She is a little drunk from two margaritas at lunch.
“Why did you call me if you’re on ‘vacation’?” he wants to know.
“Someone from the office texted me that you’d called,” she says. “I thought it might be urgent.”
“It is urgent, but how are you going to help me from there?”
“I’ll be back in seven days.”
“Seven days! Haven’t you already been gone two?”
“Three.”
“Three! Good grief!”
“I can have Shari look.” she says.
“Shari! Shari can’t look!”
“Does it matter?” she asks with a sigh.
She’s never this insolent, but of course there’s midday tequila and her boyfriend starting to undress.
“‘Does it matter’?” her boss growls. “Yes, it rather does. There are people nosing around, waiting for news.”
“Well, if Shari can’t help, you’ll have to wait.”
She looks up. Her boyfriend offers a double thumbs-up. They’re all dying for the boss to retire.
“Fine,” the man says. “I’ll wait.”
He may be gruff but he’s not unreasonable. That’s what she’s been trying to explain to the boyfriend, who wants her to quit.
“I’ll send you an email,” he says. “About what I need. You’re in no shape to take notes now.”
That she had margaritas at lunch is no great shock. He can hear it in her words. Meanwhile, the boyfriend is making his moves.
“Okay then, I’ll speak with you next week,” she says.
The man hangs up the phone.
Alone, at his desk, which overlooks the street instead of the ocean (a bad layout, he realizes), the man boots up his computer. He glances at the letter. How does one send mail to Rome? Something catches his eye. What imbecile got mustard on the envelope? He imagines some fat slob, eating a roast beef sandwich over a stack of mail.
The computer shows a welcome screen. Once the man remembers his password, and then also types it correctly after three tries, he googles how to send a letter to Italy. The results are discouraging. Italian post offices aren’t even used for mail, but for paying bills. One purchases stamps at a tobacconist.
He soon learns that the internet is riddled with Italian postal calamities, and Rome is notoriously bad. There are countless stories of packages and letters received after months, or not received at all. One woman mailed her daughter a letter in July, and sent another on Halloween. Both arrived on the same day in December. Parcels often show up empty, or clearly rifled through.
The man jots down the rules for giving a letter the best shot. Thankfully, he is not desirous of sending weapons, hair, or human remains. He is likewise not interested in mailing clocks, footwear, or playing cards.
All envelopes must be white and addressed plainly, he notes. Anything colorful hints at celebration, and the possibility of money, especially if originating from the United States. If you send an envelope in pink or green or blue, count on it being opened, one hundred percent. Luckily white envelopes are all he has.
Soon the man is tired. He closes his computer and dashes off a letter to the secretary, to be received next week, and includes a ten-dollar bill. He estimates it will cost $6.04 to mail. She can keep the change.
WHITE ENVELOPE, he writes. TYPE THE ADDRESS.
In the end, the secretary will heed the first instruction, but not the second. She finds the request unnecessarily complicated and she prefers handwriting, a personal and somewhat old-fashioned touch. Why does the man always have to be so strict?
Congressman Jack Kennedy, son of the former Ambassador, and Adele O’Connor have iced.
Around Town, by Ed Sullivan, September 27, 1950
HYANNIS PORT
Alicia hadn’t expected to find Jack’s name in the gossip pages.
She was unfamiliar with the word “iced,” though of course it could only mean they’d gone cold. American idioms aside, who was Adele O’Connor and why hadn’t Jack mentioned her before? It was good timing, at least. Alicia could ask Jack that night, in person, if she drummed up the nerve.
IN HYANNIS FRIDAY NIGHT WILL STOP BY AFTER 2200 MISS YOU= LOVE JACK
Alicia worked until nine o’clock, and despite her Jack Kennedy jitters, handled the candy counter like a pro. She came close to selling a piece of art to an older gentleman, but he got distracted and ambled off.
“Drat! Almost!” Alicia said, with a ping of triumph. “I had him on the hook!”
He didn’t recoil at the twenty-dollar price, which was something, to be sure.
