Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald

by Therese Anne Fowler

  It belonged to the Princeton boys who’d made a happy circus of what had once been considered the ultraserious Princeton journal Nassau Lit. It belonged to Scott.

  Some of their influence would occur due simply to luck. For example, Bunny was at Vanity Fair primarily due to Dorothy Parker’s lack of diplomacy (that’s what got her fired), and their friend John Peale Bishop was there because of Bunny. The literary hub that was Vanity Fair and its like-kind associations would soon grow new spokes and turn like a Ferris wheel set in the middle of Manhattan—a good ride, if you could get a ticket. And these Princeton fellas all had one. The wheel might put you off in a prominent book review or an important essay assignment; it might drop you at a party with Florenz Ziegfeld or George Cohan; it might toss you in with the new Hollywood types, and before long you’d be writing for the pictures and making hundreds of dollars a week, or more.

  Some of their influence would grow from design—as when Scott had explained to me the publicity game that he saw forming in our future, a game he’d conjured, almost, and wanted the two of us to play. Some grew from our giddy laughter in the Biltmore lobby at two and three A.M., from the singing that emanated from parties in our suite, from the dancing in the hallway, from the polite but firm request from management that sent us to finish our honeymoon in a new suite at the nearby Commodore Hotel. The future would be grander, stranger, and more precarious than any of us knew.

  Just then, though, that influential little group was still a bunch of young, ambitious, intelligent men, along with me, a very young woman who hadn’t known there would be this kind of carnival and wasn’t sure she even wanted to ride the Ferris wheel—but was game enough to give it a try.

  13

  I was just done with my bath when I heard Scott answer the door, and then his friend Alec’s voice:

  “Did you see what they wrote about you two?”

  “Of course we saw it—Zelda clipped it for her scrapbook.”

  “It” was a gossip-column mention of what had gone on the night before during a performance of George White’s Scandals. The musical revue was similar to what we’d seen at the Follies, except that Scandals had Ann Pennington, and Ann Pennington knew how to shimmy. I could shimmy, too, and had, on occasion, during certain Montgomery parties after only a little encouragement and a little booze. The diminutive, dark-haired, wide-eyed Miss Pennington, however, did it while wearing strategically placed silver fringe, onstage, and with a spotlight trained on her. This had a dramatic effect on the audience, which responded with hoots and cheers and whistles and applause.

  Amid this, Scott and I, having begun our evening with orange-blossom cocktails and at this point nicely tight, had been sitting close to the stage in the sixth row, talking quietly in each other’s ear about each act and the range of talent and whether either of us might be able to do a better job of it. When it came to Ann Pennington and the shimmy, I’d shaken my head and said, “Lord, I’m pretty good, but I can’t beat that.”

  “I’ll bet I could,” Scott said.

  “Nah. You? You’ve got moves, sure, but not like those.”

  “You don’t think so?”

  As the number ended, he stood up and slowly peeled off his jacket. The people nearby us began to cheer. He unbuttoned his vest next and slid it off the way a stripper would. Catcalls and whistles followed, while onstage all action stopped. He loosened his tie, then began to unbutton his shirt. The cheering increased, and then suddenly a spotlight swung onto us. Scott got up on his seat so that more of the audience could see him while he slipped his tie over his head and dropped it into my lap. Then he stripped off his shirt, and the crowd went wild. Scott took his bows as three ushers moved in, and then the two of us—along with Scott’s clothing—were escorted to the lobby and subsequently into a waiting cab.

  The article Alec was referring to said, Celebrated New Novelist Fitzgerald Scandalizes the Scandals. It quoted theatergoers who’d been present with saying things like they hoped Scott would get a recurring role or at least some compensation, and how surprising it was that an author looked so pleasing without a shirt. Others said that New York standards represented a new low for the country; it was one thing to have that kind of activity done onstage in a revue, but when the public began acting out, clearly Prohibition had not gone far enough to curtail the wildness of today’s youth. We’d read the article over coffee and toast, and then Scott had tossed the paper aside and rolled on top of me, with an offer to scandalize me once more before lunch.

