The Editor

by Steven Rowley

  I would have loved to share this trip with my mother. She would have hated this flight and in fact may have refused to board it, offended by having her weight silently gauged. But she would have loved to spy on Martha’s Vineyard, to see firsthand the places and names that she’s read about in following the Kennedys over the years: Nantucket, Hyannis Port—even Chappaquiddick. Several months with no communication is not that unusual in our relationship. It’s not the norm, but it’s not unheard of. We’ve done this before. Still, there’s a weighty sadness to our current silence; this is not merely a period of us being too busy or too lazy to speak. I have defied her expressed wishes—what else is there, really, to say? Calling to announce I had been invited to Jackie’s beach house to work on the book would only rub it in.

  The airport on Martha’s Vineyard is centered on the island, in a clearing of some forested acres, and our landing is surprisingly smooth. There’s a single, quaint-looking tower, and the airport building itself has a cottagey feel. When we deplane onto the tarmac, I’m immediately overcome with the smell and grit of salty air. I have the address for Jackie’s place near Gay Head, but since I feel wholly incapable of saying Gay Head without snickering, I tell the taxi driver I hire to take State Road to Moshup Trail (the specific directions she had given me).

  I’m nervous, my heart rate increasing in synch with the cab’s meter. With these latest edits I can feel my esteem with Jackie slipping; if I don’t play this hand correctly, I could have created this mess with my mother for nothing. I instruct the driver to drop me at the top of the driveway, as I don’t want to intrude on the family’s privacy by having him drive past the gate and up to the main house. Once again, it’s impossible to know the protocol. I pay him the fare with a generous tip (on the off chance he knows who lives here) before retrieving my suitcase and walking down the quiet road, double-checking the address I have folded in my pocket. The drive is lined with trees and the air is filled with a symphony of chirping insects that sounds like both a concerto and a warning. There’s a turnoff on the right side of the road, but I continue straight, even though I’m not sure that’s correct. I’m sweating, from the July heat or from nerves or from both, and I fish for a Kleenex in my other pocket to wipe my forehead. After a quarter-mile or so I round a bend and come to a clearing and I can see what looks to be a main and guesthouse. There’s a large pond behind both, and I think maybe the ocean beyond that—it’s hard to tell from my vantage point in the driveway, everything feels so vast.

  I spot a sturdy woman with graying hair and she calls out to me as she shakes a scatter rug in the driveway. “Hello?”

  “Hi there. I’m James. I’m wondering if I’m in the right place.” I look around like I might recognize something, although what I’m not sure. I’m certain there’s no mailbox that says KENNEDY.

  “You’re looking for . . .”

  “Jackie,” I reply without thinking.

  “You’re looking for Mrs. Onassis,” the woman says pointedly, studying me with some degree of skepticism.

  “Yes.” I cringe. I’m barely down the driveway and I’ve already offended. “Mrs. Onassis.”

  The woman hesitates, as if deciding whether I should be sent packing. She gives the rug another shake and I step back to avoid a small cloud of debris. “You’re the writer?” She waves me in closer.

  “That’s right.” I used to say it apologetically before this all began, like I was admitting something embarrassing or bad. It’s a real gift Jackie—Mrs. Onassis—has given to me, to be able to say that I’m a writer with pride, the stress of the current edits notwithstanding.

  “She said I should be expecting you.”

  “And here I am.” It’s meant to sound charming, but out loud it sounds condescending. Quickly I add, “Stunning. Martha’s Vineyard. Very scenic.”

  It’s clear from her expression she doesn’t know what to make of me. “How was your flight?”

  “Short.” I smile expectantly, looking back and forth between the houses, trying to get the lay of the land. “Is Mrs. Onassis around?”

  “She’s resting. I’m to set you up in the guesthouse and she will see you for dinner.” She reaches for my bag, but I pick it up before she’s able to and attempt a friendly smile. We amble together over to the smaller house as a gentle breeze picks up. “I’m Joan,” she finally offers.

