by Gill Paul
In her own estimation, her voice was smaller and less sure than it had been when last she sang there, but you wouldn’t think it to read the reviews after opening night: “One of the most remarkable vocal achievements in my memory,” a prominent critic wrote. What’s more, her return to the city was front-page news and not just a paragraph in the arts section.
Maria felt giddy with joy. She read the critics’ comments over the phone to Ari and he was so proud he sounded fit to burst.
“I’ll ask my New York secretary to buy dozens of copies of every single newspaper so I can send them to our friends,” he declared.
“Don’t you think that’s a little boastful?” Maria chided, amused.
“Not at all,” he replied. “They will want to share in our triumph.”
She smiled at his use of the word our. It was the kind of thing a husband might say, and she liked that. She liked it a lot.
Chapter 48
New York City
March 25, 1965
Maria’s second performance of Tosca at the Met received yet another ecstatic reception from the New York audience. Afterward, as she sat in her dressing room removing her heavy stage makeup, she was stunned when the manager came to the door and asked if Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy might visit her.
“Of course!” she replied after just a moment’s hesitation, far too curious to refuse. She wiped the cold cream from her face and gave her hair a quick brushing, noticing that her hand was trembling. What did Mrs. Kennedy want? Was this about Ari and Lee?
Jackie knocked, then entered timidly, looking slighter than Maria had imagined. She was dressed like royalty in a white ermine stole over a white-satin ankle-length gown, and her hair was backcombed and lacquered into the famous style that flipped up at her shoulders. She hung back, as if uncertain whether to approach.
“I don’t want to take your time,” she breathed. “You must be exhausted . . .”
“Not at all.” Maria rose to shake her hand and indicated a chair, saying, “Please—sit down.” A wave of expensive scent reached her. Mrs. Kennedy was prettier in real life than in photos, and Maria wished she’d had time to reapply some makeup. She felt exposed, her face shiny from the cold cream.
“I had to call in a lot of favors to get a ticket for tonight,” Jackie began, her voice a little croaky, “but I’m so glad I did. You were wonderful.” She smoothed her skirt beneath her, fidgeted with her evening bag.
Was this really the visit of a fan? If so, it was very brave of her, under the circumstances. “I’m honored that you came. Next time please ask and I will send tickets to save you the trouble.”
“Why, tha-a-nk you,” Jackie said. Her accent was New England one moment, then almost upper-class British the next, as if she couldn’t quite decide who she was. Like Lee’s, her words had a prolonged ah sound, and she dropped her rs. “I’ve long been a fan. In fact, I heard you sing Norma here back in 1956. It was unforgettable.”
Maria smiled. “I love Norma. I’m very glad you enjoyed it.” That had been the year before she met Ari. The production had been marred for her by the critical Time magazine article in which her mother denounced her as selfish and heartless, but she knew her voice had been at its peak and was pleased Jackie had heard it then.
“I wanted to apologize,” Jackie said next.
She paused and Maria frowned, wondering what the apology was for. Mrs. Kennedy spoke slowly, leaving long gaps between sentences, and Maria’s mind leapt through a handful of possibilities. Was she apologizing for her sister’s affair with Ari?
Jackie continued: “I should have invited you to brunch with Mr. Onassis last fall but I was not very good at meeting new people back then. I am slowly getting better, I hope.”
So that was it. “Please. Don’t apologize,” Maria said.
“Oh, but I must. I was ashamed of myself, especially since you had written such a beautiful letter after Jack died. I remember it most particularly.” Her voice softened at the mention of his name.
She’s nice, Maria realized. Nothing like her sister. There was sincerity in her expression, alongside vulnerability. “I was so saddened by your husband’s death I had to write. It felt important to let you know that the world was mourning with you.”
Jackie reached across suddenly and took Maria’s hand, her voice so low it was almost a whisper. “No one can explain it to me. I don’t think they ever will. Yet opera is full of tragedy. It is part of the universal human experience, is it not?”
