On the other hand, the trip is an absurd idea, especially for someone so fantastically low on cash. But Serena is twenty-one years old. She has no boyfriend or husband or family of any kind. Her only pet is a cat on the wall. Nonna Nova herself would tell Serena that it’s okay to be impetuous, foolish every once in a while. You make mistakes while you’re young.
All that and Serena wants to find out about the money and what happened to Alicia Corning Clark. She wants to see Los Angeles because she’s never been. And she wants to do these things with Lee because—all-American as he may be—there is something original about him. The way Serena sees it, she has nothing to lose.
SENATOR JOHN F. KENNEDY, DEBUTANTE WILL WED
Battle Creek Enquirer, June 25, 1953
HOLLYWOOD
Alicia staggered through a Beverly Hills mansion, champagne in hand. Fred followed, to make sure she didn’t fall through a window, or knock into something too valuable to replace.
“Let’s get you out of here,” he said, as she careened away from him.
“Get out of here? I’m working, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
She went farther down the hall, Fred stuck on her heels. She couldn’t lose the bastard, this bodyguard she never hired but who always seemed to be around.
“You were paid to meander drunk in a producer’s house?” he said. “That’s a new arrangement.”
“Fuck you.”
Alicia stopped and peered into a room. She flicked on the lights.
“Holy shit!” she said, and burped. “Look at this place. Can you imagine having an art gallery in your home? There’s a Renoir in here. A Picasso! Over there is a … what’s-his-name. You know. The one?”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Fred said, “but the owner is a renowned collector of art, and women. I can’t speak for his taste in art, but his taste in women is shit.”
Alicia thwacked him in the chest with the back of her hand.
“Ouch!” Fred yelped. “What’s your deal tonight? I’ve never seen you so loaded. Romance problems? The breakup with Coop, perhaps?”
Alicia shrugged, as a tear slipped down her cheek. “Romance problems” was one way to put it, but of course it had nothing to do with Gary Cooper.
The wedding was scheduled for September. “The tall, hatless Kennedy,” the “personable and dashing young Democrat,” was getting married, despite being heretofore “pictured as impervious to romance.”
But, John F. Kennedy had been snagged, by a debutante no less, a so-called artist. Alicia could’ve stomached any other career, and they had plenty to choose from. Jacqueline Bouvier was alternately described as a photographer, heiress, socialite, and general “career gal.” She had attended George Washington University, Vassar, and the Sorbonne. A perfect goddamned match, probably handpicked by Joe himself.
The couple had known each other for one year, some reports said, while others pegged it at two. Where had this Jacqueline been these past few months, she wondered, when Jack was so often at Alicia’s side?
Miss Bouvier was probably the very reason Joe had been so pleasant at Eunice’s wedding. His son was set to marry the ideal woman and already had a piece on the side, just like Pop. Jews were dandy behind closed doors, as long as they were good in bed. Alicia felt like the world’s biggest fool.
Was Jacqueline pretty? Mostly. She had a dark and haunting air about her, but her face was somewhat flat, her eyes too far apart, like a shark’s. She had the perfect nose but, if Alicia wasn’t mistaken, beneath it was the suggestion of a mustache. Her hair was kinky and Alicia’s friend Zsa Zsa recently sat beside her on a plane and disclosed that the girl had terrible skin and a very grating personality.
But what had really gotten to Alicia, what really sent her entire spirit plummeting, was the four-page spread in Life magazine. “Senator Kennedy Goes A-Courting,” the cover announced. It featured the new couple sailing on the Victura.
The photographs were mostly staged. Whenever in his life had Jack Kennedy “chatted on the lawn” wearing a sport coat and shoes shinier than the pearls around Jacqueline’s neck? But the cover was real. On it, Jacqueline gripped the mast of the Victura, her forearm muscles straining. Jack sat on the bow, relaxed and shoeless, arms wrapped around his knees as the boat tipped toward the sea.
With a shake of the head and tears in her eyes, Alicia strolled the art gallery, heels clacking on the floor. Had she waited too long to agree to Washington? What if she’d said yes to France?
