Jackie and Me(73)

“If I could tell you that, I’d be cornering the stock market. I can only guarantee that it will be a finite amount of time.”

“Uh-huh.”

“All she has to do is hold on and leave the rest to me.”

“I’ll share that, sir.”

“Tell her I know how to deal with recalcitrant boys. I’ve

been doing it all my life.”

I never had to deliver that message because Jackie never

got in touch with me. That’s not true, there was a postcard, arriving in the dilatory way that postcards do, as if it had been dozing on some faraway beach. I’ve saved it, of course.

It’s a snapshot of Westminster Abbey at twilight with a message scrawled on the other side: Dearest L, The royal family won’t let me get any closer! Wish you were here. Xoxo J.

By the time I’d received it, Princess Elizabeth had

long since been crowned, and in every other respect, fate

had done its work. A day after my conversation with Mr.

Kennedy, Jack wired Jackie a telegram. Articles great, but you’re missed. It was as emotive as he’d yet allowed himself to be, and though she didn’t respond, I’m guessing she carried the words around, took them out every so often to examine them. Sending a wire was the easiest thing in the

world, she knew that, and indeed, no wire came the next

day, so it was the purest kind of surprise when, on the night of June the second, his highly expensive telephone call came flying, Lindbergh-like, across the Atlantic.



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Even in June, the flat that she’d rented had a benthic chill, and she might have let her flatmate pick up the phone, only Aileen was soaking her feet in hot water, so with great reluctance Jackie threw off her blankets and took quick mincing steps to the phone. The voice came charging through the

static, not even stopping to identify itself.

“So how’s about it?”

“Jack?”

“How’s about it?”

“How’s about what?”

Whatever head of steam had got him to this point subsided, and the silence was so thick she began to wonder if

she’d imagined the whole thing.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

“You know, they’re awfully fond of you.”

“Who?”

“The family.”

“They are?”

“Why, sure. As am I.”

“Well, that’s nice.”

Another pause, nearly as long as the last.

“So what do you think?” he asked.

“About what?”

“About this being something—more on the permanent

side of things.”

From her periphery, she could see Aileen craning her

head around the lavatory door. She could hear the light tym-panum-like dripping of water on the tile floor.

“Is that what you want?” she asked.

260





LOUIS BAYARD


“Sure,” he said. “Why not?” And then after a pause:

“Don’t you think?”

It was here, at the very brink, that she flinched. Although, looking back, she could say it was more a case of splintering.

There in her ear was Jack. There at the edge of her vision was Aileen, dripping. There, rising up through the column of her bare legs, was the sulfurous London cold. There, a mile or two away, a newly minted queen. Each audience brought

its own demand, and each was buzzing in some separate

lobe of her brain, and what should have been overwhelming,

short-circuiting, was merely a party. A minute later, she was setting the phone back in its cradle, and Aileen was stepping apologetically toward her.

“Is everything all right, Jackie?”

“Oh. Sure.”

“I know it’s none of my business but—was it someone

close to you?”

Someone . . .

“Jackie, is there anything I can do? Would you rather I

leave you alone?”

Only now did she grasp the problem. She didn’t look like

she was at a party.

“Is it your father?” Aileen was asking. “I’m so sorry . . .”

“No! No. No, it’s not. I mean, it’s fine. I mean . . .” A

tiny giggle shook free. “You can come to the wedding if you like.”

“The . . .” Aileen’s frown cut deeper. “You mean that

was him?”

Jackie nodded.



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261

“And he was . . . ?”

Jackie nodded.

“And you said yes?”

She was about to nod a third time, but the question

instantly recomposed itself.

“I must have,” she muttered. “Didn’t I?”

“Well, I didn’t hear, darling, I was trying not to pry.”

They spent the next five minutes trying to piece together

the one-minute conversation that Jackie had just had.

“Start at the end, darling. What was the last thing he

said?”

“He said . . . um . . . I think it was ‘I’ll see you when you get back.’”