Jackie and Maria

by Gill Paul

  Once she was in costume, Maria sang a few trills, reaching F5 with ease. Her throat felt fine. When the time came, she walked to the stage with only the slightest flutter of nerves in her stomach, handed her glasses to the security guard, who happened to be nearby, crossed herself three times, and then stepped out on her right foot.

  Time flew, until two hours later she was standing and shaking with emotion at the jubilant ovations. The French never rose to their feet—never—but tonight they were standing and cheering. Bouquets were thrown onto the stage and she stooped to collect an armful. When she tried to leave, she was drawn back for curtain call after curtain call. While she was singing, Maria had forgotten about the television cameras, but now she looked for them, wondering how she had sounded, how she had looked.

  It always felt strange after a performance, as if she were returning from a voyage to a distant land. She was disoriented, her ears ringing with the applause, as she walked to the opera house’s grand foyer and stepped out to greet the party guests.

  In an instant Onassis was at her side, taking her hands in his. “You made me cry,” he told her. “Real tears rolled down my cheeks. You were magnificent. Truly.”

  “I apologize for your distress,” she replied. “But I’m glad you enjoyed it.”

  “There are no words to express how I felt.” He looked into her eyes, pressing her fingertips. “I still have goose bumps.”

  He had been speaking Greek but used the phrase in English, and his pronunciation made her laugh.

  “I apologize for them too.”

  They couldn’t talk further because others were hovering nearby, waiting to be introduced. She was dazzled by the turnout of the rich and distinguished, their jewels glinting: the Rothschilds, the Windsors, the Aga Khan, Brigitte Bardot, and Charlie Chaplin. They all greeted her like old friends, which felt phony because she’d never met any of them apart from the Windsors, and they were merely the slightest of acquaintances.

  Tables were laid for supper beneath the sparkling chandeliers and ornate gilt-framed ceiling paintings of the foyer. There was a seating chart with place cards, but Onassis swapped his card for Battista’s and sat down beside Maria. She laughed at his audaciousness but didn’t force him to undo the mischief. Battista looked baffled at first, then shrugged and accepted the new arrangement with good humor.

  “You looked as if you were experiencing every emotion onstage,” Aristotle said, once they were seated. “How do you get into character, particularly on evenings like this when you have to switch from one role to the next?”

  “It’s not a conscious process,” she admitted. “I immerse myself in the music and feel the emotion coming through the notes. The composer has done the work for me.”

  “And now you emerge to entertain your adoring public.” He was watching her closely. “That must be a difficult transition.”

  “You’re very astute.” She smiled. “It can be hard after a particularly dramatic role, but I am fine this evening.”

  “So I am definitely speaking to Maria, not Tosca’s Floria?”

  “Aha! You read the program!” she quipped.

  Aristotle grinned.

  “I’m not planning to leap to my death from a parapet before the end of our supper, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  Waiters brought appetizers, and she turned to speak with the director, who was on her left, but by the time the main course was served Onassis had reclaimed her attention.

  “I wonder if I could tempt you to come for a cruise on the Christina next summer?” he asked. “We will have a distinguished party on board. Winston and Clementine Churchill join us every year. There are Greek musicians and you would not be required to sing a note, but could tour the islands of our homeland, swim, eat, drink—whatever your heart desires.”

  He was leaning close, his voice lowered, and she could feel lust emanating from him. He wanted her badly, and she had to admit that she was attracted to him too. There was an animal quality she found very sexy. It was flattering to be pursued, but at the same time she sensed it was La Callas he wanted, the creature he had seen onstage, not her; not Maria.

  “That’s a tempting offer,” she replied. “I’ll have to check my schedule—and my husband’s too. It’s our tenth wedding anniversary next year and he may have something planned.” She watched his face as she threw in a reminder of her marital status, but he didn’t falter.

  “I hope he cherishes you,” he whispered into her ear, his hand resting on her shoulder and his breath tickling her cheek.

