by Kathy McKeon
Arriving back the next morning at 1040—everyone’s shorthand, I soon learned, for the 1040 Fifth Avenue residence—Mrs. Kennedy’s chief of staff and personal secretary, Nancy Tuckerman, gave me the rundown of my position as personal assistant to Mrs. Kennedy: I would attend to Mrs. Kennedy and also fill in as needed when the English governess, Maud Shaw, was off or on vacation. I would have Thursdays off but was expected to work every other weekend and all holidays (except Christmas Day after the midafternoon meal). I would get a couple of weeks’ vacation each summer, and Mrs. Kennedy would provide a free round-trip plane ticket home to Ireland so I could visit my family. I would also be regularly traveling with Mrs. Kennedy and the kids—to Cape Cod for the summer, to New Jersey for weekends of horseback riding, to Colorado for skiing, and to Palm Beach for winter break, plus any little jaunts in between. The longtime assistant I was replacing would continue to accompany Mrs. Kennedy on her overseas trips, though. Like the cook, waitress, and governess, I would live in the residence. I would be paid seventy-five dollars a week. I was to address Mrs. Kennedy as “Madam.”
It all sounded so overwhelming, as if I were taking on not merely a new job, but also a whole new life—one I could never have imagined and had no idea how to carry off. Was I expected to ski?! Wintertime where I grew up meant sliding across frozen lakes in our shoes, or taking an old cardboard box out to ride down the small, empty country roads when they turned into treacherous ribbons of ice. Ireland never lacked for rolling hills, and we made the most of them as kids. Who needed proper ice skates or sleds, let alone a pair of skis? As for my indoor duties, well, I could make a nice bed, to be sure, or happily entertain small children for hours at a time. But the truth was, I had no professional training and not the slightest clue what being a personal assistant even meant—yet now I was to do it for one of the most glamorous women in the world? I didn’t have that kind of polish, and no idea how to fake it! The only one who seemed to have any confidence whatsoever in my untested abilities was Mrs. Kennedy herself. God save the both of us, I thought anxiously.
The servants’ quarters were in a hallway just off the kitchen. My pristine white bedroom was small yet cozy, with a clock radio and lamp on the nightstand. There was a soft armchair with a small table beside it where I could pen my brief and sporadic letters home. I wasn’t much of a correspondent. There was a little sink with a mirrored medicine cabinet there in the bedroom. (When Madam later decided to redecorate the servants’ wing, I was thrilled to be able to choose what I liked from the wallpaper samples her decorator selected. I had never been able to put any personal stamp on the bedroom I shared with my brothers and sisters in Ireland, and with girlish impulse, I decided on a pattern of sweet little pink posies for my bedroom at 1040—not realizing how claustrophobic I was going to feel once a matching bedspread and new pink carpet were in place, too. It wasn’t until I had daughters of my own that I saw that what I had done was basically give myself the little girl’s dream room I had never had in my hardscrabble childhood.) The help shared a large bathroom just steps down the hall, and we also had use of a small lounge off the kitchen where we could take our breaks or relax after the workday was done.
Besides me and Maud, my new coworkers would include May, the Irishwoman who had shown me in and served as waitress, plus a series of mostly sourpuss cooks who never lasted long, and then Charley, who did the heavier, janitorial-type chores, like vacuuming or polishing all the floors and cleaning the half dozen toilets. May was well into her forties, but she had this innocent, childlike quality to her that you couldn’t help but like. Maud and Charley were both in their sixties. Charley was a flamboyant gay bachelor from Galway who reminded me of a little leprechaun the way he waggled his behind when he walked. He combed black shoe polish through his full head of white hair to give it a salt-and-pepper look and favored patent leather shoes. He was a charmer with the gift of gab, and I took a liking to him right away. Maud was a different story: Maybe it was her posh English accent, or the air of authority she no doubt needed as a nanny, but I could feel her disdain instantly. She didn’t seem to mingle much with the rest of the staff, either, even preferring to take meals in her room rather than in the kitchen or break room with everyone else.
