Spy in a Little Black Dress - By Maxine Kenneth Page 0,116

Emiliano for the first time. But then she stopped thinking about Havana, stopped thinking about anything, as Jack put his arms around her and drew her close.

Click… click… click. Jackie heard the sound of a key turning in a lock. She looked at the front door and was aghast when it opened and she saw a woman standing in the entryway, staring at them.

Jackie pushed Jack away and jumped up from the sofa, furious. The nerve of Jack Kennedy! He invited her back to his place just to talk, and then worked on her sympathies to soften her up for a lot more—and all the time he was living with another woman. How could he have been this low?

Jack rose from the sofa, wiped the lipstick off his face with the back of his hand, and said to the woman, “Hi. I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow.”

Jackie glowered at him, steaming. Did Jack really think that he would get her to sleep with him tonight and push her out the door the next morning before his live-in lady friend got there? He doesn’t know Jacqueline Lee Bouvier. I’d have been out of here after that first kiss.

The tall, thin, thirtyish woman, with an angular face, a full head of auburn hair, and imperious gray-blue eyes said to Jack in a Boston Brahman accent, “I would have called you from the train station, but I didn’t get a chance.” She looked at Jackie as if she was seeing clear through her. “Jack, why don’t you introduce me to your friend?”

Nodding at Jackie, Jack said to the woman, “This is Jacqueline Bouvier.” And to Jackie, with a nod toward the woman, he said, “Jackie, I’d like you to meet my sister Eunice. We’re renting this place together.”

His sister! Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jackie thought. I should have known—the hair, the eyes, the accent. Jackie smiled at Eunice, trying to forget that she had just been discovered smooching with this woman’s brother, and said, “So nice to meet you, Eunice.” She glanced at the door. “Actually, it’s getting rather late, and I need to be going.”

The look of dismay on Jack’s face was almost comical as Jackie said, “Good night, Congressman, and thank you for a lovely evening.” She said the “congressman” for his sister’s sake, trying to restore a semblance of propriety, and made it to the door without so much as a backward glance.

Jack didn’t have a car in Washington, but the ride that he had arranged for the evening was waiting outside for Jackie. On the drive back to Merrywood, cushioned in the soft, leather backseat, she shut her eyes, pictured that kiss with Jack, and relived the deep, visceral thrill that it had evoked in her.

She wondered when—or if—he’d be kissing her like that again. But no matter what the future brought, one thing was certain. She would always savor the memory of that kiss like a keepsake. The attraction she felt for Jack was deeper than physical. She sensed that they were indeed the kindred spirits she thought they might be. They were both a study in contrasts. Hidden beneath his gregarious exterior, he had the same spirit of independence and stubborn streak of individuality that she concealed under her debutante manners. And they each wrestled with the same tension between a desire to be the center of attention and a need to distance themselves from others. She toyed with the idea that it could be liberating for both of them if they ever became really close. Drawn to the unconventional, they would feel free to express parts of themselves that conformity to their parents’ and society’s expectations had made them keep under wraps. It was something to think about.

Tomorrow, though, her first order of business would be to report to Allen Dulles and tell him that she had fully accomplished her mission. Good work, Jacqueline, she could hear him saying when he heard that she had solved the mystery of the missing treasure map, determined the seriousness of the threat posed by Fidel Castro’s anti-imperialist zeal, and verified Jack Kennedy’s high regard for the CIA.

Oh yes, and there was something else she needed to do. She wouldn’t let another day go by without returning an antiquated book ironically titled A Recent History of Cuba to the Washington and Lee University library. It was only ninety years overdue.

XXVII

CUBAN NUN DECLARES “A MIRACLE”

HAVANA (AP)—Sister Evelina has long believed in miracles, but she never expected to experience one. As the