Page 65 of Jackie

We are in Palm Beach for Christmas. I tell Jack I’ve been thinking about a slightly different plan for the White House.

He’s reading a briefing packet. He glances up.

“Different how?”

“The executive mansion is only borrowed by the president. It belongs to all Americans. It should be a living museum of the country’s past. When I walked through last week, there were rooms painted seasick green. There’s no sense of history or beauty.”

We are in the bedroom, the French doors open onto the little balcony, the cooler breeze, the sky.

“You’ll have fifty thousand dollars to redecorate,” Jack says.

“Redecorate is a flimsy word,” I say. “What I’m thinking about is more of a restoration.” I shift in bed, push off the quilt. “This isn’t about me, Jack, my tastes or what I want. It’s about the country, and what we’ve never quite had. We have no myths, no heroes.”

He sets the briefing packet down. “We do have heroes,” he says, “and I am pretty sure we can’t afford whatever you’re envisioning.”

“Well, you don’t exactly know that yet.”

“I’ll make a bet.”

I pause, then, “You’re going to need me to do something with my time, Jack, so I’m not always hanging on you.”

“There will be plenty to do.”

“I don’t mean ninety-nine cups of tea with some other national leader’s wife.”

He laughs. “We’re not buying Jeffersonian antiques.” He picks up the briefing packet.

“Jack, don’t worry. We can solicit donations or fundraise to pursue things we don’t have.”

“Pursue as in purchase?”

“Monroe ordered pieces from Paris.”

“The White House had burned to the ground.”

“Why don’t I just give it a try for a month or so,” I say. “Maybe the idea will flop, and we can move on.”

He looks at me, a flash of uncertainty, but I can see he is intrigued, and for the moment I have won.

—

I’m the last to leave Palm Beach. It’s like watching a season fall away. I spend days alone with the children on the property caged by tall hedges, palms, bougainvillea.

“It’s lovely here,” I say to Joe one afternoon as we sit by the pool. “And quiet now. The day before Jack left, I walked out of the bathroom to find Pierre Salinger holding a press conference in my bedroom.”

Joe laughs.

“It’s going to be a fishbowl life,” I say, “isn’t it?”

“Just stand by Jack.”

“I’m afraid I’ll have to request an appointment whenever I want to see him.”

“Some days it might be like that. But he needs you.”

The water in the pool is still. The faintest wind ripples the surface. The children will stay on in Palm Beach when I fly north for the inauguration. Their rooms in the Residence aren’t ready, there’s still too much chaos. I don’t want to bring them into that, at the same time I can’t imagine leaving them. John, six weeks old, is so tiny, too fragile, he isn’t sleeping well.

Joe looks at me over those wire rims, his blue eyes penetrating.

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