Page 8 of Jackie

“Ready, my best girl?”

“Yes,” I say. He takes my arm, and we walk outside into brilliant city sunlight. We cross the avenue, heading north to the park. When he realizes he’s out of cigarettes, I offer him one of mine.

“Too light for me, sweet Jacks. I’ll go buy a pack. Wait for me here. I’ll just be a moment.”

He’ll take longer than he’s promised. He always does. He’ll get caught up with something or someone. Eventually he’ll be back, unfazed that so much time has passed. There’s a bench ahead in the shade. I sit down. A man on a bicycle rides by. A woman with a little dog on a leash—pug nose, bright eyes. A breeze moves through the trees. Dry leaves, leftover from last fall, chase one another in circles. It’s something I’ve loved since I was young, how leaves seem to have a free unseen life beyond the pressure of the wind. Sitting on that bench alone in the warm shade, watching those dry leaves circle, I feel my mind settle.

Once, in Europe, I went with some friends to a painter’s studio, in a courtyard off a sleepy street. While the others sat around smoking cigarettes, he made a portrait of me. Rough, abstract. I was long angles and fierce lines. I loved it.

I don’t want that job at Vogue. I’ve known it, haven’t I, for days. Maybe since that night at the Bartletts’ when Jack Kennedy said, “Eight essays to win a prize you’re not sure you want?” He said it with that smile.

I don’t want the job at Vogue with its smart, hard, beautiful women and the men who cage them into glossy prints. And I don’t want a predictable post-debutante life of charity teas and manicured nails. I don’t want to stay stuck for long at Merrywood or even Hammersmith Farm—its soft-boiled heaven so easy to lose yourself to. I don’t want to grow up to fall into bourbon old-fashioneds and half-nibbled codfish balls. I want to be the artist, not just the figure he drew into raw lines. I want to be the painter, the writer, the scholar. I want to devour books, knowledge, art. I want a life soaked in adventure. I want to never be bored.

I decide it then. How I’ll frame it for my mother: At Vogue, Mummy, I’ll say, there are no boys. In that entire office building, not one eligible man. That will terrify her. I’ll stay in Washington for now, and while she shops for a suitable husband for Lee, I will get a job. Something with edge. A position at the CIA, or journalism. Maybe the Times Herald. It isn’t the Post, but it’s known for always having room for smart young women who want to learn on the job and are willing to work a lot for not much. It’s a place to start. I can move into the bedroom that used to belong to my stepbrother Gore, with its view to the river. I can ride and read and write. I can keep dating Johnny Husted, who lives too far away to really matter. I can go to dances and parties when I feel like it and plead a deadline when I don’t. I can start to map the rest of my life. Quietly. No one has to know. To everyone else, it will all look the same on the surface.

The leaves keep swirling. They blow over my feet. Leaf bits and dust wrap like hennaed lace around my ankles.

I don’t want to be the dust or the leaf or the girl or the cog. I want to be the wind that makes them spin.

February 1952

A light flash of recognition when he sees me.

“You again,” he says.

“And you.”

“Must be fate.”

“It’s hard to be a bolt from the blue in this town.”

He is holding a drink. With his free hand, he pushes that mop of hair off his forehead. I’ve heard he spends weekends in Palm Beach. He leaves on Friday, skips out of Congress at two, and flies south for golf, parties, and whatever else a man like Jack Kennedy does.

We’re at John White’s basement apartment on Dumbarton Ave. Ground-level windows set into the walls above our heads, dark panes wet with rain and streetlight. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. The room is filled with smoke and the snap of ice cubes melting in tumblers.

He looks flustered for a moment.

“Weren’t you in Europe?” he says.

“I was, with my sister; now I’m back.”

“You were moving somewhere—New York?”

“I didn’t.”

“I see. You didn’t get that job?”

“I did.”

“You didn’t take it?”

“Do you know who else is coming?” I say.

“Bill Walton.”

“I heard he isn’t writing for The New Republic anymore.”

“Not since he started painting.”

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