Maria nodded. “All of us know loss at some time in our lives, but not of the magnitude of yours. Thankfully that is rare.” She paused and chose her words with care. She didn’t want to upset someone who seemed so fragile, but she couldn’t miss this opportunity to make her position clear. “Your dignity since then has moved me greatly, and Ari feels the same way. I know I can speak for him in saying you and your children would be welcome to come for a cruise on the Christina whenever you like. It’s a good way to vacation without the world’s media photographing you at every turn.”
She looked Jackie in the eye and hoped she had gotten the message across: Ari was hers; she was the hostess on the Christina. Lee’s name was not mentioned, but it was the clear subtext.
Jackie blinked and pulled her hand away. “I have the warmest memories of our cruise in 1963. That was in October, just before . . .” She stumbled over her words. “Jack was alive then. I should never have gone. I could have had two more weeks with him.” For a moment her composure slipped. “I regret every moment we spent apart. What I wouldn’t give . . .” She clasped a hand over her mouth, seeming close to tears.
“Can I get you a drink?” Maria asked quickly. “A glass of water? Champagne?”
Jackie shook her head. “I think I must go before I make a fool of myself.”
She rose to her feet and turned to look back at the chair as if worried she had left something behind.
“Please don’t rush . . .” Maria began, but Jackie spoke over her: “Thank you again for moving me so greatly with your music. It has been an honor to meet you.”
“The honor is all mine,” Maria said, rising. “Please—stay for a drink.”
Jackie shook her head with a wan smile. “I can’t.”
She slipped out the door, leaving Maria staring after her, openmouthed. The former First Lady was much more childlike than she had imagined, with her big eyes and little girl’s voice, but how brave of her to come and apologize over that brunch. What guts that must have taken. She might seem fragile on the surface, but she had a core of steel.
The encounter had been fleeting, yet at the same time it felt momentous, and Maria was shaken afterward. She wondered what Jackie had made of her. The former First Lady was regal, Maria decided. Formal. She held herself at a distance and didn’t give much away.
Maria liked her, but even if circumstances had been different, she couldn’t imagine them being friends.
Chapter 49
Long Island, New York
April 1965
Jackie had invited Lee and Stas to spend Easter break with her on Long Island, but she regretted it almost as soon as they arrived.
“Why are you so clumsy? You’ve bruised my shin with that suitcase,” Lee snapped at Stas, rubbing her stockinged leg as he bundled their luggage into the hallway.
Stas apologized but it wasn’t enough.
“And you’ve probably broken most of my cosmetics, the way you’re swinging that vanity case around.”
“Give him a break.” Jackie laughed, hugging her. “Leave the bags, Stas. I’ll get my housekeeper to see to them.”
“Any chance of a beer?” Stas asked. “I’m parched.”
“There you go, drinking before lunchtime. What kind of example is that to set for our kids?” Lee moaned.
“Help yourself from the refrigerator,” Jackie said, waving an arm toward the kitchen. “Lee, come sit on the veranda. Put your feet up. Relax.”
Lee’s foul mood was not alleviated by the spring suns
hine and fresh sea breeze. The children ran down to play on the beach with their nannies supervising, so the adults had time to sit in the sun, reading and chatting, but still Lee was grouchy. Stas seemed to irritate her simply by being in her vicinity.
“Why are you breathing so noisily?” she snapped, and Jackie had to laugh.
“Poor guy! Do you want him to hold his breath?”
“Don’t worry. I’m going for a drive,” Stas replied, getting to his feet, pulling the car keys from his pocket. “I can tell where I’m not welcome.”
“What’s up with you two?” Jackie asked, as soon as he was out of earshot. “You haven’t said a civil word to him since you arrived.”
“You always take his side,” Lee complained. “Why don’t you ever stick up for me?”
“Because I don’t see what he’s done wrong. He’s a good father, he makes decent money, and he’s been kind to me since Jack died. I don’t want you two ending up in the divorce courts.”
