Jackie and Me(78)

JACKIE & ME

275

I’m asking—that you let me fund the whole kit and caboo—

dle. No, no, I insist! Soup to nuts, it’s—” He paused, looked away. “It’s the least we could do for Joe’s memory.”

Outside of the opera house, Wasps in those days weren’t

accustomed to such emotional appeals, so the awkwardness

must have been extreme. Jackie herself felt it and, ducking her head away, found her gaze again landing on Jack, who, strangely, seemed the least embarrassed person in the room, had even the ghost of a smile on his lips.

“Of course,” Mr. Kennedy quickly added, “if you want

to cover all the costs—I mean, if it would mean that much—

I’d be the last one to deny you the privilege. God knows

you’ve earned it, haven’t you, Hugh?”

“Oh, well, that’s—”

“I mean, when I think of all that Standard Oil has done

for this nation. Does any American believe we could have

won two wars without petroleum? No. Stood up to Joe

Stalin without petroleum? No, I tell you. A thousand times

no.”

“Oh, that’s very kind of you to—”

“And even though Standard Oil has long since been div—

vied up and scattered to the winds, and even though the

remaining cash reserves can’t be anywhere near what they

once were, a grateful nation still remembers your family’s

service, Hugh. And as one of that nation, I ask that you now let me pay you this tribute. Won’t you please?”

Hughdie cast a single fearful glance at his wife, put a

hand to his button-down collar.

“If it would mean that much to you.”

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LOUIS BAYARD


“It would.”

“Well then, I shan’t be the one to stand in your way.”

As soon as the words were out, Hughdie’s shoulders

subsided, and acrid relief steamed from every pore. He had

heard the bullet whistle past his ear and was still, by some miracle, alive.

It was left to his wife to scope the shot’s true trajectory.

In a single nervy thrust, Mr. Kennedy had secured himself

both Newport and the wedding itself. From that moment

forth, he would have autonomy over every detail: organist

and bandleader, canapés and china pattern. The carnation

formations. Every photographer in the land would descend

in a Mongol horde, and whatever protest the Auchinclosses

might lodge would be muted by their new status as bed—

and-breakfast proprietors, compensated for the use of their grounds and their tactful silence.

In the space of a few seconds, and before a crowd of

largely uncomprehending witnesses, Mrs. Auchincloss had

been routed. Worse still, she could lodge no protest, for if there were a greater sin than raising one’s voice in Bailey’s Beach Club, it had yet to be discovered. Jackie told me later that her mother reminded her then of a falcon around which invisible bars have sprouted—bars of gilt wire, against which the bird beats its wings in vain, for they have been there all along. It was a moving enough sight that Jackie, in a spirit of true pity, leaned toward her mother and whispered: “It’s time to give up, Mummy. This is what I want.”

THIRTY-ONE

I t would be natural, I guess, to presume that, as her wedding date approached, Jackie’s nerves were stretched

to their breaking point. America was watching! The world’s

largest swarm of worker bees had gathered in some hive in

Brooklyn just to tat the lace for her gown! To that I say:

Jackie in those days was at the loosest kind of ends.

Mr. Kennedy was calling every last shot, right down to

that gown, and she was no more in charge of her own nuptials than a rani. From time to time, the latest guest list would come fluttering down, and she would gaze in a bemused sort of way at the names. The Trumans. The Luces. Herbert

Hoover, J. Edgar Hoover. MacArthur, McCarthy. Speaker

Martin. Ed Sullivan. Irving Berlin. Hearst and Mrs. Hearst

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LOUIS BAYARD


and the de facto Mrs. Hearst. Who knew how many of them

would actually show up? But to Jackie, the very proliferation of names left them canceling each other out, and the possibility that she might have to greet or be greeted by them struck her as fantastically remote.

Her wedding, in short, seemed to have relatively little to do with her—a conclusion that I believe she found oddly liberat-ing. Especially now that she was out of a job. Her editor had been fired while she was in London, and once the news of her engagement leaked, the top brass assumed that any girl who’d gone and lassoed a Kennedy had more important things on her mind than interviewing sweaty proletarians. I think they were wrong. I believe that Inquiring Camera Girl was how she came to terms with her world. I still keep, hermetically sealed, her final column, published on June the fourth. “What is your candid opinion of marriage?” she wanted to know.

It can be a hard transition, I expect, from news gatherer to news object. As a journalist, Jackie had cultivated a certain professional anonymity, instinctually hiding herself behind the barricade of a Leica. Now she had wandered into the unmarked landscape where your camera, as if possessed,