Jackie and Maria

by Gill Paul

  Weariness engulfed her in a sudden wave. “I’m afraid I must go soon,” she said, feeling guilty that she hadn’t sung a note all day. It was important that she practice daily.

  “I have a final question for you,” Aristotle said, waving away Battista’s clumsy offer to contribute to the bill. “You are at the very top of the tree. I wonder what ambitions you have for the future. Are there any dreams you have yet to fulfill?”

  I want a baby, Maria thought to herself. The desire was overwhelming. But that was too personal to mention in present company.

  “My dream was always to become a company member at La Scala. For me, it is the greatest opera house in the world. Now I’m there, I suppose I want to sing with the best musicians and best directors for as long as I possibly can.” She paused. “And then I will retire quietly to a lovely part of the world and be a housewife.” She laughed as if she didn’t quite take her words seriously. In truth, it was hard to picture the future.

  “Even your laugh is beautiful,” Aristotle replied, his tone heartfelt. He caught her eye and looked hard, as if trying to peer into her soul.

  Chapter 3

  Newport, Rhode Island

  Summer 1956

  Jackie Kennedy rocked on the porch, one hand on her swollen belly, the other clutching a glass of icy lemonade, which dripped condensation onto her cotton frock. A cigarette burned in an ashtray, its smoke spiraling upward, and a book lay open beside it. The heat was flint dry and oppressive, with only the faintest whisper of a breeze, but she preferred to be outside, where the air was marginally fresher.

  She thought of Jack on a yacht on the Mediterranean. He would be brown as an urchin, hopping around the deck in his shorts with a beer in hand, or splashing about in the turquoise water. There was a hard knot of anger inside her. How could he fly across an ocean to vacation with friends when she was heavily pregnant—especially when she’d suffered a miscarriage the previous year? She’d been distraught, and it made her anxious about this pregnancy.

  The man she had married was selfish. Entitled. But so charming, so exciting, that she could forgive him his worst transgressions: forgetting birthdays and anniversaries, sending her home early from their honeymoon because he had meetings to attend, even the occasional hint of perfume in his hair and lipstick on his collar from the women who were always fawning over him. Even that.

  They were both independent souls who had spent a lot of time apart during their three-year marriage. Washington gossips kept predicting imminent divorce, but in many ways their lifestyle suited them. Jackie liked to go riding and fox hunting at her stepfather’s Virginia estate, to fly to London for some shopping with her clothes-mad younger sister, Lee, or to hop on a train to New York for an early lunch with her hard-living daddy, Black Jack Bouvier, before he got too pickled.

  Jack Kennedy’s life revolved around politics; it was the oxygen he inhaled, the sustenance he craved. Currently a Democratic senator from Massachusetts, he was one of the party’s most glittering young talents, with a reputation for his strong stance on civil rights, as well as international peacekeeping and halting the Communist threat. Within the Kennedy family, they were talking about a presidential run in 1960—an idea that Jackie privately found far-fetched, but she admired his ambition all the same.

  If only she felt as if he needed her more, she would be content. Of course, she knew he admired her intelligence, her style and class, but his life continued much as it had in his bachelor days. As a politician, he had needed a presentable Roman Catholic wife, and it seemed she had ticked the right boxes. Now she hoped to provide another political essential: a couple of healthy kids.

  She frowned. When had she last felt the baby move? Perhaps the poor creature was as drained by the heat as she was. She shifted her position on the rocking chair, nudging her belly with the palm of her hand, but there was no movement, not even the flutter of a tiny foot kicking under her skin. Slowly, clutching her lower back with one hand and pressing on the armrest with the other, she eased herself to her feet and waddled around the porch. Nothing. She jumped up and down, then ran her hands over her belly again. Still nothing. Alarm took hold.

  “Nelly!” she called. “Can you come out here?”

  Nelly, the housekeeper, was a mother three times over and the soul of calm. She felt Jackie’s belly and asked her to jump a few more times.

  “Little ’un’s having a good old nap,” she said, her tone even and careful. “But why don’t I call Dr. Brady all the same?”