“He was making conversation,” George said, ever the optimist. “I wouldn’t get too excited.”
“You really know how to make a gal feel swell,” Alicia said, but smiled anyway.
“I don’t know why you’re under the misguided notion that you can sell a static painting to someone who’s just watched a film. These are modern times. Art is picture and sound. Art moves.”
“Please.” Alicia rolled her eyes. “Most people view movies as a diversion, like a baseball game. Very few would consider it high art.”
“So, you create ‘high art’ then?” he asked.
Normally, Alicia would’ve reminded George that some thoughts were best left in one’s head. But she was too excited, her body racked by an almost devouring anticipation. She was seeing Jack tonight! It’d been awhile and there was quite a lot to say.
“All right! Good-bye!” Alicia called, the minute the clock struck nine.
George muttered something about the balled-up, lipstick-blotted tissues she’d left on the counter, though Alicia chose not to hear. She raced home to freshen up but, in the end, George walked through the front door long before Jack came.
He arrived shortly before midnight, never “on time” but instead forever “in the nick of,” always catching Alicia seconds before she gave up. All he had to do was fire off one of his smiles, and she couldn’t stay exasperated for long.
“Aren’t you a sight,” he said, and pulled her into him, the second she opened the door. “They don’t make them like you in Washington.”
He nuzzled her neck.
“Or anywhere.”
“Jack,” Alicia said, and pushed him away. “Not so fast.”
She grabbed his shirt, and pulled him toward the living room.
“Aw, hell,” he said. “You’re playing coy? Now?”
“Coy. I don’t know what that is.”
Alicia shoved him onto the couch and twirled, skirt fanning out as she moved. She had on a new outfit that night: a white tube top tucked into a flared black skirt, with a bib necklace to finish it off. It was a kickier style than she normally wore, and more expensive, too. She wanted Jack to appreciate it before it ended up on the floor.
“Let’s chat,” she said. “We haven’t seen each other in ages!”
“You’re killing me, kid!”
Jack clutched his heart, and then his balls.
“Jack Kennedy, you’re an animal. Surely you can contain yourself for five minutes before getting to the lights-out business.”
“If you want to keep the lights on, I’m A-OK with that,” he said.
“I swear you think about sex ninety percent of the time.”
Alicia sat on the couch beside him.
“I assure you, it’s much higher than ninety,” he said. “Sorry, kid, it’s your fault. You can’t walk around looking like that if you expect me to behave.”
“I can’t decide if you’re the world’s biggest charmer,” Alicia said, and swatted his shoulder, “or the world’s biggest wolf.”
“Can you blame me? You leave me positively weak.”
“I’ll check the box marked ‘wolf.’”
“As for you, I’ll check the one marked ‘flirt.’”
Alicia chuckled, and thought back to all those months ago, in Oklahoma, when she’d returned from yet another date. As Alicia sprawled across the YWCA couch, she complained to Irenka that
she’d tried with the banter and the come-hither and all that, but she still came across like a Pole who’d had too much vodka.
“It’s hopeless!” she’d wailed. “I’ll never find a proper boyfriend if I can’t even flirt.”
With that dead-eyed stare, Irenka asked, “What is flirt?”
Alicia tried to explain, to translate, but couldn’t find the words.
“It’s like teasing, almost,” she said. “But sexier. Lighthearted.”
“Vy you tease?” Irenka said. “Teasink is bad.”
“Oh, never mind,” Alicia said, a frequent response when it came to Irenka.
As for flirting, Alicia had come to accept this deficiency in herself. She’d grown up in a convent. The only men she encountered in her formative years were priests or Gestapo agents, and she didn’t dare speak to either type. But, what do you know? In Hyannis, the flirting had clicked, like a language newly learned.
“You’re in no position to accuse someone of being a flirt,” Alicia said to Jack, radiating with the discovery of her newfound talent.
“Accusing? It’s a fact, and I think it’s swell.”
“Jack.” She sighed. “We haven’t seen each other in ten days.”
