Scott had page proofs to correct or revise for his upcoming story collection, Flappers and Philosophers; he drafted chapter after chapter of what he’d titled Flight of the Rocket but would become The Beautiful and Damned; he went into New York for lunch dates with Scribner’s sales representatives and people associated with moviemaking. Already, he’d sold rights to three of his stories to the pictures—that was where the real money lay—and was looking for even more profitable ways to get involved.
How good life was! There was always an excuse to host a party or attend one. Every month, we got word that Paradise was going back to press for another five thousand copies. Scott wrote and sold three new stories. He befriended every actor, artist, writer, dancer, and bootlegger we came in contact with, and subsequently our house on weekends grew full of strange and lively and, yes, intoxicated people, but we almost always had a lovely time. Now and then he and I would get a drink or two past our limits, and a debate about, say, paganism versus Christianity would jump the fence of discourse and land in the slop trough of ugly argument, but there was nothing to such arguments; next day they’d be gone, along with all the food and the liquor, and we’d start fresh all ’round.
The single dark blot on that bright picture was my folks’ visit in August. We did scale back our usual gaieties, knowing how they’d react; however, two of Scott’s lesser Princeton classmates showed up drunk and uninvited at dinnertime one night. They barged in singing some bawdy fraternity song, and then before we were even out of our chairs, one of them puked in the kitchen sink. Daddy in particular was appalled; Scott got defensive; I tried to get rid of the friends, which only made Scott angry. He drank too much after dinner, and when my parents had gone to bed, we ended up in a truly ugly fight—and I ended up with a black eye. I was of the mind that I deserved what I got; it had seemed to me a fair fight, no different than I’d have had with my brother or any of the kids I’d grown up with. When my folks saw me in the morning, though, they were horrified.
It wasn’t only my black eye; nothing about my life made sense to them. I defended my life with Scott as our business. I was so sure of our love then, so determined to prove to Mama and Daddy that we weren’t doing things wrong, just differently. There was no way to know that certainty would one day become a luxury, too.
16
For that fall, 1920, imagine a scenario very much the same as the summer (minus the ugly fight), only see us in our little apartment on Fifty-ninth Street in Manhattan, right at the foot of Central Park. See us spitting distance from the Plaza, where, having put on our finery, we often drink cocktails in the lovely Japanese Garden. We no longer have Tana or any hired help; instead, we bring in our meals—from the Plaza’s kitchen, mostly—and send out our wash.
Scott is still working on The Beautiful and Damned. Flappers and Philosophers is out and is selling nicely enough for a story collection, though nothing like Paradise. He’s mostly happy about its reception—but Mencken’s review, while lauding a couple of the stories, calls the others “atrociously bad stuff” and asks rhetorically whether Scott’s going to be serious or be popular. Mencken doesn’t know that the question is far from rhetorical for Scott.
Scott often had dark circles under his eyes at the time, and a restlessness I didn’t quite understand. One minute he’d be agreeing with Mencken and Bunny and the other critics that the Post stories in the collection—the ones that paid for our life—were fluff at best and trash at worst, and then the next minute he’d be complaining that critics were rigid and hidebound, never willing to give due credit for anything that didn’t fit in with their predetermined parameters of what fiction ought to be. He’d say, couldn’t he be serious sometimes and popular other times? Wasn’t it better—wasn’t it more remarkable, he’d say—to have the ability to do both with real excellence? At those times, he was so sure he was right and everyone else was wrong.
On a Friday morning in late October, he handed me a roll of cash and said, “We’re going to the Palais Royale tonight—to commemorate ‘Head and Shoulders.’ Dress, shoes, hair—whatever you want, do it up right.”
The Palais Royale had made an appearance in that story, “Head and Shoulders,” but I hadn’t been there yet. That was the thing about New York: you could visit for months, you could live there, and still find a new place to go every time you went out.
As much as I liked the idea, I looked askance at the money. “Don’t you think we’ve commemorated it a few times already?”
