The heat of her mouth surprised him, as if it were a trick. She tasted of coffee and peppermint from the restaurant. He hesitated slightly, and she pulled back, laughing. He thought she might be making fun of him, but she opened the door, took his hand and led him inside, where it was dark. She dropped her keys on a table and kissed him again, pushing her full front against his, and then she was pulling him up a narrow flight of stairs and into her bedroom, the made bed lit by the glow of the city below, and she was relieving him of his jacket and unbuttoning his shirt, and though he wanted to stop her and ask whether this wasn’t too sudden, too serious to blunder into, he tugged at the zipper of her dress and watched as she let it drop and stepped out of it, her body backlit, eclipsed.
“No,” she said when he reached to undo her brassiere.
It was her one withholding. She kept it on while they made love, the stiff, padded fabric spectral against her skin, so that even as she was giving herself to him, he felt she was hiding something even dearer. As much as he wanted her, he didn’t know her at all. He’d told her his secrets, which she absorbed like a spy, without relinquishing any of her own. He thought it should bother him more, but she was young and warm and lovely, and he was grateful and patient enough, rocking in the dark, to abide this mystery. To Zelda, the girlish Zelda he’d left behind, all he could say was I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
THE GRAVEYARD OF THE ATLANTIC
As he feared, he didn’t get a screen credit for A Yank at Oxford. After a month of story conferences, with no warning, Eddie called him into his office and took him off the picture. The studio wasn’t unhappy with his work, Eddie said, they just decided to give another writer a stab at it. Who? he wanted to ask, but there was no sense protesting. They were paying him, and, honestly, he’d done everything he could. He took down the head shot of Vivien Leigh, slipped it between the pages of his last draft and filed the script in his bottom drawer.
There was no privacy in the Iron Lung. By lunchtime everyone knew he’d been reassigned, the writers’ table needling him with the brusque camaraderie of the locker room. His replacement was Julian Layton, a Brit whose farce Quicker, Vicar! had been the rage of the West End ten years ago. The consensus was that Three Comrades was a better set-up anyway.
“So,” Alan said, “you’ve gone from writing for Robert Taylor as a wisecracking vet to Robert Taylor as a wisecracking vet.”
“And Spen-cer Tra-cy,” Benchley projected like a ring announcer, saluting Tracy at the next table.
“He’s just showing off his range,” Dottie said.
“It doesn’t matter what you write for Mankiewicz,” Oppy said. “He’ll make it about the girl.”
“And slap a happy ending on it,” Dottie said.
“Leave ’em laughing about Hitler,” Benchley said.
“Mank’s like Jane Austen,” Alan said. “It could be Hitler, Franco and Mussolini. By the end they’re all getting married.”
“He’s a sucker for the old slow build to a kiss,” Oppy said.
“You would know,” Alan said.
“And a third act reversal,” Dottie said. “I guarantee he’ll ask for one in rewrites. He thinks he invented it.”
“That and the close-up on the phone,” Benchley said. “It can’t just ring, we have to see it physically exists.”
“Better’n Selznick with his memos,” Oppy said.
“God yes,” Dottie said. “Imagine being his secretary.”
“Imagine being his wife,” Benchley said. “‘It has come to my attention that we are spending far too much on wardrobe.’”
Scott laughed along with them, but still, he was disappointed. He wasn’t used to having his work dismissed, the long days and weeks of fretful effort he’d devoted to it wasted, fruitless. He’d come west not just for the money but to redeem his previous failures here, the scripts he’d believed in rewritten by hacks or ditched entirely. After the last few years he knew he was lucky to have the chance, and to immediately fall short was disheartening. That the project wasn’t his to begin with mitigated it somewhat, or so he told himself. What puzzled him most was that, until this morning, he thought he’d done a decent job.
His goal with Three Comrades was to keep it his and his alone. Ideally he’d dash off a draft, then build it up before turning it in to Mankiewicz, except he didn’t have time. In two weeks he had to take Scottie back East.