She squeezed Jack’s knee, despite knowing how very prone he was to heating up with the slightest provocation.
Ten days. No wonder Alicia’s nerves were revved, the thrill in her belly tormenting. Jack had been gone for so long, Alicia worried she’d have to master him all over again.
“Bed first,” Jack said, and lunged her way. “Talk later.”
Alicia laughed and nudged him onto to his rear.
“Okay, kid,” he said, “you want to talk, let’s talk. But better make it quick. You’re driving me positively mad and I’m liable to take you right here on the couch.”
“We’re not alone in this house, you know,” she said with yet another laugh, and then scooted away. “What’s going on in Washington?”
“Washington? Good Lord, Alicia, please don’t start talking legislation, or my boner will soften for good.”
“You kiss your mother with that mouth?”
“No,” he said.
“Let’s talk about your campaign. Are you confident about regaining your seat? You’re spending loads of time on the road.”
“Sure, sure,” Jack said, and tilted forward again, eyeing her hungrily.
“How’s your family? What are they up to? Is your father here, or has he decamped to Florida?”
“My father? Why the hell are we talking about my dad?”
“Actually, I thought of him the other day, when I ran into his secretary Miss Dee. Janet, I guess, is what you call her.”
“Yes, that is what we call her,” he said. “Seeing as how it’s her name.”
He began to tap his foot.
“I didn’t realize she had an apartment in town,” Alicia said. “I thought she lived at the house.”
“Why would you think that?” Jack asked, brow furrowed.
“Because her relationship with your father is very … involved.”
Abruptly, Jack stopped moving, as if someone had cut his power.
“What are you getting at?” he asked.
“I’m not sure.” Alicia looked at her hands. “They seem unusually intimate.”
“Oh, brother.” Jack groaned, and dropped his head. “Are you worried about my dad’s sex life? Is that it?”
He turned to her again.
“I can arrange something, if you’re interested. Wouldn’t be the first time.”
“Don’t be a jerk,” Alicia said, and touched her stomach, which felt like it had something crawling around inside of it. “And, no, it’s not like that. I’m only trying to understand.”
“Listen,” Jack said. “You’ve met Mother. Have you noticed that she isn’t the warmest sort?”
Alicia nodded, mouth open. Of course she’d noticed; everyone who worked at the Kennedys’ had. The woman was harder, shinier, and more formal than her cherished rosewood table.
“Have you likewise picked up on her nose for details?” he said.
“That’s one way to put it.”
“You’re a sharp girl, Alicia. Hell, that’s half the reason I like being with you. But do you fancy yourself more perceptive than Mother, or the scads of others who go into and out of the house all day?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then don’t get excited about having uncovered some dark family secret, because you haven’t. Unless you think Mother is a fool, or blind.”
“No, I don’t,” Alicia said into her lap. “I believe she knows exactly what’s going on with everybody, every last person.”
Tears pushed against her eyes.
“I was merely asking,” she said. “You don’t have to be so nasty about it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jack said, hastily almost. “But Mother’s fine with the state of things. She has her religion, and Father has his business, and together they have us. Take a gander at her house, and her bedroom overlooking the sea. Check out her closet, at the clothes bought in Paris last week. If you’re thinking, ‘poor Rose Kennedy,’ then you can forget it. She wouldn’t trade places with a damned soul.”
Rose Kennedy did seem happy, in fact rather pleased with her station, not to mention her relationship with the one who mattered most—God.
“I’m sorry,” Alicia squeaked, though she wasn’t sure for what.
“Aw, kid,” Jack said, and bumped her knee with his. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“Well, clue me in, as I don’t know myself.”
“First of all, my secretary, she’s not my type.”
“How comforting.”
“And I’m not my father. To start, I’d never marry someone that Catholic.”
Alicia laughed, though it sounded worn and rusty.
“Come on, kid, look at me.”
She obeyed, eyes shimmering with tears.