  JACKIE LAY IN a hospital bed, surrounded by doctors and nurses, paralyzed with fear. Her mother, Janet Auchincloss, sat ramrod straight by her bedside as the physician ran a stethoscope over her belly. What was wrong? She couldn’t lose this child; not after eight and a half months. A miscarriage in the first trimester had been tough enough, but the doctors had assured her it wasn’t uncommon. This was different; she already felt she knew this child, after sensing it move and react inside her.

  She watched the medical staff’s expressions, the way they glanced at one another, sending signals with their eyes that she wasn’t meant to intercept. Her mother had taught her it was unladylike to show her feelings, but it was hard not to. One nurse took her hand and Jackie gripped hard, grateful for the human contact. Sympathy was not her mother’s forte. Arranging a ball, yes. Managing the staff at her husband’s estates, yes. Sympathy, never.

  “Can I call your husband?” someone asked. “He should be here.”

  Yes, he should. Jackie narrowed her eyes.

  “He’s away on business,” Janet told them. “Whatever it is, you can tell us.”

  It was then they confirmed in words what Jackie had already guessed. Her baby was no longer alive. Sometime between her checkup a week ago and this morning, its little heart had stopped beating and no one knew why. Jackie focused on a cheap clock on the opposite wall, watching the second hand tick. It seemed impossibly loud. She began counting the beats, finding it helped her choke back the emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.

  “What happens next?” Janet asked in a practical tone. You’d never have guessed her grandchild had just been pronounced dead.

  The doctor checked some papers on a clipboard. “Mrs. Kennedy was booked to have a Caesarean, so we’ll bring it forward. We could operate this afternoon.”

  Jackie turned her gaze to the window, where blinding sun was glinting through the leaves of a red-oak tree. What would Jack say? He’d flown off on vacation expecting to return in time for the birth of his first child; instead he would return to a funeral. She had let him down. He would be crushed. Kennedys didn’t do failure.

  “That sounds like the best plan,” Janet said, without consulting Jackie.

  “Can you call Bobby?” she asked, turning to her mother. “He’ll know how to get in touch with Jack.”

  There was a radiotelephone on the yacht, but you couldn’t dial direct. The operator had to request a time slot to transmit through the nearest shore station, so it depended on their location. She recited Bobby’s number from memory, and Janet rose to make the call, as if glad to have something to do. She still hadn’t uttered a word of comfort, but Jackie knew her better than to expect it.

  WHEN JACKIE CAME to after the operation in late afternoon, Janet was gone and Bobby was by her bedside. Straightaway he took her hand and said, “I’m so sorry. What a sad loss for you, and for the whole family.”

  Jackie closed her eyes to stop the tears from leaking out. She didn’t want Bobby to see her cry. He was being kind, but he must think she was a failure. He already had four children, and Ethel was pregnant with their fifth. She seemed to give birth like a vending machine: pop in the sperm, and out popped a fully formed, squalling baby.

  “I’ve left a message for Jack asking him to call the nurses’ station when there’s a connection,” he told her. “A nurse will come to fetch me.”

  “Thank you,” Jackie whispered. She was glad he was there, taking charge.

  Although more reserved t
han Jack, Bobby had enough of the family charm that people fell over themselves to help him. She knew the nurses would be fluttery and coy around him.

  Jackie wondered what Bobby thought of her deep down. He had always been friendly, although Ethel thought her “hoity-toity.” She’d overheard her complaining about the way Jackie set a table, of all things. Seemingly Ethel didn’t think it mattered whether the knife blades were facing inward or outward and scoffed at Jackie for adjusting them. She would crow now: she was the successful wife who could produce heirs by the handful.

  Jackie was still woozy from the anesthetic and drifted into a doze, but she awoke when she heard Bobby’s voice in the corridor outside. A nurse was bustling about in the room, checking her temperature, clattering instruments on a metal tray, so she missed some of the conversation, but what she heard was unmistakable.