After meeting them all, I was put under the tutelage of the longtime assistant I was replacing. Providencia Paredes had begun working for Mrs. Kennedy in Washington, D.C., a few years before President Kennedy was elected, and then moved into the White House with the family. Provi’s primary task was managing Mrs. Kennedy’s large wardrobe, keeping everything in like-new condition, properly rotated by the season, each outfit meticulously assembled according to the occasion. Provi also made sure every ensemble was perfectly accessorized to Mrs. Kennedy’s specifications, down to matching slippers and bathrobes for every nightdress. I would also pack and unpack Mrs. Kennedy’s leather Louis Vuitton suitcases for each trip. It was Provi who had selected the pink Chanel-style suit and pillbox hat for Dallas that November day.
Both the pride Provi took in her work and the attention to detail she gave it were evident from the minute she began showing me what to do. At forty, Provi was twice my age, but she didn’t look it; she was busty but trim and compact, with smooth brown skin and neatly coiffed hair. Originally from the Dominican Republic, she spoke with a Spanish accent every bit as indecipherable as my Irish brogue, and we spent a good portion of every conversation asking each other to repeat things.
Provi may have been diminutive, but she was as bossy as a five-star general. And she may have been a servant herself, but like Maud Shaw, Provi radiated a sense of what came across to me as entitlement, almost. Like she was a partner to this life of luxury, not merely propping it up. I couldn’t quite decide whether I should envy her aplomb or resent her airs.
As she set about showing me the ropes, I sensed a hint of insult and resentment on her part that Madam had deemed someone so green and unsophisticated a worthy successor to her. Looking back, I can hardly blame her: She was a titan being replaced by a teenager, after all.
“Not like that! Watch me and pay attention this time!” became the refrain that snapped me out of my girlish daydreams as she overexplained even the simplest chores.
Our first lesson was back in the laundry room at the ironing board. I knew how to iron already, but Provi wasn’t about to move on until she was certain that I knew how to iron her way. Madam’s sheets were to be changed daily, and her nightgowns were to be freshly ironed and set out for her each evening. She had quite a collection: There were movie-star peignoirs in satin and lace, timelessly simple gowns in crisp cottons or linen, and cute, flirty numbers like the short canary yellow one with a bow on each shoulder. Provi handed me a long-sleeved cotton nightgown to practice on. I swiped the hot iron across the wrinkles and handed it back.
Provi scowled.
“You missed some,” she scolded. “Go slower, and press down harder.”
I couldn’t imagine Jacqueline Kennedy settling into her bed at night only to leap right back out in horror because there were some wrinkles in her nightgown. Who was going to look anyway, besides Provi? I wisely kept this argument to myself and had another go at the ironing board. At least this wasn’t the disaster my first ironing session with Mrs. C had been, when I hadn’t known to remove the protective plastic cover from the ironing board first, and ended up melting it into one of her favorite blouses.
Provi’s ironing lesson wasn’t nearly as bad as her tutorial on the care of Madam’s collection of leather gloves, which turned out to involve rubbing down the pigskin with cleaning fluid.
“Provi, that’s awful dangerous,” I ventured as the toxic fumes filled the laundry room, making my eyes and lungs burn.
“Well, you have to open a window or turn on the fan,” Provi said matter-of-factly, doing neither. Once the gloves were clean, she continued, they needed to be spread out on a white towel and massaged with baby powder to make them nice and slippy again. And then you wait for the ambulance to com
e take you to the hospital, I thought. Once my apprenticeship was over and Provi was gone, I fully intended to put those gloves in with the dry cleaning.
Provi’s reputation for being a high-handed perfectionist was well established at 1040, and I spent tedious hours watching her demonstrate all manner of simple chores that my teenaged brain assured me I could accomplish in half the time with half the effort. It was excruciating to fritter away two hours “learning” how to vacuum the white tile floor in Madam’s bathroom when there wasn’t a speck of dust to be seen in the first place. Provi could spy a single strand of hair hiding along a baseboard from across the room.
“You have to check,” she insisted, not satisfied until I had crouched down to examine my efforts tile by tile. One afternoon when I had finally ironed a nightgown to her military standards and went to put it away, Provi snatched it right back with a sharp sigh of disgust. “You didn’t fold it right,” she complained. What do I ever do right? I thought, my defense mechanism from Mrs. C’s endless harping kicking in automatically before I could remind myself that at the end of the day Provi’s servant boot camp was for my own good. I anxiously wondered if Madam was as exacting as Provi was, though, and how long it would be before the former first lady realized what a bumbling impostor she had put in such a choice position on her staff. I folded the nightgown again, concentrating on each step as if my life depended on it.
