Jackie and Me(16)

hung from his shoulders, the Arrow collar still drew away

from his throat. The skin was a curious blend of tawny and

ash, and the eyes were smudged in shadow. He’s ill was her first thought, but his great good humor was intact, and judging by the way he leaned back in his burgundy leather chair and laced his hands behind his head, he was ready to pick up where they left off.

It was the first time they’d occupied a room alone, and the conversation was halting. When he learned that she’d been in Paris last fall, he asked her, drily, if she’d seen President Auriol. “No,” she answered, and several agonizing seconds went past before she thought to say that Piaf and de Gaulle took her out for a drink and declared her the very flower of American maidenhood, and another several seconds

passed before Jack said, “Don’t you mean fleur?” And then more silence, and by the time he asked if Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron had been there, too, whirling around in perfect Technicolor, all chance of humor had perished.

“We’re going about this all wrong,” she said at last,

drawing a reporter’s notebook from her bag. “According to

my job description, I’m supposed to ask you the questions.”

“That’s what it says?”

“It practically has the force of law. Which, as a congressman, you’re—”

“Sworn to uphold, yes. I was there.” He leaned back even

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LOUIS BAYARD


farther in his armchair than she would have guessed possible. “You know, whenever I conduct an interview, my press

secretary is supposed to be here.”

“Mm,” she said, softly frowning. “I don’t suppose we

could pay him to look the other way.”

“He does that quite a bit but—the law is the law.”

She made a show of considering.

“Maybe we could come up with our own little law. Just

the two of us, for this occasion.”

“I’m listening.”

“Let’s say for every question I ask you, you get to ask me

one.”

“Sounds fair.”

“Now, Congressman, perhaps you could tell our readers

how you enjoy living in our fair town.”

“You’re referring to the city of Northern charm and

Southern efficiency?”

“I believe you’ve answered my question with a question.

Unless, of course, that’s your on-the-record answer, in which case our readers will be interested to hear it.”

His eyes narrowed a fraction. “On the record, Washington couldn’t agree with me more. I get down on my knees and thank God every night for the privilege of living here until such time as I can return to my district, where it is an equally great privilege to live.”

“Do they swallow that line there?”

“There is no line. You are receiving my deepest, most

urgent thoughts. And now it’s my turn. Please define for me the object that rests on your finger.”



JACKIE & ME

57

In that moment, she didn’t blush, nor did she glance at

her hand, though she came within a hair of doing both.

“It’s a ring,” she says.

“That would appear to be a self-evident answer.”

“I don’t believe the nature of the answer was mentioned

in our arrangement.”

“Are you sure?”

She gave her throat a light clearing. “What is it you most

like about being a congressman?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing comes of nothing.”

His smile broadened now into something frankly admiring.

“My turn,” he murmured. “To whom does the ring on

your finger belong?”

“Me.”

“That’s equally self-evident. Let me rephrase,” he said

and, with a soft vehemence, raised his chair to a seated position. “Who’s the fellow put it there?”

She had briefly considered slipping it off and tucking it

in her purse, but she’d rejected the idea. She wanted him to see it. Or see if he saw it.

But toward what end, I’ve always wondered. Was it rescue

she was looking for? Johnny to save her from her mother and then someone to save her from Johnny? Or was it just that, in her brief experience of Jack, she had seen how aroused he was by challenge? The higher the barrier, the harder he would work to clear it. Part of me wonders if that ring wasn’t Jackie’s version of a dare. “Can you clear this?” she was asking.

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LOUIS BAYARD


Or else it was something more buried. It was Jackie sens—

ing that her future was curving away from her—or, if you

like, she had peered into Schr?dinger’s box and found an

alternative reality flickering there—and she knew enough

by now about Jack’s situation to sense that he was likewise curving, toward a future he didn’t quite own. That ring was her way of saying: “Here we are, the two of us, being created by others. Why not do it ourselves?”

Nobody intruded during that half hour in Jack’s office.