Page 25 of Jackie

“That’s for another time.” He smiles. I feel the rush of heat to my face. I glance away.

“In exchange for being your cane,” I say, “when you win your Senate seat, I want an interview.”

“We can pretend we’ve never met.”

“We’ve already done that.”

“We can do it again. You can prep me with the questions, so I have good answers.”

“I’ll draft your answers.”

He laughs, but laughing makes him wince. “I hate this kind of pain,” he says.

“The answer to the first question will be something like: And I’m always being taken for a tourist by the cops because I look too young.”

“What’s the question?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“If I win.”

“Oh, you will, Jack. Think of all those ladies’ teas you’ve suffered through.”

“You have to stop,” he says. “Laughing hurts.”

…

He wins the Senate seat on the fourth of November. By a narrow margin, he defeats the incumbent, Republican Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr.

“My first front page in the Times,” he says.

—

Frank Waldrop sends me off to interview the new senator-elect.

“Well, hello,” Jack says as his secretary walks me in. Others are in the room, but no one I recognize.

“It’s so nice to meet you at last, Senator-Elect,” I say. “Congratulations on your win.”

His eyes are laughing.

“And what can I do for you?” he says. “Miss Bouvier, is it?”

—

John White drops by the paper the following week.

“I hear things are getting serious between you and Jack Kennedy,” he says.

“John, I could never be serious with someone who’s hardly around but always expects me to be.”

Those words, though, are harder to stand by when news gets out that Jack has asked me to be his date at Eisenhower’s inaugural ball. John White teases me about it in front of Waldrop.

“Not exactly a trip to the movies, Jackie.”

“Jack knows I’m a safe bet,” I say. “I’ll be polite and wear a nice dress.”

But Waldrop doesn’t laugh. “Now, don’t come back next week and tell me you’re engaged.”

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