The Chameleon (23 page)

“Franklin, we must do more for our female war workers.” She reached for her glasses and began to read from her next day's column. “‘I am sure that if the people of our great nation could see the difficulty women have carrying a full-time factory job and also keeping up a family, doing the shopping, housework, and helping with homework, we would do what must be done to ease their burden.’” She folded up her glasses. “I'm asking the butchers to hold back some of their meat supplies until six p.m. and for grocers to extend their hours for women who go to work. Our fighting force behind our fighting force!”

“Good for you, Babs!” Franklin applauded his wife.

Claire smoothed her hands over her pregnant belly and marveled at how the first lady understood what women like her beleaguered aunties had wanted all their lives, only this woman had the power to make it all happen. Power. Power and persuasion skills were her accessories, and she wore them well. Slim had always taught her that a silk scarf and a whiff of perfume were the female's only tools of persuasion. But Eleanor used facts and pragmatism. And, of course, her access. Claire admired Eleanor's kind of accessories.

“Shall we?” Eleanor signaled the group into the family dining room. “I'm off at dawn to fly to Alabama. They've asked me to speak at the FEPC hearings in Birmingham.’’

The Fair Employment Practices Commission was a hot potato, Anna Roosevelt told a mesmerized Claire as they went into dinner, and the first lady put herself in jeopardy whenever she went down to fight with recalcitrant unions and war-plant employers to hire more blacks for defense jobs.

“Because of Eleanor's efforts, Negroes are working in firms like the aircraft industry that formerly banned them, and in the nation's shipyards black employment has quadrupled,” Mrs. Morgenthau whispered to Claire in a pass-the-salt kind of way.

“And not everyone loves me for it.” Eleanor had the ears of a bloodhound. As she took her place at the head of the table, she seemed to be speaking directly to Claire but was just as likely putting the words together for her next day's column.

“This wartime struggle will not be worth winning if the old order of things prevails. Unless democracy has real meaning here at home—and by that I mean democracy for everyone, with civil rights and social reform—there's no point in fighting for democracy abroad.” The table fell silent in acquiescence.

“Yes. And I'm going along too, Harrison.” Ophelia chimed in. “The baby isn't due for another eight weeks so I'll be just fine.”

Claire blinked in amazement and nearly rose to her feet. Just who was having this baby anyway?

After the dry turkey and yams came dessert, a soggy vanilla ice cream that had melted down in the summer heat. Ophelia stared Claire down over the rim of her coffee cup until she dutifully drank her glass of milk in one long tilt. Eleanor put down her spoon, which was the sign for her own signal corps to follow suit. Her companions rose like synchronized swimmers from the water in one movement and waited for Eleanor to affectionately hug her husband goodbye so the women could prepare for their early morning journey.

“The South will never be the same again, my dear. Don't make them chew more than they can swallow.” He worried that she expected more from people than they were able to concede. With a shoulder shrug, he let Hopkins and his butler guide his tall frame into a waiting wheelchair. Comfortably settled in, he patted Eleanor's hand in a husbandly gesture before she retired to her separate bedroom. “And Babs, fly safely.”

“Claire, I've been called to the White House for a cabinet meeting. I don't know how long I'll be. Could you sit in for me at War Supplies and take notes?”

“Yes, Harrison, of course.” In the half year since she had acquired a set of in-laws, she had not settled upon a comfortable way of addressing them. She could hardly bring herself to call the cool and distant Ophelia “Mother”; that warm word evoked the trio of dear ladies back home. It was true, Claire had spent most of her childhood searching for a father from her elk's-horn lair, the hat rack in Field's Men's Shop. But now that she had found one who matched her paste-and-clip dream book right down to his graying temples and Scotch plaid suit, the exact “father” she had invented for herself out of men's magazines and catalogs, the word just wouldn't roll over her tongue. Besides, she reasoned, she didn't call Harry “Husband.” Thankfully, in the informal atmosphere of the Roosevelt White House, where friends and family intermingled easily, she could fall in with what Tom and the others called him. So Harrison it was.

“And don't forget this afternoon we've got the Armed Services chiefs and War Production czars coming in—rubber, oil, food, and solid fuel. They're combustible.”

