Page 68 of Jackie

She smiles.

“And when Tish is pushing me to do more, I’d love it if you’d help find people who can stand in for me, so I can take the children on small trips to the circus or the theater. I’ll tell Tish before I go, so she won’t take it out on you.”

Pam is unwrapping a lamp when Mr. West walks in with a short list of questions. Some art has arrived, he says, and would I like the paintings hung before dinner?

“Also, Mrs. Kennedy, we are going to order the playground set and the treehouse.”

“Thank you, Mr. West. Let’s have those placed near the president’s office, so he can see the children play.”

He makes a note on the list. “You’ve also added here a trampoline?” he says, not even an eyebrow raised, as if such a request comes with every change in administration.

“Yes, Mr. West. Thank you. Full size, I should have mentioned, and please have that placed a distance from the swing set.”

“But it is for the children?”

“Oh no, Mr. West. They can use it if they’re supervised, but, no, the trampoline is for me.”

—

I’ve hired a designer, Sister Parish, to help me with the family quarters. Ideally, I explain, we’ll use what we have and buy as little as possible. I want to keep the funds we’ve been allocated for the restoration of the public rooms. But things don’t go as planned and, within weeks, the budget is spent. We scour the boarded-up rooms and the cellar for antiques. Sister Parish always wears a dark dress with a tremendous white spread collar, while I dress in jeans, sneakers, and an old sweater. They nickname me “Queen of the Rummage Sales.” We find a bust of George Washington in a bathroom sink. In the unused carpenter’s shop, we find some old statuary and a seventeenth-century table that once served as a sawhorse. I crawl under the table. “Get down here with me, Mr. Hill,” I say to Clint. “See how this is carved?” I say, running my fingers down the wooden leg. “This level of craftsmanship would never happen today. Imagine the time it took. This detail is by hand.”

—

Organizing things as well as Field Marshal Rommel ever did. That’s how I describe it to Bill Walton. I invite him to the Residence for lunch. I tell him I’m doing what Joe Alsop suggested back in August, in a letter he wrote about art and power.

“Speaking of Alsop,” Bill says. “At a party last week, I overheard him call Jack ‘Mr. Facing Two Ways.’ ”

I don’t want to think it’s funny, but when Bill gives me a quizzical look, head slightly cocked, I laugh.

“It can be a vicious little town,” I say. “Just another reason to keep my circle small. You, of course. Because I trust you forever. Tony and Ben, and Bunny Mellon, whom I’ve come to adore. We’ve asked Bunny to redesign the White House gardens. And I want her to teach me how to make the sort of arrangements she has everywhere in her house—freesia and tulips in baskets that look like Dutch paintings. I love Bunny’s house.”

“It’s not too shabby here,” Bill says.

“And the other thing so intriguing about Bunny,” I say, “is that, along with design, she’s perfected privacy to high art. She minds her own life and walks around with that absolutely lovely smile, saying nothing. I need to learn how to do that.”

—

Jack is restless in those early weeks. He’s assembled his cabinet and named Bobby attorney general, which creates a stir. Bobby’s only thirty-five, the youngest AG since 1814, and he doesn’t have the legal experience one would expect for the role.

“I need him in there with me,” Jack says.

In those weeks, he emerges from long classified briefings looking worn out. He paces the West Wing, the executive offices. Someone finds him in the mailroom, I hear, just standing there with a letter opener, opening unsorted mail. I ask him about it when he comes home to the Residence that evening. He shrugs.

“Just trying to figure things out. Hey, let me show you this.” He digs into his briefcase and draws out a letter from John Steinbeck.

“You found this in the mail room?” I ask.

He smiles. “No. But it’s nice. His response to my inaugural.” He hands me the letter, I sit down and read it. Steinbeck has written how a nation might be shaped by its statesmen and military but is often remembered for its artists. He writes how grateful he feels to Jack for capturing it.

“Excellently written…” I read aloud, “that magic undertone of truth.” I set the letter down. “I love this, Jack.”

“Let’s replace all the generals with artists.” He toys with an empty glass on the table, turning it over like there’s something in it he is looking for, and I think about how glass isn’t brittle at all but solvent, fluid, when it meets the right heat.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“Communism. Vietnam. The disintegration I’ve inherited.”

“You’ve known all of that.”

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