When it came to Scott’s income, he gave me the highlights but I was not privy to the finer details. Even so, it was apparent that his earnings were unpredictable, and equally apparent that we were living awfully well. To spend even more, just on a whim like this, went beyond indulgence into luxury, which surely we couldn’t afford. Yet here he was with money in his hand, so maybe I had it wrong. Maybe he’d invested well—maybe Ludlow had passed on some of the knowledge that had made the Fowlers so wealthy. What did I know about how finance worked? I trusted that Scott knew what he was doing.
He said, “One can never commemorate too often—haven’t you ever heard that aphorism? I think Ben Franklin said it—or was it Mary Pickford?” He winked. “Get something really fabulous, something that’ll turn every head in the place.”
“I’ve got some nice things I haven’t even worn—”
“Surely you’re not going to turn down a chance to shop? Go on.” He patted me on the behind. “I need to rework a couple of chapters—I’ve promised them to Max, and then I’ve got luncheon with some of the boys. I’ll be tied up all day.”
He liked to show me off, and I liked being shown off, so, “Have it your way,” I said.
My first stop was a little boutique on Fifth Avenue that Scott’s friend Marie Hersey had mentioned when she’d stopped in to see us the week before. Parisian fashions for rich Americans was how Marie had described the shop’s goods, then she’d winked at Scott, who she’d known since they were children in St. Paul, and said, “Your bride deserves only the best, you told me so yourself.”
Inside the boutique, the racks held luxurious, indulgent garments of every type. Delicate lingerie trimmed with exquisite lace or fur; lush velvet opera capes; heavy silk suits with embroidery and bows and buckles; furs that ranged from narrow wraps to full-length coats in ermine, in mink, in rabbit, squirrel, fox—I’d never had a fur, or even wanted one, until I stepped into that shop.
I stroked an ermine jacket while I surveyed the goods. Nothing in Montgomery came close to this. I thought, What my girlfriends wouldn’t give to be here with me right now.
I missed the Eden-like environment of home, but the trade-offs I’d been enjoying for six months more than made up for it. And there, on a rack along the wall, was possibly the finest trade-off of all: a dress like I’d never seen before. It was black and sleeveless and simply cut—straight, almost, with just the slightest suggestion of a waistline. What was remarkable, though, was the decorative finish. One narrow line of silver sequins ran along the neckline, and then a river of tiny, ethereal silver beads flowed over the dress from the right shoulder all the way down to the hem, branching into an array of intricate flowers and vines.
A tall, slender, carefully made-up salesclerk came over to me. “Gorgeous, isn’t it? All silk, the best there is. But wait,” she said. “You are going to faint when you see this.”
She retrieved the dress and turned it so that I could see its back. A smoke-colored mesh insert so fine that it was almost invisible was all there was to it, a deep U-shaped panel bordered by sequins and dropping almost to the point where a woman’s tailbone might show. There, it joined the black silk that flowed around from the sides and into the back of the skirt, which had its own beaded riot of flowers and vines.
“My father would have me whipped,” I said.
“You have the perfect figure for it—you’ve got to try it on. It’s the very latest thing from Paris, a Patou design, so sexy, the way Parisian women are. Truly one of a kind.”
I took the hanger. “You don’t need to ask me twice.”
Ten minutes later, the dress was being boxed and sent to the apartment, and I was on my way to the hair salon.
“What service may we provide for you today, Mrs. Fitzgerald?” asked the clerk when I arrived.
From my purse, I took a piece of folded paper and laid it out on the counter. “Life should imitate art, don’t you think?”
The clerk read the headline, which was the title of Scott’s May Post story, “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” She said, “I do, absolutely. Carmen will be delighted to assist with your mission.”
“Quick, then, before I lose my nerve. How long does a person have to live here before they stop feelin’ like everything they’re doin’ is criminal?”
I was back home before Scott returned. From the bathroom, I heard him come in. He was humming something that I wouldn’t say was upbeat, exactly, but that he was humming at all was a good sign.
“What took you?” I called from the tub.
“Oh, you know. Business.”
