Just Jackie by Edward Klein (trending books to read TXT) 📕

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.

A CREATIVE SOLUTION

Several days later, Senator Edward Kennedy was deposited by helicopter on Skorpios like a deus ex machina. The sudden appearance of Jackie’s surviving brother-in-law gave rise to a number of rumors. According to one story, Kennedy had come all the way to Greece to prevent Jackie from being carried off by Onassis like a modern Helen of Troy. Another story portrayed Jackie as the instigator of Kennedy’s visit. It was said that she had summoned Teddy to Skorpios to help her wheedle a huge prenuptial settlement from Ari.

That was the story that gained the widest circulation and made its way into subsequent magazine articles and books about the marriage. In this version of events, Teddy was acting as a spokesman for Jackie’s team of lawyers in America, and spent several days on Skorpios haggling with Ari over the terms of the prenuptial agreement.

According to sources who were never named, Teddy argued that the marriage would cost Jackie her status as John Kennedy’s widow, and with that loss, her $200,000-a-year income from JFK’s trust. She needed to have money of her own. It was said that Teddy even threatened to take Jackie back to America unless Ari agreed to give her an obscene amount of money—$20 million was the figure most frequently mentioned—as well as lump-sum payments for each of her children, a monthly stipend for her of $30,000, and written assurances regarding their sleeping arrangements, the frequency of their sexual relations, and Jackie’s right not to have a child.

Ari reportedly balked at the $20 million figure and the written assurances about sexual relations, or any other kind of relations, for that matter. Teddy returned to America a defeated man. All that he succeeding in extracting from Ari was a measly $3 million.

It was a gripping tale of suspense, starring Ari as the plucky underdog. The only trouble was, the story was made up of whole cloth by Ari, and did not contain a shred of truth.

Ari wanted the world to believe that he had made a fabulous deal when he married Jackie. As always, a deal meant an opponent, and Ari concocted the story of a confrontation between himself and Teddy Kennedy to prove that he had outwitted the Senator and the best legal minds in America.

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