The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

  BERKLEY

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Kerri Maher

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  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and the B colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Maher, Kerri, author.

  Title: The Kennedy debutante / Kerri Maher.

  Description: New York : Berkley, 2018.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017058776 | ISBN 9780451492043 (hardback) | ISBN 9780451492067 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Kennedy, Kathleen, 1920–1948—Fiction. | Socialites—United States—Fiction. | Kennedy family—Fiction. | Aristocracy (Social class)—Great Britain—Fiction. | Americans—England—London—Fiction. | Catholics—England—Fiction. | Great Britain—Social life and customs—20th century—Fiction. | Presidents—United States—Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Biographical. | GSAFD: Biographical fiction. | Historical fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3613.A349295 K46 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017058776

  First Edition: October 2018

  Cover art: Image of woman © Ilina Simeonova / Trevillion Images; Image of London by Sven Hansche / EyeEm / Getty Images

  Cover design by Connie Gabbert

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  For Mom and Elena, our second and fourth Kathleens. I love you so much.

  Elena—the gum and lollipops you asked for are in chapter 29.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This is a debut novel so it’s A Very Big Deal, but it’s hardly my first novel, and so it’s tempting to use this space to thank everyone who’s ever helped me get to this point. But I don’t want a hook to drag me offstage, so I’ll keep it to those who had a hand in this book. To everyone else since I started writing in fifth grade: please know I’m deeply, soulfully grateful for your love and support.

  First I want to thank my mom and dad, who have been unwavering in their belief that I am a writer, and that this was The Book. Mom, thank you for reading every single draft I’ve ever written, and being honest about them! Dad, it’s always meant the world to me that you thought of my writing as the real thing. And thank you (thank you, thank you!) to the friends who gave their time and mental energy to reading the many drafts and iterations of Kick’s story, and for offering such insightful feedback, sometimes at the eleventh hour: Cheryl Pappas, Dana Christensen, Danielle Fodor, Diana Renn, Erin Moore, Johanna Lane, Kate Bullard, Kip Wilson, Laura White, Lori Hess, Nancy Varela, Radha Pathak, Shannon Marshall, and Shannon Smith. Peter Su and Juli Sylvia, thank you for your visual acumen. Thanks, too, to my Weston mom tribe, for the playdates and encouragement—you really did help me get the job done.

  I’m very grateful to Penn Whaling, who first encouraged me to write this book, saying I ought to try writing against type (you were right!), and to Ann Rittenberg, whose guidance on an earlier draft helped me reframe Kick’s story to make it bigger than I’d originally imagined. And thank you to fellow writers Josh Weil and Alisa Libby, who gave me exactly the advice I needed, exactly when I needed the courage to write what needed to be written.

  A number of people helped in the research aspects of this book, foremost among them the wonderful librarians of the JFK library, especially Abbey Malangone and Laurie Austin, who helped me locate various boxes pertaining to Kick, and rolled up their sleeves to search for a few needles in the haystack. Thanks to Chris Paquin, Jacqueline Cox, James Towe, Jessica Maier, Katharina Wilkins, Mike Majors, Russell Anderson, Sarah Williamson, and Todd Smith, who answered important questions about cars, soap, morning suits, Trinity College, and other historical details.

  Thank you to my editor, Kate Seaver—I couldn’t be happier that you fell in love with this story! It is the best kind of fun making this book together. Claire Zion, I’m very grateful for your wisdom on everything from fried chicken to pen names. Angelina Krahn, thank you for checking all the nitty-gritty details. Ivan Held, Christine Ball, Jeanne-Marie Hudson, and Craig Burke: I feel like I won the lottery getting to be one of your writers; thank you for inviting me onto the team. Connie Gabbert and Kelly Lipovich, thank you for making the book so gorgeous! No small thanks to Fareeda Bullert, Jin Yu, Diana M. Franco, Danielle Kier, Heather Connor, and Sarah Blumenstock for all your work getting this book into the hands of readers.

  Last but never least, thank you to my agent, Margaret O’Connor. You believed in me and my book when we needed it most, and it’s not an exaggeration to say you changed my life. And we can laugh and talk about food and pets and movies, too! How lucky am I?

  On that note, I want to say more broadly that I feel blessed to have such amazingly thoughtful and talented women as friends, family, readers, fact-checkers, and hand-holders. You mean more to me than I can express in a thousand pages like these. Thank you. You’re totally my beautiful dream.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Epigraph

  Part 1: Spring 1938Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Part 2: Fall 1938Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part 3: Summer 1941Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part 4: Summer 1943Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Part 5: Winter 1944Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Author’s Note

  Readers Guide

  About the Author

  It all seems like a beautiful dream. Thanks a lot, Daddy, for giving me one of the greatest experiences anyone could have had. I know it will have a great effect on everything I do from here in.

