Fairy Tale Interrupted (24 page)

I helped Caroline plan the funeral at St. Thomas More, the church she and John had attended as kids. Up until that point, my relationship with John’s sister had consisted of niceties on the phone and at a few dinner parties. In the past week, however, I had gone through Rolodexes, helped her compile a list of attendees, and then dealt with the RSVPs. We bonded over the absurdity of John being gone and how much he would have hated the hoopla over his death.

“Don’t you feel like he’s going to get angry at us for letting this whole thing get so out of control?” Caroline said in a sentiment shockingly close to my own.

“Yes!” I said. “I think he’s going to come back and yell at me for giving away his Bruce Springsteen tickets.”

Like John’s life, his funeral was a complicated affair. The small church on 89th Street and Madison Avenue couldn’t accommodate all those who wanted to say good-bye, and I knew many who weren’t invited would be offended beyond repair. For the most part, I kept my mouth shut as Caroline removed people from the list, but I protested when she told me I could pick only five people from
George
to attend the funeral.

“Caroline, I can’t do that,” I said. “There will be people sitting in that church who didn’t give your brother credit for running a magazine—and I think it’s time they did. The staff needs to be there.”

I’m sure she was taken aback by my bold stance, but what did I have left to lose?

“I think we have to invite everybody from the magazine, or no one,” I said. “And that includes me.”

Caroline said she had to think about it. But she called me later to let me know I could invite everyone from
George
.

While the car zipped up Madison Avenue, I looked out at all the shops that at one point in my life I wouldn’t have dared to go into without Carolyn. The clothes in the windows sparkled in a bright blur of wasted color. Then, all of a sudden, we hit an ugly snarl of traffic at 72nd Street. Cabbies, wedged in between public buses and bewildered out-of-town drivers, leaned on their horns. Traffic this far uptown, especially at this time of day, was unusual.

“I’ve got to get to a funeral,” I pleaded with the driver.

He made a quick turn and raced down the block toward Park Avenue, but at the end of the street were police barricades
blocking the avenue.
Today of all days, they had to close down Park Avenue? Just what I need right now.
As we approached, a lump began to form in my throat as the officers shook their heads and waved at us to back up.

Negi ran out of the car and up to the cops, waving the invitation to John’s funeral as if it were a badge.

“Can you let us through?” she pleaded. “This is John Kennedy’s assistant. We’re going to the funeral and can’t be late. She’s got to read something.”

“I can’t let you through,” the cop said. “But get in and we’ll take you.”

Negi and I hopped into the back of a cop car as if it were something we did every day and zipped uptown on the empty avenue.

“What’s going on, anyway? Why’s Park Avenue closed?” I asked, calming down now that we were getting a police escort. The officer looked at me like I was crazy.

“It’s for John’s funeral.”

Of course. John was someone whose life—and now death—was shared by the world.

“I feel like a perp sitting back here,” I said, trying to change the subject.

“What do you know about perps?” the cop in the passenger seat said.

“From John’s days at the DA’s office, he used to say, ‘Perps don’t die. You can shoot a cop once and he’ll be dead on the spot. You shoot a perp twenty times and he’ll live.’”

The cop laughed. “That’s true!” Then he turned around to look at me. “I’m really sorry,” he said. “The whole city is in mourning today.”

It took everything inside me to keep from breaking down. John was a New York City fixture. When I realized how much John meant to all kinds of people, just like the cop, the loss grew even larger.

The police dropped us off outside St. Thomas More, where a media circus had assembled, every outlet in the world vying for the best position to film the somber dignitaries as they entered the church. Inside, people came up to me asking me where they should sit.
Where should you sit?
I wanted to say.
Don’t worry about where you’re sitting. It’s a funeral, not a cocktail party
.

The endless jockeying around John, even in a moment like that, made me sick. It was as if the church pews had become social strata. I could tend to the mourners, tell them what to do and where to go, but I didn’t want to work right then. I wanted to scream:
I’m not just an assistant. I’m a mourner, too
. Not being a family member, childhood friend, or college buddy, I felt alone in my grief.

The organizers had wanted me to sit up front with the people reading passages, but I stuck close to the members of
George
who had shown up to honor their boss. They anchored me as I watched my life drift away on the backs of eulogies and tears. Tony, who stood in the back of the church as a pallbearer, found me with his eyes.

When I walked to the front of the church to give my reading, past every single Kennedy, past President Clinton, his wife, Hillary, and daughter, Chelsea, my knees were shaking to the point where I didn’t think they would hold me. That sense of duty to John, which had defied my skepticism in the beginning and had supported me through the ups and downs of his life, pushed me forward.

Back inside John and Carolyn’s apartment a week after the funeral, I couldn’t hear if the paparazzi were still waiting for famous faces to appear, or whether mourners continued to leave flowers at the makeshift shrine. None of the street noise that penetrates a typical New York City apartment interrupted my isolation. The silence was different from the first frenetic days after the crash, when the phone and fax lines refused to stop ringing—an endless loop of calls placed, received, returned, and missed. While the Coast Guard searched the unyielding water, I had a purpose—to disseminate information. But now I faced only silence. More than anything, the silence forced me to come to terms with the reality that John and Carolyn were gone. Their day planners had always been crammed with friends and obligations. Now there were only empty pages.

