Villa America (37 page)

All at once, when the slide trombone cut in, Baoth jumped out from behind a curtain onto the terrace holding some kind of elaborate guitar, and he started playing it, loudly and out of tune, and hopping around until the song ended.

“Goodness,” Sara said when it was over, “that was marvelous.” She kissed Baoth’s collarbone, and he leaned against her, winding an arm around her neck.

“It was the black bottom dance,” Baoth said.

Gerald stood and clapped. “We’re going to have to sell you to a dance troupe, you’re so good. Also, we really could use the money.”

“
No, Dow-Dow,”
Honoria shrieked.

“No, Dow-Dow,” Patrick repeated and ran over and clung to Gerald’s leg.

 He was so small, Owen noticed. Everything was so small. And fragile. How had he never realized that?

“Well, what do you say, Sal?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Sara said. “I quite love them. Maybe we should keep them for ourselves.”

“Oh, all right,” Gerald said.

“What did you think, Owen?” Sara said, turning to him.

“It was great,” Owen said. “You were great.” He stopped. He felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. “I’m sorry, but I just remembered, I have to meet my mechanic. Go over some things.” He stood up.

“Now?” Gerald looked at him, surprised.

But Sara just held on tight to Baoth.

“Yes,” Owen said. “You know, I’d just forgotten. But thank you, for everything.”

“I’ll walk you out,” Gerald said.

“No, stay,” he said, but Gerald followed him out anyway.

Owen got in the car and shut the door.

“Owen,” Gerald said.

“Don’t,” he said, turning the engine over. “Not for a while.” And he quickly backed out and drove away from Villa America.

Gerald waited a week. Well, in a way. He had gone up to Owen’s place the next morning but hadn’t found him there. He wasn’t sure if this was the type of circumstance in which one should wait or in which one should definitely not wait, because he wasn’t clear as to what had actually happened. Only that something about them all being together at Villa America that evening had upset him.

When his effort to see Owen failed, he’d decided that perhaps he should respect his wishes and stay away until Owen came looking for him. Yet the expression on Owen’s face when he’d driven off haunted Gerald. There’d been a kind of desolation etched across his features that had at first stunned, then panicked him.

He tried writing him a letter, but he didn’t know what to say. There was nothing, really, he could say to make it come out the way Owen wanted it to.

So he waited.

Things were gearing up at the house; the Hemingways had arrived, and of course Sara had planned a Dinner-Flowers-Gala for them with the MacLeishes, the Barrys, and the Fitzgeralds.

In honor of the occasion, Gerald had concocted a new cocktail that he’d named a Bailey; it called for Booth’s gin, lime juice, grapefruit juice, torn mint, and a great deal of ice. He was perfecting the first round now and making notes in his bar book.

Sara, already dressed and smelling beautiful, came up behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

“There’s something going on between Ernest and Hadley,” she said. “What is it with married people these days? What do they all
have?
I don’t think I can stand another shock.”

“What do you mean? What kind of shock?” he asked, turning around. “Wait. Don’t answer. Try this first.” And he held out the drink so she could take a sip.

“Perfect,” she said. “Oh, I don’t know. Whatever’s going on with Scott and Zelda. And now this.”

“Now what?”

“They aren’t even looking at each other,” she said.

“Well, maybe they just had a row.”

“No, because Ernest took me aside and said he had something to tell me.”

“Of course he did.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well,” Gerald said, “maybe he wants to introduce you to someone. You’ll probably like him, he’s tough.”

Sara laughed. “Oh, shut up. He’s just attracted to those sort of people.”

“Fine, but does he always have to finish his description with that word? If I hear one more time about someone or something being tough…”

Sara sighed. “Never mind that, Jerry. I’m telling you, there’s something going on.”

Now it was his turn to sigh. “I’m sure we’ll hear about it tonight, if that’s the case. I think I’m going to restrict our guests to two cocktails before dinner.”

“Isn’t that a bit cheap?”

“It’s called survival,” he said.

She rubbed his earlobe. “You have lovely ears,” she said. “May I have a drink now? One that doesn’t count towards my two?”

“I trust
you,
” he said, and he poured her a Bailey.

