“It would also mean you saying ‘no’ to me when you believe I’m wrong. Do you think you could do that?”
“Oh, no.”
She leans back, hopefully amused. “Is that a joke?”
I have to think about it. “Perhaps. A lame attempt at one rolled in the truth. I could learn to.”
“Make a joke?”
“Say no.” It feels like a little rapport we’re building. Daniel’s heart is going to stop when I recount this bit for him later.
“I would like us to have a conventional editor/writer relationship. And that means I’ll stand up for the things I believe in strongly, and you’ll stand up for the things you believe in strongly. And we’ll debate until there’s a victor.”
For a brief second, I picture us going toe-to-toe in a boxing ring, performing the most delicate pas de deux, me too afraid to ever throw a punch. “I would like that too. For us to have a normal relationship.” No boxing gloves. “Although, it might knock my friendship with Eleanor Roosevelt down a peg.” I say the roo in Roosevelt like in kangaroo, as that’s how Dustin Hoffman says it in the movie Tootsie, and it always makes me laugh. Mrs. Onassis, however, doesn’t. Laugh. “Another joke,” I clarify.
“You must have more questions for me.”
I do. I have eleventy million questions, but synapses are firing, or misfiring—if synapses even fire (or misfire)—and all that comes out is one of those passing non sequiturs that are embarrassingly easy to access in moments of great awkwardness. “How tall was Charles de Gaulle?”
She cocks her head, like I’ve started speaking in tongues, before finally emitting a laugh. “How tall was …?” She stops to give it some thought. “Tall.”
“I don’t suppose that’s the kind of question you had in mind.”
“No, it was not.”
“I didn’t want to be obvious.”
“In that you’ve succeeded.”
“I’m sort of a Francophile. I love Paris. Which sounds dumb now that I say it—I mean, who doesn’t love Paris. But here you are and you’ve met Charles de Gaulle.”
“Well, he was very tall. He …” She starts to say more, then stops. She studies me, scanning my eyes to see if I can be trusted. She proceeds, but does so with caution. “This is neither here nor there, but I suppose I will follow your lead and be unexpected. He struck me as somewhat sad. He rode with President Kennedy and me through Paris, and when we got out of the car I remember thinking of Shelley’s Frankenstein monster. It was something about the way he moved, slowly, deliberately, and the streets were lined with villagers. I tried my best to be charming. At the time I was very focused on bringing the Mona Lisa to the United States—it had never been on loan before to a foreign nation. I wanted to be bright, sunny, for my mission. As for the monster himself, it was hard to pierce that sadness.”
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.
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