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New Fiction By Barbara F. Lefcowitz've never told a soul before:you, reader, are the first toknow that for over 25 yearsI, Mrs. Arlene SchrammDuley, have had in my pos-

session the pink suit that the lateJacqueline Kennedy Onassis worethatdayindallas. Bloodstains, thelittle black velvet collar, buttonsand all, though I don't know whathappened to the matching pillboxhat.

I suppose she never included thehat when she sent the suit out to becleaned. Back in 1963, my father,the late Henry J. Schramm, owneda dry-cleaning store on 7th and FStreets, less than a mile from TheWhite House. It was called Con-gressional Cleaners and my motherand him-her name was MatildaSchramm- did indeed take care oflots of congressmen's suits andshirts. They would give personal

attention to each customer's cloth-ing, as if they were grooming a poo-dle or piping frosted roses on awedding cake. Mamma would ironsome of the collars and ruffles byhand. Not at all like today, whenyou're lucky ifyour skirt shows upon the computer. Mrs. Kennedy-to this day I can't bear to call herMrs. Onassis-would send daddyall of her outfits. Mamie Eisenhow-er had recommended him to her. In

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-II- I cFfact, he went all the way back toEleanor Roosevelt, though she nev-er fussed much with clothes. I re-member as a kid how once shecame into the store herself and howI stared up at her, feeling a little bitsorry that she was wearing thisflowery cotton smock-like dressinstead of the shiny purple silkgown I imagined a president's wifewould wear. I think she.smiled at mebut I'm not absolutely sure.

hen daddy died of asudden heart attackin 1969-mamma hadpassed away twoyears before--my sis-

ter Jeanette and me went throughthe store, contacting customers,cleaning up, doing inventory, allthose sad post-mortem chores. If Ihadn't tripped on a torn place in theold tan linoleum back in a dark cor-ner of the store, Iwould never havefound The Suit, which was hanginglike an empty skin inside a plasticbag that was stuck to it in severalplaces because of the heat. Immedi-ately I knew it was the suit, I can'texplain why, it's just that I had thatcertain feeling. And I snuck it homemaking sure Jeannette didn't know,hiding it inside a garment bag way inthe back of a closet in the attic ofour house in Wheaton, so my hus-band and kids wouldn't suspectnothing. Ofcourse, Idid cut throughsome of the plastic and, sureenough, there were the bloodstainsstill on the suit, though they wereconsiderably faded.Did Ifeel guilty?Well,In a way, yes,

I've got to admit it. But I also felt Ihad been blessed with a specialprivilege; maybe responsibility isthe right word. You see, Mrs. Ken-nedy and I were the same age al-most to the day, and from the firsttime I saw her picture, I adored her.MyMaryEllenwas born a fewweeksafter Caroline and my Kenneth twomonths before John-John. To top itoff, I, too, had a miscarriage, thesame time she gave birth to poor lit-

T o NItIe Patrick who died of HyalineMembrane Disease. Though I'd nev-er heard of that disease before, Icouldn't get it out of my mind nomatter how hard I tried. HyalineMembrane Disease, even now itsounds terribly important andscary. I guess Iwas luckier than her,though, because when ImiscarriedI never had to look at the lost baby.Oh, how I cried for her then, and somany times later.Unlikesome of my friends, though,

I never tried to look or act like her.How could a short plump womanlike me even pretend to look like agoddess? How could ArleneSchramm Duley, born 1930 in Balti-more and raised on Farragut Roadoff 16th Street in Washington; acommercial track graduate of thenow demolished Central HighSchool and wife of George Duley,branch manager of a Peoples DrugStore; Arlene Schramm Duley whoexcept for one trip to NewYorkCitywhen Iwas eleven, had never beenout of the Washington area, letalone to a foreign country; ArleneSchramm Duley whose greatest tal-ents are baking snickerdoodles,embroidering guest towels, runningup simple dresses on myoid Singer,and doing some china painting-how in the world could I be so uppi-ty as to pretend I looked and actedlike Mrs. Jacqueline Bouvier Ken-nedy? Besides, Iwas perfectly con-tent with my life, dull as it mightsound. I never even kept a scrap-.book of her pictures like my friendBetty Walsh did. Every single pic-ture and news article she could layher hands on! I guess I'm just notthat kind of person; I don't evenhave no pictures of my own kids'graduations or the time George andme rented a place in Ocean City.One time we considered going allthe way up north to Maine, a placecalled Ogunquit where George'scousin has a house, but we wereafraid it would be covered with ice,even in summer.Just to pick her brain, I once, in a