Lee grunted. “The way things are going, I don’t think there’s any chance of avoiding that . . .”
“Oh, Lee!” Jackie was distressed. “Think of the children! Try to mend things if you possibly can. All marriages go through sticky patches.” She thought back to her own doubts about Jack in the early years, when she’d found it so hard to accept his affairs. She remembered the conversation with her daddy over lunch, when he advised her not to leave her marriage. A suspicion leapt into her mind. “Is this because of your affair with Aristotle Onassis?” she asked. “Are you still seeing him?”
Lee nodded, her cheeks flushing. “When I can.” She was trying to sound nonchalant, but Jackie knew her better than that.
“Are you in love with him? You’re not holding out for him to marry you, are you?” Jackie searched her face.
Lee turned to gaze out to sea. “I’d love to marry him. But I don’t think it’s in the cards.”
Jackie pursed her lips. “He’s still with Maria Callas. I met her last month and she invited me to join them for a cruise on the Christina.”
Lee jerked forward. “What? Where the hell did you meet her?”
“I heard her sing Tosca at the Met. It was a spectacular performance so I went backstage to congratulate her. She seemed friendly and generous, nothing like the persona invented by the media. I liked her.” In fact, it had made her feel even more disapproving of Lee’s affair with Aristotle. Maria didn’t deserve that.
“Personally, I find her voice rather ugly. It’s got a strange edge to it, like a knife scraping on glass. I’m glad you went out, though. It’s about time you ended your self-imposed purdah.” Jackie gasped, but Lee continued in a self-righteous tone, as if punishing her sister for praising her rival. “Well, it’s true. You mope around, drink your own body weight in vodka, then complain that you can’t sleep. Next morning you moan you’ve got a headache—actually, it’s what we call a hangover! The time is coming when you should stop feeling so eternally sorry for yourself.”
Jackie felt as if she had been assaulted, and her reaction was pure instinct. She jumped up from her chair, drew back her hand, and slapped Lee hard across the face: once with her palm, then again with the back of her hand, the way their mother used to slap them as children.
“How could you?” she breathed. “I thought you understood. You of all people know what it’s been like for me.”
Lee clutched her cheeks, eyes wide with surprise. She opened her mouth to speak but Jackie wouldn’t give her the chance.
“Don’t say another word. Just get away from me.”
She charged out into the hall, grabbed a wrap, and opened the front door, stepping out into the yard. She badly needed to be alone.
JACKIE SWERVED THROUGH the marram grass that fringed the beach, heading in the opposite direction from where the children were playing. She stomped along the sand, feeling the ache in her calves, trying to drown out the noise in her head.
So, Lee thinks I’m wallowing in grief? That I’m drinking too much?
Well, the last accusation was true. She had started keeping a bottle of vodka in her bedroom closet so she could drink herself to sleep. There was a stage she reached when everything blurred in her head and the pain lessened, just for a while. That’s when it was safe to lie down and close her eyes.
She often awoke in the early hours, her mouth as dry as sandpaper, a headache nagging at her temples, and her heart fluttering. Nightmares came regularly: violent, terrifying ones in which she had to protect the children from unknown evil. Jack was rarely there, just occasionally, as a distant ghostly presence she could never reach. Some folk thought the dead could speak to you in dreams, but Jack never spoke to her. She wished he would, but it seemed he had no voice anymore.
Her eyes were watering from the wind whipping her face. She wiped them with her sleeve.
Was she wallowing in misery? It had been only seventeen months since Dallas. Father McSorley had said that grief “takes as long as it takes,” and that it could come and go without the logic of tides or seasons. She had better days and worse days, but mostly worse. A few things helped distract her for a time: music, books, and exercise. She loved going for long walks. Once the water was warm enough, she would start swimming again, because that had helped after Patrick died. But most days, she dragged herself through the motions: forcing herself to eat, wash, and dress, play with the children, run a household. Should she be better by now?