“Don’t come in. I want to surprise you. Oh, I had the Plaza send up a light supper—dinner, I mean. Somethin’ with potatoes and beets. I was hungry. We can still get a bite later, too, if you want.”
“Are you in the tub?” he said from just behind the door.
“Do not come in here. I mean it!”
“All right then, I won’t tell you my surprise either.”
“What surprise?” I said, but he only laughed in reply.
I climbed from the tub, dried off, then took my time rubbing in the lilac-scented body cream I’d bought at the salon—where in addition to getting my hair bobbed, I’d had my first professional manicure. The deep red nail polish they’d talked me into still startled me—though not nearly so much as my hairstyle—but was going to look perfectly dramatic when paired with lipstick of the same shade.
I did my makeup, taking extra care with the eyeliner the way the salon girl had advised. A tiny hint of rouge, light powder, mascara, lipstick. Goodness, I thought, surveying the effect.
“What surprise?” I tried again.
“I’m afraid I can’t hear you, darling. These ice cubes”—Scott rattled some in a glass—“are just so loud.”
I said, “You’re an evil man, Scott Fitzgerald, I just want you to know that,” and resigned myself to waiting.
Sheer black, lace-topped silk stockings came next, with new garters. That was it for undergarments: the dress wouldn’t allow anything more. I was genuinely grateful to have small breasts that required no support. The prospect of going out in public without even a chemise beneath my dress, however, was awfully strange. Scary and thrilling at once. I thought, Those Parisian girls are brave. Well, I was brave, too, New York brave, Paris brave, even, and all this would prove it.
I slipped the dress on, regarded myself in the mirror once more, stepped into my new black high heels, and then swung open the door.
Scott was seated at the desk. When he looked up, I turned in a slow circle. He stared at this new bob-haired, bead-draped, Parisian version of his wife, then gave a low whistle.
“Oh, perfect,” he said.
* * *
George was waiting outside in a cab with the window rolled down. He saw me and whistled just as Scott had done. “Oh, doll, what has New York done to you?”
“Mind you, she’s still married,” Scott said, handing me into the cab and then climbing in after me.
George said, “If you have a point, I wish you’d get to it.”
“And you didn’t even see the back,” I told him, then leaned forward and let my velvet wrap slip down off my shoulders.
“Fitz,” George said, “where can we drop you?”
I asked George, “What do you think of this haircut? I’m hopin’ I wear it better than Scott’s Bernice.”
“Darling,” Scott began, “George might not have seen—”
“The Post?” George said. “The one with ‘Bernice Bobs Her Hair’ inside and your name on the cover?”
“And a handsome couple using a Ouija board,” I said. “I liked that illustration.”
Scott sounded almost apologetic as he told George, “That’d be the one. I would have offered you the piece, but I didn’t think it was a Smart Set sort of tale.”
“Wasn’t that a sharp cover illustration?” I said. “Y’all should get that artist for your magazine. I talked to a spiritualist once about Scott and me; Ouija couldn’t seem to get to the bottom of things.”
George laughed. “I’ll bet its turn as cover model got a lot of readers to part with their nickels, though.”
“Let’s hope so,” Scott said. “It takes a lot of nickels to justify the five hundred bills they’re paying me.”
I said, “‘Bernice’ is so much fun—people’d pay five cents for just that one story, if they had to. F. Scott Fitzgerald stories are always a good investment.”
“There’s a solid economic theory for current times,” George said, nodding. “Not to mention a very charming, if woefully naïve, homage to a husband. He pay you to say this kind of thing in front of me? I can raise you to fifty dollars a story, Fitz—that’s all we’ve got in the budget.”
“But never mind all that,” I said, swatting George’s arm. “Wouldn’t Daddy frown at me, goin’ on about money? And this haircut! He’d say my morals have escaped me like a hound loosed for a hunt.”
George said, “Fitz, I do hope you write this stuff down.”
I ignored him. “Scott seems to like it, but I don’t know, it sorta makes me feel like a boy.”
“A boy!” George snorted. “Not any boy I’ve ever seen, and thank God. Doll, I think it’s going to go over like a house on fire.”
