“You were the one who saw what I was going to be,” she said, not yet sure if he was awake, already saddened to have left the world of the dream. “But then one day I felt you giving up on me.”
“The lengths you went to there at the end, Zelda,” he started to say.
“Scott, you never have to thank me,” she said, interrupting him. “In the afternoons after you have worked on the novel, and I have taken long walks in the hills of Santa Monica, we will lie like this on the couch in your living room.”
Whenever she spoke of what might still happen for them—how things would soon get better, how her month’s stay in Encino might bring about a reunion not only in affections but in practical solidarity—he yielded completely, considering how much her hopes had cost her, how difficult it was in the face of decreasing dividends to talk herself into optimism. He received her words as though they came from someone who might look into the future and tell his fortune. It would be easier if she were to stay on for a few weeks, without the pressure of planned vacations, the implicit demand to fill her life with adventures—instead just the two of them getting by, day to day. It might make all the difference. In her hopes he intuited the structure, rhythm, and ritual certainty of faith. It was not mere self-deception—if only because they were never more earnest than when talking of the future. If only because, even in the wake of disaster, they meant every kind word they said.
“It’s strange,” she observed, “that there are so many homes you’ve made for yourself, hotels, apartments, all these places I can’t even begin to imagine.”
“Oh, they don’t matter.” Sheilah had found the cottage for him, of course, but he beat back that thought, concentrating only on what Zelda wished to hear. “Some of them were so tawdry, I’d be ashamed for you to step foot in the door. But every time I choose a place I truly like, where I could see myself staying a while,” he said, happy to be speaking freely now, without holding anything back, “I ask myself, ‘What would Zelda think?’ and I imagine what you will say when you visit me next.”
“Tell me again about California,” she said, “why I will like it so much better this time around. Why I will enjoy evenings on the captain’s deck of your small cottage. And what about the walks, are they marvelous, you know how I love long walks, Scott.”
He wanted her to believe in an existence that was quiet and ordered, in expectations that were safe rather than wild. So he described for her the hills in the immediate vicinity of his home, the trees undulating in lush green on the Santa Monica Mountains, how the sun settled down into them in the evening.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’VE INCURRED MANY DEBTS IN THE WRITING OF THIS NOVEL. THANK you to my agent, Leigh Feldman, whose enthusiasm and vision for this book were tremendous from the very first read and who guided the manuscript expertly through several drafts. Thanks also to her assistant, Jean Garnett, whose editorial contributions were similarly deft and precise. I am fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with the fine staff at Overlook Press, and wish especially to thank my editor, Liese Mayer, whose insights and ideas refined the novel on every level. Thanks to my publicist, Theresa Collier, and to Melody Conroy, both of whom understood the power of the Fitzgeralds’ story—and this untold portion of it—right away.
Every writer needs a place to call home (as the itinerant Fitzgeralds had to learn the hard way), and over the course of the past two years, that place for me has been the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. My thanks to Connie Brothers, Deb West, and Jan Zenisek for all they do to allow writers to live as much as possible in their heads. I’m honored by the relationships and conversations I’ve enjoyed with the terrific faculty at the Writers’ Workshop while completing this book: Ethan Canin, Charles D’Ambrosio, Marilynne Robinson, Andrew Sean Greer, ZZ Packer, and Samantha Chang. From each of you I’ve learned much about the art of fiction. A handful of writers have long served as mentors and inspirations: Mark Costello, Leon Waldoff, Harriet Scott Chessman, Martha Serpas, Kevis Goodman, Leslie Brisman, and Richard Powers.
My thanks also to the following people for specific and important contributions to this novel along the way, often on writing matters, often on historical details pertaining to everything from architecture to cockfighting, from ballet to Cuban music of the 1930s (you know what you did): Andrés Carlstein, Paul Jaskot, James Molloy, Don Waters, Robin Romm, Deborah Kennedy, Curt Armstrong, Susannah Shive, Mario Zambrano, Robert and Patricia Ream, Avantika Mehta, Jeff McCarthy, Lala Mooney, Celia Rosa, Angel Pérez, Emilio Cueto, and Jonathan Hansen. The staff at the Firestone Memorial Library provided expert assistance on several separate visits during which I dug through portions of the vast archive of Fitzgerald’s letters and papers housed at Princeton University. And a special nod to the extended Spargo clan, for being part of this journey from the start.
Finally, there are three persons without whom this novel might never have existed: Amelia Zurcher, whose flawless ear for the English language couldn’t purge all my flaws (I choose to call them style), who read, commented on, and edited this manuscript at the earliest and latest stages, her improvements to the story too many to be counted; my sister, Jennifer Mitchell, a kindred spirit in literary taste, who brought that taste to bear by helping to shape this story and carry it out into the world; and Anne Ream, who shares my love of all things Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald (first expressed in long-ago happy hour conversations devoted to Tender Is the Night) and whose fine sense of historical detail, dialogue, and narrative pace helped bring focus and clarity to many a scene.
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