JFK and Mary Meyer

by Jesse Kornbluth

  All the therapy I’ve had, I only get flashes of that.

  Painting.

  Making love.

  Walking the beach at midnight.

  Like a peek behind the curtain. But a peek is a start.

  JUNE 9

  Dinner with TC.

  At the bar, talking to the maître d’, there was a woman in a tight, white, sleeveless linen dress. Blonde hair pulled back. Lightly tanned. Definitely toned. I noticed her across the room because she was like a long-lost sister: how I’d look if I had a big job in the government or at a museum and played a lot of tennis. TC noticed her longer, more often. I could say I was surprised, but not really. All his women are a type: blonde, well bred, not frigid. I don’t kid myself—I’m one in a series.

  Luck was on TC’s side: she was given a table two from ours. She waited for her date. TC stole glances. This went on. A man arrived. She looked up at him, and when I say she was thrilled, she really was. And the smile lasted. His. But more, hers. Our conversation faltered—those smiles were compelling.

  TC: What do you think?

  - No rings.

  - I think boyfriend.

  - Or brother.

  - Think it’s okay to ask?

  - On the way out.

  - You do it.

  - No, you.

  Dinner went easy. My work, his work. His ex, my ex. Kids. DC gossip. Maybe we’d travel together. Maybe he’d said that before.

  Coffee? Dessert? Just the check. And not to rush you, sir, but we’re on a mission.

  TC leaned over their table: Excuse the intrusion, but we don’t know a lot of people who are happy, and you two look like you are. Could you tell us: What’s your relationship?

  Her pleasure at the question was early Christmas. Laughter. Head thrown back.

  She said: Friends.

  - Really?

  - Old friends.

  - Perhaps you should think about getting serious.

  More laughter. That was a great exit line. To make sure it was, I pulled TC away.

  TC, on the street: I could have introduced us.

  - So you could get her name?

  - Of course.

  - And ask her out?

  - Maybe.

  - I saved you a wasted fantasy and a certain rejection.

  - Why?

  - She was thirty-five. He was thirty-five. They date in their age group.

  - I’m not in your age group.

  - Yes, but you look younger. And you’re immature.

  I could tell: he didn’t want to know what I told him. In bed, he was rabid.

  JUNE 18

  I bet every woman home during the day in Georgetown is reading Tropic of Cancer.

  I’m sure they gobble the smut.

  What I get is Henry Miller’s vitality, his urgent desire to break through convention and conformity and experience life as it really is—intense, bitter, sweet, absurd.

  Even though he’s poor, he makes the artist/bohemian life attractive.

  The trick is to escape the garret but not get compromised by money and rich people.

  JUNE 25

  Tony gave me a book by Kristnamurti. He’s in Ojai. Go there?12

  JULY 5

  Ojai. Krishnamurti talks as we walk through orange groves. No one path. No one way to understanding. No one teacher. The Way is you, in the world.

  “Understanding of the self only arises in relationship, in watching yourself in relationship to people, ideas, and things; to trees, the earth, and the world around you and within you. Relationship is the mirror in which the self is revealed.”

  Paradox: easy not to care about relationships here.

  Ideas, things, the earth, trees, especially trees…yes.

  People? Less.

  New definition of luxury: to reach up, pluck an orange from the tree as I walk.

  Cares fade. Ojai is The Garden.

  AUGUST 15

  Corn Hill.13

  East Germany closes the Brandenburg Gate, begins building a wall. I walk the beach, a world away.

  SEPTEMBER 20

  Otto Preminger is filming Advise and Consent in DC, and the Kennedys are hosting a lunch for him.

  Guests from the cast: Henry Fonda, Charles Laughton, Walter Pidgeon, Peter Lawford, Gene Tierney.

  A category of his own: Sinatra.

  Civilians: me. Invited at the last minute.

  SEPTEMBER 21

  White House lunch.

  The Kennedys arrived late.

  Sinatra shouted: ”Hey, Chickie baby!”

  Jackie looked like she wanted to kill him.

