Jackie and Me(5)

JACKIE & ME

15

allotments, to her mouth for the purpose of making it shine.

Sidling now toward her quarry, she kept her glass very close to her chin, as though it were a folded fan ready to spring open.

“Oh, Congressman, you’re so good to make time for us.

I mean, all the demands on you. I mean, what an honor.”

The only one who didn’t make a move in his direction

was Jackie, and as she later recalled, that had less to do with her dismay at the general spectacle than with the implied assumption that she was to join it. One more of the bobby-soxers. She remembered then her mother’s advice. When

set down in a room with two men, always bestow your smiles

on the less attractive—it will please him and pique the other.

In this case, Charlie being such an old pal, it wasn’t hard to bend some rays in his direction. Twice, the Congressman asked her something benign; twice, she answered coolly and

briefly. She allowed Hickey to sit beside him during cocktails, and whenever his gaze swerved her way, she sent her

glance toward Q Street, where even now her knight in armor, Michael O’Sullivan, might be palely loitering. (Though she realized she no longer remembered what he looked like.)

Dinner was put off in favor of old-fashioneds and

Charades, and when the Congressman specifically asked

that she be put on the opposite team, she took it as a sign of the antagonism that had quietly risen between them. It was during the second round that he reached for one of the

torn-off memo-pad sheets on the conch-shell coffee table,

penciled something across it, folded it in half and, like a Western Union messenger, handed it to her.

16





LOUIS BAYARD


Sam Houston.

“Very well,” she said.

She began by making the shape of an hourglass, then

she waited until her team winnowed it down to sand and then Sam. At her periphery, she could see Martha the time-keeper squinting down at the old Buck family watch. With a ferocity that surprised her, she made now as if to strike the antique Sheraton armchair on which she’d been sitting.

Strike became cleave and then, like an annunciating angel, Pat Murray Roche sang out:

“Hew.”

Nothing more was needed. The whole exchange lasted

less than a minute.

Afterward, the Congressman raised himself with care

from the other Sheraton armchair and confided to her in low tones that he’d had Sam Houston on the brain lately. “If the subject interests you, Miss Bouvier, I know of a biography you might—”

“Marquis James.”

“You’ve read it.”

In truth, she’d only ever known it as a spine in her stepfather’s library.

“Next time,” he said, carefully preserving the distance

between them, “I want you on my team.”

“Jackie!”

She spun around to find Martha Bartlett tapping the

Buck family watch. “You said you had to leave by eight-thirty, darling.”

“Gee, that’s too bad,” said the Congressman.



JACKIE & ME

17

“Yes, isn’t it?” said Martha, reaching for her guest’s cloak.

“Oh, darling, it’s been grand having you. And now that we

know what a talented clue-giver you are, we’ll have to make you a permanent charades fixture. Won’t we, Charlie? But next time, please do bring your date!”

Martha must have been more invested in her friend

Hickey’s success than she’d let on because the shelf of her pregnant belly was acting now as a prod, edging Jackie closer to the door. The Bartletts’ terrier was herding her in the same direction, and she had just enough time to send out a half wave to the other guests before the door closed after her.

She stood there for some seconds on the Bartletts’ stoop,

wondering if she hadn’t perhaps overplotted the whole evening. Wouldn’t she rather be handing the Congressman

a clue of her own and watching him squirm? Feeling the

rivalry mount around them? Or was this the happier outcome? A free woman in a free land.

She took a few paces down the street, then heard at her

back the scatter of claws on brick. It was the Bartletts’ terrier, who, having caught up to Jackie, subsided to an easy trot that seemed to convey they’d been plotting their escape together. Then, at their back, another sound.

“Miss Bouvier! Do you need a lift?”

It was the Congressman, standing coatless on the stoop.

And again, what surprised her was her own maternal

impulse. He’ll catch his death.

“Oh, gee!” she called back. “That’s awfully sweet. I

brought my car, you see!”

18





LOUIS BAYARD


With a cringing smile, she cracked open the Mercury’s

front door, which was the only invitation the Bartletts’ terrier needed to leap inside. A second later, a growl, then a man’s strangled cry. The passenger door of the car burst open, and out jumped Michael O’Sullivan.

The surprise lay in how presentable he looked under the

circumstances. Yes, she thought, taking in the gloss of black hair, the mouth crooked into a half smile. He’ll do. How important it was in this exact moment that he should.