Just Jackie by Edward Klein

Author:Edward Klein [Klein, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-57481-7
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 1973-10-13T04:00:00+00:00

ESIAH’S DANCE

A fine drizzle began to fall on the morning of the wedding, October 20, 1968. In Greece, a rainy wedding day was considered an omen of good luck. However, Artemis Garofolidis, who was as superstitious as her brother, was taking no chances. She had once discovered a hairpin with braided hair under Aristo’s pillow, placed there as a spell by Maria Callas. Concerned that Maria might be up to her old tricks, Artemis decided to slip a charm of her own beneath the mattress of the nuptial bed on the Christina.

When she arrived on the yacht, her brother was in the master cabin getting dressed, along with his son Alexander and the chief engineer, Stefanos Daroussos. The three men stood in front of a long mirror, inspecting themselves. Ari was very nervous, and kept adjusting the knot of his necktie. One of his wedding presents to Jackie, a gold cross made by the Greek jeweler Ilias Lalaounis, bulged in its box in the pocket of his suit. His other gifts, a pair of heart-shaped ruby earrings and a huge matching ring, which had been appraised at more than $1 million, were locked away in a safe behind the El Greco in the Christina’s book-lined library.

“What do you think?” Ari asked Alexander. “Do I make a good groom?”

His son was in a foul mood, and did not answer. He had agreed to attend the wedding only because his girlfriend, Fiona Thyssen, had insisted he go as a mark of respect to his father. But true to his word, Alexander had already moved all of his belongings out of the Onassis house in Glyfada and into a suite in the Athens Hilton.

So many guests had been invited to the wedding that there was not a single available bed on the island or the yacht. However, no one had thought about accommodations for Alexander and Christina. They did not have rooms to sleep in.

After he had dressed, Alexander went to find the ship’s captain.

“Can my sister and I share your room tonight?” he asked Captain Costa Anastassiadis.

Costa was struck by the look of utter desolation on Alexander’s face.

“I said yes,” he recalled thirty years later. “But I was really helpless. Alexander and Christina felt pushed out.”

Several hundred newsmen descended on Skorpios for the wedding. To control this ravenous horde, Jackie distributed a statement to the press.

We wish our wedding to be a private matter in the little chapel among the cypresses of Skorpios with only members of the family present, five of them little children. If you will give us those moments, we will so gladly give you all cooperation possible for you to take the photographs you need.

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