Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald (7 page)

There was a line in the book, in the chapter titled “Another Summer,” that jumped out at me, stuck itself into my brain and would not leave me alone. A friend of Guy’s said this about him to Pauline:

He’s such an extraordinarily brilliant person that it would be terrible if he let himself do nothing in the end.

That friend was speaking directly to me.

The newspaper job Scott was trying for: Did that add up to “nothing”? Scott didn’t want to think so. For him, such a job appeared to be an answer to the problem of how he could support us properly in New York. But that was only one little part of things. He was giving too much credit to the idea that if he secured a new job, he’d be able to put the rest of his plan into action. New job, new wife, time for writing, cash for the theater and parties, great book, literary fame—he would make it all happen at once, by God, or die trying.

It was an impossible plan.

6

A few days later, Mama was on the phone with Tony when I came into the front hall. “I’ll wire you the cash,” she was saying, talking too loudly and leaning too close to the mouthpiece, as usual. She didn’t trust telephones and treated them the way she’d treated Grandmother Musidora when Grandmother’s hearing had nearly gone. “But this needs to be the end of it. You know how the Judge feels about a man living within his means—” She caught sight of me. “Your sister’s here; do you want to say hello?”

She held up the receiver and I took it, while she moved out of the way.

“Hey, Tony,” I said, my voice still raspy, “when are you comin’ to see me?”

“Oh, soon,” Tony said.

(
soon, soon
…)

“Can’t get time away from this damned job right now. If I don’t act like I’m supremely grateful to muck around in the swamp measurin’ saw grass so’s Montgomery can have a highway to Mobile, there’s fifty unemployed former soldiers who will.”

“Well, we sure do miss you. Maybe I’ll come pay y’all a visit once I know I won’t infect you. I have all kinds of time.”

“Meanin’ you still haven’t set a wedding date.”

“Scott’s still tryin’ to work out the details.”

Tony laughed, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. “I know fellas like that, senior engineers, here, fussin’ over this and that while the rest of us go gray. Better marry a farmer—they
know
‘perfect’ doesn’t exist.”

“Those senior engineers, though, they’re just makin’ sure it’ll be a good road. Right?”

“It’ll be
no
road unless someone gives them a swift kick.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

That night, when the house was quiet and there was only the sound of crickets at the windowsill and frogs in the trees, I sat at the desk in my bedroom and composed a letter. It took hours of careful thought—much longer than I’d expected—and, nauseated, I tore up my efforts twice, wanting to believe that what I was attempting to do wasn’t necessary. Then I thought it through again and got back to work.

In the end, the letter was brief:

Dear Perry,

What a fine time we had last weekend in Atlanta!—but I’m afraid I went just a little too far by accepting your fraternity pin. Blame the gin. I regret having to wound such a tender heart, but your pin is enclosed. I can’t accept it while I’m still promised to someone else. That may change, though, and if it does I’ll certainly let you know.

Until then—

Zelda

I tucked the letter, along with a pin from an old beau, into an envelope, which I then addressed quite deliberately to Scott.

*   *   *

Sara Mayfield was with me when Scott’s reply arrived the following week. Mama had sent her up to my room, aware that I’d been morose for days but unaware of the reason. When Sara arrived, I’d heard Mama say, “Go see if you can cheer her up. My moody children, goodness…” I couldn’t tell Mama what I was up to; she’d have clucked about it endlessly and made everything worse.

Now Sara sat next to where I lay on the bed with damp eyes and the letter clutched in my hand. She patted my arm and asked, “What does he say?”

The lump in my throat made it hard for me to answer, so I handed her the letter, which was as brief as mine had been and amounted to
Never contact me again.

Sara read it. “Wow, he sounds really hurt. But then, that’s what you wanted.”

“Mm.”

“He’ll be happy in the long run, I guess. If he gets his book published and all.”

Wiping my eyes, I nodded my agreement.

“And if he loves you truly, he’ll love you
then,
too. You had to do it, Zelda.”

“For his own good.”

