Jackie and Me(28)
“So that’s why you dragged me here? To uncover my
thoughts about Miss Bouvier? We could have settled that in
a ten-second phone call.”
“There are no ten-second phone calls with you. Any
other thoughts besides charming?”
“Um. Elegant.”
“Okay.”
“Quick on the draw.”
“Fine.”
I thought for a bit more. “Lonely.”
“Ah, yes. No one to talk to but the cook and the chauffeur
and the ghosts of the ancestral dead. Listen now, LeMoyne.
Given that you seem to approve of our Miss Bouvier, I think it would be a gesture of kindness—a humanitarian act, if you will—for you to draw a little closer.”
I took a sip of my Manhattan. “What does that mean,
draw closer?”
“In plain English, be her friend.”
100
LOUIS BAYARD
“There are a million people her own age who could do
that.”
“But how many of them do I know?”
My finger sketched a circuit of the cork coaster. Then
another circuit.
“So is it a friend you want me to be, Jack?”
“What else?”
“A secret agent.”
“I’m shocked you would suggest anything so sinister. This is simply a case of me being gone a lot, and what’s so wrong with having somebody I trust—somebody I know won’t be making any moves because he’s hopeless with ladies—checking in with her now and again. Keeping my name in the conversation. Reminding her I’m not a total loser if it comes to that.”
“Why would she need reminding?”
“Well, obviously, she wouldn’t, but we want her to feel
like she can stay the course, Lem.”
“What course? What are we even talking about?”
Jack signaled the bartender for two more Manhattans.
“You’re putting up a lot of resistance,” he said, “to a very simple request.”
“But you’ve never made it before. Back at Choate, did you
ever leave me alone with Olive Cawley so she and I could get acquainted? Of course not. Back during the war, did you ask me to sweet-talk Inga Whoever-She-Was? You didn’t want me within miles.”
“I was only thinking of you. She was a suspected Nazi.”
“And what about Betsy Finkenstadt? And that blonde,
the Malcolm girl? The one who said she eloped with you.”
JACKIE & ME
101
“She didn’t.”
“Of course not, nobody ever got you that drunk, but you
sure as hell never asked me to—God, take them to art gal—
leries. Usually, the only time I ever speak to your girls is on their way to the cab.”
“Just pretend the cab is a little farther away.”
“What I’m asking, Jack—what I actually need to know—
is what distinguishes Miss Bouvier from her predecessors.”
He was quiet for a space. Then he reached into his pockets for loose change.
“Let me enumerate her assets,” he said, sliding a penny in
my direction. “She comes from a good family.”
“Oh, that.”
A nickel came toward me. “Arthur Krock speaks highly
of her.”
“I’m sure he does the same of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek.”
A quarter. “She’s Catholic.”
“From Newport?”
“They let us in now and then. My point, really, is there’s
nothing not to like.”
“That’s a double negative but . . .”
“A positive, arithmetically speaking. And with that,”
he said, sliding one more quarter forward, “I believe I’ve
answered your question.”
He hadn’t, of course. I waited until the next round of
drinks had arrived, then gave mine a few tight swallows.
“Shall I walk you through my thoughts?” I said, sliding his coins back to him, one by one. “You are a contented bachelor. Nobody has ever been contenteder.”
102
LOUIS BAYARD
“True.”
“You’ve never in your life wanted to be married. You
always used to say, it’s not the ball and chain—”
“It’s the chain on the balls, yeah.”
“You said those were words to live by.”
“They are until they aren’t.”
“So, at the risk of introducing the subject of ethics to a
Boston pol . . .”
“Yes.”
“There’s no point leading on any girl when you have no intention of . . .”
The word wouldn’t even climb to my lips. Marriage. As forbidden as Yahweh to the Hebrews. And as if to expel even the thought of it, Jack reclined against the banquette, gave his back the tiniest of stretches, and said: “There are higher calculations going on here, LeMoyne.”
“Which you can’t divulge.”
“Which I must not divulge.”