Jackie After O (18 page)
Authors: Tina Cassidy
Artemis, the oldest of the Onassis sisters, and the one who was closest with Aristotle, brought Jackie back to her villa for the night. Christina purposely stayed away. The next day, waiting in the Olympic Airways' VIP lounge for a plane to Skorpios, employees came to greet her. Jackie greeted them warmly by name, held their hands, and thanked them for their sympathy.
5
Once they were all on the ground in Skorpios, Christina tried her best to be courteous, kissing Jackie on each cheek and asking her how she was doing. Artemis was pleased to see the two had put their differences aside for the day, even issuing a joint statement that said, “It is the desire of Miss Christina Onassis, and she understands it to also be the desire of Mrs. Jacqueline Onassis, that they both be left at peace and all detrimental and harmful speculations cease.”
In the chapel, a village priest swung an incense-filled censer while Jackie, Christina, and a handful of close friends and relatives offered prayers. Mourners completed the rite by eating a bread loaf that weighed forty-four pounds, a symbolic act meant to launch his soul.
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During the ceremony, Jackie accepted the holy water from the priest and held Artemis's hand. The women whispered to each other. Christina, sitting to the right of Jackie, was averting her eyes. Jackie could not help but look at Christina.
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When the ceremony was over, most of the forty guests left the island.
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Jackie walked to the pink house to gather her belongings, passing through the lush and private gardens before entering the first floor. There, she took in each room with its unique view of the Ionian Sea. On the first floor, she stood in the spacious bedroom, where she and Onassis had slept in a large bed with mosquito netting. There was a big bathroom, a kitchen filled with blue stemware and local pottery, and a living room with a fireplace surrounded by decorative tiles. The sofa, covered in a small floral print, was positioned in front of the fireplace at Onassis's request so he could nap. There were plants in every room, lavish paintings and antiques from expensive stores in London and Athens, vases with orchids and wildflowers, everything kept in perfect order by the
Christina's
staff. On the second floor, reached by a small staircase, she swept through the guest bedroom and bathroom one last time. The cool terracotta tiles throughout the house were covered with thick traditional Greek flokati rugs, their shaggy wool fibers in shades of cream and beige.
Decorating the spaceâas Jackie had done with the White Houseâhad become an almost curatorial obsession as she tried to adhere to the traditions of a typical Mykonos house. And when she completed the interior, she turned her attention outside, tearing down a high solid wall around the garden in exchange for a more delicate one that hemmed in the tulips, orchids, and roses she grew. She also replaced the path leading to the sea with more natural-looking stones that she handpicked, directing staffâirritated that steps Churchill had walked on did not even seem to be good enough for herâto plant grass between them to soften the way.
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Once, Kiki Moutsatsos, Onassis's assistant, asked her why she constantly tried to improve on her surroundings. “Are you that way in your New York home, too?” she asked.
“I suppose I am,” Jackie replied. “But the truth is I love to decorate and change things. I want my houses to express my personality in everything I use there. There are so many things in this world that I cannot change, but when it comes to furniture and draperies and flowers ⦔
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On this day, Jackie couldn't help but think that all of the comfort and safety that Onassis, his island, and his money had provided were gone. Feeling overwhelmed, she had asked Moutsatsos to help.
“There is so much to do, Kiki,” Jackie said resting in a chair. “I had not realized how much I had left to do until now.”
“You don't have to do everything today,” Moutstatsos told her. “After all you will come back often. All the people in Skorpios like you so much. They will be sad if you do not return often.”
But Jackie knew that was not true. She knew that Christina did not want her there. So she stood up and got back to work. For hours she went through the house, tagging items that she wanted, remembering the shops where she bought an antique vase or candlestick, the moment she was surprised by a gift from Onassis, the conversations with her sisters-in-law about where to find the perfect rug.
Jackie and Moutstatsos walked to the yacht. The last item she tagged on board was a jade Buddha decorated with rubies. It was one of Onassis's prized possessions and although Christina initially objected to her taking it, she had relented. Jackie walked to the deck of the boat, looked out to the sea, and wept. Moutstatsos began to walk away, to give her privacy, when Jackie caught her.
“Would you mind, Kiki, if I told you this one little story?” she asked, choking back tears. “One day Aristo and I were sitting together outside the pink house and he was feeling very tender. âHoney,' he said to me, âthe woman, you know, is like the world.'”
“Oh, really, Ari?” Jackie had answered him, bracing for a crude joke. “And how is that true?”
“âAt twenty years, she is like Africa. Semi-explored. At thirty years, she is like India. Warm, mature, and mysterious. At forty, she is like America. Technically perfect. At fifty years, she is like Europe. All in ruins. At sixty years, she is like Siberia. Everyone knows where she is, but no one wants to go to her' ⦠When he finished this little tale, I laughed and touched his mouth and said he was a philosopher. âYou must promise to tell me that tale every ten years,' I told him. And he agreed. Then I kissed him and I could tell that he felt very pleased with himself. His life. And with me. And now I cannot stop thinking about that day.”
