Call Me Zelda (45 page)

6. Does the novel suggest that there is an honest link between the drive for artistic expression and out-of-control behavior that sometimes masks the artist’s inner torment, and can even lead to mental illness? Does the novel suggest that artists are justified in “acting out,” or is that just an excuse for their bad behavior? Consider Zelda’s attempts at self-expression, and Scott’s struggle to finish his novel. Consider Sorin’s musical composition and his explanation to Anna of his creative process.

7. What is Peter’s role in the novel? Why did the author include a Catholic priest, and give him such a close relationship with the narrator, Anna? What is Sorin’s role? Is it important that he turns up late in the novel, after being absent for many pages?

8. Discuss how the various mothers in the novel express love for their children. Is it different from the way the fathers express love?

9. Why do you think the author includes the ghost at the abandoned home where the Fitzgeralds once lived? Is Anna’s sensing a ghost all that different from the inner voices that Zelda hears?

10. When Anna decides to try to find Zelda’s diaries for her, Peter quotes a verse from the Bible: “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Discuss how both Anna and Zelda, and other characters, take risks and make sacrifices for one another. In your own life, how have your friendships been shaped by the sacrifices you’ve made?

11. Toward the end of the book Anna takes a journey by car in 1948 that is quite different from what a similar journey would be like today. Drawing from your own experience and understanding of the day, talk about what travel and communication were like back in the 1920s through the 1950s, especially before the interstate highway system was built after World War II and before long-distance phone calls became routine.

12. Compare the psychiatric care that Zelda receives in the 1930s to what she would likely receive today. In what ways might her care be improved and in what ways might it be worse? Would she have as many choices now as she did then?

13. Have you read Zelda’s novel
Save Me the Waltz
or Scott’s novel
Tender Is the Night
? Does reading this novel make you want to take on the challenge of reading and comparing them?

14. Finally, what do you think you will take away from having read
Call Me Zelda
? What aspects will resonate and linger for you?

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OTHER NOVELS BY ERIKA ROBUCK

Hemingway’s Girl

Receive Me Falling

Edna St. Vincent Millay

is the fascinating focus of Erika Robuck’s stunning new novel,

Fallen Beauty

Available from New American Library

in print and e-book in March 2014.

An excerpt follows. . . .

Part One:

March 1928

First Fig

My candle burns at both ends;

It will not last the night;

But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—

It gives a lovely light!

~Edna St. Vincent Millay

Chapter One

Laura

Our quick breath encircled our heads in the late-winter air as he pulled me by the hand, through lines of Model Ts and Cadillac Coupes, toward the glow of the Colonial Theatre. My body coursed with elation and guilt, every bit as intoxicating as the rum drinks he’d mixed for us out of the trunk of his car. The frenzy of the Jazz Age had overflowed from the cities into smaller towns like ours in music, film, fashion, and literature, resulting in restlessness and tension between generations and ideals. Fueled by the energy of the new, we had toasted our agreement: That night it was only us in the world, and we would live like it was ours.

He’d lifted a triple-stranded pearl necklace over my head and set it on my skin, kissing the scar on my collarbone, a relic from the first night we’d found each other. He whispered that the necklace was only costume jewelry, but one day he’d buy me the real thing.

As we hurried toward the theater, it occurred to me that time was made of moments like doorways one could never go back through to the way it was after crossing them. That night was a doorway, but I had no power to stop our passage. Distant church bells ignited my doubts like incense, however, and I dug my heels into the grass. When my love turned to see why I’d stopped, his profile stirred me—the sharp jawline, the fine sheen on his skin from his exertion, his pale blue eyes shining from the light of the theater. I often think of him that way, outlined in the lights, with the grin of the waxing crescent moon over us, leading me toward the most exhilarating night of my life.

“It’s all right,” he said. “We’ve come this far.”

Cold air tickled my neck from my newly bobbed blond hair. I glanced down at my gold evening dress and touched the matching feathered headband I’d sewn in secret, night after night, hiding it from my father and even my sister, losing sleep because I knew they must not know. They wouldn’t approve or understand, and my younger sister would have wanted to come. In the eighteen years since her birth, just a year after mine, I’d never kept anything from Marie, but that night I wanted something for myself, alone.

My love had motored us an hour north and east from our Hudson River Valley town of Chatham, New York, to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, to see the Ziegfeld Follies—a daring show featuring the most beautiful girls, talented dancers, and elaborate traveling production in the world. The famous Denishawn Dancers were fresh from the Orient, in company with their well-known leaders, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn and the glamorous Marilyn Miller, preparing to dazzle the sold-out crowd. The car ride had been thrilling and terrifying—a reminder of the first night we’d officially met, when we’d traveled these roads but things had gone very wrong.

I allowed him to continue leading me toward the theater. Competing perfumes hung in the air over the line of theatergoers we joined that bordered the building. Street scalpers hid in the shadows behind the Colonial, trying to sell their tickets. I squeezed my love’s hand and leaned into him, relishing the freedom to do so in public, away from the disapproving eyes of our town. He wrapped his arms around me and nuzzled my neck.

I noticed a woman of about thirty in a sagging gray dress and coat, wringing her hands and pacing in what looked like indecision. She stood near a scalper and flicked her gaze between the theater and the man before finally approaching him and offering him something from her threadbare clutch. He looked her up and down and rolled his eyes, shaking his head. I could see only the back of her, her unwashed hair in a flimsy bun, and the soles of her shoes so scuffed and worn, I imagined she could feel the chill of the ground reaching through them.