No matter. Jack was getting married and it was probably for the best. Part of the Kennedy contract was to produce kids. Ethel was pregnant with their third. Doubtless Jack was expected to catch up and Alicia couldn’t help him with that. Last week, she’d gone to the doctor, fretting that she’d been knocked up. He gave her even worse news.
“It’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to conceive,” he said.
There’d been a surgery, back in Germany, performed hastily and without the proper aftercare. Such was the way in the camps, especially with former Nazi doctors at the helm. Alicia’s monthlies had always been sporadic, so she’d never taken this as a sign, until the doctor told her that it was.
The question was, where would Alicia go from here? She’d convinced herself that she was tired of the parties and the bit roles that were an unholy union of long hours and low pay. Giving this up for Jack was easy. Going back was not.
Alicia rubbed her eyes with the base of her palms, makeup be damned. Suddenly, she felt someone else’s presence and glanced up, expecting Fred. When she saw it was the owner of the house, she let out a puff of surprise.
“Sorry!” the man said, holding up both hands. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
He was attractive, in the vein of a silver fox, but Alicia couldn’t muster the energy to flirt. They’d met before, though Alicia didn’t recall his name.
“Someone told me there was an artist in here,” he said, scratching the bald patch at the crown of his head. “A woman with a good eye.”
“I don’t know about my eye. I simply like what I like.”
“And what is that?” he asked.
“My taste is somewhat varied,” she said, and ambled toward a Toulouse-Lautrec. “As is yours, I see. Assuming you picked these out yourself.”
“Of course! No curator here. Otherwise, this isn’t an art gallery, but a way to show off.”
Alicia chuckled flatly.
“No one in Hollywood would fault you for that.”
Alicia took a few more steps, scanning the paintings on the easternmost wall. She was starting to sober up, probably thanks to the incessant crying.
“I didn’t know there were so many Picassos in private collections,” she said. “In one collection, at that.”
“He’s my favorite.”
“Don’t say that too loudly.” Alicia smiled over her shoulder. “He’s a Communist, you know. You can’t have anyone thinking you’re sympathetic to the Reds.”
The man laughed through his nose.
Alicia walked a few more paces, past more paintings, before stopping beside one she hadn’t seen. With a single glimpse, she concluded it was her favorite in the room.
“Who did this?” she asked.
It was a swirling, pastel nude woman with a feline’s face and large, balloon-like breasts. The subject was somehow cartoonish and serious, playful and evocative, all at the same time.
“An Italian artist,” the man said. “Novella Palmisano. Famous in Europe for her surreal nudes, but she’s virtually unknown here. I picked it up last time I was in Rome, visiting the art galleries on Margutta. The piece caught my attention.”
Alicia inched closer and fought the pulsing temptation to reach out.
“It’s magnificent,” she whispered.
“The artist herself is even more colorful,” the man said. “She’s four feet, nine inches of pure hellfire and lust. I’ve never met anyone quite like her. Actually, now that I think about it, you two would
get along like gangbusters.”
“How’s that?” Alicia asked with a smirk. “I’m not that short. Or lusty.”
“You have a similar devil-may-care attitude.”
“What makes you think that about me?”
“You were scheduled to be at two dinners of mine last month, and you showed up to neither.”
“Sorry about that, I was…”
Indisposed? Involved? On her way out of town?
“Don’t worry,” the man said. “It can be a good trait. Novella’s like that. She lives life, does what she wants, and views nothing as an obligation. And you have very similar laughs. Deep. True. From the belly.”
Alicia nodded. It was the laugh she found with Jack. More tears welled and she looked away, so that the man would not see.
“You’re both European,” he continued, “and artists. And—heck—I think you’ve dated the same men. Weren’t you with Kirk Douglas?”
“I’ve spent some time with Kirk,” Alicia confessed. “You must’ve done your homework.”
She fixed her concentration on the nude. Alicia last painted in Hyannis Port and had long since stopped calling herself an artist. But maybe she should start up again, and this time paint people, not places from a past now dead. Alicia wondered what the debutante painted. Endless seascapes, no doubt. Portraits of her grandparents. Depictions of her two homes.