  Chapter 13

  Hyannis Port

  November 1958

  Jackie arrived at Rose and Joe Kennedy’s house and let herself in. She’d spent the past hour trying to decide what to wear for a television show entitled At Home with the Kennedys that was being filmed that afternoon. She wanted to look elegant but not overdressed. Finally she’d opted for a plain dark-green wool dress with bracelet sleeves, and a string of pearls. Her hair was backcombed but she applied only the subtlest of makeup, her mother’s voice ringing in her ears: “Men want to see a pretty face, not a painted mannequin.”

  As she hesitated in the hall, she heard male voices in the dining room and took a step closer, wondering if Jack was there.

  “She’s polling as too remote, too upper class, not someone who shares their concerns,” said a voice Jackie recognized as belonging to Jack’s brother Teddy, and straightaway she knew he was talking about her. It was so unfair. America was a huge country and she was never going to appeal to every demographic.

  “What do you want her to do?” Jack replied. “Talk about the brand of soap powder she buys? People might say in polls that they think she’s remote but look how many more turn out when she comes to rallies with me.”

  At least he was standing up for her; that was something.

  “You’ve gotta talk to her about her clothes,” someone else said, a voice she couldn’t place. “If it’s gotta be designer names, ask her to make it homegrown American designers, not fancy French ones.”

  “I’ll try,” Jack said. “But don’t bank on it. Jackie’s got strong views on her clothes.”

  Jackie looked down. The dress she was wearing was Lanvin. She couldn’t remember whether she had any American designer frocks in her closet. And anyway it was too late to change now.

  What right did they have to dissect her like this? It was irritating to be discussed behind her back. Her hand hovered over the doorknob as she considered bursting in to remonstrate, but what would it achieve? Instead she walked toward the living room, where she could see the TV crew positioning a huge black camera. Rose Kennedy and Jack’s sisters Eunice and Jean were already sitting on some floral-patterned couches and chairs that had been arranged in a C shape.

  “Hi, everybody,” she said, smiling at the TV folk and then her in-laws.

  “There you are,” Rose said in a friendly enough voice but without a smile.

  Jackie knew she was seen as an interloper by the Kennedy women, but she was tolerated as long as she toed the line and played the role of a politician’s ideal wife. Was she late today? She glanced at her watch. Less than five minutes. She sat down by Rose and smoothed her skirt.

  “Can I powder your nose, Mrs. Kennedy?” A woman approached her with a powder puff. “Television brings out the shine.”

  She leaned her head back, inhaling the old-lady scent and hoping she wasn’t going to look as if she were coated in flour.

  Teddy appeared in the doorway and had a chat with one of the team, perhaps the director, about the running order. Then he turned to her. “Jackie, we’re going to start with Rose asking whether you like campaigning, so get your answer ready. You know the kind of thing: Meeting the people your husband represents is a great honor. You’ll do whatever you can to support him, but your most important role is making his home comfortable and raising his daughter.”

  Jackie felt patronized. “And there I was, about to say I hope Jack gets voted out so I never h
ave to attend another rally for the rest of my life.”

  Rose rolled her eyes, glancing at her daughters.

  Teddy cleared his throat. “Can you deepen your voice?” he asked. “It sometimes sounds a bit too high, too breathy.”

  Jackie was a talented mimic, and she imitated various accents as she asked, “What would you prefer? Flat Boston? A southern drawl? California girl?”

  Teddy chuckled. “Just yourself, but a little less patrician.”

  “Have you been on TV before, Mrs. Kennedy?” one of the crew asked. “Do you know about not looking into the camera? Just pretend we’re not here.”

  She nodded and replied crisply: “I surely will.”

  Once the camera was rolling, she tried to lower her voice but it felt false. She sounded like a schoolmarm teaching class as she gushed, “I’ve enjoyed campaigning so much . . .”