The scalper shooed her away, and when she turned toward me, she nearly broke my heart. She was crying—crying because she couldn’t go in to see a show.

“Laura, why are you so troubled?”

The woman removed a crumpled handkerchief from her purse and wiped her nose.

“She doesn’t have enough money to go in,” I said, “and she looks as if her life depends upon it.”

He followed my gaze and saw her. His eyebrows knitted together.

“Do you have any cash?” I asked. “I have two dollars. The tickets are five, though who knows how much he’s charging for them?”

He hesitated a moment, but when he saw the look in my eyes, he pulled a five from his wallet and said, “Let’s give her a night like we’ve given ourselves.”

He walked over to the man and bought the ticket, and brought it back to me. “You give it to her. You saw her. And I don’t want her to think I’m some kind of chisel.”

She had started to walk away, so I hurried after her. “Ma’am.”

She turned, and looked with curiosity over my headband and dress peeking through my open coat. I could see her wondering what a ritzy gal like me wanted with the likes of her. I nearly told her that I was usually dressed as plainly as she, but I didn’t want to insult her.

“I have an extra ticket, and noticed that you wanted to go in,” I said. “Please take it.”

She looked to the left and right and then back at me with a troubled expression, as if she thought I was trying to frame her. This was a woman unused to kindness.

“Please,” I said, smiling to reassure her. “The doors are opening. We don’t want to miss any of the show.”

She hesitated a moment, and then took the ticket. “Thank you. May I give you what I have?” She held out a dollar bill.

“No,” I said.

“Laura,” he called.

“Enjoy,” I said, and hurried to him. When I looked back at the woman, I could see her eyes glistening in the marquee lights.

•   •   •

As white spotlights rolled around the theater, the music of the fifty-piece orchestra began with the brassy majesty of a Hollywood production. I clenched my love’s hand, dizzy with excitement and awe. The heavy red velvet curtain rose, revealing a long, curving staircase in front of a shimmering silver curtain. Three chandeliers lifted, and lights embedded in the arches over the fixtures and woven through the silver curtain twinkled in time to the music.

The procession of the famous Ziegfeld girls began down the stairs, women of extraordinary beauty and grace parading like swans in white-feathered headpieces and sequined bodysuits. I was astonished to see their long, bare legs, and covered my mouth while meeting my date’s gaze. He smiled and squeezed me close to him before he turned back to face the stage.

They began singing the opening number, while a seemingly endless parade of male dancers crossed in front from either side, pairing up with the women as they reached the bottom of the staircase, and leading them to the four corners of the stage. I could barely stand to move my eyes off the performers, but I wanted to take in the audience around me. I scanned the boxes and rows, and found the woman from outside who almost hadn’t made the show. She wore a look of ecstasy that moved me.

I returned my focus to the stage, not moving for the rest of the production. From birds to angels, gods and goddesses, I was transfixed by the transformations of the dancers. As the finale approached, Ruth St. Denis danced “The Gold and Black Saree” in a costume tinkling with gold charms and lined in fringe. Watching the way the lights caught the fabric as it clung to and flung away from her body in response to the movements, seeing this American girl transformed into an Indian woman, noting the near hypnosis of the audience, I knew that I wanted be a part of this world. This symphony of sound, light, fabric, and motion aroused a deep longing inside me.

When the show ended with a crescendo, the audience held its collective breath for a long moment, and finally erupted into an ovation. I gazed around at the eager, happy faces and spotted the woman from earlier. She appeared relaxed, exuberant, lit from within. I caught her eye and her smile warmed me. No matter what the critics said about the bare skin, exorbitant production costs, and provocative dances, the show had transformed her, as it had me, and I was glad to have seen it.

•   •   •

Silence filled the car on the drive home. We traveled along dark winding roads, watching the shiver of the breeze through the shadows of budding branches, feeling the melancholy of reality again burdening us. I removed my headband and ran my fingers over the silken feathers, wondering if I’d ever again get to wear such a beautiful costume. I realized it was the costume that had changed me to act in ways I normally would not. It gave me the courage to take the dare, to see the show, to disobey my father.

My mood was so low by the time we drew close to home that I insisted he take me to Bash Bish Falls. My father had led Marie and me there on frequent weekend hikes, but we would never have attempted such a dangerous climb in the dark. Recklessness still pumped through my body, and I wanted some truth to my excursion so I wouldn’t betray myself to my father, and especially to Marie.

“Are you sure?” he said. “You’re not too tired?”

I was tired—to my bones—but I couldn’t stand the thought of the night ending and of no longer being with him, and having to pretend we didn’t love each other.

“I’m sure.”

The light from the moon did little to illuminate the deep shadows in the woods. I removed my high heels and slipped on loafers while keeping on the dress. The car crunched to a stop on the gravel, and we got out and started off on the path to the falls. A false spring had tricked us with early budding, until a cold snap sent us reeling back to winter. Frost encased the trees. My teeth chattered, but I stormed ahead, feeling the energy from earlier reassert itself.

“Laura, wait!” he called.

I lunged back and grabbed his hand, pulling him behind me on the path, feeling the wind in my hair, allowing a laugh to rise in my throat. I looked back at him, and his smile had returned.

The forest closed in over us, and it wasn’t long before the rushing of the falls grew. He struggled to keep up with me as I ran forward. I slid to a stop in the clearing before the magnificent waterfall as a great slab of ice plummeted over the edge above us and crashed into the pools below. Frozen chunks sat like puzzle pieces on the banks, dislodged and crowded, bobbing in the river’s thaw.