She remembered how her sister had fallen apart after Black Jack died, forcing Jackie to be the strong one. Surely Lee could remember the awful vertiginous chasm of bereavement, made so much worse in Jack’s case by the shocking manner of his death. What she had seen would never be erased from her memory.
Jackie had expected to spend several more decades with him, and instead he was snatched in an instant. Could Lee not understand that her wound was still raw? It hadn’t even begun to heal. Maybe it never would.
Lee was used to Jackie being the steady, responsible one. Maybe that was why she couldn’t accept this new fragile person and wanted her back the way she used to be. Sure, she’d shown up when Jackie’s babies died, she’d attended Jack’s funeral, but she didn’t understand. Not really. They never talked about Dallas. If asked, Jackie would have said that Lee was her closest female friend, but they weren’t intimate—not the way she was with Bobby or Father McSorley.
Was it her fault? Looking back, she had always preferred talking with men rather than women. Perhaps her closeness with her daddy had influenced that. She and Lee could chatter for hours, but mainly they talked about fashion, or mutual acquaintances, or their children; nothing profound.
She remembered Jack laughing one day when he told her he had watched her engaged in an intense conversation with Lee that lasted over twenty minutes. They were huddled, heads close together, chatting away. Keen to hear what was of such great import, he crept up behind them, only to discover that they were talking about gloves: when to wear them and what length.
“Wake up, ladies!” he had mocked. “We’re in the 1960s now! You two sound like you’re straight out of Miss Spence’s finishing school circa 1920.”
She had a sudden memory of Jack’s expression when he was teasing her: the creases at the corners of his eyes, the affectionate twinkle. She missed him so badly that she had to stop and bend double with the pain.
What would he say about Lee’s current irritability? She slumped down on the sand and tried to look at it logically.
It seemed she was in love with Onassis, but if her love were reciprocated, surely he’d have done something about it by now? He wasn’t married to Maria Callas. He could easily have left her for Lee. But instead she had let herself be relegated to the role of his “bit on the side.” Their mother had warned them repeatedly not to have sex before marriage: “Manhandled goods don’t fetch such a high price.” It would never work with Onassis. Lee needed to forget him and focus on her husband and children.
Suddenly Jackie felt a rush of sympathy. Her sister
had never been satisfied with her lot. Always she imagined there was some better life out there. But Stas was a great husband: smart, funny, handsome, and good with kids. Lee should count her blessings.
I’ll apologize for hitting her, Jackie decided. And I’ll try to steer her away from her Onassis obsession.
As for herself, perhaps Lee had a point. Maybe she should socialize more and keep her grief behind closed doors. People were getting bored with it.
THAT FALL, JACKIE forced herself to accept invitations, and she even threw a party at Sign of the Dove, a favorite restaurant on the Upper East Side. She visited a couple of discotheques, went to the theater and ballet, and dined out at least once a week. It seemed to make people happy: “You’re doing so well,” they cooed, as if she were a child learning to use cutlery.
The press hated her socializing, though. “From Mourner to Swinger” read the National Enquirer headline. They wanted her dressed in black and veiled at all times, preferably on the verge of tears. Perhaps they’d have been content only if she’d immolated herself on Jack’s funeral pyre, as Indian widows used to do.
She always had a Secret Service officer close by for protection, but it was still terrifying when she was spotted in public. During the intermission at the theater one night, a female audience member noticed her and came over.
“How are you doing, Mrs. Kennedy? Our hearts just went out to you with what happened in Dallas an’ all . . .”
“Thank you.” Jackie nodded and bowed her head, trying to end the exchange.
“You’re very brave, coming to the theater, but life goes on, doesn’t it?”
When Jackie didn’t answer, she called to a friend—“Look who it is!”—whereupon others in the vicinity turned to scrutinize her. Soon a dozen or so had gathered in a semicircle to watch.
Jackie turned to speak to Joan Thring, the friend who’d accompanied her, but the questions continued.
“What do you think of the play, Jackie?” one man asked.