“And yours.” She took my hands and pulled me up from the bed. “Now come on, it’s hot and I’m thirsty. Let’s go down to the drugstore and have us some ice-cold dopes. There’s more to life than fellas, right?”

“Not really,” I said. My smile felt weak, but it was a start.

*   *   *

Ten days later, Scott stood in the hall of my house. “I had to
see
you,” he said breathlessly, while Daddy scowled at us from the library’s doorway. “This is all wrong.”

He looked as desperate and miserable as I’d been when I’d gotten his letter. He wore a light brown suit that he’d obviously slept in—and run in, it seemed, likely all the way from the train station. Sweat was beaded on his forehead and made shiny trails along the sides of his face.

I took his hand; it was moist, too. With a glance at my father, I said, “Come outside.”

As I led Scott to Mama’s rose garden, he said, “It was all my fault for taking too long. Come back with me—we’ll get the first train and get married right away.”

My heart pounded in my chest.
Yes! Buy me a ticket, I’ll pack my trunk!
I tried to say the words, they were right there in my throat, but—

He’s such an extraordinarily brilliant person that it would be terrible if he let himself do nothing in the end.

Yes, I know,
I thought—but I was stubborn, too, and he was right there with me looking so hopeful and impassioned, and I didn’t want to let him down and I didn’t want to give him up.

“Have you ever thought that writing should just be your hobby?” I asked hopefully, selfishly—stupidly too, ’cause I already knew better. “You could do something stable for a profession. Banking, maybe, like my brother-in-law Newman.”

Scott shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Why can’t you? Why does it
have
to be writing?”

“It’s the only thing I know how to do. I don’t have a single other talent or skill.”

“You could learn one.”

“I
can’t.
You don’t understand. I was terrible in the army. Worst aide-de-camp ever. I can’t run an office. I can’t lead men. I’m not a whiz with numbers. I’ve got no patience for administrative work—do you know what kinds of idiots head up these companies? But it doesn’t matter. None of that matters. With you there to come home to … You’ll
inspire
me. You
do
inspire me. I’ll work so much better if I’m not worrying about you.”

Such romantic words! If the scene were being played out in a dime novel or a picture show, the heroine, heart racing, would swoon and fall into the hero’s arms.
We’ll leave it to fate!
she’d say as she fainted. I guess I’m not the swooning type, though, because I knew Scott was giving himself a prescription:

I’ll work so much better if I’m not worrying about you
.

As I had already concluded, he was completely right, just not in the way he thought. He’d never give up on any of his goals—wasn’t his appearance here clear proof of how ridiculously stubborn he was?—and if he didn’t give up on any of them, he’d fail at them all.

So I swallowed hard and said, “You know, I think our love has run its course and we both need to just move on.”

His mouth fell open. “What are you
talking
about? What—because I won’t be something else, something your father would approve of, something soul-crushing and meaningless just to get a good paycheck?”

“If you want to see it that way.” I shrugged.

Oh, the look on his face! It was awful. I thought flames might shoot from his eyes, that his hair might catch fire, that he might burst apart on the spot.

When he could speak again, he accused me of having led him on, of being self-centered and unwilling to sacrifice my comfortable life for the meager-but-honorable one he was offering. He pointed at me. “I never should have trusted a girl like you. You’ve obviously been lying to me all along.”

I shrugged again and told him he should go.

“Zelda—” he tried once more, so angry, so confused.

I couldn’t stay there and face that; I’d break down before long and then where would we be? I got up and walked away, head up, chin out, fists and teeth clenched, until I was safely inside the house, inside my bedroom.

There I stayed for hours, pacing, crying my eyes out, sure I’d done the wrong thing. I wanted him to come pounding at the door, insisting I elope with him—and at the same time I was terrified that he might.

He didn’t return, though, and when my tears turned to hiccups and then to sighs, I took a bath and washed my face and got on with the business of being a heartsick, single, almost-nineteen-year-old Montgomery girl.

