The Kennedy Debutante

by Kerri Maher

  “Sorry for the wait,” she apologized. “I was practically attacked by the director of the National Theater about their next production.”

  Jack took his drink in one hand and slid his other down Inga’s curved back. She leaned toward him, and they kissed. It all looked like one fluid, natural movement, the harmony of a couple who knew each other intimately.

  Did she even want that with John? Such dazzling moments all seemed to lead to heartache. For Jack and Frances, for her mother, and for her and Billy. What was the point?

  * * *

  On Saturday evening, Kick made herself a fortifying cup of tea and called her mother. “How are things in Bronxville?” she asked, feeling suddenly nostalgic for the comforts of that sprawling home. Her two-room apartment was cramped, even for one person.

  Her mother sighed. “I love this house. You and the children grew up here.”

  “It will be sad when it’s gone,” agreed Kick. “But we still have Hyannis Port and Palm Beach. I have many fond memories from both those houses.”

  “Yes,” her mother said distractedly, and Kick wondered what her mother was actually thinking about. Best to get to the point.

  “Mother?”

  “Yes?”

  How could she say this, exactly? It was such a delicate matter. “Jack was very good with Rosemary the other day, and—”

  “Yes, she told me,” Rose interrupted, using that reverent tone she always did when talking about her sons.

  “Well, it got me thinking about how Daddy has always been good with Rosemary as well. And Billy . . . I know you don’t like to remember that time, but she responded well to Billy, too.” Kick paused to draw in a breath, and take a sip of her tea, before continuing. “And her recent . . . wanderings . . . all seem to be in quest of . . . male company.”

  “Where’s all this going, Kathleen?” her mother asked impatiently.

  “I hate to sound too . . . I don’t know . . . medieval . . . but couldn’t we find some nice man who wants a pretty wife who’s good with children, to marry her?”

  Rose laughed. It was almost a cackle, but at least it was brief. Then she said, “I’m not laughing at you, Kathleen. It’s an idea I have suggested to your father many times. But he is reluctant. I’m laughing because I’d rather not cry, which I’ve also done, that her sister and mother should know what’s best for her and not her father.”

  “What if I also suggest it to Daddy?”

  “Be my guest,” said Rose. “But be sure you make it clear it wasn’t an idea of mine that I put into your head.”

  “I will,” Kick replied, thinking with confidence of the way her father had treated her opinion back in London. He’d give her ideas some credit now, especially when they pertained to their family, wouldn’t he?

  “But, Kathleen,” her mother warned, not even bothering to conceal the bitterness in her voice, “don’t be surprised if he does laugh at you. He’s become very adept at throwing away good advice lately.”

  Kick wondered what advice of her mother’s her father had been discarding in his depressed state.

  “I’ll let you know what he says,” she told Rose.

  * * *

  The next evening, after the Spaghetti Salon and a movie with John, Kick came home to a fragrant spray of lily and hydrangea blooms waiting for her in the dim hallway beside her apartment.

  “Secret admirer?” John asked petulantly. She’d invited him up to her place on a whim, not wanting to be alone.

  Kick laughed as she stooped to pick up the arrangement, and said, “Who knows?” Her heart gave a little flutter. Could they be from . . . ? She tried not to smile at the thought, for fear of what John might say.

  After a struggle with her purse and keys and the unexpected flowers, Kick stepped into her apartment, which still smelled like the toast she’d made that morning. She went to open all three of the windows before she came back to the flowers sitting on her table to read the card. John stared at them menacingly.

  “They won’t bite you,” she said.

  To brighten your day, as you did mine. Love, Mother.

  Kick’s chest filled with wet emotion at reading the words on the florist’s card. So, not from Billy. Of course not. The memory of his engagement to Sally, which she’d been shoveling out of her mind like dirty wet snow, overcame her, and her knees felt momentarily wobbly.

  “From your mother, eh?” John said with relief.

  “Are you reading my private note over my shoulder?” she demanded.

  “You’re standing right next to me,” he said.

  “Don’t read my mail,” she snapped peevishly.

  After a bit of banging around in the kitchen, she said with an exasperated sigh, “No vase.”

  “I suppose I should find that comforting,” said John.

  “Why? Because it means I don’t have scores of admirers sending me expensive flowers?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “I’m not the one bringing other women to my sister’s house,” she said.

  “I haven’t brought anyone else since I brought you.”

  “But you see them on other nights. Don’t deny it.” She knew it was true, since he virtually ignored her three mornings a week at the office.

  “Maybe I wouldn’t if you’d let me kiss you. Just on the cheek.”

  “Ha,” she said sarcastically.

  “Try me.”

  “I don’t want to kiss you, John.”

  “You just want to argue with me?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “No.”

  “Fine,” she said. “Suit yourself.” She folded her arms over her chest and stared at him through narrowed eyes.

  She felt unrecognizable to herself: angry, sad, and itching for a fight. All the time, she realized. Talking to John—or rather, quarreling with John—was the only way she’d found to release some of the pressure.

  In response to her dare, John put on his hat and left in silence.