Alicia pivoted toward the door, her chest heavy with sorrow, her mind thick with melancholy, the rest of her body filled with too many sensations to name.
“Your home is lovely,” she said to the man. “But not as lovely as your art. I’m honored to have seen it firsthand.”
The man screwed up his face. This was not the kind of buttering up he usually received.
“Do you want to…” he started.
“I’m a tad light-headed,” Alicia said, and swished by him, skimming his arm with her fingertips as she passed. “I should call it a night. Thank you for introducing me to Novella Palmisano. I’m inspired.”
Alicia left the gallery and made her way to the rocked foyer at the front of the house. She wondered which of the departing guests might give her a lift home, as she lacked the energy to find Fred.
Anxious to kick off her shoes and slip into her pink nightie, Alicia trailed an acquaintance who was walking to his car. Then she heard a noise, a veritable racket. Her stomach dropped. She’d know it anywhere, that guffaw. Patented, probably trademarked, and identifiable as one hundred percent Kennedy.
* * *
She hightailed it back into the house. A flash of auburn whizzed past and Alicia draggled after Pat Kennedy, until she caught up with her on the lanai.
“I hear congratulations are in order!” Alicia said as she strutted outside, feeling none of the swagger she tried to project.
Also, she was a tad winded.
“Alicia!” Pat said with a genuine smile. “I didn’t know you were at this party! What are you congratulating me for? He hasn’t proposed. Yet.”
Her eyes skipped toward Peter, who was trying to light a cigar on the other side of the sliding glass door.
“Anyway,” Pat continued, “you’re not supposed to say ‘Congratulations’ to a woman. The appropriate response is ‘Best wishes.’”
“Thank you for the lesson,” Alicia said. “But I was referring to your brother’s engagement.”
Pat blinked and took a drag of her cigarette.
“What now?” she said.
“Jack’s engagement?” Alicia said. “To Jacqueline Bouvier?”
“Oh. Her.” Pat blew a stream of smoke more or less into Alicia’s face. “It’s pronounced Jack-leen. Rhymes with ‘queen.’ Just how she likes it, the brat. Ugh, she’s such a bore.”
Alicia’s body pinged with glee. Whatever Joe Kennedy thought, at least Pat didn’t like Jacqueline, and she had exceptional taste.
“It’s funny,” Pat said, “when Jack rang with the news, I offered my best wishes, felicitations, the whole nine. I hung up and told Pete. His first question was ‘Who’s the girl?’ And the thing was, I had no idea! I called him back. I said, ‘Jack, have you picked the bride and, if so, might you also tell me her name?’”
Pat howled and howled. Alicia didn’t find it as funny as all that but pushed out a laugh all the same. Did she want Jack to love this Jacqueline? Or would she prefer that the wide-eyed woman was no better than an actress, playing a lead role in Joe Kennedy’s finest achievement? The first option cast a poor light on Alicia, the second on Jack.
“Sounds like a match made in heaven,” Alicia said.
“Ha.” Pat grunted and then stomped her cigarette into the floor. “He proposed via telegram, which is goddamned perfect. What she’s getting out of the situation, I haven’t the faintest. The one thing I do know is that my brother may be getting married, but Jack Kennedy will never settle down.”
Hollywood beauty Alicia Darr had her nose bobbed.
Behind the Scenes in Hollywood, by Harrison Carroll, September 28, 1953
HOLLYWOOD
Alicia stood on the front steps of the Wilshire Country Club. After a sweep of the premises to make sure she was alone, she flipped open her compact and held up the mirror.
She pressed on her skin. The caverns beneath her eyes had been bruised for longer than she’d anticipated. Damn it. It looked okay in the bathroom at home, not so out in the sunshine, enhanced by the glare from the white stucco clubhouse behind her.
Alicia clicked her compact shut and pulled out a pair of cat-eyed shades. These would have to stay on, lest she be forced to answer any questions about the state of her face. As she latched her pocketbook, a wild-haired figure stomped out from the club’s front doors.
