Call Me Zelda (15 page)

My skin crawled. How could I not have seen her in the corner? It was as if she haunted the house, though she was alive. It was also as if she were seeing me for the first time.

Zelda chewed at her lips for a moment, then broke into a smile, suddenly an entirely different being from the pale, darkened figure in the drapes. Yet the smile unnerved me more than her previous countenance. My heart began to pound. I thought of her huddled on the floor in her room at Phipps. I thought of her emerging like a ghost from the curtains. It was suddenly clear to me that I’d made an error of terrible proportions.

She should not be here.

TWELVE

It was nearly the end of June, and Peter’s last night with me before taking up residence at the cathedral. He said he wanted to go somewhere trendy and illegal, so I led him over to the Owl Bar, the best speakeasy in town, located in the Belvedere Hotel.

The Belvedere looked like it belonged in Hollywood—elegantly lit letters, ornate columns, a gilded facade, and a red carpet that led from the street into the lobby. The Owl Bar inside had exposed brick walls, a shiny tiled floor, and long light fixtures that reflected off the arched window. To Peter’s excitement, the eye of the wise old owl over the bar was blinking the “all clear” wink when we arrived, so we found a table, ordered up two gin rickeys, and kept our eyes on the door and on the owl’s eye in case of coppers.

“Why do you want booze at a bar where you can get arrested when you can drink the church wine any old time?” I asked.

“It tastes better when it’s forbidden, Doll Face,” he replied with a wink.

I laughed and squeezed his hand. “Peter, you are my favorite priest.”

“Damn right,” he said.

It was Friday night, so we passed on the meat and ordered oysters on the half shell and two fish and chips. I hadn’t eaten three bites of my dinner when I suddenly wasn’t hungry. Scott Fitzgerald had walked into the bar.

It was strange seeing him there, out of context. He wore a sharp gray suit. His hair was heavily gelled and parted in the middle. The warm light of the bar softened his features and gave his skin color. His eyes glowed bright green, and I realized with some discomfort how handsome, or rather pretty, he was.

Peter followed my gaze, then snapped his eyes back to me.

“Is that him? Fitzgerald?”

“Yes.” I looked down at the oysters, trying to think of a way I could crawl under the table without being noticed. I did not want to have to engage in uncomfortable small talk with my patient’s husband, especially when that husband was a famous writer.

“Anna!”

Damn
.

I looked up and feigned surprise. “Scott! Hi! Swell to see you here.”

“Yes, quite!”

He seemed genuinely pleased to see me. He stood and stared at me as if he were waiting for something.

“Hi, I’m her brother, Peter.”

An introduction, yes.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’ve forgotten my manners.”

“No, no,” said Scott. “It’s a bit wacky for us to be together without Zelda, right?”

Somehow the mention of her name made me feel even more awkward than before.

“Yes. No. I mean…”

“Why don’t you join us?” asked Peter.

I kicked Peter under the table. He was not my favorite priest anymore.

“I’d love to,” said Scott.

The waiter came over and Scott ordered what we were having.

“Darn, Pete, I thought Anna was on a date,” he said. “And you, just her brother.”

“He’s a priest,” I said. “Though he’s incognito tonight.”

“She should be on a date,” said Peter, swinging the conversation back to me.

“Pretty girl,” said Scott.

I drained my gin and motioned the bartender for another. This was going to be a long night.

I
watched the hands on the clock turn slowly around while Peter and Scott rambled on endlessly about the Jazz Age, Catholicism, Europe, Princeton. It was as if they’d been friends for life.

“The French Riviera,” said Scott. “Heaven on earth.”

“I’ve never ssset sandal there,” said Peter. I noticed his speech was becoming more slurred by the minute. My own view had blurred at the edges, but at least the embarrassment had gone. The rickeys left me feeling faintly drowsy and as if I were in a dream.

Scott slapped the table and laughed loudly. “Sandal, Jesus, I love it. Did I say heaven on earth? No, it was hell, too. Feckin’ French aviator.”

“What, are you turning more Irish the drunker you get?” said Peter, while I tried to hang on to that detail. Scott laughed harder and his face turned flaming red. What French aviator? But the detail slipped through the well-oiled cogs in my mind for the time being.

“Anna,” said Scott. “Have you been? To the Riviera?”

“She honeymooned there,” said Peter.

That sobered the table.

“Huh?” said Scott.

“Excuse me; I have to find the ladies’ room,” I said.

I leveled Peter with my gaze and he quickly changed the subject.

“I just got back from Italy and a visit with a future saint,” he said.

“Italy, God, awful,” said Scott. “Zelda and I were never so sick and tired as our time there. The Italians didn’t get us.”

The crowd swallowed their conversation as I made my way to the bathroom at the back of the bar. I placed my hand on the cool brick for support and pulled the door handle of the lavatory.

“In a minute,” called a muffled voice from the other side.

I leaned back against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to stop the room from slipping about as it did. Trying to find that thought again that had piqued my interest. A pilot?

The door opened and out spilled an amply bosomed woman in mile-high heels.

