Just Jackie (28 page)

With constant compainon Maurice Tempelsman on the way to a Kennedy Library fundraiser. They made no attempt to disguise their living arrangements, though visitors noticed that Tempelsman occupied the guest room, not Jackie’s bedroom. (Brian Quigley/Outline)

The Bouvier sisters enjoy a reunion in Montauk, Long Island. Lee blamed Jackie for meddling in her life. The breach between the sisters became so great that it never completely healed. (Peter Beard/The Time Is Always Now Inc.)

At a bookstore in Vineyard Haven in 1989, Carly Simon autographs her children’s book
Amy the Dancing Bear,
which was edited by Jackie. After Jackie fell ill, Carly wrote
Touched by the Sun
for her good friend. (Stephen Rose/Gamma Liaison)

With Ted Kennedy and Caroline at a 1990 JFK Memorial dedication. Considering the snares and pitfalls of growing up a Kennedy, Caroline was amazingly well adjusted. (J. Bourg/Gamma Liaison)

With John Jr
.,
Jackie summed up the difference between her children this way: “Caroline is focused and dedicated. John is spread out.” (Ira Wyman/Sygma)

Jackie and Tempelsman return to her apartment after a stroll in April 1994, one month before her death. “He’s a special person,” a hospital aide said of Tempelsman. “Oh, yes,” said Jackie, “he is.” (Paul Adao/Sygma)

With granddaughter Rose. Jackie struggled to recapture her old life, with all the power and glory, only to discover that the key to her happiness lay where she least expected to find it
—
in the simple pleasures of family, friendship, work, and nature. (Keith Butler/Rex USA Ltd.)

Alexander was another matter entirely. Ari often lost his temper at his son, but his rage was tempered by pride and love. Alexander was the apple of his father’s eye. Like Christina, he had benefited from plastic surgery on his conspicuous Onassis nose. But unlike his overweight sister, Alexander was turning into a lean and attractive young adult.

For dessert there was
galaktoboureko
, a sort of crème caramel, after which Jackie excused herself and went upstairs to her room. Ari lit a long Cuban cigar. He told his children to follow him into the library. He closed the door.

Ari knew that Alexander did not like Jackie. His son had never liked any of his women, Maria Callas especially. Alexander and Christina wished that he would remarry their mother, even though that was impossible.

But Ari had made up his mind about Jackie, and he was not one to mince words.

“I plan to marry Jackie as soon as possible,” he said.

Alexander bolted from his chair. “I will never sleep in the same house as that American woman!” he shouted.

He stormed out of the room. A few moments later, the whole neighborhood was shaken by the deep roar of an engine as Alexander took off in his Ferrari.

Ari was aware that Christina disliked Jackie even more than her brother did.

“Christina was jealous of Jackie,” said Stelio Papadimitriou, Onassis’s second-in-command. “Jackie was all that Christina was not—thin, composed, loved.”

After Alexander had gone, Ari turned to his daughter.

“Well, what about you?” he said.

“It’s a perfect match,” she said, staring contemptuously at her father. “You like names, and Jackie likes money.”

Christina got up from her chair, picked up one of Artemis’s prized vases, and smashed it against the wall.

A
s its name implied, the island of Skorpios was formed in the shape of a scorpion: short and thick on one side, long and slender on the other, with curving tendrils of land running out into the sea like a pair of large pincers. When Jackie arrived there in August, the island was bathed in that fuming, glaring light that she had come to love about Greece.

“The sun was everywhere, the setting sun, the rising sun, shining on the other islands in the distance,” recalled Karl Katz, a friend of Jackie’s, who visited Skorpios as her guest. “The warm water was a color that is often mentioned in Greek mythology as wine colored, a deep purple that wasn’t blue, the clearest, most beautiful water. It was like a lake. There were various places on the island where you could swim or have tea or eat dinner or lunch. Each site was perfect at a different time of the day.”

Brilliant butterflies came out into the blazing noonday sun to pollinate the flowers in the sprawling gardens. Lemons seemed to ripen to bright yellow in a matter of hours. An army of servants made up the beds, cleaned and cooked, and brought iced drinks to the swimming
pool behind the Pink House. Everything was lush and fragrant, and Jackie began to feel as though she, too, was coming to life.

“Onassis was proud of Skorpios,” said Stefanos Daroussos, who in addition to being the chief engineer on the
Christina
also functioned as the steward of the island. “Onassis personally supervised the construction of every single mile of road that was carved into the hillsides, the planting of every single tree, the building of every guest house. He had the sea dredged and two harbors built, one for the
Christina
, the other for the yachts of his wealthy guests. But I have to tell you that as much as he loved Skorpios, he never slept on the island. He always slept on the
Christina
. That was his real home.”

The
Christina
sparkled in its dock. Four decks high, it was an immaculate white leviathan whose proportions seemed out of scale with the small island. Throughout the day, the ship’s Piaggio seaplane ferried people and parcels back and forth from the mainland, which was visible across Nydri Bay. In Jackie’s honor, Ari brought a bouzouki band from Athens, and in the evenings the ship’s running lights twinkled over scenes of gay, boisterous parties.

“Two pretty girls, one blonde and the other dark and with her leg in a cast, are there,” the journalist Nikos Mastorakis reported in
Life
magazine. “All, including Jackie and Telis, seemed pleased with their lives, and they ate black caviar and red tomatoes. Jackie, who is resplendent in a red blouse and long gypsy skirt, prefers the vodka. She leans close when Telis whispers in her ear. At dinner, Onassis eats his lamb like a youth. She eats little and nibbles white grapes. But at four
A.M
., with Mr. Moon above, the sweet Mrs. Kennedy sings with Telis when he starts
Adios Muchachos
and I feel they are close.”

After the guests had departed, Ari pulled on a pair of
bathing trunks, and lowered himself down a narrow ladder into the pitch-black waters of the Ionian Sea. For the next hour or so, he swam alone around the dark island, his powerful arms and shoulders pumping in a steady rhythm. When he got back, he ordered Captain Anastassiadis to disconnect the ship’s telephones and radios, to cut off all communication with the outside world. Then he went to his cabin, and as the fuming, glaring light of a new day brightened the water, he slipped silently into bed, careful not to wake Jackie.