Jackie and Me(77)

mind. No, I do! And I completely understand your position.

In fact, I even anticipated it. It’s why I was going to propose two weddings.”

Mrs. Auchincloss’s head drew back at most a half inch.

“Two?”

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LOUIS BAYARD


“Why, sure. Your intimate and tasteful ceremony here

and then a more robust spectacle, as you call it, on the Cape.”

“What, simultaneously?”

“Ha! I don’t see how we can manage that, do you? It

takes an hour and a half by car and that’s without the

late-summer traffic. Longer by ferry. No, I figure you could have your discreet little society event in the afternoon, and we could have ours in the evening. Or vice versa if you like.”

A cold awareness dawned in Mrs. Auchincloss’s eyes.

“Only yours will have all the cameras.”

“Well, yes. For the reasons just discussed.”

“And that’s how the world— your world, Mr. Kennedy—

will see my daughter. Without her mother at her side.”

“Well, you’d certainly be welcome to come. I just wouldn’t

want you to feel like—you know, extras.”

Mrs. Auchincloss had come in believing that the

Kennedys needed Newport and its Wasp respectability. In

this she was not entirely mistaken; where she erred was in

thinking that Newport could thereby extract concessions.

In this she was the victim of her own class prejudices, which was a weakness only because she herself was blind to it and Mr. Kennedy was not. Had, in fact, sniffed it out from the start. No wonder he was smiling.

There was no use enlisting her husband. Mrs. Auchincloss’s

only remaining recourse was to fall back on the person

who’d been sitting silently at her side.

“When it comes down to it,” she declared in a halting

voice, “I only want what my daughter wants.”

The move was as risky as it was unexpected. She had not



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rehearsed it with Jackie in advance and didn’t know where

her daughter stood on any of these questions. She had merely assumed that Jackie, being the byproduct of an upbringing more or less like her own, would imbibe, in the manner of

breast milk, some of the same assumptions, would cringe

at the idea of Mrs. Maloney and carnation J s and madding crowds and would demand—insist on—a level of decorum fitting her station and, failing that, turn tail.

And Jackie wasn’t immune to any of these considerations.

But what her mother failed to account for was that Jackie—

in those pre-paparazzi days—wasn’t immune to the prospect of cameras, either. Or fans, no matter how mysteriously they arrived. Her response, then, was not to ally herself with either side but to drift rather far out to sea—so far that it was hard now to see what lay directly around her. Was the choice simply one wedding versus two? Hammersmith versus Hyannisport? Was there some larger concern eluding

her? In her confusion, she turned not to her mother but to

Jack, who had been just as silent as she through the whole

conversation and who now sat slumped in his chair, as if the whole conversation had been drawing out his blood, milliliter by milliliter. She heard herself say, in a pale echo of her mother: “I only want what Jack wants.”

A glint of irritation sparked from his eyes, and with a

grating sigh, he sat up and said, “Seems to me one ceremony would be plenty. It’s all the Queen got.”

“In that case,” announced Mrs. Auchincloss, “it shall be

here. As tradition dictates.”

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LOUIS BAYARD


There was a pause. Then, from across the table, Mr.

Kennedy let loose with a roar of laughter. Snatched the

white linen napkin from his lap and waved it like a flag and shot his arms toward the ceiling.

“I surrender!” he cried.

Jackie would remember later that Mrs. Auchincloss was

the only one at the table who abstained from the general

laughter. She was too busy studying Mr. Kennedy, for she

knew that surrender was its opposite. At last, with a soft

exhalation, he took off his specs and gave each of his eyes a tender rub.

“Say now,” he said. “Since we’re all agreed where this

wedding is going to be, I was wondering if I could ask you

folks the tiniest of favors? What I mean is, it would be tiny to you, but to me and Mrs. Kennedy, it would . . .” He paused to gather himself. “The thing is I’m starting to think of you two as—as family if that doesn’t—I mean, does that embarrass you? Are you sure? Well, feeling the way I do, I find I can’t abide the thought of you shouldering the cost of this wedding. No, no, I understand it’s tradition, and I know you’re people of deep pride who want to do right by your ancestors.”

“Just so,” said Hughdie faintly.

“But, gosh darn it, my boy Jack there, he may not be my

firstborn but he’s—he’s the one who’s left.” Mr. Kennedy laid his hand with great care across his wife’s wrist. “And I’ll tell you something else. His brother Joe, if he were alive right now, would want us to give Jack the best by-God send-off we could muster. And that’s why I’m asking—as a father