  JACK KNEW FROM the start that she came from a society family; that was part of the attraction for him. He liked that she spoke French, Italian, and Spanish and had studied art and literature. He was tickled that she had been “debutante of the year” in 1948 and that her favorite pastimes were horseback riding and reading. If he’d wanted someone more down-home, he should have thought about it way back then.

  The first time they met was on a train from Washington to New York, when she was still a student at Vassar College and he was a newly elected congressman from Massachusetts. He leaned across the aisle to introduce himself, and her first impression was that he looked very Irish, with his thick reddish-blond hair, broad face, and arresting gray-green eyes. She felt uncomfortable telling a stranger her name but it would have been rude not to, and, after all, he was a congressman.

  “You seem fresh and incorruptible in your crisp white frock,” he said next, “but I’ve got a theory about girls like you.”

  Jackie’s hackles rose. “Is that so? You know nothing about me.”

  He grinned, like a cheeky kid with his fist in the cookie jar. “I bet you are the best kind of kisser. I can always tell.”

  She thought of opening a book to terminate the conversation, but part of her was intrigued. She and her girlfriends were forever talking about what made men fall in love with one girl over another, and not always going for the prettiest one either, so she decided to use Jack as research.

  “Are there many different kinds of kisser in your vast experience?” she asked, hoping he caught the sarcasm.

  “Four main types, with lots of variations,” he said, ticking them off on his fingers. “There’s the frigid type with bone-dry lips who give a quick peck then run away scared as chickens; there’s the girls who are too busy trying to kiss the way they think they ought to, following advice they’ve read in some magazine, to actually enjoy themselves; there’s the types who scare a guy to death by coming on too strong, all panting, drooling, and desperate eyes; and then there’s the ones like you, who relax and surrender to the sensation of lips on lips and just enjoy the kiss for itself.”

  Jackie willed herself not to blush. “I hope you are not expecting me to prove your theory true, Mr. Kennedy.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” he said with a grin. “What kind of a lecher do you take me for?”

  When the train pulled in to Penn Station, he tried to persuade her to come to a nearby bar for a drink but disappeared pronto when he heard she was meeting her daddy.

  She assumed she would never see him again, but four years later, in June 1951, her friends Charles and Martha Bartlett invited her for dinner, saying there was a man they thought she might like to meet. She walked into their front room—and there was Jack Kennedy.

  “We’ve already had the pleasure,” Jackie interrupted as her hosts began the introductions.

  “You’re the one who’s a great kisser.” Jack grinned, and Jackie had to laugh.

  She had been eighteen when she’d met him before; now she was twenty-two and far more self-assured. She had traveled around Europe, spent an entire summer in France, and was due to return there the following week for an extended trip with Lee before she took a job as “inquiring photographer” for the Washington Times-Herald.

  Jack glanced at her left hand. “I had assumed you would be married by now, Miss Bouvier.”

  “You assumed wrong, Mr. Kennedy.”

  She’d had dozens of beaus, of course, but they all wanted to turn her into a housewife. They clearly hadn’t read her high-school yearbook, where she noted that her ambition was “not to be a housewife.” She wanted more; she didn’t know what, exactly, but was sure she would find it eventually. And when Jack began talking about politics, her interest was piqued. She admired the fact that he was ambitious and wanted to create social change. She was impressed to hear that he was a war hero. She found him attractive, and maybe she had an inkling that life with a man like that would never be humdrum.

  At the end of the evening, he asked if she wanted to go for a nightcap, but Jackie had already arranged to meet a friend and didn’t want to let him down.

  “In that case, give me a call when you’re back from Europe,” he suggested.

  Jackie thought that was too casual. If he wanted to see her again, he should ask Charles Bartlett to let him know when she returned, and he should call her. She wasn’t the type of girl to chase a man.

