Page 31 of Jackie

By twenty-three, he’d published a bestselling book, Why England Slept, about how democracy can fail to perceive fascism rising in its midst; by twenty-six, he was a national war hero; thirty-six now and a senator. He told me once he feels like every minute is a race against the fast-circling arms of a clock. Edna St. Vincent Millay’s candle burning bright: It will not last the night. He’s a chary romantic. A fatalist. Who sees too clearly that fortune, health, and luck can all be erased in an instant.

And he needs me, which he won’t want to admit, but I can feel it when out of nowhere he’ll take my arm, or when he leans in to whisper, I’ll see you soon. In the warmth of his breath, I feel it. Or when we’re in a crowded room and his eyes search me out and he’ll fix me with that little look—the kind of burning extravagant hunger that makes you want to throw your soul right down.

And I love him.

The voices have stopped, I realize, just before Bobby and Jack walk out of the sunroom with Joe. The boys head to the window, talking about how the wind has come up, could be a good afternoon for a sail. But Joe pauses when he sees me sitting there. In his face, the slight calculation. I close the book and smile. He isn’t fooled.

“I’ve been looking into that house for you, Jackie,” he says.

Jack turns around. “What house?”

“There’s a little pink villa in Acapulco your girl wants for her honeymoon. That girl of yours who’s not so naïve as to give up her thoughts to anyone. She should have what she wants, don’t you agree?” Joe laughs when he says it, the laugh that masters a moment and now is meant to master me. His eyes on my face, I can tell he’s still wondering how much I might have heard and if it matters.

“I do love that pink villa,” I say.

Summer 1953

Early July, we go to Newport, my mother’s house at Hammersmith Farm, a Victorian enchantment perched on the hill above the bay. Egyptian-tiled gardens, lily ponds, stone walkways. A guest cottage and boathouse closer to the shore.

Just months from now, we will be married at St. Mary’s Church. Afterward, an outdoor reception on the Hammersmith lawn. More than eight hundred guests, it will take two hours to work through the receiving line. We will be photographed. My dress with its fifty yards of ivory silk taffeta, portrait neckline, bouffant skirt. I wanted something sleeker, more ionic-column, and I won’t be able to escape the sense that I look like a lampshade. After an alfresco lunch, as the Meyer Davis band plays, Jack and I will have our first dance, to “I Married an Angel.” In a toast, Jack will explain he had to marry me to remove me from the fourth estate so I wouldn’t write anything to scuttle his career. I will riposte that while, yes, it’s true that I gave up my position at the Times Herald, I plan to write a novel. As a wife with no job and time on my hands, I see no reason why that can’t be done.

That day in July, Jack’s mother, Rose, is meeting us at Hammersmith. She and my mother will discuss plans for our wedding.

“They don’t really need us for that, do they?” Jack asks. We are in the deck room. I took him over to the stables earlier to see the horses. He got wheezed up, and now we’re just lying around in the heat, the windows thrown open, the breeze off the sea fresh and cool.

“Let me guess, Jack,” I say. “You want to send the mothers off to lunch while we go tear around in a car.”

“Better a car than a horse.”

We laugh and, laughing, he starts to cough, as my mother walks in to say that his mother has arrived and it’s time to drive over to the beach for lunch and then a swim. We keep laughing, and Jack is coughing, and we try to catch our breath. We’re sprawled across each other. My mother stands in the doorway, surveying us, her mouth a stern line.

“Say, Mrs. Auchincloss,” Jack says, standing up from the couch, “how about Jackie and I take our swim before lunch?”

“It’s almost one already,” my mother says. “We should have lunch first.”

“Well, I worry we might get cramps if we swim after lunch. But you and my mother could order lunch for us. Jackie and I could take a quick swim and get back before the food comes.”

My mother gives a little frown. “I suppose we could do it that way.”

Then his mother is there, and we are all walking out to the car. We fall behind them.

“You knew she wouldn’t want to switch the order,” I say.

“That’s why I threw in the bit about cramps.”

“I love that she’s a little afraid of you, Jack.”

“I don’t think that’s it. I don’t think she approves.”

“Of us?”

“Of me.”

I feel something inside me catch. He might be right. I don’t want him to feel that way.

“That’s not it,” I say. “She can’t push you around, and she’s not used to that.”

We climb into the backseat of the car, the mothers in front. Their heads kerchief-wrapped, a collar of pearls around each pale neck. We’re like two bad kids laughing and joking in the back while the mothers talk about plans for the rehearsal dinner, brunches and luncheons and flowers. A tent in case of rain. September, my mother remarks, can be so fickle. Rose asks if my mother has given thought to bridesmaids’ dresses. If not, she has an excellent dressmaker she’d recommend.

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