The Palais Royale at Forty-seventh and Broadway was lighted so brightly, it was as if the show was happening on the crowded sidewalk and street outside. Its marquee was strung across the second story, which housed the club and took up half the block, every shining letter in the name set inside a circle of lights. Above the marquee, perched on the roof’s edge like hawks overlooking Broadway, were two rows of giant rectangular billboards more brightly lighted than the club.
There were ads for Pepsodent and Camel, Listerine and Lucky Strike, Gillette, Bayer, Cremo, Coca-Cola, Wrigley’s, and Whiteway’s—which was offering a “woodbine blend dry cider” for rheumatism and gout.
“Lonicera sempervirens,” I said. The men looked at me blankly and I explained, pointing at the ad, “Honeysuckle—woodbine—in Latin.”
They leaned over to see the billboard, then George said, “Amazing how many more people have gout, now that booze is illegal.”
“Isn’t it?” Scott said while rubbing his elbow theatrically. “Think I’m going to need some medicine myself before the night’s out.”
I thought we’d go inside right away, but as George wanted to wait for some friends, we stayed on the sidewalk near the corner entrance and watched the tourists stream by. Music wafted out into the evening whenever the door opened. I tapped my foot in time to the jazzy song and only half-listened to the men, who were going on about Haiti and someone named Eugene O’Neill—a playwright, I gathered, before I tuned them out entirely.
There was so much diversion here in New York, and especially in Times Square. Automobiles and streetcars and people who, like our little trio, had dressed to the nines for their Friday-night dates. Men in derbies like Nathan’s, and in fedoras like Scott’s, in top hats—real dandies, here—and a few fellows who were reliving summer, it seemed, with straw boaters and linen Ivy caps. Their companions wore every version of evening dress, from the old-fashioned gored-skirt style that made me think of Mama, to silk suits similar to the ones I’d seen in the boutiques, to stylish shirtwaists and skirts trimmed in tulle or satin or lace. No one had a dress like the one I was wearing; the salesgirl was right about my leading the trend.
I was about to ask Scott to tell me his surprise when a woman yelled, “George!”
Her v
oice made us all turn to look. The owner of the voice, a tall, curvy girl, really, was the blondest person I had ever seen. Bottle blonde, I thought, not ungenerously. Next to her was another girl almost as blond and almost as attractive. Both of them wore low-necked velvet dresses, one garnet-red, the other emerald-green, and coordinated feathered hats. They were sisters for sure, probably twins, and had figures that were ripe for a chorus line someplace. I suspected they had personalities to match.
“Good evening, ladies,” George said. “You look remarkably pretty tonight.”
The girl in garnet said, “Well, I told Mary, here, that this was no time to slouch, you know? It’s George Nathan, I told her. Maybe he’ll bring a friend, I said.”
“She did say,” said Mary.
“And you did bring a friend,” said the first, indicating Scott. Then, eyeing me, she added, “But it looks like he brought a girl.”
“Some girl, too,” said Mary. Her gaze was direct and admiring—even envious, I thought.
“Indeed. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, meet Suzanne and Mary Walsh.”
Suzanne’s face lit up. “Oh, the girl is your sister.”
“No, my dear,” George said, putting his arm across her shoulders and steering her toward the door. “I should have said Mr. and Mrs. Scott Fitzgerald.”
“But they look so much alike!” Suzanne protested.
“Why don’t we start our evening at the pharmacy downstairs.”
“There’s a pharmacy?” said Mary. “I always thought it was a nightclub.”
“I’ll explain inside.”
George let the girls precede him and glanced over his shoulder with a smile that I found both wicked and endearing.
The “pharmacy” was a basement cabaret called Moulin Rouge. The dark, loud, smoke-filled lounge had a small stage embraced by red velvet draperies. The stage had a backdrop meant to resemble Paris—I recognized La Tour Eiffel, and the famed bridges—and was being overrun by six flouncy-skirted dancing girls who circled a top-hatted, red-cheeked, mustachioed man. The music, a raucous accordion piece, was like nothing I’d heard before.
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