Page 34 of Jackie

“It’s hot,” he says.

“How about a swim? A cool drink?”

“Let’s go inside.”

“Again?”

“Don’t you want to?” His smile then.

—

Afterward, we lie on the veranda in the shade. Once, when I get up, he tugs the edge of the towel I’ve wrapped around me. It slips from my hands; I go to grasp it, but he takes my wrist and pulls me down.

—

We drive the winding coastal road up through the lush cliffs, then back down the mountainside into the city that borders the bay and miles of white-sugar sand. We wander narrow streets, past small shops and cafés. A cart heaped with oranges, some halved open to lure passersby.

“Cut?” the man asks in Spanish, a gesture with his hands to mimic a knife.

“Por favor,” I say.

He runs the blade through the fruit to quarter it and hands it back to me. I suck at the pieces, peeling out the insides with my teeth, my hands sticky and damp. I toss the peel and lick the juice off.

Jack laughs. “You’re a mess.” He must see the surprise on my face. “Hey, I was just joking. Sorry.” He drapes an arm around me as we walk. “You’re a Kennedy now,” he says, his voice gentle then, close. “You’re going to have to learn to take a joke.”

—

From Acapulco we fly to California. I finally write to my father to tell him I love him but how sad I was the day of the wedding when he wasn’t there. Through the window, below the terraced eaves, I see Jack sitting by the pool, talking with a young woman on a chaise longue nearby. He pulls his chair closer.

I leave the letter unfinished and head downstairs. As I come up to them, I toss my book and towel onto the end of Jack’s chair.

“Hello, sweetheart,” I say.

“Hey, Jackie, this is Margaret. We have all sorts of things in common. Friends mostly.”

The girl named Margaret laughs.

“Lovely,” I say. “Perhaps you’ll join us for dinner tonight, Margaret?”

The girl’s face shifts, wary now, dark eyes surveying the two of us.

“I think I have plans tonight. Another time, though.” She slips on her pool sandals and strides away.

“I hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“Just a girl,” Jack says. He picks the newspaper up off the concrete beside his chair.

…

That fall, we’ve agreed, I’ll stay with his parents in Hyannis Port until the Georgetown house we’ve leased is ready. Joe is delighted. “It’ll be a relief to have someone smart around here to talk to.”

Jack flies to Washington for four days each week and back to the Cape on Friday. As soon as he arrives, he tosses his bag into our bedroom, sits down for a few minutes, then heads off for a swim, a round of golf, a sail.

“It’s like being married to a whirlwind,” I say to Joe one afternoon. We sit together on the porch watching Jack cross the lawn toward the shore.

“Go with him,” Joe says. “Keep a man company.”

It feels like too much to explain that if Jack doesn’t invite me along, he’s saying he might not want me to ask.

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