(I've started posting a few excerpts from A Manhattan Heiress in Paris, and here is a fun one!  Meeting Zelda Fitzgerald...)

Excerpt (at a swanky Paris Salon)

Chloe led them further into the room, nodding at Hemingway, who paused in boxing with a small, cringing man to wave at them. Eliza took a gulp of her cocktail to keep from laughing.

“The Murphys, American compatriots of yours, so delightful! Gerald and Sara. Quite the leaders of society now.” Chloe waved at a handsome couple who held court near the window, the golden-haired woman dressed in a draped white chiffon gown with long ropes of pearls around her neck. “ And with them is Madame Goncharova, but be careful, she will try to read your palm. And Ernest, I’m sure you’ve met him, everyone has.”

“Yes, at Shakespeare and Company.” Eliza watched Hem as he tried to box with a wide-eyed, cringing, skinny man.

Chloe frowned. “He had better not break that vase, it’s seventeenth century. Ah, and here is another belle Americaine! Ma chere madame, over here. This is Elizabeth Van Hoeven, madame, and Eliza this is Zelda Fitzgerald. You will quite like her, Eliza. Now, my handsome monsieur, do let me steal you away. I have another friend here who plays the trumpet…”

She took Jack firmly by the arm and led him away, as he tossed a pleading glance back at Eliza. But there was no resisting the comtesse. Eliza gave him a little wave and a grin before she turned to the petite, chocolate-box pretty blonde woman in a stunning, petal-pink tulle gown, the woman she had glimpsed at the Club d’Or.

“Hi, there!” Zelda said in a loamy, rich Southern accent. She left her empty glass on a footman’s tray and took a full one with a flirtatious grin. “I think I’ve seen you before, at the Club d’Or? So you’re American, too? How’d you wash up here?”

“I’m studying music at the Conservatoire,” Eliza answered, almost too dazzled by this vibrant vision of blonde waves and pink ruffles.

Zelda made a little moue of her rose-painted bow lips. “You lucky-ducky. I used to want to be a dancer. Or maybe a writer. Now I just keep a journal and drink. I’m good at that.” She held up the sparkling golden cocktail. “You need another, too! Been in Paris long, then?”

“A few weeks. I’m from New York.”

Zelda laughed, a ripple of silvery bells. “I lived in New York, too! Kicked out of all the best hotels, so we had to come here. That’s my fella over there.” She pointed at a man who was talking to Hem on the other side of the crowded salon, a tall, polished-gold man who seemed to match her perfectly. Eliza remembered him from the Club d’Or, staggering around drunkenly, but he seemed all right tonight, nodding and talking seriously. “I’m Zelda.”

Eliza suddenly remembered seeing her photo in the newspapers in New York, she and her husband the stars of a crowd Eliza’s mother would never let her meet. They had indeed been thrown out of hotels—and swam in fountains, rode atop taxis, spun for hours in revolving doors. Zelda looked prettier than those grainy black and white images, with a vitality and sparkle no still photo could capture. Eliza was very envious of such an adventurous life, even if it did sound exhausting. “Zelda Fitzgerald? Who lived at the Plaza?”

“That’s me! And my man is Scott. Watch out if he has another drink, he’s no fun at all after two. You here with a guy, too?”

“Yes, Jack Coleman. Over there with the comtesse.” Eliza pointed out Jack, suddenly unsure. Zelda was clearly Southern, after all.

But she just laughed. “Now that’s a fella who’s the cat’s meow! Look at those cheekbones. My daddy would just die right dead with an apoplexy if he saw that. He’s a judge, in Alabama. He didn’t want me marrying Scott just because he’s a Yankee.”

“I think my father would, too. He’s an attorney in Manhattan, but mostly his job is just being a Knickerbocker gentleman.”

“Well, who cares about our parents when a fella looks like that! Is he a writer?”

“Musician. He plays at the Club d’Or.”

Zelda sighed wistfully, and reached for another cocktail. “You are one lucky dame. Getting to do whatever you want. Come on, have another drinkie, let’s get Olga to read our palms!”