Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald Read Online Free PDF Page A

wanted to tell him what I liked to read, and then we could talk about things from those books. India, for instance; I’d been reading Kipling since forever. And Joseph Conrad’s made-up Costaguana, from Nostromo —had he ever heard of it? Where exactly did he think it was? Tarzan of the Apes —had he read that one? Africa, now that was a place to talk about!
    “The ‘actual book’ part may be a while, yet,” he said. “Alas. I’ll lend you something else in the meantime, though, if you like. Do you enjoy reading?”
    “I’ll read most anything. My friend Sara Haardt just sent me the strangest story, Herland, it was in a magazine, and it’s about a society that’s made only of women. I wouldn’t like that much.”
    He grinned. “Good news, all.”
    None of the boys I knew had much interest in books. For them it was football and horses and hounds. I looked at Scott there in the rosy light, his hair and skin and eyes aglow with joy and ambition and enthusiasm, and was dazzled.
    “ Here she is,” Eleanor said, slipping her arm around my waist. A linebacker-size fella was with her. “I thought maybe you’d snuck off like last time.”
    Scott said, “Snuck off? Had I but known—”
    “To smoke, ” El said the moment after I pinched her. “She’d snuck off to smoke with a couple of the older girls.”
    “Older than…?”
    “Seventeen,” I told him. “I’m seventeen ’til July twenty-fourth, that’s twenty-six—well, nearly twenty-five, really—days from now, given how it’s closing in on midnight. Twenty-five days, and then I’m eighteen.”
    “After which time she’ll be far less annoying, I hope. We don’t smoke much,” El assured him. “But it’s good for preventing sore throats.”
    “It’s good for making you feel good,” I said, “which is why the law and my daddy have always been against women doing it.”
    “Who are you, by the way?” El asked Scott. She pointed at her companion and said, “This here new friend of mine, who is about to be on his way, is Wilson Crenshaw Whitney the Third.”
    “Scott Fitzgerald, the one and only,” Scott told the two of them. Then, looking at me, he added, “Who very much wishes he didn’t have to do the same.”
    “I purely hate that I have to go home,” I told him. “If I wasn’t a girl—”
    “—I wouldn’t insist you allow me to phone you tomorrow. All right?”
    “There’s my consolation, then,” I said. The phaeton was rolling to a stop in front of us. I followed El to its door, adding, “Judge Anthony Sayre’s residence. The operator will put you right through.”
    *   *   *
    The morning’s scattered clouds had, by afternoon, formed themselves into great towering columns with broad anvil tops while I lay on my bed, diary open, pencil in hand. I had one ear attuned to the thunder that might spoil my evening plans, and the other waiting for the telltale three short rings that indicated a telephone call for our residence. Scott still hadn’t phoned, and now I was almost certain that he wouldn’t. He’s all words, no substance, I thought. Writers are probably like that.
    Tootsie appeared at my bedroom door. “Teatime. Katy’s got lemon pie, or tomato sandwiches—and I have gin.”
    “So Mama has gone out.”
    “Baby, I’m twenty-nine. Not exactly a schoolgirl, Lord.”
    “Yet you still wait ’til Mama’s gone to pour a drink.”
    “I try to be considerate. Anyway, it’s Daddy we need to worry about most … and God help me if he ever sees me smoking. I’m goin’ to muddle up some mint and raspberries to go with that gin. Are you game?”
    “Okay, sure.” I glanced at my diary, where I’d been writing about the morning’s Service League work. We volunteers had served doughnuts and coffee to soldiers at the train station canteen, and a married officer had taken an obvious shine to me. Though I knew I was supposed to discourage his interest, I flirted with him anyway. He was attractive and funny,