Free Save Me the Waltz: A Novel by Zelda Fitzgerald Page A

grunts of suppressed hysteria.
    “He does that way because he’s been operated on,” said David hastily. The Judge bristled.
    “They took out his larynx,” David added in alarm. His eyes wildly sought the protoplasmic face. Luckily, the fellows seemed to be listening to what he was saying.
    “One’s mute,” Alabama explained with inspiration.
    “Well, I’m glad of that,” answered the Judge enigmatically. His tone was not without hostility. He seemed chiefly relieved that any further conversation was precluded.
    “I can’t speak a word,” burst from the ghost unexpectedly. “I’m mute.”
    “Well,” thought Alabama, “this is the end. Now what can we say?”
    Miss Millie was saying that salt air spoiled the table silver. The Judge faced his daughter implacable and reproving. The necessity for saying anything was dispelled by a weird and self-explanatory carmagnole about the table. It was not exactly a dance; it was an interpretive protest against the vertebrate state punctuated by glorious ecstatic paeans of rhythmic backslappings and loud invitations to the Knights to join the party. The Judge and Miss Millie were generously included in the invitation.
    “It’s like a frieze, a Greek frieze,” commented Miss Millie distractedly.
    “It’s not very edifying,” supplemented the Judge.
    Exhausted, the two men wobbled unsteadily to the floor.
    “If David could lend us twenty dollars,” gasped the mass, “we were just going on to the roadhouse. Of course, if he can’t we’ll stay a little longer, maybe.”
    “Oh,” said David, spellbound.
    “Mamma,” said Alabama, “can’t you let us have twenty dollars till we can get to the bank tomorrow?”
    “Certainly, my dear—upstairs in my bureau drawer. It’s a pity your friends have to leave; they seem to be having such a good time,” she continued vaguely.
    The house settled. The cool chirp of the crickets like the crunching of fresh lettuce purged the living room of dissonance. Frogs wheezed in the meadow where the goldenrod would bloom. The family group yielded itself to the straining of the night lullaby through the boughs of the oak.
    “Escaped,” sighed Alabama as they snuggled together in the exotic bed.
    “Yes,” said David, “it’s all right.”
    There were people in automobiles all along the Boston Post Road thinking everything was going to be all right while they got drunk and ran into fireplugs and trucks and old stone walls. Policemen were too busy thinking everything was going to be all right to arrest them.
    It was three o’clock in the morning when the Knights were awakened by a stentorian whispering on the lawn.
    An hour passed after David dressed and went down. The noise rose in increasingly uproarious muffles.
    “Well, then, I’ll take a drink with you if you’ll try to make a little less noise,” Alabama heard David say as she meticulously put on her clothes. Something was sure to happen; it was better to be looking your best when the authorities arrived. They must be in the kitchen. She stuck her head truculently through the swinging door.
    “Now, Alabama,” David greeted her, “I would advise you to keep your nose out of this.” In a husky melodramatic aside he continued confidentially, “This is the most expedient way I could think of——”
    Alabama stared, infuriated over the carnage of the kitchen.
    “Oh, shut up!” she yelled.
    “Now listen, Alabama,” began David.
    “It was you who said all the time that we should be so respectable and now look at you!” she accused.
    “He’s all right. David’s perfectly all right,” the prostrate men muttered feebly.
    “And what if my father comes down now? What’ll he have to say about this being all right?” Alabama indicated the wreckage. “What are all those old cans?” she demanded contemptuously.
    “Tomato juice. It sobers you up. I’ve just been giving some to the guests,” explained David. “First I give them tomato juice and then I give them