*   *   *

—Until October, when I came home one day to find a telegram waiting:

MISS ZELDA SAYRE
6 PLEASANT AVE MONTGOMERY ALA

MY DEAR SCRIBNERS TO PUBLISH MY NOVEL MUST SEE YOU ARRIVING THURS. SCOTT.

When I saw him, he told me how, that summer, he had quit his job, gone home to St. Paul, and put all his effort into revising the novel once more. He said that he’d sent Scribner’s the manuscript in September. The next spring, it would be published as
This Side of Paradise
—the book that started it all.

7

When Scott returned to visit in January, he took a room at an inn across town from my house. No need to explain the choice; I understood full well what he had in mind. Understood, and was as eager as he was.

In the twilight of that wintertime afternoon, I changed out of my wool dress into the green one I’d worn for my eighteenth birthday. Beneath my dress was only one undergarment: an ivory silk chemise I’d bought earlier that day.

Our engagement is rock solid,
I told myself. Why not take this next step?

We had decided we’d wait ’til spring to marry, so that he’d have time to finish polishing up his manuscript and a bunch of short stories he hoped to sell. The advance he’d gotten for the book wasn’t enough to live on, not by far. But he’d acquired a literary agent. Credibility. He’d written to my father to assure him that all the doors had now opened to him, that the two of us wouldn’t be living on tins of fish and beans, that he’d keep a suitable roof over our heads.

It’ll be fine. He loves me. There’s no real risk.

Under cover of darkness and a heavy, figure-hiding old coat and headscarf that had been Grandmother Musidora’s, I went to see him at the inn.

He met me at the front door. “Aunt Myrna!” he said for the clerk’s benefit. “So good of you to come. I brought some supper in; we can have it in my room. Come on, I’ll bet you’re hungry.”

I hobbled along with him, head down, face hidden. “Good of you to anticipate your poor old Aunt Myrna’s desires,” I said, and Scott coughed.

“You’ll see,” he said as we reached the staircase. “I have such good things waiting for you.”

The room could have been my grandmother’s, too, that’s what I thought when Scott ushered me inside. Flouncy draperies covered the windows. The chair and settee wore crocheted antimacassars. On the narrow bed was a beautiful but old-fashioned quilt. All of the furnishings were timeworn, as if they’d been bought from old estates and then given a new life here at the inn.

Scott pulled me to him. When he kissed me, I tasted bourbon.

“How ’bout a drink for your girl?” I said.

“Are you nervous?”

“No. Yes. No,” I decided. “Not nervous. Just … It’s all so momentous. I feel like you and me … we’re this new creature just hatched into the world and there’s nobody like us and we have to figure out every little thing fresh. But that’s silly, isn’t it? People’ve been fallin’ in love and doin’ the next natural thing for eons before us.”

Scott pressed his forehead to mine. “It’s not silly at all. We
are
making our own path. This
is
momentous.” He kissed me again. “Let me pour you that drink.”

The bourbon did what bourbon can do so well, and before long, Scott was admiring that new chemise with his eyes, then his hands, then he was moving it out of the way of places he wanted to admire with his mouth. I was admiring him as well.

We went about it slowly, a little awkward at first, me giggling, him shushing me and then laughing, too. Bare skin against bare skin, we entwined ourselves, eventually fitting together exactly as Nature intended. When Scott buried his face in my neck and moved against me, all thought fled my mind. There was nothing but sensation, this profoundly primal feeling I hadn’t anticipated or even known could occur.

And while that first time lasted only a few intense minutes, it proved for certain that Scott and I had something exceptional, something irresistible to us both. For good or ill, that act, those feelings, defined everything my life was going to become.

*   *   *

Scott visited again in February. Again, I went to his room eagerly and in disguise. I don’t recall us saying more than
Hello
before we were peeling off each other’s clothes and falling into bed.

Afterward, I told him I thought I might be pregnant.

“You couldn’t possibly know the minute it happens.” He laughed.

“From before, I mean.”

He stared at me for a moment, then said, “Well, I guess neither of us has any right to be surprised. Fatherhood, though.” He shook his head. “I didn’t imagine it would happen so easily—not that I don’t want to have children.”