  —KICK KENNEDY, SEPTEMBER 18, 1939

  PART 1

>   SPRING 1938

  CHAPTER 1

  Presentation day. Finally, Kick thought as soon as she opened her eyes that morning. This is it, she kept thinking, her heart pounding. This is it.

  Rising out of damp sheets, Kick stole into the bathroom down the hall and ran steaming water into the tub, then spiked it with a strong dose of lavender oil to cleanse away the sour sweat that had drenched her the night before. Fear had plagued her dreams for weeks, encouraging one of her most embarrassing and least ladylike bodily functions—perspiration—and made daily baths an absolute necessity. Her new friend and fellow debutante Jane Kenyon-Slaney claimed to bathe only a few times a week, and yet she was as groomed and aromatic as the gardens of Hampton Court. Kick blamed her father’s insistence on sports for all his children, including the girls. Perhaps if she hadn’t exerted herself so often on tennis courts or the harbors of the Cape, she would be as dainty as Jane and the other girls who’d line up with her that day. But then, she thought ruefully to herself almost in her father’s voice, she wouldn’t have won so many trophies.

  Still. Surely even Jane would be nervous in her place. Every photographed move Kick had made since her family’s arrival in London two months before had been leading up to the moment when she would lower herself in a meticulously refined curtsy before King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, then drink champagne with the most essential people in England. Kick had always been expected to perform better than anyone else, but here in England she wasn’t just Rose and Joe Kennedy’s fashionable daughter, eighteen years old and fresh from school, who could keep up with her older brothers when she set her mind to it. She was the daughter of Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy, the first Irish Catholic ever to be appointed to the coveted post in this most Protestant of countries. This time, she had to succeed. There was more than a trophy on the line.

  She’d been waiting for a moment like this forever, through every long mass and from inside every scratchy wool uniform at Sacred Heart. A new life. And now she had a chance at it—in one of her favorite places, thank the good Lord. She’d savored a delicious taste of English society two years before when, on a too-brief break from her year in the convent at Neuilly, she’d attended the Cambridge May Balls in a swirl of music and laughter. Now that she was free of nuns and school, she was ready to embrace it all—but as Kick, not just Kathleen Kennedy.

  Add to all that the problem of Rosemary, her beautiful older sister who’d be presented with her that morning, whose erratic behavior could make everything impossible, and Kick judged that her fear was well-founded. A long hot soak in a fragrant tub would do her a world of good. Arms suspended in the water, Kick said a solemn Hail Mary and an Our Father before moving on to a short prayer asking God to guide her footsteps that day.

  A knock on the door interrupted her. Typical.

  “I’m bathing!” she shouted back, assuming it was Bobby, Teddy, or maybe Jean or Pat, one of her littlest siblings, who didn’t give a toss about the few moments of privacy she savored in a day. This day especially. As soon as she got out of the tub, she was in for relentless hours of beauty treatments, photo shoots, and then the presentation itself, followed by the most important party of her life.

  “It’s your mother,” said Rose as she opened the door, letting in a gust of cold air.

  She was wearing a tweed suit and black pumps, her dark hair sleekly coiffed and her red lipstick recently applied, looking ready for a ladies’ luncheon or a visit to one of the children’s schools. No one would know that in a few hours, Rose Kennedy would be stepping into a white Molyneux gown designed just for her and the night’s grand occasion. “A work of art,” she’d said to her favorite designer on the phone.

  Now Rose perched on the rim of the white porcelain tub and looked down at her naked daughter. In an effort to look as slender as possible to her petite mother, who’d been monitoring every mouthful of food she ingested on one of her infernal index cards, Kick pulled up her knees, which she thought made her legs look thinner and her belly concave, then she stretched her arms around her knees in an effort to cover some of the rest.

  “I know you’ll make us proud today, Kathleen,” said Rose, her voice sounding higher and tinnier than usual as it pinged off the tile walls and floors. “This presentation is so important for your father. For the whole family. The English have been so accepting of the Kennedy family so far, but today will show them and the world that there is no difference between us and them.”

  “Of course, Mother,” Kick replied, because it was easier than pointing out that more than half of the many articles written about their family had included references to their Catholicism, or Irish descent, or both. It was only with her new friends—Jane, Debo Mitford, Sissy Lloyd-Thomas, and Jean Ogilvy—all of whom would be queuing with her to curtsy before the king and queen, that Kick could sometimes forget who she was.

