Lend Her Grace

Publicity whore, Frances says aloud. She presses the off button on the remote with such force that she chips a little piece off her nail, newly manicured in frosty pink. There is no off button on her mind, though. The image lingers: Marta, perched on an elegant beige couch in her Manhattan town house, telling the reporter how she loved the Kennedy children. Soon, this picture melds with an image of Maud, waving a photographer over to snap some candids as she braids Caroline’s hair on the beach in Hyannisport.

These women, The Nannies, are lying egomaniacs, she fumes. You’d think their disproportionately generous salaries would have been enough.

She –Frances– was the one who did all the work. It was more than fifty years ago, but she remembers. She was the one who got on the floor and built towers out of wooden blocks. Who changed shitty diapers. Who wiped their snot-encrusted noses when they caught colds from visitors traipsing through the West Wing. She was the one who got out of bed in the middle of the night when little John had a nightmare, crying out because the creaky heaters in his bedroom sounded like monsters in the dark. Frances was the one who cradled three-year-old John’s head in her lap when he couldn’t go to sleep the night of the funeral. Just hours after his famous salute, when all of the other adults in his life wandered into their own spaces to cry or drink or do God knows what else. She was the one the kids loved.

Frances lights her second-in-a-row cigarette, leans back and closes her eyes.

In 1961, Frances was eighteen when she was hired to assist in the White House nursery. She had been out of high school for more than a year and brought impeccable references. Thanks to a friend of her New Jersey farmer daddy, she was first hired to tend to the governor’s kids in Princeton. Her daddy puffed out his chest and told everyone who would listen that Frances landed the job because of her sweet disposition. Frances didn’t know about that. Maybe they saw that she had a way with kids.

It certainly wasn’t her looks. Despite golden curls that went halfway down her back and a Jayne Mansfield figure, she was not a pretty girl. Once, when she went to fetch iced tea for grain salesmen who came to call on her daddy, Frances overheard them whisper that her face was straddlin’ the border between ugly and stale. When she interviewed for the nanny job, Governor Meyner’s chief of staff hardly looked up from his papers.

But the kids loved her. That’s why she thought it was strange when the Governor’s wife suggested that she apply for a nanny position in the White House. “I will personally make a call on your behalf, Frances” Mrs. Meyner told her, and smiled.

Before she knew it, Frances was smack dab in the middle of Camelot.

That first day she was sweating through her blouse. She sat on a hard wooden chair in the bleach-white nursery and chewed her nails. She waited. Before she could see the children, she had to sign papers saying who she wasn't allowed to talk to. Which was pretty much everyone. Confidentiality Agreement, in big block letters across the top of the page. Frances signed her name a dozen times.

Next, Maud came in. She introduced herself as The White House Nanny, and Frances extended her hand. Maud did not take it. Maud told Frances to know her place. Said she was not to wander around the West Wing or find herself alone with the president. She looked straight at Frances’ breasts when she said that. Her place was in the nursery and as long as she knew her place, everything would be fine.

The next day, the children came. Caroline, three years old, had green eyes that were suspicious and distant. She didn’t say much. But that baby was beautiful. Frances cradled him in her arms as she stood in the patch of sunlight that snuck in through the heavy white flowered drapes on the bay window, put there to hide them from the world. She stroked his cheek with her thumb.

Frances would sit for hours with the smiling baby on her lap. This is the way the Lady Rides she sang and jostled him up and down just a bit. John would giggle in anticipation. He would be belly laughing even before she got to the part about the farmer, the part where he bounced like a crazy man on her knee.

They had great fun at that game until the day Mrs. Kennedy happened to be walking by the nursery and saw. She smiled in her way and said Frances, perhaps you can mix up your repertoire a bit? The next day there was a new record player and next to it a stack of 45’s. Frere Jaques. Allouette. Maud told her she best learn these songs. There was a stack of new books, too, still in plastic shrink-wrap, with titles like Grimm’s Fairy Tales and Le Petite Prince and The Secret Garden.

Then, Dallas. An instant that changed everything. Frances was sure that Mrs. Kennedy would take her wherever they were headed. A week passed and she waited for word about her fate. The nursery was silent. She straightened the toys and the books. She dusted every key on the piano and alphabetized the records by song title. She saw the children only at night because there were events and visitors and Maud took them everywhere because she knew the press would be there. But at night, it was Frances that John called when he wanted a glass of water or when he woke with a nightmare.

The Saturday after the funeral, Frances couldn’t take it any more. She resolved to track someone down and get an answer. She mattered, didn’t she? But she didn’t have to track someone down because Mrs. Baldridge walked right by the nursery door. Frances jumped up and ran after her.

Mrs. Baldridge. Um, excuse me. Mrs. Baldridge?