“Yeah, and we'd better make them check their weapons at the door.” Tom nervously waved a memo in his hand. “General Patton is plenty mad because the nuts and bolts he ordered for his tanks got shipped to General Bradley instead. It's going to take us months to sort that out.”

“Oh, that got fixed this morning. We just bypassed regular channels.” Claire's smile went from enigmatic to Olympic. “The general bought them from Sears.”

Harrison lifted his head with an unconcealed look of amusement.

“And to whom were these items charged?”

“Why, to Mrs. Bradley, of course. General Patton insisted!”

The three of them threw their heads back in hearty laughter before Harrison hurriedly escaped out the door, tipping his hat to Claire. The girl just kept surprising him.

But Claire was unperturbed by the generals and businessmen who barked orders to her as they paraded through the office. She had waited on people like that all her life. And if she could help get a few screws overnight that might have taken months from proper military sources through her own initiative and salesgirl know-how, then that was just one more thing she brought to her job.

Harrison had made it clear that time was his greatest enemy. She rationalized that working for her father-in-law was a lot like working inventory week at Field's, only “taking inventory” at War Production never ended. With her organizational skills inherited from her mother and her own easygoing way with people, she was perfectly suited for the position of gofer, soother of ruffled feathers, information gatherer, and emergency substitute for her famous father-in-law at power breakfasts. She even employed some of her resourceful mother's bartering techniques, using her precious nylon coupons and meat rations to sway a secretary to ensure that her overscheduled boss got to Harrison's meeting and not to someone else's. Claire could always be counted on to find a car and good theater seats for the assistant to the secretary of anything, remembering to record the chits in her own IOU ledger. If Harrison asked, she could deliver. It was all part of her cheerful effort to get what was supposed to be finished yesterday done tomorrow. The more Claire learned, the more she was able to expedite Harrison's workload.

And, to her delight, Claire found that she was able to please the demanding Harrison.

“You're as efficient as my last two assistants put together,” he told her one morning as he passed her desk. And she basked in his praise.

“We couldn't do without her,” a grinning Tom joined in. “Of course both those other guys are at Guadalcanal. We might as well show you all the ropes, as it's unlikely they'll ship
you
out.” He eyed the loose jumper she wore with a protruding bump the size of a lunch bucket.

“Nor you,” Claire shot back half in jest. She hadn't sorted out her feelings for the bright, good-looking boy she had befriended who wasn't fighting for his country in combat. Unlike her Harry flying in harm's way, Tom with his nearsightedness and law degree was sitting out the danger in this cushy 4-F desk job.

As Claire watched Tom busy himself in paperwork, she fought off a twinge of resentment for him, flying high on the Hill in his pin-striped safety net.

On the social front lines, a truce had been called for Claire. This new Washington was a city that recognized an individual's accomplishments and not his or her place in the genetic lottery. Here she was a no-questions-asked Mrs. Harrison, and so Claire was just pleasantly surprised when she was quickly voted into the members-only Sulgrave Club not only on the basis of her illustrious last name but also on the recommendation of one Hope Ridings Miller, nominating chairwoman and keeper of the blue book. The women had become friends over dinner one evening when Harrison kept Mrs. Miller's husband at a WPB meeting until well past midnight. An apologetic Claire was able to deliver to Mrs. Ridings Miller, for her next sit-down dinner, an exiled archduke of Austria, Colonel and Mrs. Robert Guggenheim, Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, and Crown Princess Marthe of Norway, all of whom used Harrison's office on a regular basis for important favors. Mrs. Ridings Miller was of the Washington hostess opinion that if you couldn't be a celebrity the next best thing was to feed one. Claire was happy to oblige her, and the appreciative “Hopie” became a social ally.

So Claire joined the white-gloved blue-blooded ladies for lunches and teas in the high-ceilinged rooms of the Sulgrave Club, which reverberated with gossip about the latest power alliances and women who were pushing their own war wagons and social reform. In a town where the right connections were more crucial than plasma, every door was suddenly flung open to the bright, well-married young lady with the socially and politically connected in-laws. And because of her day job, Claire also found herself one of the few women on the guest list for the dinners held at Gwendolyn Cafritz's sprawling glass house on Foxhall Road, where Washington's political elite gathered weekly, their comings and goings recorded by Cissy Patterson in meticulous detail for the
Washington Times-Herald.
Taking to the center of power like syrup to waffles, Claire Harrison was home.