  “Why, sir,” I’d said, “you may look fine without your shirt, but a lady’s got her standards to consider.”

  Scott pressed himself into me. “I’ll give you a standard to consider.”

  Afterward, still a little breathless, I told him, “You’re gettin’ awfully good at this.”

  “I’d hoped that was the case, and that you weren’t calling out to the Lord for rescue.”

  “You were very godlike, I will say. Everybody calls you Fitz, but I think your nickname should be Deo, from the Latin. I’m goin’ to call you that from now on.”

  Scott laughed. “And I’m going to let you.”

  And now Alec was saying, “You’re not upset?”

  “It’s a game,” Scott told him. “The press needs stories, and the more sensational, the better.”

  Alec still sounded troubled. “It’s your reputation, though.”

  “We’re just having a little fun,” Scott said as I joined them. “They want to depict us a certain way because readers respond to that, so why not give them some material to work with?”

  “What do you say, Zelda?”

  “Do my buttons,” I said, presenting my back to Alec.

  Scott nodded at Alec and winked at me. “The book is selling like crazy—they can hardly print them fast enough. Everybody wants to know what it’s like to be one of us.” Scott gestured to include Alec in us. “The book and the news stories offer a vicarious thrill for anyone who can’t or won’t get on the progress train.”

  Alec was having trouble with my buttons. I could feel his hands shaking; it was sweet, and a little sad. Alec worked in advertising, the way Scott had done last year, and was living with his reportedly conservative mother. He didn’t think of himself as part of us, I was sure, and likely wished he could trade places with Scott.

  Alec said, “It sounds to me like you believe your own press.”

  “I’m a novelist,” Scott replied, putting on his topcoat. “By definition, I live in a world of make-believe.”

  “And what about you, Zelda?”

  I leaned over to strap on a shoe. “Darling, call me Rosalind.”

  * * *

  Our destination was a Greenwich Village speakeasy, for a party being given by someone none of us had met.

  A train rumbled over the Third Avenue elevated track as our taxi moved into the busy Forty-second Street traffic. That trains could and did traverse the city—not only here next to the wonderful Grand Central Terminal, but also all along Second and Sixth and Ninth Avenues—still seemed strange to me. Stranger still was the subway system, with lines called IRT and BMT and stations tucked like hornet hives beneath the streets all around the city. It was, however, a wonderfully efficient way for Manhattan’s two million inhabitants to get around the island quickly.

  Just for fun, Scott and I boarded once at South Ferry and rode all the way to the Bronx, where he then took me past the building he’d lived in on Claremont, “back when you broke my heart,” he said. The building itself was a heartbreak, I thought—so plain and grim that it was no wonder he’d gotten depressed. What a tremendous difference ten months had made in both our lives.

  Lower Manhattan was still new to me then. Here, the buildings were older and narrower than in midtown, and shorter, too; here was a New York City that hadn’t known, yet, what it would grow up to become. The streets here were romantic in the twilight, and quieter than the bustling blocks around the hotels where we’d been staying.

  Inside t
he little basement bar, cigarette smoke gave the space a blue haze that matched the low, mellow music being played by a quartet tucked into a corner of a tiny stage at the back of the narrow room. This music was jazz, but not like I’d heard before. Where the upbeat tunes of the Follies and Scandals made people want to tap their feet, to shimmy, this languid music, with lyrics sung by a colored woman who stood close to the band and swayed as she sang, made people want to drape themselves over one another as they sat, and smoked, and sipped from short glasses that in many cases were filled with what looked like green liquid. This music created half-lidded eyes and parted lips, and made the space between a dancing couple disappear.

  “Whew!” I said, elbowing Alec. “Bet your mother wouldn’t let you out of the house if she knew you were coming to a place like this.”

  Scott said, “And if she finds out, she’s likely to have you arrested.”

  “Therefore,” I said, “we will protect your identity while encouraging you to get acquainted with…” I scanned the room, then said, “That girl, there, in the dark blue dress.”