  “Jack, you have to come back. . . . Your wife’s just had surgery. She needs you. . . . Don’t be an idiot. . . . Of course she’s upset, but you know Jackie—she doesn’t show it. . . . It will be in the papers tomorrow for sure. There’s nothing I can do about that. . . . Just think how it will look politically: ‘Wife loses baby while senator suns himself in the Med.’ Is that the headline you want to see? Well, get your ass back here . . .”

  Jackie was stunned. She clutched her throat, finding it hard to breathe. Jack didn’t want to interrupt his vacation. That’s how much he cared about her. She shivered. Everyone had warned her before they got married that he needed his own space, and she had been willing to allow that, but she hadn’t realized till now that his heart was quite so cold.

  Chapter 4

  Washington, D.C.

  August 28, 1956

  Five days after their baby died, Jack arrived in D.C. Jackie was recovering at home in Georgetown, where she lay on top of her bed with a fan blowing cool air on her legs. Her sister, Lee, had flown in from London and was bustling around, fetching drinks and tidying the bedside clutter of books and lotions, wearing an immaculate silk polka-dot dress from Jean Patou’s spring/summer collection.

  Jackie regarded her critically. It had been kind of her to drop everything and rush over to play nursemaid, but who wore a brand-new designer outfit to look after an invalid, for heaven’s sake? Lee always strove to be the better dressed of the two of them, no matter what the occasion, and her competitiveness could get tedious.

  “How are you, kid?” Jack asked, leaning over to kiss her, a concerned expression on his face. “Are you okay? We had a stopover in Paris and I bought you some perfume.” He put a gift-wrapped package in her lap but she didn’t touch it. How could he think of perfume at a time like this? “Hi, Lee,” he continued. “Good of you to help out.”

  Lee beamed at him. “Hi, Jack. Great tan!”

  “The funeral was last Saturday,” Jackie interrupted, poker-faced, trying to snap them both into some respect for the solemnity of the occasion. “She was a girl. Your daughter. I called her Arabella.”

  Jack nodded, at last serious. “I like the name.”

  “Bobby made the arrangements,” she continued, her voice like a knife.

  “Good man,” he remarked. “I’ll call and thank him, but first I need a sandwich. I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

  “Let me get your sandwich,” Lee insisted, heading for the door. “Ham and mustard okay?” She was dippy about Jack; nothing was too much trouble for her darling brother-in-law.

  Once they were alone, Jackie waited for him to apologize for not returning sooner, to tell her how sad he was about the loss of the baby, to share the grief that was lodged inside her, hard and implacable as a bullet—but instead he began talking about some journalist he’d met on the plane. She watched him, his hair bleached from the sun, his skin as dark as walnuts, and marveled at the electricity he exuded. He had no idea what was going through her mind. None whatsoever. Maybe he never had.

  He finished his story before sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling her into his arms. “It’s so sad about Arabella,” he said. “I can’t take it in yet. After all those months of waiting . . .”

  His face pressed against her shoulder and she heard him stifle a sigh—or could it have been a sob? He did seem upset now, but he didn’t feel the loss; not like she did. Her grief was dark and solitary, and it was mixed with bitter anger at him for being overseas when their baby died and then not coming home immediately.

  He broke away before long, the moment over, and she watched as his mind flipped to the next matter to be dealt with. “I’m glad Lee is here for you. It was good of her to come.” He glanced at his watch. “Do you mind if I drop by the office this afternoon? Just to pick up messages.”

  Jackie was so shocked he could consider it that she was lost for words. She kept her feelings buried, but surely Jack must know how devastated she was, and how much she needed him to comfort her? Down the hall there was a beautifully decorated nursery with no baby to put in it.

  “I won’t be long,” he promised, standing up. “We can have dinner together.”

  The problem was that she had married a man who was an iceberg. A glacier. Deep down, did he care about anything apart from politics and power? It was hard to tell.

  Once Jack had gone, Jackie eased herself out of bed, waving away the maid’s protests. He had left his suitcase on the floor and she lowered herself to sit beside it, gasping at the tug in her stitches. She didn’t know what she expected to find as she rummaged through his sandy swim shorts, casual shirts, and musty towels, but she knew there was something Jack wasn’t telling her.

