The Editor

by Steven Rowley

  “The party?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s Friday. In three weeks. Three weeks from Friday. I know you don’t like to come into the city. It’s a . . .” What is it? “Ways. But I thought, maybe . . .” I pause here and take a breath. “I don’t know what I thought. I’ve been angry. I don’t want to be. I thought this could be something you could do. For me.”

  My mother continues to fold towels. Or not. Or maybe she folds and unfolds a single towel and will do so until we hang up.

  “I thought it would give us the opportunity to talk. I’d like for us to talk.”

  “Will she be there?” my mother asks.

  “Who?” I’m not being coy. For a split second I actually forget.

  “You know who.”

  “Would that make a difference?”

  Silence.

  “I imagine she will. I hope so. I would like to introduce you.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Okay.”

  “I miss you.” I can’t stop myself from saying it, but it’s the truth, so why should I? I do miss her.

  Dead silence. Not even the folding of towels. And then, just before my anger is reborn, screaming into the world anew, she says, “I miss you too.”

  A sigh of relief; I stand down. “Don’t throw Oogle away.” I can’t help but think that maybe he has powers still. But Jesus Christ. Let’s move him way down on our list of priorities.

  Again, “We’ll see.”

  “We’ll see” is not a no, and I use the last mobility I have in my face to form the tightest smile. I hang up the telephone, proud of myself for calling. It was the right thing to do, even if I’m setting myself up for crushing disappointment.

  My expression is completely frozen as I turn on the shower. I wait for the hot water to rise in our pipes and steam to fill the room before I slip off my underwear and step naked into the tub. My mother will accept my invitation. She has to. Doesn’t she? And yet I’m paralyzed with a sinking feeling she won’t. Eventually I close my eyes and put my face under the water and streaks of blue run down my body and over my toes, swirling down the drain like Janet Leigh’s blood in the movie Psycho.

  ◆ THIRTY-ONE ◆

  As the elevator rises inside 1040 Fifth, so does my excitement; my eyelid spasms in the throes of some sort of nervous tic (where did that come from?) and I can feel the floor rattle as the cables pull the small car up toward the sky. I look for some sort of certificate to see when this elevator was last inspected, to vouch for its safety, but when I spot the document in question the date is smudged. Great. Even rich people can’t be assured of safe carriage. Jackie and I are to go over the final plans for the book launch next week, she’s taken personal interest, and everything is suddenly very real. Unless the elevator plummets to the basement, splintering it and me into myriad pieces—in which case things are still real, just no longer for me. My mother will show up for the book party and someone will have to explain that what’s left of me is sitting in some decorative urn on the mantel, perhaps a piece of ceramics that Jackie herself acquired while traveling some exotic place with a strange spelling like Marrakech. I hope that, in my mother’s shock, as she slowly comes to accept this garish turn of events, someone at least has the decency to offer her a crab puff.

  When the elevator doors open, I’m surprised to find I’m inside an apartment. Not in a hallway, not faced with a closed door or with the kind of drab furniture you might find in a vestibule; I am in the foyer of Jackie’s home. Did the lobby attendant turn some sort of key when he showed me into the elevator? Did Jackie activate some control from her end? I was too lost in my own thoughts to notice. I jump, startled, when the doors slide closed behind me like I’ve wandered into a horror film where the audience knows I’m the next victim but I, as yet, do not. The entry is filled with the mild scent of hydrangeas, and just as I convince myself it’s some sort of disinfectant to cover the stench of carnage I spot a large vase of the white, puffy flowers on a side table.

  “There’s my author.” Jackie appears, arms outstretched. The light in her apartment is soft and clean; there must be windows in every direction. She looks like she’s lit for a film.

  “Mrs. Onassis.”

  “Please, please.” Jackie gestures for me to follow her and leads me down one of the halls. This is the first time I’ve been invited inside her New York apartment and I discreetly peek into each room, marveling at how much square footage some people have on an island with eight million people—the beauty of vertical space. The entry and surrounding hall is easily two of my kitchens, and she probably has, like, five bedrooms to our one.

  “It’s kind of you to have me over. We could have done this at the office.”

  “We’re moving offices. Didn’t Mark tell you?”

  “No. He didn’t mention. Wait, yes. Maybe.” Mark has been our go-between leading up to the book’s release; we talk often and have found a comfortable working relationship. At times he seems more excited about the book than Daniel is.

  “Well. Everything is chaos.”

  “Where are you moving?”

  “To 1540 Broadway.”

  I do a quick calculation. “Forty-sixth Street?”

  “Forty-fifth.”

  We step into a library with red-and-gold French wallpaper and matching-patterned draperies. It’s decorated with the effortless elegance (a velvet-upholstered chair, a round end table that could have been lifted from Versailles, decorative sculptures on stacks of books) that I have come to know as Jackie’s interior style. The only space of hers not to reflect this is her office—the one place I like to imagine she’s truly at home.

  “How is that going?”

  Jackie sighs. “Everyone is fussing over me. ‘How will Jackie handle the move? Will she pack her own boxes? Will she wrap her own knickknacks in bubble paper?’ After all this time, I’m still the talk of the office.”