  “James Smale. It’s very nice to meet you. You work for Mrs. Onassis?”

  “Seven years now.”

  “This is our first book together,” I volunteer, hoping it will inspire some pity. By the way Joan grunts her response, I can tell she thinks that much is obvious. We reach the guesthouse, which, while smaller than the main house, is still considerably sized. “This is all for me?”

  “It is. Although you probably won’t need the run of it. There’s a bedroom set up for you on the second floor.”

  “Is this where . . .” I stop myself, knowing my question is inappropriate.

  “Is this where . . . ?” Joan asks.

  I blush, unable to think of a good lie. “Is this where John Junior stays?” I look bashfully at Joan, who says “Mmm” in response, as if that’s all that needs to be said on that topic.

  “Well, thank you. I certainly don’t need all this space, and I promise not to make a mess of it.”

  “There’s a pitcher of iced tea in the fridge. Brewed it this morning. Mrs. Onassis will see you for dinner in the main house at six.”

  “Thank you, Joan.” I hope it’s at least okay that she and I be on a first-name basis.

  Joan opens the door for me and I step inside. She hesitates before closing the door. “A piece of advice?”

  I nod. I need all the advice I can get.

  “You’re in someone’s home. Remember that. She invited you, but that doesn’t mean you should suddenly be overly familiar. She’s very private. Be respectful.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “She’s trusting you with an invitation.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I repeat, showcasing my ability to be respectful. Joan is a bit of a killjoy.

  She looks at me again to see if her advice is sticking. When she decides that it takes, she turns and repeats, “Dinner’s at six. Don’t be late.” I’m about to say that I wouldn’t dare when the screen door slams behind me and I jump. I get the sense she did that on purpose.

  The house is decorated simply but impeccably. I set my bag down on the floor to stroll freely throughout. There’s a deliberate beachlike, Ralph Lauren feel to it all, despite the European accents that are scattered throughout. Beside a comfortable and welcoming worn-in living room sofa is a rustic French country accent chair next to a Danish mid-century side table. The art is nautically themed, with masculine, stormy hues, seascapes with skies the color of gunmetal. In the kitchen, a collage of family photos hangs near a Shaker dining table and chairs. Somehow it all ties together: American with European, museum-quality art with family photographs, turn-of-the-century artifacts with mid-century furnishings. It’s effortless in the way only someone with great style and taste could curate. Upstairs there’s only one bedroom with the door open, obviously meant for me. I set my bag in there and plop down on the bed.

  I immediately want to call Daniel. Sleeping in JFK Jr.’s quarters is, for red-blooded homosexuals, at least, far more exciting than a night in the Lincoln Bedroom. More than that. It’s an outright fantasy. But it’s not clear he would answer the phone. We had a small argument before I left, Daniel and I, and I’m not really sure what sparked it. He seemed annoyed about the trip; at first I thought he was hoping to be invited, but he finally revealed that he was concerned about what it would do to my mother.

  “You should call her,” he said.

  “I did,” I replied, tugging at my ear where the cut used to be.

  “And she’s okay with you going?”

  I didn’t understand why I neede
d her permission, so I lied and said, “She’s fine.”

  He didn’t really believe me, but the whole thing was over before it began. Still, I don’t like it when we lock horns. The list of people who are currently on speaking terms with me, it seems, is shrinking rapidly, and Joan seems unlikely to be added as a confidant.

  I look at the white ceiling (which I’m sure isn’t white, but rather some color with a name like Edwardian Linen or Lustre), imagining others who have stayed here before me: celebrities, politicians, writers, bon vivants. It’s impossible to nap, so after an hour or so of trying I return to the kitchen for some iced tea. I pour myself a glass from the pitcher and decide to stroll down to the waterfront. I step outside into the gauzy afternoon light, and a little breeze tousles my hair. The screen door again slams behind me.

