I Dream of Fitzgerald: The Beautiful and the Damned
Whenever F. Scott visits one’s dream, one pays attention, strains to remember every detail lest it recede like Gatsby’s green light out of memory’s reach. Unannounced, but somehow expected, he appeared at my door so politely, hat in hand, ascot just so, of course I invited him across the threshold. I sensed –but wouldn’t call attention to—the gold-embossed luggage he set inside my door was empty, its cupboard bare as bone. Apologetically, I asked if he could wait, and he was more than willing, dismissing the offense before it bruised. He wanted—needed—to do something, though, and so I let him: tidying my tiny garden, uprooting last season’s leftovers, implanting rare and exotic replacements I knew (but didn’t mention) would hardly make it past his fleeting visit.
I dressed carefully (vintage, elegant) for the occasion, and when we walked out, heads turned and whispered as we wandered cafed sidewalks, stopping by street markets to finger yesterday’s treasures: a novel silver cigarette lighter, a sterling cigarette case, its monogram tarnished beyond readability. Among acquaintances, I introduced him, willing the clueless, the confused to recognize his once-venerated name lest he dissolve in incontrollable disappointment. We found ourselves in a watercolor painting: Streets washed in autumn rain where maples spread a red carpet for our careful, fashionable feet. Murmuring softly, low, for our ears only, we exchanged well-loved quotes, reading from the same page as we strolled, deaf to bells that doled out the ephemeral time.
Later, in the darkening, we’d retire into lounges at old, familiar hotels—the Plaza, the Savoy—and he’d sit and read, as one might expect, unconsciously caressing worn leather as one does a lover’s skin. And knowing what I know now, I thought how Hem had burned for him: his high-hatted talent, his popular appeal, his romantic readiness, all encased in that heart-shaped pretty-boy face. At times, the flesh seemed to recede from that wistful face, revealing the hollow skull Hem had fretted about, its dark eyes full of emptiness, waxing and waning between the pages of the precious present, boding the inescapable future nearer than we knew. Sadly, I knew him for a fraud, a beautiful fool, but was careful not to expose the fragile ego barely holding body and soul together, letting him believe I was the privileged one, the envied one to have him at my side. I knew (but wouldn’t hint at) the deceptive future he promised, albeit tragic, hero that he was. Instead I inhaled extravagantly all he had to offer between the silver sheets of dawn, fragile as a fairy’s wing, until light began to invade the soft velvet of the raveling dream and I silently withdrew, leaving him to fade ceaselessly into the past.
–Rebecca Luttrell Briley
November 23, 2023, KY
brileyrebecca 
Well done!
Thanks!