“I am not Joe Kennedy,” Jack said. “Sometimes people think that I am, but they’re wrong. We have vastly different opinions on any number of topics, including marriage.”
“Understood. I won’t bring it up again.”
“I should hope not,” Jack said.
He went to stand.
“Shall we go upstairs?” he asked, then paused, taking in Alicia’s countenance, and the way she was biting her lip. “What’s the problem now?”
“Who’s Adele O’Connor?”
His face jumped.
“Adele O’Connor? Where’d you get that name?”
“From the paper.” She blushed. “The gossip pages. I probably shouldn’t admit I read that muck, but there you go.”
“Hell, everybody reads it. Tell me, Alicia Dahr-ling, what did this paper say?”
“That you two have ‘iced.’”
Jack snorted and shook his head.
“It was a fling,” he said, “that lasted about a week, ages ago. I couldn’t even tell you what color hair she has. Couldn’t pick her out of a lineup.”
Alicia closed her eyes. Okay. This all sounded reasonable enough.
Jack reached out a hand to pull her up.
“Can we go to bed now?”
“I suppose,” Alicia said, and staggered to her feet.
“Damn, you’re hot to trot, aren’t you? Try not to make a scene. It’s embarrassing.”
“I’m just tired,” she said as they pattered down the hall. “Also.” She stopped. “I should probably get one last thing off my chest.”
“Jesus, you got a list or something? Next time send it in advance, so I can prepare my remarks.”
“It’s nothing major.” She swallowed. “I only wish we spent more time at your place, instead of here, or at the Center.”
“My place? In Georgetown?”
“No! Gosh no!” Alicia said, then wondered why not. “I meant here, in Hyannis Port. Although now that you mention Washington…”
“Weren’t we just at the house?” he said. “I seem
to recall sailing. A bit of skinny-dipping.”
He winked.
“Yes, but technically we didn’t go inside. It makes me feel…” Alicia let her gaze slide away. “That maybe you’re embarrassed to bring me around.”
“Aw, kid.”
Jack wrapped her in a hug. Forget kissing, forget sex, forget nestling together in a tub. When it came to Jack Kennedy, an embrace was the rarest, most intimate gesture of all.
“I could never be embarrassed,” he said. “As far as I can tell, you up my status by at least two hundred percent. Sure, we can hang out at the house. I figured it’d be weird, given you worked there. Weird for you, of course. I don’t give a damn. You should’ve said something.”
“Thank you, Jack. Thank you so much.”
Alicia exhaled, realizing that she hadn’t expected this answer. She’d envisioned a blazing smile, a quick “sorry, kid,” and some compelling excuse, which she’d readily accept.
But Jack agreed, and more than that, he made it seem like she wasn’t something to hide. The thought made Alicia weak, which was not the best position to be in when Jack Kennedy was goggling her like that.
“Since that’s settled,” Alicia said, and grinned, “I’m going to need help getting out of this skirt.”
* * *
Jack kept his word and soon they were at the house more than they were anywhere else.
Alicia slept at the white clapboard home, she woke up there, she lolled about the sunroom and read on the porch. On sunny days, Alicia and Jack rode bikes on Longwood Avenue. They took sailing trips, and picnicked by the sea.
Sometimes, Alicia experienced a flutter of guilt when she tracked sand through the house, or left a cardigan on the porch or a dirty glass in the sink. Other times, it felt delicious and carefree.
When they weren’t on the beach or sailing, Alicia and Jack were indoors, usually in the basement watching movies. Alicia missed so many important films during those frightening years: The Wizard of Oz, Gone with the Wind, The Philadelphia Story, and, of course, Casablanca.
“I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship,” Jack often said, giving Alicia the shivers, every time.
Jack loved Hollywood but could never sit through a full reel. Fifteen, twenty minutes in, he took to pacing, tapping, scratching doodles on a pad. Jack Kennedy was never at rest, except while in the bath. Sometimes he took as many as four per day, with Alicia perched on the edge of the tub, reading a book or the latest news.
The Summer I Met Jack Page 11