  There’s a path along the pond, which, if I remember correctly from Jackie’s invitation, has an Indian name like Squibnocket; I follow that path around the pond’s western end until I reach the ocean, stopping only once to skip a few stones across the rippling water. I reach the dunes and remove my boat shoes and roll up my pant legs. I carry the shoes with me like I would at the Jersey shore, even though it’s probably safe to leave them in the sand. I look up and down the coastline and there are only a few other people in sight, and none within shouting distance. A man waves and I wave politely back as a few sandpipers run feebly between us toward the outgoing tide.

  It’s so beautiful, unencumbering—I’m tempted to strip off all my clothes and run naked into the water. A baptism of sorts into a new life, with all the cares of my previous existence washed away in the salty waters of the Atlantic. Just me, naked and pure.

  But of course I don’t.

  Instead I look out across the ocean, toward the United Kingdom, toward Ireland, from whence the ancestors of our two families came. One family who was the very image of the American Dream, whose children rose to the highest ranks of power before that dream morphed slowly into a nightmare. The other who never dared to dream big enough, too bogged down by the rules to ever truly get ahead, a family that produced timid offspring who lived through their own quiet ordeals. I wonder how far the horizon is, how far I can really see. Although, if maps are to be trusted, I’m not looking at Ireland at all, but rather at Portugal, or maybe France.

  I scrunch my bare toes in the warm grains of sand. It feels like I’m standing in the sands of an egg timer, the firm beach slowly falling into another chamber beneath me. I feel a sudden urgency with time, about not having enough of it to make things right with the book, with Jackie, with my mother. But the beach is a seductive mistress, so I pivot east, hoping to make it as far as the cliffs at Gay Head before I have to turn back for dinner.

  ◆ TEN ◆

  I’m on the front steps of the main house at six o’clock sharp, having showered after my walk and dressed properly for dinner in a white shirt and J.Crew slacks, which the catalog described as an apropos Nantucket Red. I check that my shirt is properly tucked and straighten my belt before knocking gently on the screen door. It rattles in its frame like the door of our family farmhouse, warped slightly from the sun or the rain, and I’m instantly transported to my childhood. It sounds so much like the door I grew up with that I half expect to hear my mother’s voice call out.

  “James? Is that you?”

  Of course, it’s not my mother.

  “Mrs. Onassis?”

  “Please, come in.”

  I open the door and Jackie strides forward, flipping through a small stack of mail. In my mind she holds handwritten letters, as she’s too ethereal in this airy setting to be weighed down with solicitations or bills. She’s wearing navy pants and a white silk T-shirt with a cardigan draped over her shoulders in the way certain women like Lauren Bacall do in magazines but you rarely see in real life. I’m surprised that she answers her own door with a casual “come in,” as if that were in any way safe. I wonder why Joan doesn’t guard the door padded like a baseball catcher to absorb possible intruders.

  “How was your trip?” she asks, and we hug politely. I don’t dare pull her too close or too tight; I imagine her with porous bones like a bird.

  “Easy. Quite nice.”

  “Excellent. Welcome to Red Gate Farm. Allow me to give you the nickel tour.”

  The main house is decorated much as the guesthouse is, with a slightly more feminine touch. There are books in every room, and I wish I could spend hours quietly perusing her library, studying the titles to see which spines are cracked, if only to feel closer to her. I know that she is famous for once giving a televised tour of the White House (“the Diplomatic Reception Room is right this way”), but this has a quiet informality that is hardly reminiscent.

  “Your home is lovely,” I say, but it comes across like a line instead of a spontaneous remark.

  “That’s very kind of you to say.”

  We make small talk until dinner; I describe my view from the plane window like I’m some sort of cultural anthropologist from National Geographic. She retains perfect focus on me like she hasn’t herself taken this flight a thousand times, and I feel like the belle of an invisible ball. The meal is Atlantic cod with some sort of balsamic reduction over rice and haricots verts.

