Free Call Me Zelda by Erika Robuck

dancers answered the door together and looked at each other in surprise to see me there.
    “Pardon me for coming so early, but I heard you were awake,” I said.
    I blushed as I realized it must sound like I was spying on them.
    “It’s okay,” said the taller of the two. “May we help you?”
    “I have a question about a dance.”
    They smiled. A pair of Cheshire cats.
    “Come in.”
    Their rooms had the ethereal quality of a dream. The scents of talc, sweat, and camphor hung in the pale pink mesh curtains that adorned the windows and doorways. Dried flowers rested in glasses and old cans covered in fabric, the relics of gifts from past performances. The gramophone sat near a wall, at rest, out of the faint morning sunlight that nudged its way into the cool room.
    “I’m Anna,” I said as I settled on the sofa where they’d directed me—springs poking my back through the floral covering.
    “Julia.”
    “Rose.”
    “Pleased to meet you,” I began. “I have a…friend who recently wrote to me. She told me she danced the ‘Dance of the Hours’ for someone, and I couldn’t imagine the scene, though it was one I wished heartily to imagine.” My voice trailed off. It seemed silly asking them instead of Zelda, but I wanted to ask Zelda only questions of deep importance so she did not get sidetracked. In case this was an incidental detail, I wanted to know before I saw her.
    The smaller of the two, Julia, stood and walked to the large box next to the gramophone.
    “Ponchielli, La Gioconda ,” called Rose from across the room.
    Julia leveled a gaze at Rose as if to say, I know . She fingered through the records until she found what she was looking for. Her eyes lit and she pulled the object of her search. She slid the record from its worn paper covering and set it upon the machine. She wound the crank, released the break with her ballet-slippered foot, and placed the needle about a third of the way onto the record. The scratch of the needle preceded a loud, vigorous chorus and she lifted it. She moved it slightly closer to the center and placed it down again. A chorus faded, there was a moment of silence, and then a gentle, lilting, almost playful melody began.
    Julia did some halfhearted steps along with it, as if she were posing for stills, but when the music became swinging and somber she began to dance more seriously. Rose joined her and they danced with all of the poise of an onstage performance. The harp and violins quieted the mood for a few minutes, but the finish was sweeping and dramatic—almost frenzied. Then came the sound of a bell.
    “A funeral bell,” said Rose. “Signifying the pretend death of a woman administered a sedative to take her away from her terrible husband to her lover.”
    “Assisted by a woman who also loved the lover but whose purity and goodness longed more for his happiness than her own.”
    “A beautiful tragedy,” finished Rose.
    I was touched by the music and the story. The progression from light to somber to frantic seemed to carry some greater connection to the Fitzgeralds’ life that had been almost prophetic. What if they’d listened to the message of the song that first night at the country club? Would their story end well or with the frenzied dawn and the tolling of the bell?
    Suddenly overcome by emotion and realizing I would be late, I excused myself to the confused and troubled faces of the ballerinas and hurried to catch the bus to the hospital.

    Z elda sat with her back to me as I entered the room.
    “Anna,” she said.
    “How did you know it was me?” I asked.
    “Because you make almost no noise at all when you walk, and yet I could feel someone enter.”
    “My mother used to reprimand me for that,” I said. “Said I used to scare her to death.”
    “You couldn’t scare a mouse,” she said. “Sometimes I pretend I made you up. My imaginary friend. A ghost.”
    I didn’t know how that was supposed to make me feel. She said it kindly, but it was