Between her and Sheilah, he was scattered. He kept them separate, mostly. Every night he showed Scottie the town, taking her to the Brown Derby and Horseshoe Pier, dropping her at the Beverly Hills and going directly to Sheilah’s, coming home late, only to wake to the birds chirping. This sweet espionage was exhausting, and made him feel craven and old. At his kitchen table, slugging back coffee, he blocked out his master scenes. On the lot he punched in early and had lunch delivered. Rather than leave behind something rough that Mankiewicz could hand off to another writer, he polished the first two acts, hoping their promise would be enough, and then, at the very last, submitted them with misgivings.
That night he said good-bye to Sheilah. Her balcony jutted above the treetops, giving on a starry vista. The two of them sat watching the lights and listening to the industrial thrum of the city. They were subdued, as if they’d been fighting, or were anticipating it. She knew the reason he and Scottie were going was to see Zelda, and that they would spend part of their time at Myrtle Beach as a family. To quell any speculation, he let her know he and Zelda would have separate beds, though just saying it felt like a betrayal, and he wished he were already gone.
“It’s none of my business,” she said.
“Of course it is.”
“I told you I didn’t want to do this.”
“What?”
“This. I’m such an idiot. I told you you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into. Now I’m in it.”
What could he do but apologize.
Hours later, after they’d patched things up, as he was driving Sunset back to the Garden, he thought of the correct response. I know, he should have said. I know, and I don’t care.
It was three when he got home, and he hadn’t packed yet. He dozed, rolling and mumbling, then rose at six to pick up Scottie, skipping his usual pill. He figured he could sleep on the train.
Though he’d been there barely two months, leaving the city felt like a defeat. They were taking the Sunset Limited to El Paso, first class. As he’d hoped, the stateroom with its cleverly hidden amenities delighted Scottie, yet even as they lay across from each other on the drop-down bunks, comparing them to the army cots on the Argonaut, he dwelled on all he’d left undone. Outside, the orange groves and motor courts slid by, hot and sharp in the thin morning light. They climbed the pass at San Dimas, rushed down the other side, and were in the desert. “Next stop, Palm Springs. Palm Springs next.” All he wanted was to drift off to the clicking of the trucks, but he thought Scottie should have some breakfast. They staggered to the diner where they were served Rocky Mountain trout and scrambled eggs by a porter with a walleye, staggered back, mildly seasick, pulled the shades and slept.
When he woke, it was still day. They were still rolling over the desert. In the shimmering distance a line of snow-capped peaks rose like an island. For miles there was nothing, cracked hardpan and washboard roads angling off into mesquite. As with the sea or sky, the vastness compelled him. He imagined being stranded out there, the train breaking down, a plane crashing in the mountains. His producer, returning from an important meeting in New York. It would be weeks before anyone would find the wreckage. Who, and what would they find? Money, obviously. A gun. His hero’s talisman, a monogrammed pen—no, a briefcase. Across from him Scottie moaned in her sleep, and before he could stop himself he pictured her coming upon the debris field. Not just one girl, but a group of children from a nearby town, out exploring on horseback. Four of them, all very different. Because of the money, they woul
dn’t tell. How would their secret change them? That was his ending, the new future’s loss of innocence. It fit with the producer abandoning his dream, and with Hollywood overall, maybe too neatly. How his man came to that low state was another question.
He had to raise the shade an inch to take notes. He was working on his fifth page when Scottie sat up, shielding her eyes.
“Where are we?”
“I have no idea.”
“It’s hot in here. Aren’t you hot?”
He held up one hand and kept writing.
“Daddy.”
“Yes, Pie, it’s hot in here.”