  This is a thorn in her side, that after years of hard work proving herself, people still see her as “other.” Mark himself has told me he’s seen her elbow-deep in a photocopier one time clearing a paper jam and another time running down the halls in her stocking feet, racing to make a deadline. But even if I can picture her rushing down the hallway, I can’t quite conjure an image of her navigating Times Square. Her new commute is troubling to me.

  “‘How will Jackie handle the move?’” she asks herself. “She’s handling it by steering clear of it.”

  I smile at the thought of Mark having to do manual labor like boxing up his boss’s office. He must be cursing his predicament right about now.

  “How are you, Mr. Author? Nervous? Excited? Take a seat.”

  Jackie sits in front of her fireplace and gestures for me to sit on a striped loveseat opposite her. Behind me are floor-to-ceiling built-ins lined with all kinds of books, including an old set of encyclopedias; an oil portrait of a Napoleonic figure on horseback is mounted on the divide. “Excited,” I say, before qualifying the sentiment. “I think. Anxious for sure.”

  “I’ve had authors tell me they broke down in tears right before their books were released. Be prepared for a rush of emotion.”

  “I might cry now,” I say in a moment of naked honesty. Fortunately, Jackie laughs, so I pass it off as the joke she thinks it is.

  “I just came from lunch with my son. He wants to start a magazine. About politics—a fresh, new take, if you can imagine that.” Jackie looks heavenward, presumably for strength. “So I might cry too.”

  “That’s wonderful. Isn’t it?”

  “Is it?” Jackie seems unsure. “You tell me.”

  “He wants to be an editor. Like his mother.” I keep the second half of the sentiment—instead of a politician, like his father—to myself.

  “That’s a lovely way of looking at it, James.” She squints as she con
siders my take. “You have a writer’s gift of perception.”

  I swoon. “I’m sure he’ll do very well.”

  “I wish I had your confidence. I’m not sure it’s the smartest investment. Of his time or his money.”

  On the table next to her chair is a wrapped gift. It sticks out in a room where everything else is curated. It’s a book, the gift. I did this a lot as a kid, identify each present under the tree by the mere shape of it; my father would chide me for taking all the fun out of Christmas and shout empty threats about returning all the gifts to the store. My mother always told him to calm down, reminding him that Christmas wasn’t about what’s under the tree.

  Jackie must catch me eyeing the package. “A little something for you. To mark the occasion.” She hands me the present.

  “May I?” I ask, tearing at the seam of the wrapping before she even gives her permission. I rip open the gift, half adult, half child in the throes of excitement. Jacqueline Onassis bought me a present. The book is entitled Remember the Ladies: Women in America 1750–1815. I don’t know what to say. Like, really. Do not know how to respond.

  “It’s the first book I worked on at Viking. My first book to mark the occasion of yours. The title comes from Abigail Adams, from a letter she wrote to her husband while he was in Philadelphia in 1776. ‘In the new code of laws I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors.’”

  “You have it memorized.” I flip the book over to study the back jacket.

  “You don’t forget a woman like Abigail Adams. I wrote an inscription for you inside. I would hope that after everything dies down, you too would remember the ladies. Your mother, particularly.”

  “Be generous and favorable to her?”

  “Toward her.”

  I shake my head, more at myself than at her. “Always the editor.”

  Jackie smiles, pulling her hair back from the side of her face before letting it fall forward again.

  “And toward you?”

  “Oh, well. You’ve always been favorable toward me.”

  She shimmers in that way that she does, and I hug the book close to my chest to express appreciation. I’m dying to read her inscription, but I know better than to do so now. It’s enough that I know she wants me to remember her too.

  As if I could ever forget.

  “Books make the best gifts, don’t you agree?” she asks.

  “I do indeed.”

  “President Kennedy and I used to give each other books when we were courting. They were one of the first things we bonded over.”

  I picture Daniel and myself in bed, me nestled in the crook of his arm, both of us reading, as we do sometimes. I wonder if it was like this for them, the future president and First Lady. “I’m sure he would have very much liked this book,” I say, immediately thinking it stupid. Am I trying to come off like I knew her husband? That I had any insight into his taste?

  “He would have,” she agrees, kicking off her shoes and tucking one leg underneath her. She turns and stares into the empty fireplace. “Although, remembering the ladies was never Jack’s problem.”

  My jaw drops from the unexpected candor.

  “Tea?” A stern-looking woman appears in the doorway, startling me. I look up, surprised to see it’s not Joan. She’s carrying a silver tray with a teapot and plate of sandwiches.

  “Right here would be fine, Martha,” Jackie says. “Thank you.”

  The woman sets the tea service on a table next to where Jackie is seated, and the cups and saucers rattle. I glare at her as she pours, willing her to dissipate as quickly as she’s appeared; the clock has struck midnight and snuffed out a moment of pure magic. Now everything is awkward, and I can’t laugh at Jackie’s candor or press her for more. Mrs. Kennedy is Mrs. Onassis again.

  “Black is fine, thank you,” I say when the woman holds up a small pot of cream. She serves Jackie her tea and exits without saying a word, leaving the tray behind.

