The Editor. Стивен Роули

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      I’m struck by her answer, the way she attributes Frankenstein to Shelley—in case anyone listening would miss the literary nature of the reference; I want to linger on it, but there are so many other things I want to know. About today, and every other day. About history. About the world and our place in it. About everything she’s witnessed. About why she says “President Kennedy” instead of my husband or Jack. But I can’t delve into any of that so I simply ask “Were you successful?”

      “In getting the Mona Lisa? Oh, yes. I can be quite persuasive when I want to be. Even to monsters.” This time she winks.

      I understand that in being allowed to ask questions I’m being further persuaded. But I can’t stop. “How long have you worked at Doubleday?”

      “Fourteen years.” She crosses her hands in her lap. “And several at Viking Press before that.”

      “That’s probably more in line with what you were expecting.”

      She dips her head in agreement.

      “And you have an office? In this building?”

      “I have an office here, down the hall. It’s a regular size and stacked high with manuscripts. I get my own coffee and wait in line to use the copier, same as anyone else.”

      “And, this is embarrassing. But what do I call you?” Is there a title for former First Ladies? “Ma’am?”

      “I think Mrs. Onassis would be appropriate, if you agree.”

      I nod. I’ve been nodding a lot in this meeting, overwhelmed to find all the right words.

      I lean in, set my arms on the table, and join my fingers. “And you want to work together.” I should feel awkward for retracing so much ground, but surprisingly I don’t.

      “I see great promise. The work needs polishing, if I may be blunt, but now that I’ve met you I’m confident we will accomplish good things together.”

      My cheeks grow flushed and I start to sweat and it dawns on me that we could be spending some real time together, beyond this meeting, beyond today. And if she opened up to me about Charles de Gaulle, even momentarily, she might open up to me about much, much more. That maybe she sees me as some sort of kindred spirit. That we might become … friends. My brain marches ten steps ahead of me and I do all within my power to reel it back.

      I see Mrs. Onassis glance at the clock on the wall, and it’s obvious from that one small signal that our time is almost up.

      “So.” It’s that awkward moment at the end of a first date. “What do we do now?”

      She stands and offers her hand and I leap up to take it. We shake. I lean in, just a little bit, just enough to absorb her intoxicating presence a heartbeat longer; her hair smells like perfume and also, surprisingly, of cigarettes.

      “Why don’t I have a conversation with your agent to work out the details. And then the hard work begins.”

      I laugh nervously, realizing how difficult—crushing, even—it might be to hear real criticism, constructive though it may be, from this woman. When she lets go of my hand, I desperately try to think of anything to prolong this good-bye—clamber to name other mid-century heads of state and devise pressing questions about them. Alas, my mind roars only with the flat hum of an ocean, a momentous sound for a consequential occasion.

      “We will be in touch.”

      I open the conference room door for her, as any gentleman would, and as quickly as she entered my life she is gone.

      

THREE

      I manage to stay collected until I reach the bank of elevators, even though I can feel everyone’s eyes on me as I walk down the hall, back through the paper and push-pins and cubicles and past the framed book covers; I trip and pause only when it hits me that my cover will perhaps one day be among them. Miraculously, I get an elevator to myself for four floors, leaving just enough time for me to self-defibrillate before the doors reopen and three chatty coworkers enter the elevator and join me for the rest of the ride to the lobby, complaining the whole way about a new brand of powdered coffee creamer that leaves a residue in their mugs. I wonder if they have any idea what just happened. I’m curious if they can glimpse my secret, if they can smell it on me, my own residue, and the coffee-creamer conversation is a cover. I try to smell myself, to see if there is some trace of Jackie’s perfume, or, better yet, some faint whiff of American decorative arts from her White House restoration, leather or oils or fine upholstery. It occurs to me they think I’m crazy, a man in a corner with a stunned expression, smelling himself for any trace of 1962.

      Does Jackie (surely she’s not Mrs. Onassis in my thoughts) drink office coffee with powdered creamer out of a foam cup—does she like it, or just choke it down to fit in? Does she talk about her weekend in dreamy terms (“How was your weekend, Mrs. Onassis?”; “Fine, I reframed the Chagall and then got some sun in Belize”)? Or is she just one of us, stretching her lunch breaks when spring is in the air, stealing uni-ball pens from the supply closet to use at home.

      When the elevator reaches the ground floor I let the others off first, then push through the lobby and revolving door, almost forgetting to exit on Fifty-Second Street. The sharp February air enters my lungs and jolts me like a shot of ice-cold vodka. I line up in front of the first hot dog vendor I come to, even though I don’t eat hot dogs; when I get to the front of the line I pretend not to have my wallet and continue toward Times Square as I start to replay what just happened.

      I lied to Jackie in our meeting, about how I came to write about my mother. Because it was a choice, even if I said it was desperation. We were once close—very close—and slowly as I grew older we were not. She blames me for the end of her marriage, for my father. She never said so explicitly, but honestly how could she not? My father was a difficult man, older, not just from another generation but from another time. He never knew what to make of me. He certainly didn’t approve of me, my sensitive nature, my creative ambitions, my wanting to live in the city, my insistence on being myself. He called me foppish once, and I think we both knew it was a placeholder for another derogatory f-word. My mother spent a lot of time running interference. I think she thought she was doing what was best—shielding me from him—but it cost my father and me any chance at a real relationship and she paid a price for it too.

      I retreated into adolescence; a casual observer would say I was barely there as my parents’ relationship crumbled. But I was ever-present, lurking in the shadows, an aspiring writer already reading Tennessee Williams, fascinated by human behavior. I mastered the spell of invisibility, at least as much as a powder keg could. I knew instinctually I was the catalyst, the spark for the fury around me. I dimmed my light as long as I was able, but gunpowder is made to ignite—especially when that gunpowder is repressed teenage sexuality. The explosion was not something the three of us survived.

      After they divorced, my mother withdrew and she became a mystery for me to unravel. A more patient СКАЧАТЬ