Jack 1939 by Francine Mathews Read Free Book Online Page B

that.”
    “Why?”
    “Because he’d be dead wrong. For years, Winston’s been howling about German rearmament, while his own party hooted and jeered. But it turns out he’s right, by God, and if Hitler grabs more than the Czechs, Neville Chamberlain will be out on his ear. Your dad’s advice will be so much horseshit then. And whatever
you
can pick up in Europe will be pure gold.” Hopper smiled at him crookedly. “No offense, but your old man has lousy political instincts, you know that?”
    Jack kept his gaze on the crew shells knifing down the Charles. “Have you ever wanted to save a guy from himself, Professor, and been completely unable to do it?”
    “Every day. I teach, remember?”
    * * *
    THEY PARTED AT THE DOORS of Widener. Hopper offered his hand.
    “You’ll write if you need anything?”
    “I will. Thanks.”
    “I envy you,
mon
brave
.”
    Jack merely nodded. Hopper’s confidence should have been bracing. But he’d sought out the professor half convinced he was hallucinating. A jabbering product of DOCA pellets. And Hopper had confirmed that Jack was all too sane.

SIX. THE MARK
    WHEN JACK LEFT CAMBRIDGE, he took Hopper’s advice. He spent the last thirty-six hours before he boarded the
Queen Mary
chasing Frances Ann Cannon.
    She was a peach of a girl, and it wasn’t just her looks, which were fabulous and head-turning, or her money, which came from the Cannon family mills in North Carolina. Jack had always had money and he could whistle up good looks any night for a song. What he loved about Frances Ann was the way she talked, tilting her head to one side and letting the soft Southern words roll out like sheathed daggers. The things she said were intelligent and acute and detached and funny, and they enslaved him. When Frances Ann spoke, Jack listened, and he’d never really listened to any girl before, except his sister Kick, who was so much like himself it didn’t count.
    Frances Ann staved off the curtain that hovered just beyond Jack’s sight, a kind of fog he thought of as Boredom or Death. He spent his days striding away from it, hands shoved in his pockets, jingling loose change. When Frances Ann tilted her head and opened her mouth the curtain lifted. He wanted her the way broken men wanted strong drink or sleep.
    He flew to meet her in New Orleans and the two of them danced a conga line through Mardi Gras. She refused to go to bed with him; she was that kind of girl. Frances Ann understood something fundamental about Jack: It wasn’t sex he really wanted, it was the chase—and because she was no dummy, she kept the chase alive. She mocked him and toyed with him and then, desolate at the airport, waved frantically through the terminal window, a red sweep of lipstick smearing her cheek, unshed tears in her eyes.
    He had asked her to marry him. And she’d refused.
    It was partly, Jack guessed, because he was an Irish Catholic and she was a WASP. And it was partly because he was Joe Kennedy’s son. There was something not quite right about Joe Kennedy, in respectable American eyes; Frances Ann’s parents did not approve.
    It was just possible, Jack knew, that in her heart of hearts, Frances Ann did not approve, either. Jack was good enough for a few laughs and a swell time—but not good enough to marry.
    He was sick at heart and angry as he flew back to New York. And ready to show the world he was good enough for anyone.
    * * *
    HE WAS STANDING ALONE in the rain now on the Promenade Deck
,
watching other people wave good-bye to figures on the pier. There were stevedores and there were umbrellas. There were excited women chattering idiotically, handbags suspended from gloved hands. Some of the well-wishers had come on board for a last drink, thousands of people, in fact, pushing past each other from First Class to Third, popping champagne corks and delivering baskets of fruit and flowers, getting drunk in the middle of the day because a friend was crossing to Europe.
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