10

At the Biltmore Hotel, I couldn’t resist petting every polished brass railing, every gilded table, every brocaded chairback along the way to our suite. I twirled beneath the crystal chandeliers, posed in front of the clock. I admired the brass buttons on the elevator operator’s uniform. I admired the elevator. After a light meal in the hotel’s lush dining room, I admired the three bottles of bootleg champagne awaiting us in our suite—sent over by Scott’s Princeton friends, who I’d be meeting Tuesday night.

Soon after admiring the champagne (and its bubbles, and its flavor), I praised the wide bed and the way it accommodated the two of us no matter which way we lay or shifted while we made love. All this was so much grander than the life Scott had led me to imagine, and while I’d foreseen good things, this was simply beyond.

“Are we rich?” I asked.

“We are unstoppable.”

We slept late on Sunday, lazed in bed with a room-service breakfast of fruit and cream and muffins, bathed together in the marble tub in the afternoon, then spent the evening in the Broadway district. Supper first, at a little diner on Forty-third Street, and then, as promised, a performance of Ziegfeld’s Follies at the New Amsterdam Theatre. By the time we took our seats and the curtain went up and the stage revealed its remarkable sets and even more remarkable performers and, most remarkable of all, the Follies Girls’ resplendent beaded, sequined, feathered, shimmering, sparkling costumes, I could only stare and grin and wonder at the crazy luck that had put Scott and me together and brought us to this place.

On Monday, we took a picnic lunch of cold fried chicken over to Central Park in the early afternoon. I hadn’t expected statues or artful bridges or colorfully tiled tunnels. “They even make their parks like this?” I said, repeatedly, turning it into a joking refrain as we walked along the paths and over the bridges and beside the lakes. We ate in a sunny spot on the steps of the Bethesda Terrace near the Angel of the Waters, a benevolent statue that rose from the center of a wide, shallow fountain-pool. At the angel’s feet were four cherubs that Scott said were meant to represent Health, Peace, Temperance, and Purity. I laughed at that. “The first two hardly matter if you have to mind the last two.”

“That’s my girl,” Scott said.

*   *   *

Tuesday, I got my first real taste of what it was going to be like to be married to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

We had only just finished getting dressed when a knock sounded on our hotel-room door. A one o’clock appointment time for Scott’s first magazine interview had sounded reasonable when Scott mentioned it on Saturday afternoon. That was before either of us realized we’d be staying up until near dawn every night. New York City’s diversions were irresistible; if we could have survived without sleeping at all, we’d have done it.

Scott said, “Am I presentable?” as the rap on the door sounded again. “Coming!” he yelled.

I straightened his tie and kissed him. “Don’t be nervous.”

“Not a bit. He’s a Princeton man.”

Scott opened the door to Jim Ellis, a balding man of about thirty who had a soft, round face and eyes like a spaniel’s. His brown suit jacket looked tight through the shoulders and at the waist, and its sleeves rode up over his fraying cuffs. The overall effect was that the suit had shrunk, or its owner had expanded, or possibly he’d borrowed it last minute from a roommate or coworker. Ellis was a features writer for a magazine I’d never heard of. Some little start-up tabloid, Scott said.

Ellis shook Scott’s hand. “Thank you for agreeing to talk with me. Our readers are eager to get to know the man behind the novel.”

“Glad to do it.”

Scott led him into the sitting room and indicated a chair to my left, where the man dutifully sat down. I smiled at him as though he was as important to Scott’s career as Mr. Charles Scribner himself.

“Jim Ellis, meet my lovely bride of three days, Zelda Fitzgerald.”

Zelda Fitzgerald. What a foreign sound to my ears!

I crossed my legs, letting my knee show, and leaned forward to offer my hand. “It’s a pleasure.”

Ellis’s face reddened and he took my hand in a quick, shy clasp before turning back toward Scott. “Congratulations on your marriage.”

I recognized Ellis’s type. In my experience, there were two kinds of men. One type—no matter how plain or how poor he might be—is always willing to at least try his luck with an attractive girl. The other type looks upon all of those first types with envy. Ellis was among the second group. He probably wasn’t married, or if he was, I ungenerously figured he’d found a girl even less confident than himself, a pairing that was sure to perpetuate a race of timid, boring people you’d never invite to a party unless for some reason you’d taken a shine to them and wanted to lift them out of their misery.

While Scott sat, Ellis took out a notebook and turned to a page where he’d already written some notes. He pointed at the copy of This Side of Paradise that sat on the table between his chair and Scott’s. “I have to say, I read the novel and I fully agree with the Times: ‘As a picture of the daily existence of what we call loosely college men, this book is as nearly perfect as such a work could be.’ My sentiments exactly.”

Scott nodded his thanks. “I’m always especially interested in how it plays with fellow alums.”

“I wish my time there had been more like I hear yours was. I was a bit of a hermit.”

I said, “Oh, I can’t believe that. I’ll bet you were just a sensible fella.”

He glanced at me. Now his ears had gone red. He said to Scott, “What a thrill it must be to get a gold seal from the Times—and you being just twenty-three, first book…” Ellis shook his head with obvious envy.

I said, “He is impressive, isn’t he?”

“Why, thank you, darling.”

Ellis asked him, then, about how closely the experiences of Scott’s main character, Amory Blaine, reflected Scott’s own life.

Scott said, “Loosely. I’ve put a character into a version of my personal history, is what I’ve done.”

“So Blaine’s an alter ego.”

“A somewhat naïve one, yes.”

“Well, sure, of course, that makes sense; you couldn’t write him so wisely if you were him.”