Mrs. Kennedy’s secretary held a clipboard in one hand and a walkie talkie in the other. She looked confused. Yes?

I’m sorry to bother you. Mrs. Baldridge. I’m, I mean I am Frances. I work in the nursery. Frances shifted her weight from one foot to the other.

Yes?

Well, ma’am I was just wondering, um, do you...does Mrs. Kennedy want me to come with her when she leaves?

Mrs. Baldridge looked at Frances without responding. Frances stood as straight as possible and tried to look her in the eye, but she couldn’t. Instead, she focused on the gold buttons on Mrs. Baldridge’s blood-red suit.

Young lady. Mrs. Kennedy has many very important matters on her mind at the moment.

Yes ma’am. Yes, I understand. It’s just, I don’t know what I should be planning.

Plan to go home, Mrs. Baldridge said. She turned and walked down the hall out of Frances’ sight.

As it turns out, Frances did not go home to Trenton. The morning after Frances spoke with Mrs. Baldridge, Mrs. Kennedy stopped by the nursery. In a voice that was almost a whisper she told her that there was a position at Hyannisport if Frances wanted it. Some child care, some cleaning. Odds and ends. Mrs. Kennedy was only in the nursery three minutes but Frances would love her forever because of it. As she turned to leave, Frances said Ma’am, I am so sorry about President Kennedy, about everything. Mrs. Kennedy looked at her. She nodded.

Frances opens her eyes when she hears the clock chiming eleven. There’s still a little Moscato in her glass and she downs it. The registered letter she got today from the estate manager at Hyannisport sits on the coffee table, unopened. With her foot, she plays with the letter. God her calves look fat. Where did all the ugly blue veins come from? Frances uses her toe to push the letter off the edge of the table. She hears a soft sound when it hits the carpet. She only has a couple of cigarettes left. Shit.

When Mrs. Baldridge brought the children in to say goodbye to Maud and Frances, there was a woman with them Frances didn’t recognize. John was holding the woman’s hand. Give them a hug, children, the woman said in a heavy accent that Frances could not place.

Frances, Marta is coming with us to New York, John told her.

Marta said pleasure to meet you and nodded while Frances hugged both children tight. She tried to hold onto John. As he wriggled away, she whispered in his ear don’t forget me. Frances used the sleeve of her white uniform to wipe away a tear.

Frances and Maud’s last day at the White House was spent dismantling the nursery. Maud didn’t speak much, save for a couple of short rants. They told me Mrs. Kennedy is looking for someone more continental. Continental. What does that even mean? Complete bullshit. She’s just mad that I took it upon myself to tell Caroline. Well, someone had to tell her. That child knew, anyway. She’s not stupid, that one. She needed to hear it. I certainly wasn’t going to let you tell her, Maud said to Frances.

Thanks to Jackie Kennedy’s good graces, Frances found herself at the age of 21 living in a basement apartment in Hyannis. Soon, the Kennedy’s driver, Eddie, took a liking to Frances. Within two months, she had missed her period. They were married in the town hall on a Friday afternoon. She called her parents from a payphone with the news.

Six weeks after saying “I do,” Frances woke in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and lying in a pool of blood. After she lost the baby, she stayed in bed for six days. She wanted to go to a specialist but Eddie said they didn't have the money to waste and she should just sit tight, it would happen.

But it didn’t happen. And with each successive month, the empty space in Frances’ heart got bigger and she ached for the days when she stood in the sunlight in the White House nursery, stroking the cheek of a blond-haired baby.

Late one summer, she heard that John and Caroline would be coming to the Compound for two weeks. She told everyone who would listen, I can’t wait to see them, I was there when they were little, when they lost their daddy. I was like a mother to them.

The day Eddie pulled up with them, she could hardly contain her excitement. Marta got out first, followed by Caroline and then John. Frances had volunteered to edge the walkway as an excuse to be on the lawn. John tripped getting out of the car and scraped his knee, so by the time Frances got to him he was crying a bit.

He looked at her and said hello. Then he turned toward the house and kept walking. Frances was sure he remembered. Kids are just shy, is all.

John was nine now, Caroline twelve. It wasn’t until the third day that Frances got them alone so she could talk freely. Marta had a migraine and had gone to lie down. Frances served the children grilled cheese sandwiches and lemonade on the back porch. Placing the plate on the stiff cotton placemat, she said So, you remember me, don’t you? Do you remember me? John nodded his head but said nothing.

I took care of you when you were little, when you lived in Washington. John gave Frances a half-smile.

Caroline said Mother does not like us to talk about that time. It makes her sad.

Frances leaned in, so close that her lips brushed John’s hair. You remember, right? This is the way the farmer rides. You remember?