Gerald took a small group down to his studio to show them
Bibliothèque.
Archie had expressed an interest in his work in progress, and then Zelda, perhaps suspecting they were about to do something exciting, had joined in, and Scott had tagged along because Zelda went, although Gerald knew he had absolutely no interest in paintings.

Archie looked at the canvas thoughtfully. “It’s severe, I’ll say that.”

“It’s my father’s study,” Gerald said. “Or, rather, my impression of it.”

“There are no titles on the book spines,” Archie said, peering a bit closer. “Or country names on the globe. Learning for learning’s sake?”

“Perhaps something like that,” Gerald said.

“Who is that creepy bust?” Zelda asked, mildly interested. “He looks like he’s spying on you from behind that column.”

“Caesar?” Archie said.

Gerald laughed. “No, not Caesar.”

“Ahh,” Archie said, smiling. “I believe that’s Gerald’s pater.”

Scott yawned.

“It’s not finished yet,” Gerald said, replacing the drop cloth.

“It’s very effective,” Archie said as they walked back out into the soft evening air.

They picked up their cocktails, which they’d left in a row, like soldiers, on the wall outside the studio.

“I have to talk about Ernest and Hadley,” Scott said, suddenly animated, anxious even. “I know we shouldn’t, but I can’t stand it.”

“What about them?” Archie asked.

“They’re breaking up,” Scott said. “You didn’t know? None of you?”

Gerald had seen Ernest talking quite seriously with Sara in the living room before they’d come down to the studio, but he hadn’t thought too much of it.

“They’re divorcing?” he said now. He couldn’t believe it. Of course people divorced, but he’d never been close to anyone who had. Not really. It felt momentous.

“It’s all cracked up between them.” Scott looked genuinely upset. “I can’t understand it, though. There’s some mess with Pauline. Ernest thinks he’s in love with her. Hadley’s making him choose.”

“Oh, I think she’d be lucky to get rid of that one,” Zelda said, and Scott shot her a dark look.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Archie said. “I’ll be goddamned. Poor Hem.”

“Poor Hadley,” Gerald said.

“Yes, her too,” Archie said.

The three men leaned back against the wall contemplating this while Zelda practiced pliés on the path in front of them.

“I suppose they always were an odd match,” Gerald said.

“Why do you say that?” Archie asked.

“She was so, I don’t know, naive? Basic? None of those are the right words, but Ernest seems to have more drive in him, I suppose.”

“Huh,” Archie said. “It never occurred to me that they were unhappy. Or mismatched, as you put it.” He exhaled loudly and then swallowed the rest of his drink. “I hate finding out that things are different than what they seem.”

Gerald looked at him.

“We have to help him,” Scott said.

“Not much we can do there,” Archie said.

“Well, with his work, then.”

“Yes, this new book. I suppose
you
can do something. I don’t know what,” Archie said. “What’s it about exactly?”

Before Scott or Gerald could answer, Zelda, in the middle of an
effacé,
said: “Bullfighting, bull-slinging, and bullshit.”

“Zelda,” Scott said fiercely. “Don’t talk like that. Say anything you want, but lay off Ernest.”

“Try and make me,” Zelda said.

“What have you got against Ernest?” Gerald asked.

Zelda stopped her movements, came to rest on both feet, and looked at Gerald straight on. “He’s bogus,” she said, and then she walked off up the path.

“She doesn’t know what she’s talking about,” Scott said. “Ignore her.”

But Gerald was rather astonished by her comment. He never would’ve described Ernest as bogus. Intimidating, yes; overbearing, definitely; perhaps overly concerned with masculine pride. But a fake? He wondered if, with all his own disguises, he had no accurate perception of the disguises of others. He felt a dread come over him.

The strangeness of the evening, and Gerald’s unease, only continued to deepen. As he carried on a halfhearted conversation with Phil and Ellen Barry, who, fed up with New York and with Broadway, were considering moving permanently to Antibes, he couldn’t help eavesdropping on an extraordinary discussion Scott and Zelda were having with Hadley. He saw now that Hadley did indeed look drawn and unhappy. What had he thought before? That she was tired? Archie’s comment about things not being what they seemed echoed in his head.

“Well, you know that I had an affair,” Zelda was saying, her face very solemn.