I was somewhat relieved to find out that it wasn’t just me who was rankled by Provi’s superiority. The Secret Service men assigned to protect John and Caroline throughout their childhood often hung out with the help in the kitchen or break room when they were changing shifts or hoping for a free sandwich or cup of tea. Mugsy, the one who had gotten me my job, took particular delight in needling Provi, reminding her that she was a lame duck and that young Kitty, as he called me, was running the house now. “Kitty, is the Mexican princess bossing you around?” he would ask, managing to insult Provi’s seniority and nationality in one fell swoop. She would fire some disparaging remark right back at him.
Their constant sniping was free entertainment, at least for all the Irish help. It’s true that we do love a good fight.
Madam stayed out of the domestic dramas playing out in her kitchen and back hallway, but she wasn’t clueless about them, I soon discovered. In the running dialogue in my head, I was cheeky as you please and mouthed off to Provi all the time, but in reality, I was a scared little rabbit whose instinct was to scamper away and hide if I sensed that trouble was afoot, or if I simply felt overwhelmed. Being Madam’s personal assistant didn’t allow for hesitation: I was expected to plunge right into the busy routines of 1040, not ease my way tentatively into the current of life there. In my own element, I was a sociable girl, but the more I worried about whether I would fit in, the more likely I was to withdraw. The natural chattiness and ease Madam had seen in me when I had been left alone in the living room with John wasn’t as evident as I tried to get my bearings, and Madam quickly noticed. She seemed concerned about me settling in and not being chased off the way, I gathered, some previous heirs to Provi’s throne had been.
“How are you making out?” she asked me kindly when we were alone one day. “Is she all right with you?”
“Oh, yes, Madam,” I hastened to assure her. “Everything’s fine, thank you.” Sure, Provi was nitpicky, but when you came right down to it, she was annoying, not cruel. I could live with that.
Provi’s primary domain—soon to be mine—was Madam’s closets. The bedroom walk-in was big but jam-packed with Madam’s everyday dresses, pants, skirts, and blouses, all arranged according to color. Lots of clothes still had their tags from Saks Fifth Avenue or Bergdorf Goodman and would eventually go unworn into the big bags Madam filled with clothes she planned to donate to the thrift shop or church charity. Fashionable pocketbooks and the roomy satchels she favored were lined up on the shelves, along with an array of beautiful hatboxes. Drawers or special fabric-lined boxes held accessories such as her signature gloves or the colorful head scarves that were considered the height of fashion then, no matter what the weather.
Fine as they were, I thought it must be confusing to have so many outfits. And why so many of the same thing, some even in the same color? I wondered, taking in the array of cream turtleneck sweaters alone. Oh, but it wasn’t the clothes I coveted. The shoes were what set my heart racing. A single pair of shoes was an extravagance in my big family when I was growing up. Most of our clothes were hand-me-downs from relatives in America who sent care packages a couple of times a year, and none of Uncle Pat and Aunt Rose’s girls wore the same size shoe as my sister Briege and me. We always had to stuff paper or rags in the toes of the ones that were too big, or suffer the pinching from the ones that were too small. I don’t remember ever having a pair that actually fit. One of my favorite pastimes once I got to New York City was to window-shop for shoes at the fashionable shops on the Upper East Side. Madam’s closet could rival any of them.
I had never seen such a dazzling selection of shoes! There were enough to fill a high-end boutique—leather boots in classic cognac, London-look ones in mod white and sexy black, pumps in every color and heel, elegantly casual loafers, spotless sneakers for morning jogs around the reservoir, and a pair of ivory flip-flops with a big leather flower separating the toes. The latter, I came to see, were a favorite, often hidden beneath a long, flowing caftan or maxidress when she hosted small dinner parties with old friends, like the men from President Kennedy’s trusted inner circle who would appear now and then as a group to check in on her, all of them talking and smoking and drinking and laughing, remembering deep into the night.