I don’t remember who asked me to pack up their things, probably Caroline, but it made sense. I had run John’s life for the past five years. Nobody was close to him in quite the same way I was. Of course, he had countless friends and relatives, but they all had lives of their own. I, on the other hand, was with him every day, all day. So why wouldn’t I be here now?

Still, I didn’t feel right dismantling their lives. But I did it because I was the only person who could. I tended to the practical stuff first, such as cleaning out their fridge: emptying the fruit, tossing the Gatorade and white wine. I pulled the vodka and ice cream out of the freezer and threw it in the trash. I moved on to the bedroom—which was furnished with a big bed, two nightstands, a television, and a pair of dressers with a
few photos of them together—and laid items from the closet and drawers on the bed.

The closet was divided into two sides, one for her and the other for him. Carolyn was very organized, and she kept John’s side neat, too. She always picked up after him. When he came out of the bathroom after showering, she yelled, “John! Three wet towels on the floor!”

She didn’t have an enormous wardrobe, but everything she had was beautiful: sumptuous cashmere sweaters, sleek pencil skirts, formfitting sheath dresses, and incredible shoes. Carolyn shopped in high-end stores, but she wasn’t excessive with her purchases, and she didn’t go to fashion shows and order trunks filled with clothes. She edited herself mercilessly and wore mostly black, navy, and gray. It was relatively easy to pack up her side of the closet.

Cleaning out John’s side was much more arduous. I pulled out his shoes, then his T-shirts. Going through his hats was the worst part of the process. He had so many beloved, goofy hats—wool hats, caps, berets, the pom-pom hat he wore the first time I met him at PR/NY. They say the shoes define the man, but in John’s case, it was his hats. Not surprisingly, his sister, Caroline, gave them to the women John had been close with.

He also had many beautiful ties. Those Caroline parceled out to the men in John’s life.

I tried not to think about John as I pored through his clothes; otherwise, I would never be able to get through it. I contained my grief then the same way I had while helping Caroline plan the funeral. But memories, of course, flooded my mind as I touched his things: My favorite tie, navy blue with a wonderful, bright green pattern. And one of his suits, a navy Zegna with
chalky blue pinstripes. I remembered when he first wore it, for a meeting.

“You look gorgeous in that suit,” I’d said. It was one of only a handful of times I told him he looked handsome.

“Whoa,” he said. “What did you say?”

“If you wore a red tie, it would be very ‘John F. Kennedy Jr.,’” I sassed, bringing us back to our usual selves—the Bronx Upstart messing with the Most Famous Man in the World.

With every happy memory, a dark shadow followed close behind. A lurking fear.
John, how dare you leave me here
. I didn’t know what would happen to me or where I would go now that he had disappeared. Once his things were packed, I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have anything. I would be starting all over again and I was terrified. I felt silly and selfish for thinking such things, but I had devoted myself to buoying his successes, holding his secrets, and cleaning up his messes. In return, he looked out for me and brought me into a world that few would ever experience. Now I didn’t know whom to turn to. Frank being gone made it even worse. He was the first person I would have turned to in this situation. I could picture him standing in the kitchen while I packed, mixing drinks and telling me things would be okay. Instead, I moved around the apartment completely alone.

A padlock on John’s office greeted me when I returned the Monday after he passed away. Death had quickly and easily shut out everything I’d worked for over the past five years.

I had ordered the lock put on because John’s office contained priceless objects: a framed flag that Neil Armstrong had taken along on his historic mission to the moon; a document with the original signatures of every president up to his dad; a note from Andrew Jackson; and a paper signed by Abraham Lincoln. Also, I quickly realized, anything belonging to John could become an auction item.

Mike Showalter, the head of facilities for Hachette and a saint, had left a message on my work phone over the weekend saying he and his people were available for “whatever you need.” They were devastated; John had always been nice to them. “We’ll sit outside your office all day if you need us to,” he said.

Instead, I had him put on the padlock, which I now faced as if it were the grim marker of a crime scene.

By contrast, around my desk only a few steps away, flowers spilled from every surface and halfway down the hallway. I couldn’t believe how many floral arrangements were there. They covered my desk, chair, floor, and windowsill in a bright, lively display that, like the padlock, only reminded me of John’s absence.

I could hardly move because of all the flowers, but I pushed them aside, determined to sit at my desk and open the notes.
That’s my job. Open the mail
. The first rule of working for John was not to let his mail pile up or I would never get through it. I had opened his correspondence every morning without fail for the past five years. Today would be no different.

Except today, the notes were addressed to me. I was shocked. I was so used to John being the recipient of the messages that I didn’t realize so many people understood what I did and how close I was to him.

July 21, 1999

Dear Rose Marie:

I’m so sorry about the loss of your guy. I wanted to just send you my deepest sympathy and prayers at this terribly sad time for you. I hope it’s some comfort to you knowing that he had someone as wonderful as you taking care of him while he was here on earth. If I could express this better I would. I guess I just want you to know I’m thinking about you and I hope you’ll try to be strong
.

Love,
Liz R.