  And there it was: when she picked up a copy of a Saul Bellow novel, a Polaroid fluttered out. A girl with white-blond hair sitting on his lap, wearing a skimpy hot-pink bikini. She looked Scandinavian, with a high forehead, laughing eyes, and a slim figure.

  Jackie’s stomach heaved. This was what he was doing when their baby died. Holding the photograph between thumb and forefinger, as if it might contaminate her, she rose, hobbled back to bed, and dropped it into her handbag.

  What should she do? Who could she confide in? Definitely not Lee, who would make excuses for her brother-in-law; definitely not her mother. There was only one person she could turn to. He hadn’t been able to visit her in the hospital, but she would meet him for lunch in New York just as soon as the doctors told her she was well enough to travel.

  BLACK JACK BOUVIER examined the photo for several minutes. They were sitting at a quiet corner table in an Italian restaurant in east Midtown, a bottle of plum-colored Chianti encased in a raffia basket between them.

  “He’s clearly having an affair with her, isn’t he?” Jackie demanded.

  Black Jack tilted his head to one side. “A vacation fling rather than an affair. She looks that sort of girl.”

  “How could he do that to me? To our baby?” Tears began to well, and once she let go there was no stopping them. Her daddy passed her a crumpled white handkerchief with the ease of a man who often dealt with crying women.

  “You need to separate this out, honey. Jack didn’t know you were going to lose the baby when he slept with this woman. They’re different issues. It’s sad your baby died but it’s not his fault. You married him knowing he was a ladies’ man.” The tears were rolling silently down her cheeks, and he reached across to stroke her forearm.

  She dabbed her eyes. “I knew he was dating other girls before we got married, but I thought he would stop once we were engaged. Was that naive?”

  She watched his reaction, aware that Black Jack used to have lady friends back when he was still married to her mother. She remembered him bringing a pretty brunette to watch her ride in a gymkhana one Saturday. She was only about nine, but she saw a knowing look between them, watched her daddy’s hand brush the lady’s knee, and in a flash gained insight into a whole new grown-up world of understanding. She should have known her father would defend Jack. They were cut from the same cloth.

  The difference was that she’d never felt jealous of Black Jack’s girlfriends. T
hey made a fuss over her and Lee, letting them eat ice cream and popcorn, and never chastising them the way their mother did. As for her father, she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was his favorite, so she had no reason to feel insecure. He loved Lee too; just not as much.

  “Some men have particularly strong sexual needs,” he answered. “One woman will never be enough.”

  “Daddy!” She blushed and covered her wet cheeks with her hands.

  “It’s not a betrayal of you. It’s just something Jack has to do, a physical act like cleaning his teeth or shaving. He doesn’t love you one bit less because of it. And I bet they’re all brief encounters; he’s not going to risk keeping a mistress.”

  The thought hadn’t even occurred to Jackie. Good God, she hoped he wouldn’t do that.

  “Do you really want a divorce, though?” Black Jack continued. “Think of the heartache caused by your mom and me divorcing.”

  Her parents’ divorce had been a long time coming: First her daddy had moved to a different apartment and she and Lee were told it had something to do with his work. The girls preferred it that way, because they didn’t have to huddle in bed at night listening to their parents screaming at each other anymore. Her mother, who had always been quick to lash out with a slap, became even stricter without Black Jack there to restrain her. Good manners were paramount. You had to be on your best behavior when Janet was around.

  Jackie was a teenager when her mother announced that she was getting remarried, to the Standard Oil heir Hugh Auchincloss. Hughdie, as he was known to those closest to him, was much wealthier than Black Jack, with estates in Virginia and Rhode Island as well as a Park Avenue apartment. Their standard of living leapt to a whole new level of affluence, with dozens of staff members in each house, their own stables, attendance at top schools, and generous clothing allowances. Jackie and Lee both adored clothes, and now when they pored over Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar or traipsed around stores together they could afford to buy their favorite outfits. They had endless discussions about the new collections, the season’s hemlines and colors, and their passion for all things French. The marriage meant they saw less of their daddy, though, because he still lived in New York. By then, Jackie was old enough to know that he drank too much, and she worried about him. She never stopped worrying about him.