Call Me Zelda (43 page)

Amelia and an older man stood on the porch in their nightclothes, watching as a fire truck rushed past the inn and turned down the street. She gave me a worried look as the smell of smoke hit me.

“Fire,” she said. “Bad one, by the smell of it.”

“My goodness, I wonder where it is?”

“Looks like it’s just up the street there,” said the man.

A cold, hollow feeling began in my stomach. My thoughts began to race. My dream, the diaries, the salamander.

My God, she couldn’t have.

I shot off the porch like a bullet and began running down the route I’d traveled to and from earlier that day. Amelia called after me, but I ignored her and ran faster.

It didn’t take me long to reach Zillicoa Street and Highland Hospital, blazing like a pocket of hell. I was unable to move for a moment while I watched the flames digesting the old wooden building with sickening speed. Fire trucks and ambulances surrounded Highland, and people ran to and from the front of the hospital. The heat from the fire singed my face and made it hard to breathe.

I ran to a group of patients crying and screaming by a tree. A doctor tried to calm them, and looked like he’d been badly burned. I scanned their faces but did not see Zelda.
My God!
Zelda said she was sedated and locked in her room at night. She couldn’t have started the fire, but how could she get out?

A terrible howl sounded from inside the building, an anguished sound such as I’d heard in the war all those years ago, and I screamed, “Zelda!”

Without thinking I raced toward the entrance and climbed the stairs, plunging into the inferno. A fireman passed me carrying a woman in pajamas who clutched him around the neck. “No, you have to get out of here,” he yelled.

“My friend, I have to get my friend!” I cried.

I didn’t stop to negotiate with him, but started up the stairs.

Nurse Jane passed me, dragging two patients behind her.

“Jane, do you have her?”

She shook her head, sobbing, and continued down the stairs.

Black swells stung my eyes and made a vise around my throat. I looked up to the upper floors but couldn’t see anything except flames and smoke. Another scream pierced the night from above, followed by a terrible cracking sound.

I tore off my robe and covered my face, trying to form a pocket where I could breathe, when a fireman suddenly lunged at me from behind. He began to pull me down the stairs, and when I tried to resist, he lifted me and carried me screaming out of the house.

He ran with me out to the lawn, and just as he dropped me under a tree, a large section of the roof collapsed, sending a firestorm of sparks into the air. A burst of heat washed over us, and as the terrible screams from inside stopped, I lost consciousness.

“A
nna. Anna.”

I could hear Will’s voice through the fog and I opened my eyes. Everything was blurry, so I blinked until I had a clear picture of my love standing over me with fear in his red-rimmed eyes.

“Anna!”

I felt his hands on my sides, the oxygen mask pressing into my face, and a terrible burning pressure in my chest. My head ached.

“Anna, thank God, you’re awake. Are you okay?”

I nodded and he pressed into me, beginning to cry. I started to cough, deep rasping coughs, and pulled off the mask until the fit subsided. I’d never felt such pain in my head before, and I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the light coming in from the hospital window.

“Close the curtain,” I said in a hoarse whisper.

He jumped up to close it, and came back to me, taking my hand in his.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, feeling the tears well up in my own eyes. It actually felt good for them to spill out, because it relieved some of the pressure in my head.

“No,” he said. “Don’t apologize.”

I knew he understood. He’d been in war before, and knew what you did for your friends. I also knew the truth, but I needed to ask him and for him to speak the words. “Did she…”

He nodded and ran his hand over my head.

“Did they find her?” I said.

He inhaled and sighed deeply. “Do you want to talk about this now?”

“No,” I said. “But I have to.”

He nodded again. “They identified her from a charred dancing slipper that was with her body.”

Nausea rose in me and I closed my eyes, determined to fight it. When the feeling subsided, I opened my eyes again.

“Did they determine how the fire started?” I asked.

I held my breath, waiting for his answer. I knew that Zelda would have been sedated, but I feared that she could have hidden the pill and not taken it, and burned her diaries the way she’d burned her confessions. Though I really couldn’t believe that, based on her state of mind when I’d been with her.

“They don’t know yet,” he said.

My tears began to fall again. He reached up and brushed them away.

“When you called me after you met with her,” he said, “you told me how peaceful she’d been, and how moved she was to have the diaries, and her excitement over going to Montgomery with you. She didn’t start that fire, Anna.”

I reached for him and he leaned down to hug me. I felt warm and safe, and so relieved to be with him. I buried my face in his neck and kissed him.

“I want to go home,” I said. “I need our home. I need to see the children. And Peter and Dad.”

He pulled back and rested his chin on his hand on the bed. He reached for my hair again and smoothed it. Then he reached for my hand and kissed it.