  Rose made an effort to smile, then said, “You’ve done a wonderful job of keeping your figure, Kathleen. And, after some initial stumbles, of knowing who everyone is and engaging everyone important in conversation. The newspapers love you.”

  “Thank you, Mother,” Kick replied, now shivering in the tub. Her mother had left the door ajar, and a draft was blowing in, cooling the water and giving her goose bumps. It didn’t help that Rose kept referring to her “stumble” from a month ago, when Kick had mistaken Lady Smithson for Lady Winthrop at the opera, a gaffe made worse by the fact that Lady Winthrop was a rotund matron whose husband had expatriated to Paris to live with his French mistress, and Lady Smithson was a statuesque but hardly fat beauty whose husband discreetly kept a French mistress in Bath. Thankfully, Lady Nancy Astor had come to her rescue with her trademark double-edged wit and said to Lady Smithson, “Gretchen, you can hardly expect such a young American to be familiar with the hypocrisies of English society as soon as she steps off the boat. Give her another few weeks and she’ll be insulting you without your even knowing it.”

  It was a profound show of support from Lady Astor, once a belle from Virginia who was now a member of Parliament and one of the most important hostesses in her adopted homeland. When Lady Smithson had huffed off to find her seat, Kick had gushed her thanks to this fellow American, who’d replied with a wave of her hand, “Any opportunity to put that woman in her place is a welcome one, my dear.” After that, Kick had made herself a set of flash cards, so that she could study every single name and face that appeared in the papers and magazines, and in the copy of Burke’s Peerage her mother had given her to study a week before they’d sailed from New York, insisting she must know who everyone was. She never got another name wrong.

  “I remember how difficult it could be, playing a role like this,” her mother went on. “There were times when I wanted to run away from all the duties of being a mayor’s daughter. But I’m glad I never did.”

  “Seems like Grandfather would have made everything fun,” Kick said, thinking fondly of her mother’s father, Honey Fitz, infamous former Boston mayor and number one grandfather. He never tired of playing on the floor with her and her siblings as children, or taking them to races and dockyards and political meetings as they got older.

  “He did,” her mother agreed, looking down at her hands, “some of the time. But there is a big difference between being a parent and being a grandparent. He was different with me than he is with you and your brothers and sisters.”

  “Mother,” Kick said, sensing her mother’s little pep talk was winding down, and wanting very much to warm back up again, “the water’s getting cold.”

  Rose stood and brought Kick one of the plush American towels she’d immediately ordered from New York when she saw the sad state of English towels, which were, as she’d put it, “little more than dishrags.”

  Kick stood with a waterfall sound and wrapped herself in the blessedly toasty towel that had been waiting on that most ingenious of English amenities, the warming rack. She loved that the English had foun
d so many weapons to combat the constant chill: warming racks in the bath, hot water bottles in bed, chic scarves from Liberty, steaming tea and sweets at four in the afternoon when it seemed the gray would never dissipate.

  Rose looked once more at her daughter, appraisingly, and Kick worried she might say more, but after a beat Rose informed her, “Hair and makeup is at eleven.” Then, with that heavy sigh she indulged more and more often when thinking of her oldest daughter, she said, “Now to attend dear Rosie. Thank goodness I can count on you to take care of yourself, Kathleen.” Rosie. Rosemary. Her mother’s namesake and doted-on darling who was nearly twenty, a year and a half older than Kick herself, who so often acted more like she was ten. Which could be charming—until it wasn’t.

  Rose left in another puff of cold air. Despite the warm towel, Kick felt chilled down to her toes.

  * * *

  At Buckingham Palace, there was a last-minute kerfuffle as Kick and Rosemary were lining up with the other debutantes because Kick’s train wasn’t properly fastened to the white lace gown that had been hand stitched for the occasion. Curses, she thought as a lady-in-waiting pinned it on, stabbing Kick in the side. How typical that Kick had been forgotten with all the attention being paid to Rosemary to ensure that she was perfectly dressed and serene as the Tintoretto Madonna she resembled that morning.

  Kick tried to reason that this was correct and necessary given her sister’s problems. She told herself not to be jealous, to be a good and patient sister. After all, her mother had employed a genius makeup artist who knew how to coax the bones from Kick’s doughy cheeks and make her eyes appear larger and more prominent. Her often unruly auburn waves had been brushed and sprayed into glossy submission, curving smoothly off her forehead and skimming her shoulders. It was surely because of their efforts that the photographers and reporters had fawned over Kick’s every move, from the ambassador’s house at 14 Prince’s Gate to the palace.