Frances was on her knees in the formal dining room, packing the spring china with its cool blue wave pattern into boxes so it could be replaced with the summer pattern: green sea glass by Tiffany. The French doors were wide open. She could hear the soft sound of the waves as they stroked the rocks. It wasn’t easy for her to get on her knees these days. At 52, she was almost forty pounds overweight. She had arthritis in her knees.

Frances.

The sharp voice of Evelyn, the estate manager swung like a hammer through the sound of the ocean. Frances didn’t like that pretentious bitch.

Frances, you have a call. It’s John Kennedy’s secretary.

Evelyn left the portable phone at the edge of the table, out of Frances’ reach. She held the back of a chair and struggled to her feet.

Hullo? Frances said. Her heart was racing.

Frances Dolan? This is Sarah Mullen. I am John Kennedy’s assistant.

Yes?

You may be aware that Mr. Kennedy is to be married in September. The wedding will take place on an island off the coast of Georgia.

Frances had heard rumors. Was she going to be invited? She clutched the phone to her ear.

We are in need of on-site child care during the wedding weekend. Of course, your attendance and anything having to do with this event, including the conversation we are currently having, fall under the terms of your confidentiality agreement as an employee of the Kennedy family.

They wanted her to work there.

Frances was silent.

Frances? Are you there?

Yes, I am, yes. Of course I would be happy to help out.

Wonderful. I will be in touch with the details. And Frances, Mr. Kennedy is very concerned about privacy, so please do not share the information with anyone, even your co-workers at Hyannisport.

After she hung up, Frances eased back down on her knees to finish unpacking the summer dishes. The tide was coming in now. The waves were hitting harder against the rocks.

The night the plane went down, Eddie got a call at 2 AM. They needed him to go to the airport and pick up some of the cousins who were coming in early due to the crisis. Eddie pulled his boots on, talking to Frances but mostly to himself. Looks like your boy mighta’ got a little too big for his britches, Eddie said, and he laughed. Better go turn on the TV.

It was on every channel. John and his bride, Carolyn, were missing. They were flying in on his private plane for a cousin’s wedding. The plane did not arrive in Hyannis when it was supposed to. Out of Kleenex, Frances sobbed into a paper towel. She drank wine from a water glass because Eddie had broken all of their wine glasses the previous month in a drunken rage.

When he came home at 5:30 in the morning, Eddie stumbled in the door and threw his jacket, which landed next to Frances on the sofa. It smelled of cigarettes and beer. Eddie yelled from the bathroom, looks like your hot shit fancy boy got in over his head, this time, ha ha. Yup. Water’s over his head now. Frances turned up the volume on the TV so she would not have to listen to him.

Frances gets up from the couch. Her knees hurt like hell. She bends down and picks up the registered letter, starts to open it, and then decides to wait until morning.

She walks into the bathroom and opens the medicine cabinet. She takes pills for cholesterol and high blood pressure. She takes an Ativan, too, to sleep. Her nerves have been on edge ever since the new estate manager came, a woman even worse than that bitch Evelyn. If that letter is a pink slip, she thinks, she does not know what she will do. Since Eddie died, she’d been getting by on only her income. Who is going to hire a woman her age for anything? She leans in close to the mirror. The deep wrinkles between her eyes look like the number eleven.

Thanks to the Ativan, she sleeps.

He’s standing by her bed. John. Then they’re walking on the beach in front of the Compound. The heat from the sun provides a steady, comforting warmth on her back.

How have you been, Frances, he asks. That smile.

She is confused. Aren’t you...you’re gone, aren’t you?

Not gone, Frances. Somewhere else.

They take a seat on a wooden bench overlooking the waves. There is a sailboat in the distance. The sail is so white that it hurts her eyes to look at it.

We didn’t appreciate you Frances.

Frances looks at his face now, at his eyes. She does not speak. She hears the waves and the occasional melancholy cry of a sea gull.

You were so good to devote your life to my family, Frances. No one has thanked you. He takes her hands between his.

Frances is so overcome with emotion, with gratitude, she cannot form words.

Then, the harsh clang of the garbage truck outside and Frances is awake in her bed.

She feels happier than she has in a long time. Strong. After pulling on her sweats, she opens the letter.

Dear Frances Dolan:

Due to restructuring, we regret to inform you that your services will no longer be required at Hyannisport.

You are bound by the terms of your confidentiality agreement, and are prohibited from discussing any information pertaining to any person in the Kennedy family, their employ, or the estate.

Please accept the enclosed check for $1,000 as a gesture of gratitude for your years of faithful service. We wish you the best of luck.

Frances holds the check, ready to rip it in half. She doesn’t rip it, though. After a few seconds, she places it on the coffee table next to the torn envelope marked registered mail, sits down and lights a cigarette.