  “Will Mr. Tempelsman be joining us?” Mr. Tempelsman is Maurice Tempelsman, her suitor of several years. In our brief time working together I’ve heard her make reference to him as her companion, her “Belgian,” and once even jokingly as “Mr. Kennedy Onassis.”

  “He is in Europe on business. I hope my company will do.”

  We both smile, recognizing the ridiculous nature of the comment. Out of sheer curiosity, I would love to observe them together, to see how she behaves with a man (momentarily forgetting that I am one), but I’m relieved not to have to make more small talk and grasp for polite questions about Antwerp. At the table, Jackie enlightens me in some of the history of the island. Before it was a summer home to affluent and well-known families, the island was home to the Wampanoag people. English settlement began in the seventeenth century and the island was brought into prominence by the whaling industry in the 1800s. She knows everything about everything, or so it seems, and the details that shade her lesson are remarkable.

  “Have you ever heard of a Nantucket sleigh ride?” she asks, halfway through the meal.

  “I can’t say that I have.”

  “It’s the resulting tow a whaler received after harpooning a whale, before it would tire and die.”

  “You’re kidding!” I’m tickled by this bit of information. “That’s delightful.”

  “I imagine not for the whale.”

  I laugh. “No, I imagine not.”

  There are no actual vineyards (I ask), nor have there ever really been; the island was, however, at one time covered with wild grapes. There was a secessionist movement in the 1970s; some of the flags from that campaign still fly over the island. She’s so thorough in her knowledge and enthusiastic to share it, I wonder if there will be a test. She could easily have a second job as an island tour guide if she wanted it, or work for the chamber of commerce—a delightfully comical image in and of itself.

  We each have a glass of chenin blanc with dinner; I sip mine slowly so that I’m not tempted for more, mindful of Joan’s advice. (Despite the daiquiris we consumed in New York, perhaps she’s right—a home visit requires extra decorum.) It’s only after we consume most of the meal that talk turns to the book.

  “So, James. We need to talk more about your ending.”

  “I knew it was inevitable.” I set my fork down, annoyed at the book as if it were in the way of our relationship instead of being the reason for it.

  “You’re letting the mother off too easy.”

  Given where my mother and I currently are, it’s difficult to imagine being harder on her. I must flinch, because Jackie eases off the gas pedal.

  “I keep thinking
what power a talented writer has.”

  “Did you ever entertain being a writer?” I ask, trying to obfuscate the fact that I clearly haven’t accomplished what she was hoping with this draft.

  “My mother thought I had the temperament, but I find the process painstaking. It takes me forever to draft a letter; I don’t know how I’d ever manage a whole book.” She takes the napkin from her lap and places it on the table before folding her hands under her chin.

  “It is painstaking,” I agree. “Painful, at times.”

  Jackie narrows her eyes. “Yes, but through pain comes great art.”

  “I won’t flatter myself by thinking you’re speaking of my manuscript.” This is, after all, a woman who has seen and had access to the world’s greatest antiquities.

  But without so much as a pause she asks, “Why not?”

  I chew on my lip as the profundity of such a simple question washes over me. Why am I not in the running to create something substantial? Why do I so easily discredit my own work? “Why not,” I say, a declarative statement in place of the question.

  “It seems to me you’re capable. I believe in what writers can do. And I believe in you.”

  “I always thought there was magic in being an editor.” I can feel myself blushing again, heat racing to my cheeks. “Compliments,” I say, a callback to our last meeting.

  Jackie nods, then gazes down at her plate. I’m beginning to recognize real patterns: I look away when complimented, she looks down when the subject of conversation. If this keeps up, we could spend the next few days avoiding eye contact entirely. “It is special. To find something in a manuscript that you recognize as familiar truth, but also as wisdom you’re hearing voiced in a new and articulate way. It’s why your manuscript stood out to me. You opened my eyes to something, James. A fresh truth. And I think a lot of readers will feel the same way.”