Read Online Call Me Zelda by Erika Robuck - Free Book Online

decided, right there on the spot, that I would not share her confessions with anyone. She needed someone in her life not to betray or use her in any way. I would be that person. I could share my insights with Dr. Meyer, but not Zelda’s words.
    “Of course,” I said.
    “And then we’ll burn them,” she said. “Like the salamander.”
    “I’m not familiar with the salamander,” I said.
    “A mythic lizard, purified by fire,” she said. “A woman who burns through men to find her one true love.”
    She struck a match and lit a cigarette, inhaling deeply and filling the space around her with her exhalations.

SIX

    The next day, Zelda pressed papers into my hands and told me I was not to share her remembrances with anyone.
    “Not even Dr. Squires?”
    “Not even Dr. Squires.”
    It pleased me to be in her confidence. I realized this was not healthy, but I had no way to stop my feelings. I wished I could write to Peter that I was someone’s confessor. Perhaps we could discuss it when he came home. I was sure he would have much insight for me.
    I waited for the bus outside the hospital. Since my attack I’d been unable to walk home alone. Even though the dark of winter was crowded out a bit each day by the impending equinox, and in spite of my knowledge that my attacker was in jail, I still couldn’t enjoy my city walks—not yet. After the war I didn’t think I could ever be frightened of anything again.
    I was wrong.
    The bus dropped me very near my apartment, and I walked briskly through the fading light to my building, pausing just a moment to glance at Sorin’s window and see whether he was there.He was and nodded at me. I waved and hurried in the door to show him how responsible I was. No more nighttime walks for me.
    I heard the faraway pounding of the ballerinas on the third floor to a brisk mazurka. I loved how it competed with Sorin’s violin, and privately imagined my piano nudging into the atmospheric score. This thought made me smile. In fact, after I opened the door and locked it behind me, I walked over to the piano and played a quick scale. I could swear that all musical life outside my apartment stopped with my playing, but it soon resumed, making me wonder whether my imagination was running away with me.
    Anxious to get to Zelda’s papers but wishing to savor them without distraction, I hurried through a scrambled egg, a slice of toast, and a small can of peaches. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and slipped into my flannel nightgown. I tucked myself into bed and started reading.
Dear Anna, I’m writing my confessions for you alone. I am no victim. I am no saint. Yet he has paid me back more than he owed and does not know how to stop.
Montgomery, Alabama, 1918
Can you hear the faraway music coming from the faded country club? It is old and the daylight isn’t kind, but the night and the lights along the lip of the roof and the winks of the fireflies and the delicious pines framing it give it an air of romance and mystery. The scent of honeysuckle hangs in the darkness like the thick glop of sugar at the bottom of a glass of lemonade.
Do you see her as she dances the “Dance of the Hours” for the admiring soldiers and the scowling, envious women? She moves with grace and suppleness, and she should have stayed with the dance, but that’s for later.
There was one soldier who looked out of place. It was his large, sad eyes she noticed first, the heavy fringe of lashes. He was pretty enough to be a woman. She could see that she had him already, which was a shame, because she did like a challenge, but he’d do. At the time he was just another stub in her scrapbook, a pressed flower, a name on a dance card: “Scott Fitzgerald.”
“And how do you do, Mr. Fitzgerald?” she asked. “Have you ever seen so fine and beautiful a dancer?”
He was taken aback but pleased. A slow smile spread across his face. Ooh, she could love that face.
“I don’t think I ever want to see someone dance