The buzz of the plane's engine cut off abruptly, pulling it into a stall. The small plane hung there in midair, motionless as if trying to make up its mind whether to glide somewhere calmly to safety or to fall straight into the sea. After one tricky spiral, it leveled off and sailed through the air in a soundless descent. The churning water loomed below them, dark and fathomless. As Claire struggled to keep consciousness she turned her head to the left in slow motion to watch the pilot at work. Amelia Earhart pressed buttons and pulled knobs with deft precision and speed, although the perspiration that fell off her forehead betrayed her anxiety.

The radio was long since gone, so there was no way to let anyone know what was happening to them. Despite Amelia's gallant attempts, they were going down. The butterflies in Claire's belly bumped around and then she felt a drop as if half of her body weight was shifting, putting unbearable pressure on her groin and thighs. A heavy ache pulsed through her body as if an airplane part had landed on her lap. She looked at Amelia, who had stopped working the controls and, running her fingers through her tousled hair, turned to grin at Claire, mouthing the words, “You'll be okay.”

And then they were in the water. Claire had no idea the Pacific Ocean would be so warm, like foot-soaking water heated in a teakettle rushing and whirling around her and pouring down her legs, which were numbed. The water was everywhere and Claire was sinking deeper into its pull until she heard Amelia's voice somewhere above her and struggled to lift herself up.

When she awoke, Claire was covered in sticky perspiration and was startled to see that the warm water that had drenched the sheets under her was coming from between her legs. Her water had broken and the first heavy pains of labor had pushed her out of a deep, dreamy slumber, the kind only a pregnant woman falls into near the end of her term and from which it is almost impossible to rouse her, even with doorbells, phones, and fire alarms.

Instead of feeling panicky, Claire felt surprisingly calm despite the soaked sheets and the flooded couch. When she stood, a waterfall of warmth poured down her legs, soaking her nightgown and drowning her feet.

Feeling light-headed and loopy, she saw no need to hurry as she brushed her hair back, pressed a cold washcloth to her temples, and threw off her drenched nightclothes, substituting them for a sleeveless dress and a matching ribbon for her hair. After all, Amelia had said everything would be all right. She winced as a sharp pain jabbed her in the lower back, and she could hardly believe her own presence of mind as she picked up the phone to call her doctor, vaguely making out his home number lying alongside the alarm clock. Four
A.M
. She apologized for disturbing him but she explained about the sheets and her water. He laughed kindly in his sleepy voice and told her to meet him at the hospital.

She packed her battered Amelia Earhart overnight bag, put a trench coat over the back of her dress, which was already nearly soaked clear through, and on very unsteady legs went to Harrison's door. She tried to knock but her fists felt so heavy she turned away and stumbled to Ophelia's door, where she turned the knob and stood over her mother-in-law until she awakened with a start. From then on it was Ophelia's show.

It infuriated Claire that Ophelia had seen the baby before she had. In fact, Ophelia had seen the baby even before the doctors, delivery nurses, and all-seeing God Himself. Seated at the foot of the delivery table with her gloved hands folded, wearing a silk dress and a straw hat, she had observed Claire's labor like a stony-faced theater critic, glued to her chair, an imperial witness to her grandbaby's birth. Later, Claire would swear that just before they put the ether mask over her face, sending her into twilight sleep, she had caught a crazy glimpse of her mother-in-law donning a coal miner's hat, the kind with a light on top, so that Ophelia could better peer into the birth cavity from her best seat in the house, front row center.

When she awoke in the dry, starched sheets of the hospital bed, she was thirsty. Moreover, she was curious. She quenched her thirst first with a few sips of ice water through a glass straw and then lurched up with a panicky start to find herself with a flattened belly. She ran her hands over her stomach again to convince herself it was not a dream. The baby inside was gone.