  Alec looked in the direction I was pointing. “They’re all in dark blue dresses.”

  “Except the ones who are in black,” Scott said. “We should try to find our host. Hostess, actually.”

  I smelled something that seemed green and earthy and mellow-sweet. “What’s that scent, do you suppose?”

  “Perfume,” Scott said as a woman squeezed between them, her smile like the Cheshire cat’s.

  “I don’t mean her. That smoky, earthy smell.”

  Scott sniffed. “Reefer, I’ll bet.”

  “Reefer?”

  “It’s a plant you smoke, like tobacco, but with enhancements.”

  “I kinda like it.”

  “Whose party is this?” Alec asked Scott.

  “A poet friend of Dorothy Parker’s.”

  “Have you met Parker?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Then…?”

  “Some chap phoned us,” Scott told him. “Said he’d heard of us from Fowler, I think. Or maybe Bishop. Anyway, he said, ‘Dorothy’s friend’—well, he said her name, but I’ve forgotten it—‘the friend has a new book of poems and would love for you to come hear her read.’”

  “Oh, shit,” Alec said. “A poetry reading?”

  Scott shook his head sadly. “You have no soul.”

  “I need a drink.”

  “I need a drink,” I said, taking Scott’s hand. “Not ’cause of the poetry—we don’t know how bad it is yet, so we gotta save our desperate drinking for after we make that judgment, don’t you think?”

  Scott clapped Alec’s shoulder. “It might be fantastic.”

  “In which case,” I said, “the liquor can only make it better.”

  We threaded through the crowd toward the bar, which seemed a makeshift affair. A wide, broad wooden plank rested on what looked like a series of stacked wooden boxes, though it was difficult to see it well. All of it had been painted black. I thought maybe it was supposed to be art.

  I was studying what appeared to be a green drink when a voice said, “Zelda Sayre! Oh my God!” and two hands gripped my shoulders. I looked up to see Gene Bankhead’s happy face.

  “Gene!” I said, not simply glad to see an old friend, but glad to see someone familiar, someone from home—except the thought of home, of my mama and all my friends, suddenly made me wish I hadn’t seen Gene after all.

  “Tallu said you were coming up for a little hedonism—though why you bothered to get hitched first is beyond me. Is this gorgeous man the victim?” Gene asked, looking past me at Scott.

  Scott held out his hand. “Scott Fitzgerald, at your service.”

  “Oh, at my service, too?” Gene arched an artfully drawn eyebrow and took his hand. Her voice was as sultry as the face and body to which it belonged.

  “Meet Gene Bankhead,” I told Scott, shaking my head. Just looking at Gene might be enough to set a man’s hair on fire. “Whatever character faults I may have are her responsibility.”

  “Yes, yes,” Gene said, waving her cigarette as she spoke, “I corrupted those poor girls as best I could.” She leaned closer to Scott. “What do you say? Did I do a good job?”

  “What do they have to drink around here?” Scott said, moving closer to the bar.

  Gene reached out to pet Alec’s cheek. “Babies, I am going to fix you up.” Then she turned to the woman behind her. “Edie, you know that book everybody’s talking about? The one with the petting parties that’s got all the old folks frothing at the mouth? The handsome blond fella behind me’s the author.”

  Edie went over to Scott, and then more Edie-like women did the same, and soon a crowd of marcel-haired Genes and Edies were asking him to tell them everything—as if anything he’d written could compare to the experiences they’d surely had. Alec and I could only stand back and watch as Scott became, that quickly, this strange little planet of a speakeasy’s sun.

  * * *

  And then, oh my, Union Square.

  Someone had said, Hey, you ought to see Union Square, and then, somehow, there I was. There we were, Scott and I and five or six people whose faces were unfamiliar and whose names I couldn’t guess—except for the tall woman who looked like someone I’d seen in Picture-Play, maybe, or maybe I’d seen her onstage recently. Gene had suggested the green drink; I remembered that. It had tasted awful until I had more sugar put in, but regardless, it was so powerfully green that I hadn’t been able to resist. There was not much green in New York in April. A few green cars. A green dress or two. So little green, amid all the tan and gray surroundings. The green drink helped mitigate the gray.

