40

Carmel Myers was a lovely, dark, sultry woman, a real beauty with hooded eyes and lips that were shaped in such a way that her mouth was always slightly open. When we ran into her in the lobby of our Genoa hotel in late March 1928, she said, “You’ve got to come meet Fred and me tonight for dinner.” Who could turn her down?

Fred was Fred Niblo, who’d directed Carmel in Ben-Hur. He was twice Carmel’s age, and married, not that it mattered. For all we knew, the two of them being in Genoa together was as coincidental as our seeing them there while en route to Paris for a visit.

“Excellent to see you again!” Fred said as we joined them at the hotel’s restaurant. He pointed to a name on the menu. “Have you ever tried this brandy? It’s an experience, I’m telling you. Four glasses,” he told the waiter in English, holding up four fingers and then indicating all of us. “Four glasses, two bottles,” he tapped the brandy’s name on the menu, then made a V with his fingers. “Doo-ay. To start.”

Carmel said, “We’ll toast to your return visit to Europe—how exciting to be spending the summer in Paris! How was the journey? Don’t you love traveling by ship? It’s so intimate, so romantic, don’t you think?”

Scott and I glanced at each other. Our answers, unsaid, were both Hell no. The weather had been terrible—rough seas, cold rain—and all we’d done for the first two days was argue about my intention to continue dance lessons when we got to Paris. Tiring of that, we spent the next seven days ignoring each other entirely, reconciling somewhat only on the last day, when relief at the sight of land gave us something in common again.

A small orchestra performed dance tunes I recalled from my childhood. Dinner was some kind of fish, some kind of vegetable—nothing special, and I didn’t eat much. The brandy, though, was memorable; I sipped it with pleasure, enjoying the little bit of escape a good drink can provide. Fred and Scott finished a whole bottle between them before dessert arrived.

Scott’s was a tart that looked richer than my stomach would be able to handle gracefully, so when he said, “It’s fantastic; here, try a bite,” I demurred.

“You go ahead. I’m full.”

He looked so disappointed. “But you can’t miss out on this, it’s delicious.”

“I’ll have a bite,” Carmel said, and she held those lips of hers open a little wider than usual.

Scott stared at her mouth, just stared like he was hypnotized, paralyzed, like that crimson O was the answer to all of life’s problems, or maybe just his prayers. I kicked his shin to break the spell, which worked; he blinked, then ate the bite himself as if he’d never even offered it to anyone at all. I looked frankly at Carmel; her expression was innocently amused.

There are women whose whole selves are engaged in being a public commodity, and Carmel was one of these. Every gesture she made, every syllable she uttered, the tinkle of her laughter, the way her dress’s fabric draped over her breasts, all of it was self-conscious and deliberate, designed to elicit admiration in women, desire in men. This isn’t to say I held any of that against her. Not a bit. I liked her, in fact. The way I saw it, she was a kind of living work of art, and funny and thoughtful besides. Was it her fault if she, as had happened to me, sometimes provoked the basest feelings in a man?

Scott and Fred made short work of that second bottle of brandy while Carmel’s and my glasses still held our initial pour. I’d found that drinking very much of any kind of alcohol still did bad things to my stomach. Carmel might have found that it did bad things to her self-preservation; I know that if I looked like her, I’d never let down my guard.

Fred entertained us with an ongoing routine of self-deprecating jokes about why Jews (like himself, and Carmel) were so prevalent in the entertainment world. Carmel rolled her eyes a lot, that perfect-O mouth open to express mock disapproval. The more brandy Scott drank, the less he was able or willing to tear his eyes from that red O—until I finally slapped the table and said, “All right, that’s it!”

Everyone jumped, and I went on, “Why are men so taken with women’s mouths? Is it just … you know, what they wish that mouth would do to them?”

Scott said, “Zelda!”

“What? You’re the one who’s fixated.”

Fred said, “No, no, it’s so much more than what you think. Consider: The mouth is the only bit of erotic landscape visible when a woman is dressed. It is the symbol of every moist cavern a woman possesses, which all men are bound to seek out, we have no choice.”

Scott looped his arm around Fred’s shoulders and said, “You see? You are an artist!”

“Who doubted it?”

This set the three of them off into a discussion about whether filmmaking was a legitimate art form and who thought so and who thought not, and whether talkies like last fall’s The Jazz Singer were going to alter Hollywood forever.

I’d resigned myself to waiting out the remainder of the night, my mind already wandering to subjects of more interest to me—Natalie’s salon; ballet with a serious, European teacher; brioches from my favorite boulangerie—when I noticed that Scott was staring at me.

“What? Why are you looking at me like that?”

He stood up and offered his hand. “Dance with me. It’s a waltz.”

I listened to the band; sure enough, they were playing “Kiss Me Again,” which I’d heard on the radio and loved.

“Go on,” Carmel said, nudging me. “Dance with your husband. Or I will.”

But Scott shook his head as I reached for his hand. “No one but Zelda for me.”