Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (16 page)

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 voice 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.

“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.