• •FICTIONreal cagey way, asked my daughterMary Ellen (she was taking cours-es at the community college) whatshe would do ifshe had secret pos-session of the pink suit. At first-would you believe it-she said shedidn't even knowwhat Iwas talkingabout. When I explained, she justlaughed. "Oh that pink suit. Withthe little black velvet collar? It'snothing but a cliche." When Ipressed her further, she said it wastrite, out of date, and she couldn'timagine for the life of her why Iasked about such a dumb thing.Still Iwondered what to do with

it and back around 1978 ap-proached The Smithsonian aboutdonating the suit to them, but Iguess they thought I wasjust another one of thosecrackpots, like all thoseweirdoes writing booksabout assassination con-spiracies. They never gaveme an answer even after Iwent there in person, suit inhand, all nicely wrapped ina fresh plastic bag and tiedwith pink ribbons. So backit went into the attic closetnobody ever opened. Imyself actually forgot aboutit after a while.But then I heard back in

May, 1994, how sick Mrs.Kennedy was. I could hard-ly believe it when she diedso suddenly; just a coupleof hours after I arrived inNew York on the Grey-hound to stand outsideher apartment housewith lots of other people.Don't ask me why Iwent, Ijust had to, that's all. I didn't evenget to see Caroline or John-John orthat paunchy bald guy, whateverhis name is, her lover.I did, though, get to see the

hearse on the way to ArlingtonCemetery after standing fourhours in the hot sun. Just toglimpse it for a few seconds. I thinkI saw one of Bobby's sons, the one

with lots of curly hair, and anothernephew, not the kind of sleazy guywho got in trouble last year with agirl down in Florida, but maybeTeddy's son, you know, the onewho had cancer. I also saw HillaryClinton, but to be honest, I don'tlike her one bit. Much too uppity,as if her mother never taught herthe proper way to be a woman.Yes, Iknow, it's the mid -1990's andlike Mary Ellen tells me, oh, moth-er-in that mocking way of hers-things have changed. Even so. I'mentitled to my opinion, right?Sowhat ifI'm a cliche. What Mary

Ellen and Hillary don't realize isthat they themselves are cliches,just a different kind of cliche.

rr

\- FICTION -Icarrying a bomb in the plainGiant Food sack I had stuffed thesuit in. For a minute I tried toexplainmy mission but Icould tellthe man just thought Iwas anoth-er of those nut cases on theloose from Saint Elizabeth's.So much for the great wild flamesand pink shreds soaring over thePotomac! And there I was again,wishing I had some imagination.Ifonly I could consult Mrs. Ken-

nedy herself, I remember thinking.Sure enough she would havesome bright idea what to do withthe suit. Not that I believe in anyafter-life.But it did cross my mindthat she must be very busy catch-ing her husband up on all thethings that happened since he wasshot. Just think: he never heard ofLee Harvey Oswald or Jack Rubyor the Warren Commission or howBobby was assassinated or aboutChappaquiddick and Mary JoKopechne, or Watergate or howVietnam finally ended or howRonald Reagan ended the ColdWar or all the nasty stories abouthim and those Mafiawomen andgod knows what else. Would shetell him about that awful man,Aristotle Onassis? I hoped not.I guess I would never have

thought of the solution if MaryEllen had not complained to meover the phone (she's marriednow and a mother herself) howthe stores had no summer skirtsthat looked right on her. Eitherthey were too short-unfortunate-ly she inherited my fat legs-ortoo long,all the way to the floor asif you were going to a ball. Could Irun her up something on myoIdSinger?Ofcourse. Andwhile Iwasat it, having chosen some real nicecotton with daisies on it, why notmake a few nips and tucks on thepink skirt, add an elastic band andan extra panel so it would fit meand wear the darn thing myself?Howcrazy that I hadn't thought ofdoing that a long time ago. Nowthe jacket was a real problem,

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I- FICTION -Ithere wasn't much I could do withthat, but the skirt would be per-fect.

aturally, I didn't tell asoul that my new pinkskirt had been remod-eled from Mrs. Jacque-line Bouvier Kennedy's

skirt. The bloodstains I concealedwith a clever little sash. I don'tthink I can possibly express toyou how great I felt when Iworethat skirt. Tall, rich, beautiful,clever, every bit as worthy as thelate Mrs. Kennedy. Like I waswearing a brand new skin. Soon Ibegan to feel that way even when I

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