They stayed overnight in El Paso, then flew east the next day, stopping to refuel at Kansas City and Memphis before the final leg to Spartanburg. As they came in, he marked the great swaths of piney woods that hid black ponds and swamps. A plane could go down in a remote lake and never be found, though dramatically that might be unsatisfying. Someone had to find it. As with Gatsby, there had to be a witness the reader could believe.
Because it was supposed to be a vacation, he hired a roadster in Spartanburg much like the one he’d sold. They grabbed a quick dinner at a barbecue pit on the way to Tryon. Dusk was falling by the time they pulled up to the hotel. He wasn’t surprised to find his old rooms were available, though at a higher price. He saw no improvements, but it was only for the night, and the shredded rattan bedroom set was somehow comforting. He and Scottie rocked on the verandah, watching the fireflies. He tried not to think of Sheilah.
“She won the tennis tournament,” he offered.
“That’s good, after what happened last time.”
“You have to forget that. It’s always like starting new with her.”
“That’s what makes it so hard.”
“You never know, she might be delightful. It’s only three days.”
“Three days is a long time.”
“We won’t see her again until Christmas, so let’s try to make it nice for her.”
“I always try to be nice.”
“I know you do, and I’m sorry she’s not always nice back. You know she loves you.”
“I know.”
“The doctor says she’s been doing well with the new treatment, so we’ll see.”
“We will,” she said.
The next morning, after winding their way up the mountain, the change was clear from their very first glimpse of her. He didn’t recognize the stout woman the nurse escorted toward them—her hair was darker, longer, her bangs bowl-straight—until he saw the gap left by her cracked tooth.
She was fat. When he’d left two months ago she’d been a scarecrow. Now she was doughy and bloated, double-chinned and thick-waisted, her face strikingly different, as if her role had been taken over by a pudgy understudy. He’d never seen her so big, even when she was pregnant. He smiled to cover his alarm, asking how she was as they embraced.
“I look awful, don’t I?” she said, taking Scottie in her arms.
“How do you feel?” he asked.
“I feel fine, I just look like a pig. My eczema’s better.” She pulled down the collar of her blouse to show them the smooth skin of her chest.
“It’s gone,” he said. “That’s wonderful.”
“I’ve got tits again. That should make you happy.”
It was the kind of scandalizing thing she used to say in mixed company, but with Scottie right there it seemed off. Worse, the breasts he pictured weren’t hers.
“I’m happy you feel better,” he said.
“My deepest apologies,” she said to Scottie. “Apparently I’m not supposed to say ‘tits.’ Yours look nice, by the way.”
“That’s enough.”
“Thank you,” Scottie said.
“Everyone has them, you know,” she told him. “It’s not a secret.”
“It’s not news either.”
“This is going to be fun,” she said, linking arms with them like a chorus girl and pulling them toward the door. “Allons-y!”
“First I need to sign you out.”
“I forget, I’m a prisoner of love.”
He registered the insinuation, but let it pass, saving it for Dr. Carroll.
“What happened to your car?” she said in the lot.
“I told you, I sold it.”
“Dodo.” She pouted. “I liked that car.”
“I know you did. That’s why I hired this one.”
“What a gentleman, always thinking of me. Remember the Delage whose roof wouldn’t go up?”
“I do.”
Scottie ceded the front seat, and they were off, cruising down the swooping drive, through the gates and out into the world, the three of them reunited. In town, he turned right at the stoplight, heading south over the mountains for the coast. He’d never taken this route before, and drove even more slowly, as if undecided. The gray haze lingering in the hills reminded him of their forays into the French countryside, the jaunts to the Bois, the day trips to Lyon for dejeuner at the Institute Gastronome. Zelda noted each passing attraction as if they might miss something, making Scottie continually look up from her book. A new foal, a trash fire, a garden lined with whirligigs. It was just past nine. By his calculations they’d make Myrtle Beach around five. He didn’t think she could keep up the bubbling stream of discoveries. He feared that, following her usual pattern, after this initial outburst she’d run down and eventually shut off, withdrawing to her inner world from which there was no extracting her, but for now she was keenly interested in everything, including him.