  IN FACT, THE way things turned out, once they started dating she did have to chase Jack Kennedy. It came as a surprise to her when she fell headlong in love with him. Even more of a surprise was that he didn’t seem quite as smitten. Before then, Jackie had always possessed the knack of making men fall for her. She would ask all about them and listen attentively, as if they were the most fascinating people she’d ever met; she would laugh at their jokes, no matter how feeble; she would be sassy and funny but never overshadow them. None of those techniques worked on Jack, though. He liked her, sure, but she could tell he wasn’t in love, and she knew she wasn’t the only girl he was dating.

  So Jackie stepped up her game. She read tedious books about political theory so that she could discuss them with him; she translated papers from French to help him in his work; she took hot meals to his office on evenings when he was working late; and she charmed his father, old Joe Kennedy, when Jack took her to meet the family at Hyannis Port.

  Was it the fact that she couldn’t win his heart easily that made her so determined? No, it wasn’t just that. He was different from every other man she’d met: unpredictable, brave, witty, clever, and fiercely, burningly ambitious. Politics came first, second, and third on his priority list. It wasn’t long before she knew she wanted to marry him, but how could she get him to pop the question? At twenty-three, she was virtually the only one of her college friends who hadn’t walked down the aisle.

  It was her daddy who told her that she would have to play hard to get if she was ever to make Jack propose.

  “Cancel dates at short notice. Be vague about your plans. Whatever you do, don’t seem desperate,” he advised.

  Jack’s sister Eunice was getting married in the summer of 1953, and he asked Jackie to accompany him to the wedding, but, following her daddy’s advice, she persuaded the Times-Herald to send her to London to report on the coronation of Elizabeth II. It was a gamble; perhaps he’d take another girl in her stead, someone who would finagle her way into his affections.

  Jack seemed surprised by her decision. “I wanted you to get a chance to meet the wider Kennedy clan,” he said. “And there was a question I was planning to ask you beforehand.”

  He said it in such a casual way that she had no inkling of what would come next. “Oh, yes? And what might that be?”

  “I want you to marry me, kid. You know we make a great team.” He grinned his naughty-boy grin. “What do you say?”

  She was stunned. She’d begun to think he might be a lost cause, especially after a recent magazine article reported that he was dating the actress Audrey Hepburn.

  “When did you decide to propose?” she asked, wondering if it was her booking the trip t
o London that had nudged him into it.

  “About a year ago. I decided to wait, but I knew all along you were the one.”

  She hit him on the arm and exclaimed, “How big of you!” But she couldn’t stop smiling as he pulled her in for a kiss.

  THE BIBLICAL QUOTATION “As ye sow, so shall ye reap” came to Jackie’s mind as she posed for the television cameras with Caroline on her knee. She’d fallen for a man who put his career first, and that’s what she’d gotten. The midterm elections were coming up, and since September 15 she had been on the road with Jack, appearing by his side on platforms throughout the length and breadth of Massachusetts, greeting dignitaries and their identical wives, listening to the same speech over and over with a fixed smile that made her jaw ache.

  Her daughter was tired and crotchety that afternoon, with red teething spots on her cheeks. Jackie unfastened her pearls and handed them over to distract her. Jack came to sit beside them, in an attempt to leave voters with a wholesome family image at the end of the documentary. The film crew wanted Caroline to smile, but she was squirming and close to tears.

  When at last they’d gotten the shots they wanted, Jackie whispered, “Thank God! That was excruciating.”

  Jack patted her shoulder quickly but didn’t once thank her. It was taken for granted that she would play her part.

  “Did Teddy tell you we’ve got Time magazine coming to the house next Wednesday?” he asked. “They’re going to interview me and take some photographs.”

  Jackie sighed. “So that Mrs. Average Voter can check out my taste in drapes?” Caroline was trying to stuff the entire string of pearls into her mouth and squawked loudly when Jackie peeled them from her fist. “I hope they’ll stay downstairs and not invade our bedroom, at least.”

  Jack’s mind was already half-engaged elsewhere. He glanced down the hall toward the dining room, where his team was still at work. This wasn’t the best time to get picky with him.