Page 109 of Jackie

Stepping out of his office into the hall, he hears the sound of shredded air as the helicopter nears.

John cries as they are leaving, clutching his father’s leg.

“I want to come,” John sobs. Jackie kneels beside him.

“Just a few days, darling,” she says. “When we get back, it will be your birthday, and we’ll have a big party.”

John reaches up then; Jack lifts him and, for a moment, buries his face into that sweet boy smell.

“Take care of him, Agent Foster,” he says.

“Yes, sir, Mr. President.”

Jack turns away. Since Patrick, it’s sandpaper on skin now—every leaving.

A heat wave is flooding Texas.

—

“You’re going to be hot,” Jack says to me on the plane.

“I’ll be fine.”

“They’re calling for rain in Dallas, so maybe we’ll bubbletop it after all.”

“You don’t want that, though.”

“No one comes out to see the president through a layer of glass.”

—

I read over the speech I’m giving tonight in Spanish. Jack’s talking now with Kenny O’Donnell about the feud in Texas, about Connally and Yarborough, splintering the Democrats.

“Texas will be hard enough to win without that,” Kenny says.

Jack changes the subject. “Any furniture broken last night at the party?”

“Just a Bobby and Ethel party,” Dave Powers says.

“Who was more wild?” Jack says. “Ethel or the kids?”

Dave and Kenny laugh.

“And that was only Bobby turning thirty-eight,” Jack says. “Imagine when he hits forty.”

—

Before we land, I go into the bedroom to change. White skirt, black belt. I clip my hair under my hat—not a beret, but enough to keep things from being destroyed in a car with no bubbletop.

I finish pinning the hat. The light is blinking. We’ve begun our descent.

—

The crowd is a dark sea beneath as we touch down in San Antonio. Jack leans back, shifting in his seat. He turns, looks at me, and grins.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s do this thing.”

—

---