our fellas?”

  I held the baby overhead and kissed his tummy, which made him giggle. “No time soon,” I said. “I’ve got to hang on to this figure a little longer. John Emerson—he’s a director and producer—is thinking of me for one of his pictures.”

  “What?” Tilde said. “You, in the movies?”

  “Why not? Everyone at home was always saying I had every bit as much talent and looks as any star. And Scott’s just turned in a scenario for Dorothy Gish—she’s Lillian’s sister, you know—and we’re chumming with lots of movie folks nowadays.”

  John offered to take our coats and then, as we gave them over, said, “What about books? I thought that was your thing, Scott.”

  “If I was among the independently wealthy, maybe. But I’ve got bills, and books won’t pay them.”

  “Not unless it’s Sinclair Lewis’s book,” I said—a glib mistake that I realized too late.

  Scott glowered at me. By now we’d heard from almost every one of Scott’s literary friends how that new book, Main Street, was selling so fast that the printers literally couldn’t keep up, exceeding Paradise by far. Worse, Lewis was, like Scott, a Minnesotan. This novel that Scott had declared dreary and bleak when he’d read it, finally, a few days earlier, was usurping his book’s place—his place, actually. He wanted to always be the favorite son.