“I think she’s finally at peace,” he said.

I took in his words, and remembered my dream of Scott and Zelda in the garden, and I prayed that he was right.

H
e was right.

As it turns out, the fire began in the kitchen. Zelda had been locked in her room that night. There was no way she could have started the fire; nor could she have escaped it.

We laid Zelda to rest in Rockville, Maryland, with Scott, on March 17, 1948, on a warm, peaceful St. Patrick’s Day.

Scottie was there, poised and beautiful. She hugged me and thanked me for coming and for being her mother’s friend. I told her that I’d been with Zelda the day she’d died, and that she’d spoken so fondly of Scottie. I did not tell her about the diaries, for some reason. It seemed to me something that would burden Scottie rather than lift her.

Mrs. Turnbull, the owner of La Paix, placed two delicate wreaths of pansies at the grave. They were Zelda’s favorite flowers from the estate, and the wreaths stood side by side over the Fitzgeralds’ grave, over a picture of Scott and Zelda together in their younger years, before the trouble began.

When everyone left, I remained at the grave, praying for Zelda and for Scott, listening to the toll of the church bells. While I stood there, I felt a warm breeze pass over me, carrying with it a light, sweet fragrance like magnolia. I looked up at the photograph of the writer and his muse and remembered the day on the way to New York when the two of them had fallen asleep together on the train, their heads resting against each other, their arms entwined.

I still think of them this way every day, and I rest knowing that they are finally at peace—the mythic salamander and her one true love.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I knew I wanted to write about Zelda while I researched my novel
Hemingway’s Girl,
because Ernest Hemingway’s hatred of her intrigued me. I know Hemingway didn’t mean to do it, but I fell in love with Zelda, and for that I want to thank him.

I want to thank God for timing, serendipity, and inspiration, and for giving me the most supportive family on earth.

To my mother-in-law, Patricia Robuck, whose work as a nurse who stayed long past her shift inspired that aspect of Anna’s character. To my parents, Robert and Charlene Shephard, whose complete love and support inspired the characters of Anna’s parents. To Richard Robuck, father-in-law, war veteran, and babysitter extraordinaire. To my uncle, Richard Shephard, for information about working with copper to make wind chimes. To the priests I’ve known who have been some of the best friends and spiritual guides in my life. To my early readers not mentioned above: Jami Carr, Alexis McKay, and Heather Pacheco. To Dave Tieff, songwriter and enthusiastic cheerleader of other artists. To all of you, I extend my heartfelt thanks.

To my writing partners, Jennifer Lyn King and Kelly McMullen—two women on two sides of the world and as far
from me in location as they could possibly be—who have championed, critiqued, listened, counseled, and supported me so much. There are not enough languages to properly express my gratitude to you.

I am so grateful for my agent, Kevan Lyon. She has been such an enthusiastic supporter of my work and a friend. Also my editor, Ellen Edwards, who so precisely knows how to draw the depth out of my work and inspire me to complete the story the way it wants to be revealed. I also want to thank everyone at NAL/Penguin who has given me so much time, attention, and support, including Kara Welsh, Craig Burke, Fiona Brown, Sarah Janet, and so many more. Thank you.

To the Oregon Retreat Women: Kristina McMorris, Sarah McCoy, Therese Walsh, Jael McHenry, Julie Kibler, Margaret Dilloway, Marilyn Brant, and Sarah Reed Callender: You all are like the sorority sisters I never had—XO.

To Book Pregnant. You know who you are and why you are so incredibly important to me.

For assistance with the historical aspects of this novel, I extend my deep thanks to Mare Thomas of the Maryland Historical Society, Doug Skeen of the Enoch Pratt Library, and Gabriel Swift at Princeton University. Thank you to Taft Utermohl, docent at the Johns Hopkins Evergreen Museum, who so kindly escorted me through
Choreography in Color
, an exhibit of Zelda Fitzgerald’s paintings, arranged by Laura Maria Somenzi. I’d also like to thank Gwendolyn Owens, who so generously trusted me with the documentary
Marked for Glory
that her father made about the Fitzgeralds, and for her kind assistance answering questions about Zelda.

Finally, over the ten years I’ve been seriously committed to the novel form, my husband, Scott Robuck, has been my partner in every sense. He has listened enthusiastically to endless talk of dead writers, read very rough drafts of my work, and taken
wonderful care of our three sons while I traveled to book clubs, writing conferences, or simply coffee with writing partners. He is the very definition of what a husband should be, and writing about such dysfunctional spouses was easy because I simply had to write about the opposite of what I’ve experienced over the life of our marriage. I love you, Scott.

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