As I surveyed the closet, trying to memorize where everything went, Provi took out a pair of size ten pumps and turned them over to show me an X carved into each leather sole. “You have to do this to every new pair that comes into the house,” Provi instructed. The discreet slashes, she explained, kept Madam from slipping on slick marble floors. It about killed me the first time I dutifully knifed the bottom of an exquisite kid pump—I would have felt less heartsick had I been told to go up the block and vandalize a masterpiece at the Met instead. Less shocking but more intriguing to me was the discovery of a quarter-inch lift affixed to one heel on each pair of Madam’s shoes, apparently meant to compensate for one leg being slightly shorter than the other. No one would have ever guessed: Even in her stocking feet, she had flawlessly beautiful posture.
Shoes were actually the very first thing Madam and I bonded over.
Mrs. Tuckerman had provided a crisp white uniform when I was hired, and I used a good bit of my final hard-won paycheck from Mrs. C to splurge on new shoes to match the uniform. I somehow convinced myself that the thick-soled nurse’s shoes I bought were as stylish as they were practical as I pulled them on the first morning I woke up at 1040. At least they were nice and cushy. I didn’t even have to bother with anklets or stockings. Off to the kitchen I padded to pick up Madam’s tray of tea, toast, a soft-boiled egg, and the daily newspapers: Bringing her breakfast in bed at eight o’clock was my first official duty each day. I was nervous. Was I supposed to shake her if she didn’t awaken when I entered? Sing out a cheery “Good morning!” or wait until I was spoken to first? I had ironed enough nightgowns to know, at least, that she wouldn’t be waiting for me like my previous employer did: in her birthday suit. My hands were already clammy as I stood outside the bedroom door and lightly knocked before entering.
“Good morning, Madam,” I murmured as I set the tray down and began opening the shutters. Clear fall light spilled across her queen bed as she stirred. Her corner bedroom faced the broad sweep of Fifth Avenue and Central Park along the front, and the narrower, quieter Eighty-fifth Street to the side. The room was wonderfully tranquil.
But as I walked from window to window I became aware of a persistent little squeaking sound.
The realization that it was coming from my feet, which were perspiring against the rubber of my new shoes, made me more n
ervous than I already was and only amplified the squeaks that resulted from my every step. I was mortified. I glanced over and saw that Madam was fully awake and propped against her pillows, settling in with her tea and papers. There was no way she couldn’t have heard the squeaks, and I was sure she assumed the worst. I hurried into the bathroom, hoping she would think I was merely arranging towels or something, and frantically rummaged through her cupboards until I found the tin of talcum powder I was looking for. I sat down on the closed toilet lid and thoroughly dusted the inside of each nurse shoe, praying the chalk would absorb the moisture from my feet and squelch the humiliating soundtrack.
Mission accomplished, I hurried back into the master bedroom, my shoes blissfully quiet. All that powder felt silky on my feet, too. No cheap drugstore stuff in that bathroom.
My relief was short-lived when I noticed something floating around my feet at ground level, like a little white cloud. Madam was busy with her breakfast by then and hadn’t noticed what I now spotted—powder marks all over her carpet. I took a few tentative steps and saw white puffs shooting out of my shoes. I darted back into the bathroom, shutting the door this time, and sat on the toilet lid again, trying to figure out what to do, now that my shoes were emitting what looked like smoke. I couldn’t go out there again! She would know I had gotten into her powder! I was going to be fired before lunch on my very first day. What a bumbling, hopeless mess I was, and now I couldn’t even run away to save face, because I was trapped in Jacqueline Kennedy’s bathroom. I put my head in my hands and started laughing uncontrollably.
“Kathy, is everything all right?” I heard the door open, and the worry in Madam’s voice as she took in the sight of me with my face still buried in my hands, shoulders shaking. “What’s wrong?” she asked kindly.
I was too embarrassed to answer, and in the midst of my giggling fit I wouldn’t have been able to get an intelligible sentence out anyway, so I jumped up and ran past her, shooting puffs of powder from my shoes as I fled. I was losing too much powder, though, and the squeaking noises were back, sounding louder and more urgent as I sprinted to my room. I collapsed on the bed, burying my face in the pillow to muffle my laughter.