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Jackie returned to New York, where the newspaper headlines were agonizing for her. Stories about the attempted divorce lingered, forcing her to respond with a statement that went out over the wire: “I'll answer with something my husband [Onassis] often told me: âThroughout the world people love fairy tales and especially those related to the lives of the rich. You must learn to understand this and accept it.”
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On top of that, gossips were sniping that she had been spending like mad as Onassis became more ill, forcing Nancy Tuckerman to say that Jackie had to buy many items for her new home in New Jersey. “Life must go on,” Tuckerman said.
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But the final indignity was a new book by Benjamin Bradleeânow, no longer a friend because of his disclosuresâwho had essentially transcribed his diary, including evenings with his wife at the White House with Jack and Jackie, for
Conversations with Kennedy
. The book's excerpts were splashed across
Newsweek, Playboy, Good Housekeeping
, and the
Washington Post
, where Bradlee has been executive editor since 1965.
We served as insulation tonight for a family squabble over finances at the White House. Jackie had just learned (remarkably enough) that her husband was giving his salary to charity and had told him earlier that day that she sure could use the money herself. A series of questions had evidently ensued, which led to a request for information from the President about the state of the family finances. He had the information in a letter which he had with him and which had him boiling ⦠not so much mad, as amazed and indignant. The item that had him really bugged was “Department Storesâ$40,000.” No one had an explanation, much less Jackie. No furnishings for the White House, and as Jackie pointed out, “no sable coat, or anything.” Kennedy announced that he had called in Carmine Bellino, an accounting expert for various Senate committees on deciphering the financial records of Mafiosi and a longtime Kennedy friend, to straighten out the family's finances. He said Bobby had recently called in Bellino to straighten out Ethel's finances ⦠Kennedy said he could understand why running for the presidency was expensive. He had spent and spent, he saidâall of it capital. But “once you're in here, this is a place where a fellow should at least break even, with all the services provided.”
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It took more than a decade, but the myth of Camelot was crumbling, like so much else around Jackie.
With Onassis's death behind her and spring in bloom, Jackie was grateful to have another rite of passage to focus on: Caroline's high school graduation. Jackie dressed in understated fashion with a spread-collar blouse beneath a double-breasted trench with wide lapels, a couple of long thick chains weighing around her neck. She settled into her folding chair on the lawn, thirteen rows back from the stage. Seated beside her were Ted and his mother, Rose Kennedy, wearing pearls and a wide-brimmed hat on this sunny day, June 5, 1975. Lee was there, too, with their mother, Janet. And so was John Jr., whose boarding school adventures Jackie had decided to delay so she could keep an eye on him a little longer. The extended family was there to celebrate Caroline's graduation and to support Jackie.
The strangers around them buzzed with constrained excitement of seeing their famous faces, checking out their clothes and those unmistakable teeth, and noting sadly that one Kennedy was even more conspicuous in his absence. They tried hard not to stare. This was Massachusetts after all, and Ted was their senator. But some did search for clues on Jackie's face about whether she was upset by the latest news: half of Onassis's fortune would be allocated to a charity set up in his son's name. Christina had chosen this day to make the news public.
Caroline never enjoyed the spotlight that had surrounded her most of her seventeen years. And out of respect for her and her classmates, the school had set up a barricade to keep the media penned in. They remained there, two photographers scuffling with a local police officer, as Caroline approached the stage to receive her diploma. But she was embarrassed to be in front of so many, the star of the day, and she rolled her eyes as she accepted her scroll.
June 5, 1975. Nancy Tuckerman blocks a UPI photographer at Caroline's graduation from Concord Academy. Senator Edward M. Kennedy is on the left.
(Bettmann/CORBIS)
June 5, 1975. Caroline's graduation, with her mother, grandmothers, brother, and uncle Ted.
(Bettmann/CORBIS)
Jackie beamed from her seat. She also saw that despite the setting's traditional backdrop, with ancient trees and white clapboard buildings, change was all around her. The school, which had been strict and all girls, had recently loosened the rules and allowed boys to enroll. Caroline, chewing gum and wearing a white lace dress with peasant sleeves and a hem that skimmed the grass, seemed to be commencing into a world very different from the one Jackie had faced when she graduated from Miss Porter's.
During the recessional, the graduates strolled down the center aisle in twos. Jackie leaned out, whispering to Caroline, words no one else heard. When the ceremony was over, the family posed for a few snapshots, which the news photographers also caught. And Jackie presented her daughter with a poignant giftâa tool to see life in new ways, a tool that had enabled Jackie's first job. It was a camera.
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Two days later, reality again crashed the celebration. One of Onassis's aides, Stelios Papadimitriou, released to the press his boss's eighteen-page handwritten will, drafted on the millionaire's private jet as it flew from Acapulco to New York in January 1974. The details were on the front page of the
Washington Post
, and spread beneath a splashy headline in the
Los Angeles Times
. The stories explained that Onassis had left the bulk of his estate to his daughter, Christina, and that Jackie would receive $250,000 a year, including $25,000 for each of her children.
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Christina would also own 75 percent of his yacht and Skorpios, with Jackie owning the other 25 percent of each.