Scott beamed.

“Now,” Ellis continued, “about the women in this book—”

“It’s a novel about flappers—you know the term? These independent, morally modern girls?—a flappers’ story, for philosophers.”

Ellis nodded and made a note. “And the selfish girl who breaks his heart—Rosalind. Is she…” He glanced at me again.

I said, “She bears me some resemblance, it’s true—but you see, I married my Amory.”

Scott added, “But only after her Amory proved he had a far better outlook and future than our poor hero here.” He thumped the book. “Zelda was used to the finer things in life, things I couldn’t provide until now. She wouldn’t have me until I’d proven myself capable and had a few dollars in my account.”

I said, “Actually, it wasn’t quite as—”

“Darling,” Scott said, opening his cigarette case, then snapping it shut, “I can’t believe it, but I’m out. Would you ring for some while I finish up with Mr. Ellis?”

“Sorry?” I said, surprised that he’d interrupted me.

“Cigarettes. And something for you, Ellis?”

“If they’ve got a ham sandwich. I missed lunch—”

“Sure,” I said, “but I just want to explain that I didn’t—”

“No one thinks the worse of you for making me wait, darling. Women have to be practical.”

I stood up and, in a tone suited to my supposed character, said coolly, “How about I just go find the concierge personally?”

Neither man replied, but I felt their eyes on me as I crossed the room. As I opened the door, I heard Scott saying, “These flapper girls, they’re like racehorses.” I slammed the door closed behind me. To hell with them, I thought. Let them find someone else to play fetch.

When I returned ninety minutes later, Ellis was gone and Scott was seated on the floor with half a dozen newspaper clippings laid in front of him. His nearly full cigarette case sat opened on the end table nearby.

“You said you were out!”

He stood up and came to me. “That was just a ruse, so that you’d stop trying to straighten the story. I didn’t want you to dampen Ellis’s interest. Did you see how he looked at you? To him, you were Rosalind. In the future, if anyone should bring up the subject of Rosalind being like you, don’t split hairs; play it up. Be Rosalind. That’s what they’re hoping for.”

I took a cigarette and lit it from his, dragged on it, then exhaled slowly. “But I’m not her. To start with, she’s not Southern, not even a little bit. She’s New York society, and I sure am not that.”

He waved away the protest. “Artistic license.”

“And she’s a prissy snob, wouldn’t you say?”

“What, for following her family’s wishes and choosing a wealthy man over Amory? She’s practical. Chill-minded, we might call her. These aren’t bad traits necessarily. It’s all about the context, all about how the traits are put to use.”

“You want people to see me like that? Selfish? ‘Chill-minded’?”

“Anyone who knows the real you knows you’re warm and generous and smart. ‘Most Popular’ girl at Sidney Lanier High School—that’s indisputable. For the papers and magazines, what difference does it make who you really are—or who I really am, for that matter? It’s like in advertising: give the public what it thinks it wants, and they’ll lay down their cash.”

“Thinking they’re getting some sob-sister confessional about us, sure. I’d think you’d want the book judged on merit.”

“It’s been judged—by most everyone who counts; look at these.” He indicated the newspaper clippings. “The latest reviews from the weekend. My agent sent them, and they’re good.” His voice broke; he cleared his throat and added, “Max Perkins was a visionary, this proves him out.”

“It proves you out,” I said, softening. “You knew what you were talking about all along. It’s a smart, funny, wise book, Scott, and you deserve all this.”

“We deserve it. A lot of the dialogue in there came straight out of your diary.”

“The way you gave my words to somebody I would never be is pretty keen. Sort of a magic trick, isn’t it? It sure did work, though.”

“It worked, and here we are.”

I went to the window. “I never woulda thought it. Not like this.” I turned back toward him. “You’re sorta impressive.”

He shrugged away the compliment, but his smile said he was pleased. “The thing now is sales. Popularity means we get to keep doing things like drinking champagne,” he said, popping the cork from a bottle, “and wearing diamond wristwatches, and”—he tapped an envelope that lay on the table—“going to parties like the one next Friday night at George Jean Nathan’s place.”

“Another young Princetonian heir?”

“God no. He’s one of this city’s finest fixtures—editor of The Smart Set, plus he’s a writer and a true theater critic of the first order. He knows everyone. Ev-ree-one. And he wants us.”

I remembered The Smart Set, first of the prominent magazines to publish Scott’s short stories. I hadn’t realized at the time of the sale what a big deal it was; selling that story hadn’t seemed to boost him much—he’d been focused on selling his novel, and on finding a better job. But that first gust had turned into a strong breeze bringing him all the things he had now: reviews from papers around the country. Books selling out of stores. New stories sold in new places. Steady money coming in. A wedding at St. Patrick’s. A luxurious Biltmore suite. Reporters wanting to interview him—

“It’s you this Nathan fella wants,” I said.

“The invitation is for Mr. and Mrs. Scott Fitzgerald. And I think the occasion’s going to call for a new dress.”

“A dress for your Rosalind, you mean,” I said, stepping up onto the sofa and walking across it, then stepping onto the back of it. I raised my arms overhead as I balanced, walking carefully along the narrow upholstered frame. “It was easier in Montgomery. I just had to keep on being me.”

“Being you also meant being whatever character you portrayed onstage, didn’t it?”

I jumped down onto the cushion. “I s’pose that’s right.”

“So…”

“So if I go along with this scheme, we’ll be playing parts, that’s what you’re saying. Same as if we were doing this year’s Folly Ball back home.”

Scott handed me a glass of champagne. “Only this time, we’re writing the parts ourselves.”