  I sip from my cup quietly. “I invited her to the book party.”

  “You invited Martha?” Jackie asks, looking over her shoulder after her housemaid.

  I laugh. “No. My mother.”

  “That’s wonderful.”

  “Never stop trying.”

  “That’s right,” she says, recalling her advice. She adds lemon to her tea. “Has she accepted the invitation?”

  I offer a feeble smile. “Not. Yet.” I can feel myself sweating; Jackie, sipping a hot beverage in a sweater, doesn’t seem at all bothered. I set my cup back on the saucer and place both on the table in front of me, discreetly fanning my shirt so that it doesn’t start to stick.

  “It would be so lovely if she came,” Jackie says. And then, as if it’s just occurred to her, “I’ll bet she comes.”

  “If I were your bookie, I wouldn’t know what odds to place on that bet.”

  “May I say,” Jackie begins before pausing. “Without knowing the circumstances. Women like your mother and me, from our generation, we were duty bound. Things were expected of us, marriage and motherhood. But we were girls once, with dreams and aspirations of our own. When we see our children succeed, of course part of their accomplishments are our own. But it also reminds us that life doesn’t turn out for everyone the way they dreamed.”

  I can see a world where my mother could have been happier living another life, with Frank or someone else, or with a career maybe, outside the home, with no man at all. But she chose us, her children. Again and again and again.

  “Remember the ladies,” I say, breaking the silence, the tea finally welcome to soothe the lump in my throat.

  “Remember the ladies,” Jackie repeats with just the hint of a smile.

  For-give-ness, I hear my father grunt, before shaking it from my mind. “This tea is delicious.”

  “It’s an assam tea. From India. An absolute dream, India. Such splendor. Such color. Have you been?”

  “No.” I raise my teacup in a little toast. “But you really should reconsider a book. With everything you’ve seen.”

  “I’ve done several books on India. I’ll show you,” she says, but makes no effort to get up to produce these books.

  “No, I mean you should be writing a book.”

  Jackie sets her teacup down on her saucer and studies me, as if considering whether she can trust me, really trust me, for the first time. “James, may I tell you a little secret?”

  “Always,” I say, desperate to be a confidant.

  “Remember when you asked me before? About writing a memoir?”

  “On Martha’s Vineyard. You said you would not waste your time. So long as there were beaches to be walked.”

  “That’s right, and I meant it. But the truth of the matter is, I have.”

  A sudden wave comes over me; I’m at ground zero for the biggest breaking news in publishing in years. “You have? That’s wonderful!” I have an immediate fantasy of being the first to read it.

  “Well, now, not so fast.” She can feel my excitement. “My life is my life, and I don’t feel any particular need to share it in an obvious or expected way. However. If anyone has bothered to pay attention to the work that I’ve done, they would know that I’ve been telling pieces of my story all along.”

  I’m suddenly more in awe of this woman that I ever have been. “Through the books that you’ve edited.”

  “Precisely. They all share something about me, express a side of me. Like the books I’ve done on India.”

  I’m deeply humbled by the gist of what she’s saying, but it leaves me feeling confused. “My book fits into your catalog? Into your life story?”

  “I’ve been a wife. I’ve been a working woman. A tourist. An ambassador, of sorts, in my thousand days as First Lady. And I will be an historical figure
. The answer to some future trivia.”

  “Maybe. Although who can really name Grover Cleveland’s wife?” I look up, expecting a lighthearted laugh.

  “Frances Folsom.” The name floats between us, slowly wafting my way. Eventually Jackie laughs, but only at the dumbfounded expression on my face. “When you’re in a club as elite as that, you tend to know the other members.”

  I blow on my tea, buying time to process what she’s telling me. “But my book isn’t about any of those things.”

  “James, your book says who I am above all.”

  I’m almost stunned in total bafflement, even though the answer is right in front of me. “A mother.”

  She nods.

  I sit back in my seat, understanding our relationship, perhaps for the first time. “Well, that’s just”—I think about what it is, exactly, that I want to say—“a whole other level of responsibility.”

  “It’s not meant to be.”

  “How can it not be? You’re one of the—you know—women of the twentieth century.” I try not to use any of the words I know she detests: Famous. Iconic. Paragon.

  Jackie looks deep in her cup as if reading the tea leaves.

  “But to tell your story—”

  She cuts me off. “You already told my story.”

  “That’s a lot to digest.”

  “Have a sandwich, then, to wash it down.” She smiles and holds out a plate of small sandwiches and I take two and eat one over my saucer; I struggle to chew through the cold cucumber.

  “I’m hopeful. That she will come to the party,” I say after swallowing, sensing Jackie would like to move off the subject. “My mother. It’s difficult to imagine it without her. But I don’t know. There is still so much hurt. The past is a funny thing.”

  “It has such power over us. Such sway.”

  “It’s wily. The past morphs and changes even though, in theory, it should be set in stone.”

  “The past is all perspective,” Jackie says, not at all thrown by my rambling thoughts.

  “I suppose. I long for it, though. The past. Even though I wouldn’t trade a moment of this. And even though I know in my head the past wasn’t as good as I remember it. I ache for it still.”