“Your turn, hon,” she said. “Snazzy dress!”

I slipped into the bathroom and closed the door behind me. There was a mirror straight ahead and a dim light on the ceiling above it. My cheeks had a pleasant flush from the alcohol, and my hair still had a nice wave from when I’d set it earlier. And it was a snazzy dress. I’d bought it last season for myself as a birthday present, and this was the first time I’d worn it. It was the most enchanting shade of aquamarine—a bit like Scott’s eyes when they turned that way, in fact. Before I left the bathroom, I re applied my red lipstick. I felt a surge of confidence and gave myself permission to enjoy tonight and stop worrying about Zelda or Ben or any other thing in the world.

W
hen I returned to the table, Peter had gone to the restroom. Scott stood and pulled out my chair.

“You are a vision tonight, Nurse Anna,” he said.

“Why, thank you, Writer Scott.”

“You remind me of the good old days in that dress with that lipstick.”

“You are very kind.” I took another long drink of my gin and rested my chin in the palm of my hand.

He leaned a little closer to me; then his eyes widened. “You are Brancusi’s
Margit
.”

“Pardon me?”

He pulled two cigarettes out of the pack in his pocket, lit them both, and offered me one. I declined with a shake of my head. He placed his elbows on the table and held up a cigarette in each hand. He took a long drag from one.

“A brass sculpture,” he said. “We met in Europe. The artist Brancusi made it of an art student, Margit. You are the image of the girl in that sculpture.” He exhaled to the side.

My face colored. I did not enjoy the scrutiny as much as I had resigned myself to it in the lavatory.

“I’ll have to see it sometime,” I said.

“Perhaps Zelda should try sculpture,” he said. “She needs a medium where I don’t dabble.”

“You didn’t dabble in ballet,” I said.

“No, you’re right about that.”

“You don’t dabble in paints. She enjoys her painting.”

“True.”

“Besides,” I said, “I don’t know that Zelda dabbles.”

“She dabbled in men when we were young.” He inhaled the other cigarette and blew to the other side.

“But dabbling is a thing of youth,” I said. “Habit, discipline are what you have now.”

“Mania is what we have now, love,” he said. “I’d give anything to go back to Princeton. I was so young, with every single day before me, and every single thing in the world ripe for my plucking. I should have reached higher.”

“You did pretty damned well for yourself,” I said. “A novel
published when you’d barely started shaving. The most beautiful girl in the South.”

“It’s true,” said Scott. “But you only really get one bite at the apple, I think. I took it when I’d just stepped out from under the shadows of those ivy-covered Princeton arches, when I should have waited for them to mature a bit more. Maybe then I could have handled it all better.”

Peter sat down heavily. Scott passed him one of the lit cigarettes.

“Friends. Sisters. I’m tight,” said Peter.

“Then surely you won’t mind if I ask, are you a fairy?”

Peter wrinkled his forehead. “’Scuse me?”

“A fairy, you know?” said Scott.

His voice was too loud, and the people sitting nearest us gave Scott a look of distaste.

“Otherwise, why’d a guy with your looks become a priest?”

“Keep it down, would you?” said Peter. “I’m not…what you said, but there could be future parishioners of mine around here, and I don’t want them thinking their pastor’s a drunk of…alternative tastes.”

Scott finished his cigarette and drained what was left of his fifth glass. He began to laugh, quiet and resigned at first, but then it grew in volume and intensity until he was sobbing.

Oh, no.
Zelda often told me that once he hit the weepy stage of intoxication, trouble started.

“You know that bitch accused me of that,” said Scott. “She’s just calling the kettle black, is what she’s doing. She was in love with her ballet teacher and her nurses in Switzerland and the other patients on her floor. Probably with you, Anna.”

This went through me like a jolt. I didn’t have time to dwell on it, though, because I saw the bartender motion toward a bouncer at the door. The large man approached the table.

“Around here we keep it down, sir,” said the bouncer in a firm
but respectful voice. “We don’t like to draw attention to ourselves. One warning, sir, and you’re out.”

Scott nodded and waved him off. Tears ran down his face. He looked ridiculous here, crying his eyes out in the middle of a bar.

“Scott,” said Peter. “Use Zelda’s Christian name. No need to cut her down with foul words.”

Scott began to shake his head. “I’m sorry, Father. I need confession; can you do a confession? Right here and now? Can you absolve me?”

I touched Peter’s arm and nodded toward the door. When I looked for the waiter he had the bill for us in a moment. Scott insisted on paying.

“Indulgences,” he said, dropping money on the table. “Can this get me indulgences, Father?”

His crying turned back into a laugh, and we walked him outside into the warm air. He laid his head on my shoulder while we waited for a taxi.

“Margit, you are lovely,” he said.

His gin-soaked breath was on my neck. I felt a strange turmoil of emotions in response. It had been a long time since a man had shown me any interest, so while my emotional and intellectual selves were repelled and a little horrified, my physical self was intrigued. I didn’t have to worry too long, however, because a taxi soon pulled up. I gave the driver his address while Peter loaded him into the car.