“You know, golfing is a sport!” yelled this person—a woman. “Not sure why it’s a problem to wear shorts. Raúl! Fetch my car!”
Alicia gaped for she recognized the shorts-clad golfer on sight. It was the one and only Katharine Hepburn.
“Miss Hepburn…” Alicia said, and walked down the stairs to join her.
“Oh hiya,” Katharine said, like they’d met a hundred times before. “I didn’t see you there. Ignore my tantrum. I’m just chapped because they kicked me off the course for wearing shorts. For Christ’s sake.”
She gestured toward the baggy, wrinkled Bermudas that might as well have been cut for a man.
“I adore the shorts,” Alicia said, though she would’ve chosen something more flattering, a light wool gabardine, perhaps. “Forget your attire, I can’t conceive of any club that would eject Katharine Hepburn! I’d let you play in your birthday suit!”
The woman laughed in her throaty way.
“No one wants to see that,” she said, and pulled off her kid leather gloves. “Please, call me Kate.”
She traded her gloves for a package of cigarettes.
“It’s a lovely day for golf, in any case,” Katharine—Kate—said. “Are you coming or going?”
Alicia squinted at the red-roofed building.
“Coming. I think. I’m supposed to play with a group of men who are in town for a convention. The American Dietetic Association, I think.”
Alicia sighed. A locker room attendant was probably right then propping her bag up on the driving range, its gold tag glinting in the sunlight. Of Don Class’s girls, Alicia was the athletic one, capable of playing a solid eighteen or a few sets on the tennis court. Whether this was to her advantage or detriment was as yet undetermined. She liked tennis and golf fine, but chatting with dietitians less so.
“I’m not sure if I’m up for playing,” Alicia said. “You think they’d miss me if I skipped?”
“They’d miss you all right,” Kate said with a snort. “What’d you say your name was?”
“Alicia.” She extended a hand. “Alicia Darr.”
“Enchantée,” Kate replied. “I’ve seen you before. You’re with Don Class.”
“Yes. I am,” Alicia said, eyes fluttering against her great shock.
“Hollywoo
d’s a tiny town, you know,” Kate said, gauging Alicia’s surprise. “It’s part of its lack of charm.”
Alicia nodded. Hollywood was small, and Alicia wasn’t exactly a wallflower. She went to auditions. She attended parties. She’d filmed a bit part in Miss Baker’s Dozen with Greer Garson a while back.
“You should get a better agent,” Kate said.
“Don seems fine, but if you have any suggestions—”
“What you really need, kiddo, is to get to New York. Hollywood is too one-dimensional. I arrived three days ago and already it’s making me batty. They’re trying to talk me into television of all things, to play the part of a spinstery career gal who’s a shoulder to cry on for everyone else.”
Alicia was bewildered by this woman’s presence, and the way she spoke. Kate talked briskly, each sentence sticking to the last like a gathering avalanche. They were strangers, but there was a certain familiarity to her, a comfort one might find with an old friend.
“I’d get a piece of the action,” Kate rambled on, “but who cares about that. I’ve got other things going on. I’m working on an adaptation of The Millionairess, which I performed last summer, in the West End.”
At once, Alicia understood why she wasn’t cowering despite being in close proximity to the world’s biggest star. It was Katharine’s countenance—that gangly nature and bounding personality, as well as her fluffy, auburn hair, grayish eyes, and haphazard dress. Also, it was her speech: that rat-a-tat New England beat. She reminded Alicia of Jack.
The valet drove up in a white convertible two-seat Corvette. Alicia gawped at the sparkling paint job and red leather interior.
“Gorgeous,” she said.
“Ya think?” Kate said, and waved a ten-dollar bill at Raúl. “Why don’t you hop behind the wheel?”
“Oh, Miss Hepburn,” Alicia said, her heart beating so fast that she felt sick. “I can’t drive your car. I don’t have a license! Some church ladies in Oklahoma gave me lessons years ago, but … goodness … I can’t fathom the outrage if I killed Kate the Great in an automobile crash.”
The Summer I Met Jack Page 29