Hadley looked as if an ice bucket had just been dropped on her head.

Scott, standing with his arm around Zelda, nodded. He looked even paler than usual. “His name,” Scott said, “was Edouard Jozan.”

“He loved me passionately, dearly,” Zelda said.

Scott’s face took on an expression of distress, but to Gerald, it looked rehearsed.

“But it was hopeless,” Zelda said. “Hopeless, hopeless, hopeless.”

“Because Zelda could never truly love anyone but me,” Scott said, and Gerald thought he saw tears in his eyes.

“And when Edouard realized this…” Zelda stopped and looked at Scott.

“He committed suicide,” Scott said.

Gerald had to make a concerted effort not to burst out laughing. This was patently untrue; in fact, he’d seen Jozan last year in Antibes, alive and well. He’d told Gerald that he was leaving the Riviera for a post in Indochina.

But then it came to Gerald, why they’d concocted this narrative, and he didn’t feel like laughing at all: the idea of Jozan killing himself was the only way they’d been able to survive the realization that perhaps they weren’t fated to be, that circumstance, not destiny, had brought them together.

Hadley didn’t seem to understand why she’d been singled out for this horrific story, and, obviously hurt, she just backed away from them.

Gerald decided to rescue her. “Another cocktail?”

“I thought there was a two-drink limit,” Hadley said. “Sara informed me.”

“We’re very understanding here,” Gerald said. “Exceptions can always be made.”

“I can’t go in there,” she said, indicating the bar in the living room where Ernest and Sara were still deep in conversation, ensconced in the white satin sofa.

“No,” he said, “of course not. I’ll fetch it.”

“No,” she said. “Don’t leave me alone.”

He put his hand over hers. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking. I won’t leave you.”

“Actually,” she said, “I’m quite tired. Would you mind walking me to the
bastide
? I don’t want to worry Ernest, but for some reason, I don’t want to walk in there by myself.”

Gerald offered her his arm. “I don’t like to walk alone either,” he said.

Sara looked down the length of the table where her friends and her husband were gathered. The cloth was dotted with small bouquets of pink roses and yellow mimosa from the garden, and in the middle, her mother’s silver-and-glass candelabra threw warm light on her guests’ faces.

She had been very sad to hear what Ernest had to tell her. He was obviously torn about what to do, and she wished she could somehow make it better for him. She was glad, though, that if he had to go through heartbreak, he was doing it here, among people who loved and admired him. Hadley, it seemed, had skipped out on dinner, but she could understand that.

In her heart, Sara felt that Hadley should never have forced him to choose between two kinds of love. The only reason for asking the question “Do you love X?” was to be told no, a risk. Or for the questionable vindication of being right when told yes. And what good came of that?

She felt a husband and wife should make each other happy in as many ways as they knew how. But what you did not do, even for a second, was allow the possibility that another could supersede you, could break you or wreck you. It wasn’t denial; it was survival in a long relationship. But even as the thought crossed her mind, she wondered if she was fooling herself.

Gerald, who had put a Schubert record on the gramophone, returned to his seat and raised his glass.

“To my wife,” he said.

“To Sara” came the murmur from the table.

She clinked with Archie, seated to her right, and then Scott, seated to her left. Tintine served the first course—artichokes with a poached egg in the center—and they all began to eat.

Afterward, when the music had stopped, Sara said: “I can hear the nightingales. I love that. I love that we can always, always hear them.”

“They went so well with the Schubert,” Ada said, smiling at the other end of the table.

“They did, didn’t they?” Sara looked at her friend. “Would you do something for me?”

“Anything,” Ada said.

“Will you sing something for us?”

“Now?”

“Mmm.”

“No,” Ada said, and Sara could see her coloring a little in the candlelight. “I don’t want to be responsible for ruining your evening.”

“Come on, Ada,” Archie said. “Don’t be shy. You never are at home.”

“Or in public, for that matter,” Ellen Barry said.

“Oh, yes, well, for the less discerning public,” Ada said. “That’s one thing.”

“No, please,” Sara said. “I want to hear your beautiful voice singing with the nightingales.”

“You shall never be invited back if you don’t sing for your supper,” Gerald said.