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number by heart. The unemployment office was a fairly large room on the second floor of the American Legion Hall at the edge of town. People sat on benches, in an arrangement reminiscent of church, facing a large desk behind which sat Wendy, an aging waitress familiar to all of us, who’d been lucky enough to snag a state job in the off-season. She would pull out a file, call the number, and if it was yours, you went up to go through the formalities and get your check. Although she knew just about everybody in the room on a first-name basis, she was all business, never so much as cracking a smile or giving any sign of recognition. It seemed a bit overdone to me, since on Nantucket there was certainly no shame attached to being on unemployment or using food stamps. Half the working people of the island were on unemployment. I was eligible because I’d played the piano at a fancy hotel six nights a week for three and a half months during the previous summer.
    It was (and still is) called the White Elephant and was owned by Sherburne, which was mostly owned by Mr. Beineke. Beineke had a manservant, a middle-aged Italian I will call Flavianno, who had been Mr. Beineke’s favorite towel boy at the New York Athletic Club, and whom he had hired away from that famous and exclusive institution to serve the Beineke household in various capacities.
    One of Flavianno’s responsibilities was to keep an eye on the restaurant, the bar, and the piano lounge. He did not run these parts of the hotel, but simply dropped in every now and then, making his rounds and trying to look important. He made it clear he had no use for me, or for the jazz I played, or for the mostly young and informal crowd I drew. He once made a waiter throw out a gay couple because they were in violation of the dress code, which called for jackets. From that night on I kept two or three jackets stashed behind the bandstand to lend to people who might need them. He was furious of course, and for the rest of the summer harassed me, cursed me to my face, and presumably tried to get me fired. But I was breaking records for bar sales, and pulling in people for the restaurant. Everybody was making money and there would have been protests from the staff. He had to be content with trying to push me to the point where I would lose my temper and do something rash, but I kept my cool.
    It was an uncomfortable situation, to be sure, but not without a momentary silver lining.
    I should explain that I had a remote connection to the Kennedy family. My older sister’s husband had run Jack’s presidential campaign in Madison, Wisconsin, so I had tagged along to the inaugural. When Bobby eventually ran, Norman Mailer and I were to read at a fund-raiser at Town Hall in New York. Bobby was assassinated two days before the event, which of course did not take place. The Kennedy organization was nothing if not efficient, so years later, when Senator Ted came over to Nantucket for a small cocktail party/fund-raiser at Beineke’s house, the organization somehow knew I was on the island and sent me an invitation. The party conflicted with my schedule in the piano lounge (I played two shifts, one before dinner and one after) but I didn’t hesitate, and showed up at Beineke’s right on time. He introduced himself—we had never met, nor was he aware of my employment at the hotel. We made small talk as other people began arriving. When he moved away, Senator Kennedy came in from the dining room and caught my eye. We stood together talking for several moments when someone offered us a tray of hors d’oeuvres. “These little toasted things are good,” Teddy said to me. “Try one.”
    Flavianno stood holding the tray.
    â€œI will,” I said, looking my nemesis straight in the eye, reaching out slowly, my hand hovering over the plate to draw out the moment. Not my finest hour, perhaps, but one which I nevertheless enjoyed. Nantucket was a