Read Online Save Me the Waltz: A Novel by Zelda Fitzgerald - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Zelda Fitzgerald
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dollars anyway,” she protested in a logical tone.
“I s’pose not——”
Attenuated odors from the hotel florist tapped the shell of the velvet vacuum like silver hammers.
“Of course, if we have to pay the taxi——”
“Daddy’ll have some money.”
Puffs of white smoke aspired against the station skylight. Lights like unripe citrus fruits hung in the gray day from the steel rafters. Swarms and swarms of people passed each other coming up the stairway. The train clicked up with the noise of many keys turning in many rusty locks.
“If I’d only known it would be like that at Atlantic City,” they said—or, “Could you believe it, we’re half hour late?”—or, “The town hasn’t changed much without us,” they said, rustling their packages and realizing their hats were all wrong for wear in the city.
“There’s Mamma!” cried Alabama.
“Well, how do ye do——”
“Isn’t it a great city, Judge?”
“I haven’t been here since 1882. There’s been considerable change since then,” said the Judge.
“Did you have a nice trip?”
“Where is your sister, Alabama?”
“She couldn’t come down.”
“She couldn’t come down,” corroborated David lamely.
“You see,” went on Alabama at her mother’s look of surprise, “the last time Joan came she borrowed my best suitcase to carry away wet diapers and since then we’ve—well, we haven’t seen her so much.”
“Why shouldn’t she?” the Judge demanded sternly.
“It was my best suitcase,” explained Alabama patiently.
“But the poor little baby,” sighed Miss Millie. “I suppose we can telephone them.”
“You will feel differently about things like that after you have children of your own,” said the Judge.
Alabama wondered suspiciously if her figure showed.
“But I can see how she felt about the suitcase,” continued Millie magnanimously. “Even as a baby, Alabama was particular like that about her own things—never wanted to share them, even then.”
The taxi steamed up the vaporous chute of the station runway.
Alabama didn’t know how to go about asking the Judge to pay the taxi—she hadn’t been absolutely sure of how to go about anything since her marriage had precluded the Judge’s resented direction. She didn’t know what to say when girls postured in front of David hoping to have him sketch them on his shirtfront, or what to do when David raved and ranted and swore that it ruined his talent to have his buttons torn off in the laundry.
“If you children will get these suitcases into the train, I’ll pay the taxi,” said the Judge.
The green hills of Connecticut preached a sedative sermon after the rocking of the gritty train. The gaunt, disciplined smells of New England lawn, the scent of invisible truck gardens bound the air in tight bouquets. Apologetic trees swept the porch, insects creaked in the baking meadows widowed of their crops. There didn’t seem room in the cultivated landscape for the unexpected. If you wanted to hang anybody, reflected Alabama, you’d have to do it in your own backyard. Butterflies opened and shut along the roads like the flash of white in a camera lens. “You couldn’t be a butterfly,” they said. They were silly butterflies, flying about that way and arguing with people about their potentialities.
“We meant to get the grass cut,” began Alabama—“but——”
“It’s much better this way,” finished David. “It’s more picturesque.”
“Well, I like the weeds,” the Judge said amiably.
“They make it smell so sweet in the country,” Miss Millie added. “But aren’t you lonely out here at night?”
“Oh, David’s friends from college come out occasionally and sometimes we go into town.”
Alabama didn’t add how often they went in to New York to waste the extra afternoons sloshing orange juice through bachelor sanctuaries, droning the words to summer behind insoluble locks. They went there ahead, awaiting the passage of that
“I s’pose not——”
Attenuated odors from the hotel florist tapped the shell of the velvet vacuum like silver hammers.
“Of course, if we have to pay the taxi——”
“Daddy’ll have some money.”
Puffs of white smoke aspired against the station skylight. Lights like unripe citrus fruits hung in the gray day from the steel rafters. Swarms and swarms of people passed each other coming up the stairway. The train clicked up with the noise of many keys turning in many rusty locks.
“If I’d only known it would be like that at Atlantic City,” they said—or, “Could you believe it, we’re half hour late?”—or, “The town hasn’t changed much without us,” they said, rustling their packages and realizing their hats were all wrong for wear in the city.
“There’s Mamma!” cried Alabama.
“Well, how do ye do——”
“Isn’t it a great city, Judge?”
“I haven’t been here since 1882. There’s been considerable change since then,” said the Judge.
“Did you have a nice trip?”
“Where is your sister, Alabama?”
“She couldn’t come down.”
“She couldn’t come down,” corroborated David lamely.
“You see,” went on Alabama at her mother’s look of surprise, “the last time Joan came she borrowed my best suitcase to carry away wet diapers and since then we’ve—well, we haven’t seen her so much.”
“Why shouldn’t she?” the Judge demanded sternly.
“It was my best suitcase,” explained Alabama patiently.
“But the poor little baby,” sighed Miss Millie. “I suppose we can telephone them.”
“You will feel differently about things like that after you have children of your own,” said the Judge.
Alabama wondered suspiciously if her figure showed.
“But I can see how she felt about the suitcase,” continued Millie magnanimously. “Even as a baby, Alabama was particular like that about her own things—never wanted to share them, even then.”
The taxi steamed up the vaporous chute of the station runway.
Alabama didn’t know how to go about asking the Judge to pay the taxi—she hadn’t been absolutely sure of how to go about anything since her marriage had precluded the Judge’s resented direction. She didn’t know what to say when girls postured in front of David hoping to have him sketch them on his shirtfront, or what to do when David raved and ranted and swore that it ruined his talent to have his buttons torn off in the laundry.
“If you children will get these suitcases into the train, I’ll pay the taxi,” said the Judge.
The green hills of Connecticut preached a sedative sermon after the rocking of the gritty train. The gaunt, disciplined smells of New England lawn, the scent of invisible truck gardens bound the air in tight bouquets. Apologetic trees swept the porch, insects creaked in the baking meadows widowed of their crops. There didn’t seem room in the cultivated landscape for the unexpected. If you wanted to hang anybody, reflected Alabama, you’d have to do it in your own backyard. Butterflies opened and shut along the roads like the flash of white in a camera lens. “You couldn’t be a butterfly,” they said. They were silly butterflies, flying about that way and arguing with people about their potentialities.
“We meant to get the grass cut,” began Alabama—“but——”
“It’s much better this way,” finished David. “It’s more picturesque.”
“Well, I like the weeds,” the Judge said amiably.
“They make it smell so sweet in the country,” Miss Millie added. “But aren’t you lonely out here at night?”
“Oh, David’s friends from college come out occasionally and sometimes we go into town.”
Alabama didn’t add how often they went in to New York to waste the extra afternoons sloshing orange juice through bachelor sanctuaries, droning the words to summer behind insoluble locks. They went there ahead, awaiting the passage of that
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