Page 50 of Jackie

“Pretty much. And everyone gets a glass of milk.”

I laugh. “Might one order something in addition to a glass of milk?” The whole thing feels weirdly clandestine—the gangster back room, lunch all planned. I ask the server for a glass of wine and get out a cigarette. Jack shakes his head at me and mouths, No. I put the pack away.

“Now, let’s get this straight,” says Jack. “Kenny, where’s your pencil? Start getting this down.” He works through a list: who to call first, who to call after, what needs to be prepped. A litany of directives. Kenny’s at his shorthand list; the others talk among themselves. Once, before we were married, when I went up to see Jack in Boston, he introduced me to someone nicknamed “Onions” Burke and someone else called “Juicy” Grenara. Then we all went for dinner at the Ritz.

The food arrives. Jack talks and gestures, his pale eyes cool as Kenny takes notes on the back of an envelope. The pencil tip breaks.

“All set, then,” says Jack. “Let’s eat.”

“I have a question, Kenny,” I say. “What exactly do you do with all those things Jack tells you? You write them down. Then what? Go down the list and check them off one by one?”

The table falls silent.

“Funny you should ask,” Kenny says. “You know what I do? I wait until he calms down, then I do the things that need to get done and throw the envelope out.”

“You son of a bitch,” Jack says. “I bet that is what you do.”

I laugh. “Oh, Jack, I’m sure Kenny would never not do every single task you ask him to do, right, Kenny?”

Jack relaxes then, the easy smile that’s hard to read. “Just like my wife, aren’t you, Kenny? I say one thing, and you go and do exactly what you want.” But he is laughing too.

—

I recount this for our friend Joe Alsop a few weeks later—an abridged version of my first political trip and the steak-and-potatoes routine.

Joe Alsop has called me “Darling Jackie” ever since he reneged on his offer to rent us his house in Georgetown. But I like him, and I love his incisive political column, Matter of Fact, and his salon-style dinner parties on Dumbarton Ave. Alsop has a sprawling library, Savile Row waistcoats, and exquisite taste in food. He has a cagey wit and a knack for bringing together the right group of people. “An evening is like a room,” he told me once, an elegant wave of his cigarette. “You can construct a room so guests feel at once a sense of ease and excitement: formal dress, then toss in a martini and a topic of hard conversation, some thorny national issue launched as a query. Watch the room ignite. Alliances are forged. Deals get made. Everyone thinks it’s just a dinner party.” He glanced at me to be sure I was following, then added, “Never discount the bore factor. No bores allowed with eight or fewer people. Only half a bore with ten.”

Joe Alsop hasn’t always liked Jack, I learned recently. Apparently Jack did some crass thing once and got himself crossed off the soirée list, until he married me.

That particular spring evening, Alsop introduces us to Kay and Phil Graham, loyal supporters of Lyndon Johnson. In his introduction, he calls Jack “the antidote to the sclerotic Eisenhower administration we’re all so tired of.”

Low music in the background—Ella Fitzgerald.

Phil Graham looks at Jack. “You’re after the presidency?”

“That’s right,” Jack says.

“You’re young. Why not wait another four?”

“Well, Phil, first, I think I’m as qualified to run as anybody, except for Lyndon. Second, if I don’t run, whoever wins will be there for eight years and that will influence his successor. Third, if I don’t run, I’ll be in the Senate for eight more years, and as a potential future candidate, I’ll have to vote politically, which means I’ll end up a mediocre senator and a lousy candidate.”

Silence, then Graham says, “That makes sense.”

Alsop takes my arm. “Jackie, come with me. You must try the terrapin soup.”

“That wasn’t politics,” I say once we’re out of earshot, “what you just orchestrated. That was art.”

…

August. I travel with Jack to Europe for a Senate Foreign Relations Committee trip. It’s Gianni Agnelli who tells us that Churchill is a guest on Aristotle Onassis’s yacht. It’s also Agnelli who procures an invitation for us. Not to dinner. That point is underscored. But for drinks an hour before.

—

The mind is water.

That’s the thought that strikes me as I step onto the deck of the Christina. He is there, Onassis, a man I’ve heard so much about—shipping magnate; Don Juan of the rich; notorious lover of La Divina, the famed opera singer Maria Callas. Their sex and fights are legendary. He’s a man whose pockets are lined with ruthless wealth and luck and stars.

Onassis, Jack told me, has no fondness for Bobby, who scuppered a deal Onassis was trying to make in Saudi Arabia. That evening, though, he greets us warmly.

---