Jackie After O (24 page)

“Good morning, Becky!”

“Good morning, Jackie.”

She poured her own coffee into a paper cup with a plastic holder. There was an office rule: the first person in had to brew the coffee. One morning, Richard Barber, director of publicity at Viking, arrived to find Jackie wrestling on the floor with a bag of coffee trying to open it. She sheepishly handed it him. He opened it. And then she took it back to brew a pot for the office.
¹¹

Back at her desk, the in-box would be stuffed with manuscripts that Singleton had screened to weed out the bad and the crafty—those seeking some sort of autographed response.

Singleton complained to Jackie about these blatant attempts to get a response just to say they got one from Jackie.

“OK,” Jackie said, about to show her sense of humor. “These ones that are really important or supposedly important, you sign those and I'll sign some of yours.”

They forged each other's signatures until they each got very good at it. Singleton shredded the little notes that Jackie sent her, such as “Write him ‘no'” or “Tell him ‘yes.'” She didn't want anyone fishing through the wastebasket for a memento.

Singleton also screened her calls. Whenever a rumor rippled through the media, the switchboard would light up.

“Is it true that Jackie is playing a witch in an Italian movie?”

“No.”

“Did she really sign Frank Sinatra's autobiography for $1 million?”

“Categorically not true but we're all trying.”

“Is she going to marry Frank Sinatra?”

“Categorically untrue and not trying.”
¹²

In addition to checking her in-box, Jackie would read a circulating file filled with pink carbon paper showing how colleagues had responded to literary agents and other editors. She would do this while chewing gum at her desk—an oral diversion from smoking or biting her nails. But when she'd get up to go to an editorial meeting, she'd realize she still had gum in her mouth and pop it into a tissue like a high school girl before class.

“I can't go in to see the boss chewing gum!” she'd squeal to Singleton, who, walking beside her noted that Jackie enjoyed such gestures of deference, an instinctive way of being respectful without diminishing herself.

She was also humble in a way that generated respect, making her own photocopies, doing most of her own typing, and keeping her office door open. She dressed in plain slacks, sweater ensembles, and simple or no jewelry, though she had museum-worthy baubles. With the exception of the Earth Shoes she sometimes wore, Singleton noted that Jackie dressed like everyone else—“just a little bit better.”

Jackie would leave around 4:30. She worked at home, at night, and sometimes on weekends.

Within a week, she had written a six-page memo with about thirty book ideas on a wide range of subject matters, typed with space between them to allow room for her colleagues to comment as she passed it among them and asked for their feedback.

In a sense, she was exposing her belly, showing them she was smart, but respecting them and their experience. It was a politically astute move, providing a release valve for the fear some of the other editors had that Jackie's books would be published over theirs. Their feedback to Jackie was honest.
Well, this book already exists
, said one.
That is similar to another book out there
, wrote another. Many of the ideas were “lovely”—Singleton's word—but unprofitable, including producing the work of a modern Greek poet whom Jackie had met through Onassis.

Jackie also sent a memo to the junior books department suggesting something on “word derivatives from Greek and Latin,” a coloring book “tracing the history of gold in the world,” and “an archeology coloring book” with hinged pages.
¹³
The response, written in memo form to “JKO,” thanked her for the ideas but said they were “not the type of thing” Viking would publish and “not the kind of book” that department was interested in.

While she was generally delighted with the job, she was beginning to show signs of impatience. Publishing moved slowly. She wanted a project. Even with Jackie being Jackie, it took a long time to woo a big name like Frank Sinatra. Attending a concert and dinner was just a kind of foreplay.

Guinzburg had thought for a long time about how to help Jackie learn without her having a public failure. One option was to plug her into books that were already in motion. But before the month was over, Muffie Brandon (now Cabot), the wife of Henry Brandon, the
Sunday Times
of London's Washington bureau chief, came to Viking to meet with Guinzburg and pitch an idea based on an American bicentennial traveling exhibit of artifacts meant to celebrate women's roles in the nation's history. When Brandon arrived at the publishing house, she was pleased to walk in the room and see Jackie there, waiting with Guinzburg.

The two had known each other for years. And Brandon had bet that the idea would appeal to the new editor's strengths: her interest in and knowledge of history, and the ability to pull together themes and content with art. Although the topic sounded dusty, in truth it was politically edgy and even intellectual. She explained that she had been working with a curator to pull together the exhibit, called
Remember the Ladies: Women in America, 1750 to 1815
, after a line from a letter that Abigail Adams wrote to her husband, John, when he was president. It made sense to do such a book now, not only to celebrate the nation's two hundredth birthday but also because there was a growing interest in women's stories that were at risk of being forgotten.
Ms
. magazine even had a regular column at the time called Lost Women.

Jackie's eyes sparkled as Brandon told her about the project and she sat forward in her chair. For two hours, she asked “penetrating” questions.

Finally, Guinzburg turned to Jackie.

“What do you think?”

“Oh, let's do it!” she said.

Before Brandon left, Jackie gave her a tour of the office—and they agreed to meet again to start sifting through materials.