  Jack has a dozen friends—starting with Lawford, I’d bet—who would happily pimp for him. He should lose Sinatra.

  I dated Walter Pidgeon during the war, when he was regularly nominated for Oscars and I was a young nobody. He was a Republican and much older and not in New York much. Now I’m seated next to him. Walter was delighted to see me. We told stories and I teased him about politics and when I said I was divorced he didn’t flirt.

  We must have lit up the room because I felt someone staring at me…Preminger.

  He asked me to be in the movie. A walk-on part.

  SEPTEMBER 25

  They say your first minute on a film set is a thrill, and after that comes the dullest day of your life. So true.

  We filmed in the Caucus Room of the Senate. I was a reporter or guest—it didn’t seem to matter—watching the subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee try to discredit the president’s nominee. He’s played by Henry Fonda. Of course, they don’t succeed.

  I don’t think the camera noticed me.

  OCTOBER 3

  Evelyn Lincoln called: The president would like you to join him for dinner. A car will come for you at 7:30.

  - Tonight?

  - Yes.

  I called TC to cancel dinner. He was snippy. I said I’d call him at 10:30. Maybe he’d come over then? He said: Maybe.

  If I call him later, he won’t be home. Or he will be, but he’ll pretend he’s not.

  I’m always off-balance with him.

  Jackie has said, in front of Jack, “Tony is your romantic ideal.” Safe for her to say that—she knows Tony would never cheat on Ben.

  Could Jack be thinking: The sister is divorced… an artist, which means she’s no prude…when she was sixteen, I wanted her…If I close my eyes…

  Kind of sick, but…isn’t that how men think?

  I’m going to look at tonight as a game.

  Jack always wants…something. If he gets it, very likely the game’s over. If he doesn’t, he may want to play again.

  I’d say I’m good for at least two dinners.

  Decades from now, when I tell my grandchildren how a very popular, very handsome president used to flirt with their wrinkled, creaky grandmother, they might not believe me.

  So I’ll write this and show them the proof.

  And if there’s no one to tell, when I am old and gray and sitting by the fire, I’ll read these entries and remember…and smile.

  An intern who couldn’t have been twenty took me to the Yellow Oval Room.

  Upstairs. I waited, looking at Jackie’s books—Malraux, a history of the Spanish Riding School. And the art—Berthe Morisot.

  Jack entered, pointed at my blouse.

  - Who made that?

  - I did.

  He laughed.

  - Jackie would like it. Who made it?

  - I got it in Paris.

  - It must be nice to wake up in Paris, go to a café, walk around, meet a lover…

  - That’s your fantasy.

  - Fantasies are all I have now.

  - I doubt that.

  - I’m too busy.

  - No one “doesn’t have time” for an affair.

  - In this fish bowl?

  - There’s always the help.

  - I’m not doing that.

  - Oh, please.

  - It’s true.

  - Pam is history?

 
; - Jack didn’t lie. He… deflected: Daiquiri?

  He mixed drinks, raised his glass.

  Jack: Who better than us?

  Me: To world peace.

  We stared at each other. He saw I wasn’t going to drink.

  Jack: Ok. To peace.

  - A tan in October—I’m impressed.

  - I took two weeks. Like a working stiff.

  - Why go away so late??

  - You’re playing with me.

  - Really, not.

  - I was still cleaning up after Castro…

  - You didn’t suspect you were being set up?

  - They came in and rushed me: “They don’t think you’ll do something like this so soon. All the more reason to go now. Score a decisive victory. Overturn a dictator. Establish yourself as a strong leader. Do this. Now.” This was a week after the inauguration.

  - But they didn’t invade until…

  - April 17.

  - You didn’t wonder…

  - I was led to think it had been called off.

  - Jack, any shop where Cord Meyer has an office with a window…you can’t trust those people.

  - I thought that. But I pushed it away. I actually thought the CIA worked for me.

  - Clean them all out.

  - That’s top of the to-do list.

