Free Call Me Zelda by Erika Robuck Page B

thought that he should come to Baltimore.
    That is, until Dr. Squires showed me the letter he had sent to her.

EIGHT

    March 1932
    Mr. Fitzgerald had a tantrum that started in Alabama on paper, continued as he crashed through the doors of the Phipps Psychiatric Clinic, and exploded as he thundered, gin-soaked, into Dr. Meyer’s office.
    “This is my material, my material ,” he insisted, as he smoked and paced around the office. “How could she go behind my back with your doctor and submit to my editor before I had a chance to read it? I’ve been working on my novel for years, stopping over and over to shit out these short stories to pay the bills and keep her in comfort, and not only does she steal my material, but you help her to do it!”
    He shoved a chair, rocking it dangerously until it settled back on its four legs.
    “Mr. Fitzgerald,” said Dr. Meyer, “I would be glad to have a discourse with you on the subject, but if you continue to act out in a violent manner, I will have you escorted from my hospital.”
    Fitzgerald’s breathing began to slow. His gaze shifted from the chair to me and then to Dr. Squires at the door. I could barelymake eye contact with him, because I was afraid I’d betray my loathing of him at that moment.
    And my guilt.
    Zelda and I had talked long past my shift one night. She told me that Scott wouldn’t approve of her novel, but that she was desperate to send her voice into the world. She told me that she wanted Scott’s editor, Max Perkins, to see it without Scott’s edits, to tell her what he thought. I knew that Dr. Squires said Save Me the Waltz needed editing, but the meat of the story and Zelda’s knack for sensory detail and figurative language were unlike anything she’d seen.
    I had encouraged Zelda to go through Scott first, but she insisted that I send it directly to the editor. She said if Scott touched it, it would be stained, and she would never know whether her writing was worthwhile on its own. She told me that Perkins wouldn’t mind, and if Scott found out he would be only a little mad. I caved in to her pleadings, which was a horrible mistake. I should have anticipated Scott’s response, but I didn’t know him well then, and thought it would be a harmless way to gain Zelda some validation outside of her husband.
    I had helped Zelda package the novel with a short note to the editor and told Dr. Squires I’d post it for Zelda. I did not mention that I was sending it to Perkins and not Scott, but Dr. Squires did not ask, so I told myself it would be all right.
    But it wasn’t.
    To think of the terrible things Scott wrote to Dr. Squires and to Zelda about his outrage at them for not sending him Zelda’s novel first. To think that he demanded his wife ask permission from him before submitting her work to the editor.
    I stood in the doorway of Meyer’s office, feeling layers of unsettling emotions and shaking in my white shoes, wishing I could sneak away, but fascinated to watch Mr. Fitzgerald inenough of a state of disarray to qualify him for admittance to the clinic.
    “Look,” Scott said, turning back to Dr. Meyer, “I am not an unreasonable man. You know how devoted I am to her—you know it. You have to understand the betrayal I feel. To have my greatest novel yet begging for my attention while I’m forced to slave over these little vignettes for the Post or Collier’s or whoever will take the goddamned things for Zelda’s care. To try to keep my daughter three states away in some sort of stable environment while her mother is here sinking deeper and deeper into madness. Then to have Zelda take my novel and turn it into hers. Can’t you understand why I’m frantic? Am I so unreasonable?”
    His eyes darted from Dr. Meyer to Dr. Squires and then to me. When he met my gaze, I recognized his anguish. The stress he was under was enormous, and he did an enviable job of keeping his wife in comfort. Yet he referred to the events that inspired her novel