The
Remember the Ladies
team consisted of curator Conover Hunt, writer and academic Linda Grant De Pauw, and researcher Miriam Schneir. They were on a tight deadline, hoping to debut the exhibit and the book the following spring in Plymouth, Massachusetts, at the home site of Mercy Otis Warren, a Revolutionary-era writer. And so with time short, the group had scheduled a meeting at Viking with Burn, who did much of the work and who had negotiated the contract, to begin laying out the many pictures and captions for the book. It was a book with a clear agenda, explained in the introduction:

Singleton led Brandon, Hunt, and Schneir to a windowless room where they met Burn—their day-to-day contact—and Lewis P. Lewis, who was managing editor of Studio Books, the picture book division of Viking. They splayed photos on the carpeted floor and were crawling among the images when Jackie walked in wearing black slacks, a white silk blouse, black shoes, and long gold chains.

Jackie joined them on the floor and looked closely at the images: a drawing of a colonial woman in a tricorn hat with a rifle by her hip, a 1777 engraving of an old maid with a cat, and a portrait of a mother grieving over a dead child. Jackie's ambition, fear, and life experience all seemed to be reflected in these antique illustrations.

Jackie heard that everyone had already agreed with the content structure of the chapters; that decision had been settled early because a photographer had to take color pictures of the items. The chapters would allow readers to explore the progress or lack thereof that women had made since the American Revolution. One chapter in particular, “Women at Work,” seemed particularly relevant at that moment on the floor at Viking, with the Equal Rights Amendment again up for Congressional ratification.

But two other issues needed to be resolved: how to handle the captions and what would be the size and look of the book?

“I think you ought to do it flush left/ragged right,” Hunt said of the caption layout.

“Let's talk about that,” said Jackie, unfamiliar with the publishing term that meant the text would align on the left and be uneven on the right.

Perhaps with the exception of Brandon, who had been in regular contact with Jackie about the book, the sight and sound of “Mrs. Onassis” shocked Hunt even though she expected her to be there. Hunt was surprised that her voice was not breathy. She was thinner and more fragile looking than her iconic image allowed. Her humor was sharp and she warmed up immediately when anyone mentioned her kids. But perhaps what stood out more than anything was that Jackie was an apprentice, listening closely to the discussion and asking a lot of questions, even about basic things, like typography.

Hunt was also moved by the sight of seeing Jackie work, a powerful image for the women's movement and a sign of change. And she was moved to be part of Jackie's first book. This was a woman, Hunt thought, who was no expert—not yet anyway—but she had some of the greatest contacts in the world, and had used her influence to get this book to Viking, which meant that most of the authors' expenses were paid, more copies would be published, and there was advertising behind the project. Hunt couldn't help but think that 1975 was a period when a lot of women were undergoing big transformations in their lives and Jackie was no exception. Sure, she was alone, had a ton of money and nearly grown children, all things that would allow her to design a life that would bring her happiness. But this is what she chose: a seat on the floor of a tiny publisher, discussing history, photography, and design.

Hunt pulled herself out of her private monologue to focus again on the captions.

“I would like a classic curatorial caption, which says, ‘This is the object and this is what it is made of, these are the measurements, this is where it was made, when it was made, who owns it.' And below that you put your content so they tell their own story. I don't want to have to use a lot of reference numbers, like ‘See Figure I.'”

“Fine,” Jackie said.

As the meeting wrapped up, Jackie said she was excited about the project.

“This is going to be something!” she said.

Brandon said she was working on the logistics for the Plymouth opening and was hoping then First Lady Betty Ford would do the honors.

“I'd love to be a fly on the wall,” Jackie said, triggering laughter in the room.

“Of course we'd love to have you,” Brandon said. But Jackie demurred, saying she did not want to disrupt things in such a small town.

Then she left, just before the two-hour meeting ended.
¹⁴

Jackie would have other meetings with Brandon, including one where they both laughed hard trying to figure out how to illustrate an eighteenth-century sex manual that was supposed to be part of the book. Jackie also insisted on including information about a root women chewed to induce abortion. She did not have much to say when they came to the section on first ladies from the period, except she did respond to a couple of lines from Martha Washington. One read: “I lead a dull life—a state prisoner.” Jackie laughed at that one. The other: Georgetown “is a dirty hole.”

“It still is,” Jackie said.
¹⁵

Jackie slowly made friends at work, ingratiating herself by asking questions. It is no surprise that she gravitated toward Bryan Holme, head of Studio Books. Holme, an Englishman who was older than Jackie, was considered a visual genius. Jackie found his work appealing and he quickly realized how good her eye was. Often, he would stick his head in Singleton's cubicle, ask for Jackie, and say,
There's something I want to show her!

They would eventually find projects to work on together—including a photo book on the Civil War photographer and Abraham Lincoln portrait taker Mathew Brady, and an illustrated book called
In the Russian Style
, published the following year with Jackie's name—the only one—on the cover as editor, about imperial clothing and other possessions.

Jackie also established a strong relationship with Corlies Smith, known as “Cork.” He was tall, wrapped in tweed, and smoke unfiltered Pall Malls. He was also witty, dry, and deeply respected for spotting talent, including his author Thomas Pynchon. Jackie and Smith ate together frequently; she soaked up his wisdom, and Smith, who liked to down several martinis over lunch, was secure enough in his accomplishments to know that she posed no threat.

Still she was having a tougher time winning over colleagues whose default position from her first day was skeptical, bordering on hostile. She tried hard to find gestures that would appeal to them, such as offering tickets to the next summer's Democratic National Convention, where she would be onstage. But for those who did not respond to her overtures, she did not try again.