  As the sun set and her apartment cooled, Kick managed to arrange the many stems of her mother’s flowers in cups and jars, setting them all over her apartment. The only cup she didn’t use was the one for her tea in the morning. When she was finished, her little home looked bright and colorful for the first time. But it was so dense with scent, Kick started to sneeze. And then to cry.

  Before bed, she set all the flowers outside her door, and slowly the sneezing and tears subsided. The next morning, she tied the bouquets with string and set them on a few coworkers’ desks.

  Inga asked, “What’s the occasion?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Kick replied. “My mother sent them to me but they made me sneeze, so I thought I’d give them away.”

  Inga smiled and took a drowsy sniff of lily. Then she set her translucent blue irises on Kick. “It’s wonderful to receive flowers from a girlfriend,” she said. “No expectations.”

  “I’ll tell Jack not to send you any flowers, then,” Kick joked, but she found herself annoyed at Inga’s comment. When, for that glorious half a moment the day before, she’d thought these flowers might have been from Billy, she knew she could have coped with those expectations. Then again . . . had they been from John . . . well there, Kick could see Inga’s point, and this annoyed her, too.

  CHAPTER 22

  She met her father for supper at the Tabard Inn, a quiet place that fashioned itself after a Federal drawing room. He looked better than he had in ages, with color in his cheeks and filling out a trim suit. His smile was genuine and relaxed, and his eyes had gained back a little of that twinkle they used to have behind his round glasses.

  “Kick! How terrific to see you after work. No more long lunches for my girl,” he said proudly. Once they were seated in the leather chairs, he added, “Frank tells me you’re doing wonderfully. And don’t tell him I let the cat out
of the bag, but he’ll be giving you a real assignment soon. He knows your talents are wasted on secretarial work.”

  “That would be great, Daddy.” Kick beamed, not caring if it was her father who’d gotten Frank to give her a serious writing assignment. She was sick of the phones and needed a challenge.

  Kick and her father ordered, and then chatted about her siblings over old-fashioneds. Bobby was doing well at Milton Academy; Eunice was contemplating a move from Manhattanville College to Stanford, where her recent ailments might be eased by the California sunshine; Jean and Pat were doing well in school; and Teddy missed his older brothers terribly but was happy being his mother’s pet. “It’s almost like he’s an only child,” Joe remarked with a laugh.

  “And Joe Jr. is off to a marvelous start,” he added with confidence. Kick had been exchanging letters with her eldest brother and so knew that there was a part of him that was anxious for America to go to war so that he could distinguish himself as a navy pilot and finally break out of Jack’s shadow. He’d never forgiven Jack for hogging the spotlight in the Athenia disaster those last weeks they were in England, then for publishing his Harvard thesis as a book to such great acclaim—especially after their father had never been able to get his own dispatches from Spain published. Kick knew that Jack had done none of it on purpose, and in fact supported Joe Jr. wholeheartedly, going so far as to say he was relieved their parents poured all their political ambitions into his older brother. But Joe Jr. still felt threatened. “Every paper I open, there’s Jack’s smiling face,” he’d said in one recent letter to Kick.

  Kick had to bring up Rosemary herself. “Jack and I went to visit Rosie the other day,” she said.

  Immediately her father’s face darkened, and he ground his molars together before saying, “I spoke with the Mother Superior this morning, and it sounds like she has been a bit better since she saw you both.”

  “You don’t look encouraged, though,” Kick observed, feeling unsteady and less hungry. She set her spoon down without finishing her vichyssoise.

  “Believe me, Kick, I’d like to think that the influence of her siblings could make a difference, but it never has in the past. Except temporarily.”

  “Daddy, I’ve been thinking a great deal about her lately, especially with the . . . trouble . . . she’s been having, and I wondered if maybe getting married might help her? She is such a beautiful girl, and so tender with children. And men have always been able to set her right—you, Jack, and Joe, for instance. I’m not surprised that in a convent full of women she isn’t thriving.” There, she’d said it. She held her breath.

  Joe set down his spoon. “Your mother and I have discussed that possibility. But I can’t in good conscience pair her with a man until she’s under control. Can you imagine what would happen if I gave my blessing to a match and then she embarrassed herself and the family?” He shook his head, then said gravely, “That would be a sin.”

  “I don’t think that would be likely to happen, do you?” Kick pressed, feeling braver since he hadn’t dismissed her suggestion. “If the courtship went well, that is? Wouldn’t we see signs beforehand if it wasn’t the right choice? Can’t we try?”

  “I’ll tell you what I’d like to try,” her father said, his expression changing from melancholy defeatism to spry hope as he sang the praises of Dr. Freeman, with whom he’d actually met twice on this trip to Washington. Mother will be beside herself, Kick thought as her stomach dropped a few inches.

  “I know a bit about Dr. Freeman myself,” Kick said carefully, not wanting to give her mother and their colluding away. “My friend John White on the paper has been writing a series about Saint Elizabeths Hospital.” For once she was glad to be able to use a man’s name to help her case.

  “Oh?” Her father appeared ready to listen, so Kick explained to him the same facts she’d already relayed to her mother.