  - Seriously: Khrushchev is more honorable.

  - Khrushchev beat the shit out of me in Vienna.

  - If it’s any consolation, you didn’t look like a fool in France.

  He pressed a buzzer. Dinner rolled in: grilled chicken brushed with French mustard, zucchini, a handful of small potatoes. Wine for me, water for Jack.

  He wanted to know the gossip.

  Breakfast at Tiffany’s was just opening. I told him Audrey Hepburn is in it, in the part Marilyn Monroe turned down.

  - Why didn’t Marilyn do it?

  - In the book, the character is a prostitute.

  - Hepburn plays a whore?

  - In the film, she works in a bookstore during the day.

  - And whores at night?

  - At night, she asks rich men in nightclubs to give her tip money for the woman in the powder room.

  - That got a laugh: Tip money!

  - And a lawyer pays her $100 a month to deliver the “weather report” to a mob guy in jail.

  - This sounds awful.

  - My friend saw a preview. She said Hepburn wears a black dress every woman will want.

  - What does Truman think?

  - Hates it. He’s going all over town badmouthing it.

  Laughter. Lots.

  I thought: This is something I can do for him.

  Dinner over. Something in the air. Better if I got to it first.

  - Where is Jackie?

  - Newport.

  - Why did you invite me when she’s not here?

  - I didn’t want to share you.

  - I’m forty-one. Way too old for you. And a friend. So…

  - At that lunch, I saw you and Walter Pidgeon…and…

  - Jack, I am forty-one.

  - So?

  - Bill Walton told me you called him after your first dinner party and screamed that he was never to bring an older woman again.14

  - Not true.

  - And that you gave him a list of younger women.

  - Not true.

  - I didn’t see my name on it.

  Silence. And a change of mood. Like: remorse, regret, sadness.

  - I’m short of old friends.

  - You’re surrounded by them.

  - All men. It’s a limited conversation.

  I felt myself soften.

  - We do go back.

  - Twenty-five years.

  - A world ago.

  - Several.

  - This makes me feel really old. Do you ever feel that way?

  - I never felt young.

  That line chilled me, and I had a quick memory of the boy I met at a Choate dance, who was bookish and horny and so thin I knew he’d been sick and not with just a cold. We all pay a price for becoming ourselves, but he’s paid a high price to play someone else: a Harvard version of Cary Grant. The reality is that he’d probably rather be off somewhere reading history, and he’s in physical pain he has to pretend doesn’t exist, and he’s trapped in a glamorous marriage that works for everyone but him.

  My heart opened to him.

  Then I thought: This is a trap. He’ll use your sympathy.

  - Jack, who says no to you?

  - How about: all day, every day.

  - You know what I mean.

  - I don’t keep score.

  - I think you’d remember who turns you down.

  - Women who voted for me seem to be eager to serve their president.

  - And not just those women.

  - I don’t know. I don’t ask.

  - What do you ask?

  - I don’t. I request.

  - Like: The president requests your presence at dinner.

  - Yes.

  - Like…tonight?

  - Not like tonight.

  Silence.

  - Are you serious, Jack? You want me to be your friend? Just your friend?

  Long, long silence.

  - I trust you…I want you to be my beacon light.

  Hug. Kiss on the cheek. Home at 9:30.

  I poured a drink and put on music.

  A phrase came to me: lonely as Jack Kennedy.

  A minute later I thought I’d made absolutely the wrong decision.

  TC didn’t call.

  Bedtime thought: Jack is just back from Newport. I was one of the first calls he made. Maybe the first call. He’s on the hunt.

  Bedtime thought: lonely as Mary Meyer.

  OCTOBER 14

  Best birthday in years.

  I used a recipe from some now-forgotten boyfriend’s childhood cook in North Carolina. “Just hang out a ham,” she told him, “and you’ve got yourself a party.”

