Jackie and Me(85)
contemplative draw.
300
LOUIS BAYARD
“She wouldn’t be your first,” I pointed out.
“She’s different.”
“A sweeter Swede.”
“If you like.”
I returned the celery to the glass.
“Jack, whatever went on, and I’m sure as hell not going
to ask, but it’s past tense, as we both know. It’s practically past perfect.”
He didn’t answer at first. Just stared into the nearest
pocket of space as if it were a washroom mirror.
“You won’t believe me when I tell you, Lem, but I swear
to God it was so fucking chaste. A few dances, a goodnight kiss, whiffs of perfume. Now I go to bed smelling her, I wake up smelling her. I’ve written her a letter every day since I got back, and if I’m not careful, I’ll cry out her name on my wedding night.”
Now, in operas like Don Giovanni, the seducer’s libido doesn’t require much in the way of analysis: He wants what he wants. The psychological variability comes from
the seduced. Does she rashly agree to be his eternally? Or
does she, like Gunilla von Hoozie, leave herself unclaimed, through either timidity or foresight, making herself eternally more desirable?
“Well, never mind,” said Jack with a light trailing-off.
“Torby says we should just arrange a congressional junket
to Sweden for next summer.”
“A junket.”
“Hell, yeah. It’s one of the perks of the job.”
“But what would its purpose be?”
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“Didn’t I just tell you? I can spell her name for you if you like.”
I stared at him. “You know this wedding can’t exactly be
canceled.”
“No one is more aware of that than I.”
“And you know, next summer, you’ll be a married man.”
“I’m aware of that, too.”
“I’m just submitting my remarks for the record.”
“Whose record? Just what’s climbed up your ass, LeMoyne?”
“She has. Jackie.”
“Why?”
“Because she loves you.”
Already half ashamed of my words as they dribbled
out. For all I knew, Gunilla loved him, too. People had
been loving him his whole life. It was the least expensive of commodities.
“Well now,” said Jack. “I wish I could figure out why
you’re bringing her into this when it has nothing to do with her.”
“No?”
“Jesus, Lem, you’re the one who explained to her how
this would go. Were you not listening to your own message?”
And whatever high ground I might have fancied myself to
hold now crumbled away.
“I was listening,” I said.
“Then what’s the problem here?”
“You asked me to be her friend.”
“Not to the exclusion of your other friends. You know,
I’m not used to feeling judgment from you, Lem.”
302
LOUIS BAYARD
“That’s not what I—”
“You used to be the kind of guy someone could confide
in without getting this whole She loves you business. I used to count on you for that, Lem. It was one of your specialties.
I mean, do you ever see me judging you?”
“For—I mean, what would you have to—?”
“Oh, how you spend your nights, where you spend them.
Why you don’t settle down and have kids. I don’t even ask you those questions, Lem, because I don’t want to know. It’s like I’ve always said”—and only here did the anger reach, with a kind of relief, toward platitude—“Friendship matters as much as the friend. And maybe more.” He frowned down at the table, gave the belt of his robe a light tweeze. “I guess I thought you felt the same way.”
Adrenaline, like dry ice along my jaw. And, confusingly,
a certain blankness, as though I were being erased.
“You could have asked me,” I said. “If you’d wanted to.”
“I don’t.”
If anything, I think he was having a harder time of it in
that moment than me—he always hated being cross with
people—so whatever anger was still simmering in him, he
swallowed it down with the rest of his Bloody Mary. Out
came the smile, with all its restorative properties.
“Listen now, Lem. You know how highly I think of you.
How highly we all . . .”
He paused, and there rose to my mind the single conclusion that he was firing me.
The air around us seemed to bend and break beneath
all that would follow—the gold watch, the certificate of
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appreciation—in tribute to your years of service—the
lightest of shoves out the door. For want of anything else
to look at, I studied his feet at the exact point where they emerged from the slippers. The seconds piled on.