  “Journalists are paid to doubt, of course,” was her father’s first shrugging reply. “And those extreme cases that he describes are in keeping with what Dr. Freeman has explained to me as well. The results are in proportion to the problem.”

  “Has he dealt with a . . . mild case like Rosemary’s before?”

  “Honestly, Kathleen, I don’t like being interrogated by my own daughter. There are some things best left to parents.”

  Then I hope you talk to Mother, she thought forcefully, pushing her bowl away. This was just like her father these days. I should have known. She only hoped that the carrot Jack had dangled before Rosemary would be temptation enough to help her sister control herself and help their father see the right course of action for his oldest daughter. She would pray a rosary for it that night.

  * * *

  Soon enough, the assignment from Frank came through, and she was industriously working on an article about the expansion of a library. It was a dull subject, but Kick enjoyed the work, piecing quotes together with facts culled from town records and her own descriptions of the facility. She was reminded of why she’d chosen Father O’Flaherty’s newsletter and the bulletin as methods of gaining independence in London. Those first attempts at journalism seemed so silly compared to what she was learning now, though, especially when John sat her down after reading a draft before she handed it in to Frank, and said, “This isn’t an essay for school. You’re not trying to impress a nun with your flowery language.”

  “I know.” She winced.

  “Then why did you write it this way? With all the adjectives? ‘Beautiful’—which, by the way, you say thirteen times in eight hundred words—and not just ‘dusty books’ but ‘ancient, dusty volumes’ and ‘educational and edifying.’ I could go on.”

  “Please don’t,” Kick said, feeling her cheeks burn and wishing she’d given the draft to Inga.

  John let the paper flutter down to her desk and said, “Cut this in half by getting rid of extra words, then add more quotes, and you’ll be on the right track.”

  She took his advice and found that despite her irritation at his manner, his guidance had improved the article. And Frank must have agreed because another assignment soon followed. In a few weeks, her secretarial desk had been taken by a younger, blonder girl, and she’d moved across the room, two desks away from Inga and one from Page. Neither of the other two women were around much, though, as both of them were deeply involved with men not on the paper staff, and they used research and reporting duties as excuses for not being at their desks. Page’s beau was Frazer Dougherty, and Kick couldn’t figure out the attraction. He was handsome enough, she supposed, but he was nobody—not from a great family, or on his way to greatness in some other way.

  “I’m glad for an escape from all that,” Page told Kick when they met up for a drink after work one night. “Working for your father was glamorous and all, but it was dangerous, too. So many egos at stake.”

  Kick nodded like she understood, but she didn’t really—Maybe I like a little danger, she considered, and the thought surprised her. Inga and Jack she understood much better. And when she let herself, she felt wretchedly jealous of them, too. Not only was Inga getting the best of Jack these days, when that part of him used to belong to Kick—the dancing and sparring with her witty brother at parties and other engagements—the other woman was balancing the impossible: a husband, a lover, and a career that earned her respect from men, even men who didn’t want to sleep with her. In fact, from men who probably wouldn’t sleep with her because of her career.

  One windy autumn night, Kick and John and Jack and Inga were at one of their favorite haunts, a former speakeasy near Logan Circle that served whiskey from the same distillery that had made it illegally in 1925. It nabbed some of the best jazz singers that blew through town, shuttling between New Orleans and New York City, and the four of them loved heading there after dinner at the Old Ebbitt Grill. That night they were waiting for Evelyn Dall to take the stage.

  “She sang at Bucking
ham Palace,” said Kick nostalgically. “It was hilarious, actually. Lord Chamberlain was appalled when this platinum blonde American in a slinky dress took the stage. Apparently, he hadn’t known what ‘crooner’ meant, so when his advisors asked him if they should get a great crooner to perform at the palace, he’d thought it was some sort of instrument.” She laughed, recalling the absurdity of it, and the way the prime minister’s face had blanched.

  “He really didn’t know what ‘crooner’ meant?” John asked with no small amount of derision.

  Inga said, “You must understand the English sensibility. They are much too imperial to think they don’t know everything, and much too polite to inquire when they aren’t sure.”

  “It’s not true for all English people,” Kick said, feeling defensive, “but it was certainly true of Chamberlain.”

  John shook his head and finished his second whiskey. “No wonder,” he muttered into his glass.

  And off they went, arguing again while Jack and Inga retreated into their own little sphere.

  “Why can’t we be more like them?” John said later, nodding over at their companions. Jack’s arm was quietly draped over Inga’s shoulder, and as she smoked, he drank. A moment ago, they had kissed, and her red lipstick was still on Jack’s lips.

  “John, I’m just not . . . going to be with you the way you want me to,” Kick finally said.

  He sighed, exasperated. “Don’t bring the nuns into this.”

  “I’m not. You are. Why do you keep coming back for more if you’re not getting what you really want?”

  “Because I like you,” he said, sounding like the most miserable man alive.

  “Don’t look so happy about it,” she said sarcastically.

  “Have pity on me,” he said.

  He looked worthy of pity, she had to admit. And he was loyal, if not faithful, exactly. There were still other girls.