  Serves 10-12

  16-18 pound ready-to-eat ham, precooked, with bone in (A smoked ham is okay; an unsmoked ham is better.)

  l box dark brown sugar

  l/2 cup Gulden’s mustard

  l/2 cup bourbon

  l/2 cup fresh bread crumbs

  l cup honey

  2 tablespoons ground cloves

  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

  Mix ingredients. Pour over ham.

  Cook in oven for 2–3 hours.

  Baste constantly after first half hour.

  Guests: Tony and Ben, Anne and James. Joe Alsop. James and Cicely.15

  Much conversation about the grounding of all commercial flights so the military could simulate a bombing attack. This started at 11 a.m. It ended when dinner did: 11 p.m.

  Tony: I never worried about bombers coming from the North. Do you?

  James: If the Russians fly over the Pole, we can’t count on Canada to stop them.

  Joe: Tomorrow we’ll hear how we don’t need to worry about air attacks from the North.

  Ben: Oh, yeah. NORAD’s even tougher than the Gardol shield. Nothing to worry about, Tony.

  OCTOBER 20

  New shrink: “If you don’t deal with your feelings, you make everyone else deal with them. If you lie to yourself, you will lie to everybody.”

  Agreed. But it’s not telling the truth that’s hard—it’s knowing it.

  OCTOBER 31

  The boys wouldn’t say who they were going to be for Halloween. They had me wait in the living room while they put their costumes on.

  Quentin came downstairs first, in a suit—and a Nixon mask.

  Then Mark, in a suit—and a Nixon mask.

  He carried another Nixon mask. We all doubled over with laughter when I put it on.

  Grabbed the camera, dragged the boys next door to have our picture taken.

  I’m going to have many copies made. Very tempted to send one to Cord.

  NOVEMBER 11

  White House dinner dance for the Agnellis.16 Until 4 a.m.!!! Eighty guests. Black
tie. Piper-Heidsieck 1953.

  It was a brawl.

  Lester Lanin was the bandleader, and there is no one more traditional. But Oleg Cassini17 offered to show us how to do the Twist, and everybody cheered, so Lester had to play it, and suddenly the Blue Room was like the Peppermint Lounge—just with older, drunk people in black tie and fancy dresses writhing in the candlelit Blue Room.

  Lyndon Johnson fell down and was too loaded to get up.

  That was just a curtain raiser.

  The main event was Gore Vidal vs. Bobby Kennedy. I didn’t see it, but apparently Jackie was seated, her back to Gore, who was standing. Gore put his hand on her bare shoulder. And left it there. Bobby forcibly removed his hand. Gore: “Don’t ever do that again, you impertinent little son of a bitch.” And then it was “fuck you” and “fuck you.” After which Gore went over to Jack and said he’d like to wring Bobby’s neck.

  George Plimpton and Ken Galbraith hustled Gore out. From the look on Jackie’s face, I doubt Gore will ever be invited again.

  Before Gore and Bobby went at it and after Gore was gone, Jackie was radiant. She’s the complete hostess; she had chats and flirts with everyone. Jack strolled around all night, not drinking, just watching. He seemed really happy to be among so many friends. And amused by the dustup.

  Toward the end of the night, he found me. He had a great idea for me, he said. I said I couldn’t possibly guess. But, of course, I could.

  NOVEMBER 14

  To NYC with Anne.

  Revelation at the Guggenheim: I’d thought of “color field” with the emphasis on “color.” But simple fields of color turned out not to be simple at all. The Ad Reinhardt all-black painting: not really all black. Look longer: the hue changes. And there’s an image buried under the color: a blue/black cross.

  It opened space in my head. Made me question what I know. Made me ask: what do I feel? What do I love?

  One thing came up that surprised me: I loved swimming naked in the lake at Grey Towers18 as a kid…the dark color of deep water, completely familiar and yet, in its darkness, mysterious.

  Somewhere in that, there’s an idea for a painting.

  DECEMBER 3

  Correction: Castro’s not a Socialist. Or isn’t any more. He now says he’s a Marxist-Leninist who will lead Cuba to Communism.

  I can hear Cord snarling: “Told you so.”

  DECEMBER 18