“Are you eating? You look like you’ve lost weight.”
“I’m actually gaining. I eat out too much, and I drive everywhere.”
“You look tired.”
“I’ve been working.”
“I wish I could come out there and look after you.”
Just the thought stopped him.
“I know you do,” he said.
“I’ll bake you pies and iron your handkerchiefs.”
“I wasn’t aware you ironed.”
“I’m working in the laundry. I can do all kinds of useful things.”
He couldn’t imagine it, though he knew she was telling the truth. Her life now took place beyond him, among people he’d never meet—as did his. He was proud of her accomplishments, but to pretend they still knew each other was a fiction.
It was what they were there to do: pretend everything could be the way it was. They’d stayed at the hotel before, years ago, when Scottie was five or six. In their albums were snapshots of her, freckled and chubby, tin bucket and shovel in hand, standing beside a sandcastle with an architect’s pride. Zelda had been well then, one of her last good summers, back when they still made plans.
Hours in the mountains, then down through Columbia and the low country with its paddies and long tobacco barns. He’d wanted to stop just the once, for lunch and gas both, but as they approached Charleston, the women needed a restroom, prompting a visit to a second filling station. On they pressed, through the humid city and north along the shore, where there was more for Zelda to point out. Scottie had taken off her shoes and curled up on the seat, though whether she was truly asleep was guesswork.
“Smell the sea air,” Zelda said, sniffing, and he did.
At Georgetown a new steel bridge crossed the sound, the open deck making their tires whine. The tide must have been going out, because the near rail was lined with negroes fishing off the side.
“Look at the pelicans,” Zelda said, imitating them.
The island was a pine barrens flat as a runway. Miles ahead their hotel rose from the white dunes. Like the Beverly Hills, the Beachcomber was a coral monstrosity, its whimsical scale meant to impress. After the Crash it had changed hands precipitously, moldering empty for several seasons, but when they turned in, the topiary appeared freshly bar
bered, the croquet lawn perfectly manicured. They pulled up to the front and a platoon of liveried valets in knee breeches swarmed the Ford.
Though it was the end of the season, the gateway of Labor Day nearly upon them, the porches overlooking the gardens were teeming with Charleston society, even the men dressed in white, sipping gin and tonics and nibbling canapés. Inside, at the foot of a sweeping staircase, a man in tails was playing a grand piano over a ground bass of conversation. There was a line at the concierge desk. Were they with the Cabbagestalk wedding? In another time they would have said yes, danced with the bride and groom and drunk champagne until they couldn’t stand. Declining the invitation, he felt dull and responsible, fatherly. Beside him, Zelda had finally gone quiet, looking around open-mouthed, as if overwhelmed by the posh decor, while Scottie studied her book, and he remembered this trip was his doing, and that it was going about as well as he could expect.
He’d reserved a suite so they could be together, he and Zelda in the one bedroom, Scottie on the sleeper couch. The separate beds he’d promised Sheilah were a yard apart, at best a technicality.
As they unpacked, he noticed Zelda’s clothes were wrapped like gifts in butcher paper.
“Hand-me-downs,” she said. “I’ve outgrown all my own clothes.”
“Who are they handed down from?”
“Donations. The lost and found. We get everything in the laundry. Don’t worry, it’s clean.” With no attempt at modesty she pulled her shirt over her head and chose another.
Along with round, heavy breasts, she’d developed a mound of a belly, as if she were pregnant. The slender, long-limbed girl he married was gone. It was like she was another woman altogether.
The blouse she buttoned up—unironed, showing every fold—was a bright pistachio with a vestigial pocket over her left breast. It was a full size too big, and hung on her like a muumuu.
He looked away, too late.
“A gentleman doesn’t stare,” she said.
“Who said I was a gentleman?”
“You had aspirations once, if I recall.”
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