  “The green drink!” I said.

  Gene asked, “What’s that you say, darling?”

  Then, suddenly, there was a fountain.

  “There’s a fountain!” I said. I pulled off my shoes, unclipped my garters, peeled off my stockings, and ran to it. Then everyone else ran, too.

  With my skirt hiked, I stepped up onto the broad, circular pool’s lip. The stone was cold under my bare feet. My toes looked like stone toes in the dim light.

  “Zelda here is a fantastic swimmer,” Scott told the others. “She won every medal they give out in Montgomery, Alabama.”

  “Is that in Europe?” someone said, and then there was an “Ow!”

  It was a cool night, but not cold. Certainly not anywhere near as cold as some of the spring days when I’d swum in the creek.

  Or maybe it was colder. Really, it was hard to tell, and even harder to care.

  The water looked black and deep, except at the center, where the fountain pulled the water up and then rained it down into a sparkling circle. It sounded like rain. When had it rained last? I looked up at the sky. A bright moon lighted thin clouds. So there was a sky over New York. This felt like a surprise.

  Everyone was talking and laughing. Gene had stepped up onto the pool’s edge, too, and was walking along it holding on to Scott’s hand. A tethered pony, I thought, watching my onetime friend, whose long, dark hair streamed down her back like a mane. Scott was smiling up at Gene in a way that was supposed to be reserved for me.

  I watched them a moment longer—too long, long enough to see Gene lean over and kiss Scott. Kiss him! Full on. Mouths, tongues. Scott’s hand on Gene’s thigh …

  So I crouched down and put my hands on the stone, beside my feet. A moment later I was slicing through the cold water, my knees grazing the bottom of the pool. Not so deep, then, I thought, and was glad for the sensible part of my brain that had dictated a shallow dive.

  I stood and shook the water from my hair. The group was cheering, and Scott was peeling off his jacket and laughing and motioning me to come to him.

  Yes, I thought, looking for Gene. Yes, me.

  * * *

  I woke to sunshine stabbing my eyes, and checked the time: almost one o’clock. Scott, waking, reached for me.

  My head was pounding, pressing images of the previous night
into new recollection. I slid out of his grasp and got up, saying, “Wait, I’ll ring up Gene for you.”

  “What are you talking about?” With his tousled hair and sleepy eyes, he looked like a little boy.

  “You don’t remember?”

  He sat up against the pillows and reached for his cigarettes. Pensive, he lit one. “I remember some bad poetry, but I’m pretty sure that wasn’t Gene.”

  “No, Gene was the one you were with at the fountain.”

  Now he looked thoroughly confused. “What fountain?”

  Now I was confused. Had there ever actually been a fountain?

  I went into the bathroom; there was my dress, piled near the tub in a wet heap. “Did it rain?” I said hopefully, while I shook some aspirin from a bottle. “Do you remember that?”

  “Come back to bed, Zelda.”

  I went to the doorway. “Do you think Gene’s beautiful?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you want her more than me?”

  Scott kicked the sheet to the end of the bed, exposing his nakedness and his desire. “You tell me: Does this look like a man who’s pining for another woman?”

  “You have a good imagination. Maybe you’re using it.”

  “It sounds like you’re using yours. Come on.” He patted the bed next to him.

  “My head is killing me.” I stepped back into the bathroom, where I filled a glass with water and swallowed the aspirin. “What was that green liquor?”

  “Absinthe. Too much of a good thing?”

  Leaving the bathroom, I said, “Everyone wants you. It’s … it’s one big candy shop for you every time we go out. They find out you’re you, and I might as well be back in Alabama.”

  “Do you want to be back in Alabama, or do you want to be here with your clearly desirous and loving husband, who, yes, happens to be getting a little bit of extra attention right now?”