The Chameleon (24 page)

“Where is my baby?” Claire asked the nurse, still looking around the room as if they had hidden something from her. “Can I have my baby?”

The gray-haired pediatrician, who was a social friend of Ophelia's, broke the news.

“It's a healthy baby girl for the Harrisons!”

What was with this “Harrisons” stuff? Claire wondered with a trace of irritation. This was
her
baby's birth, not a relay tag team's. And then it registered.

A healthy
girl.

“May I see her?” she asked quietly, suddenly crestfallen that she had let down the team. A girl.

“As soon as Ophelia's done fussing down at the nursery. Are you planning to breast-feed?” She hadn't, but perhaps she should. Surely Ophelia couldn't do that.

“Why yes.”

“So many of you modern girls prefer not to these days. The formulas are excellent nourishment. As good as mother's milk.”

“Is everything all right with …” Claire stumbled as her question remained awkwardly suspended and incomplete. What was she going to call the baby? They had all assumed it would be William Henry Harrison VI. She slipped her arms into her bed jacket, a gift from Slim, and swung her hair over the lace collar.

“You have a beautiful baby girl, Claire, and she's perfectly healthy. Perfect, in fact, in every way.” He beamed a reassuring look in her direction and flipped a page on her chart as he started out the door. Then he turned on a dime, his stethoscope knocking against his chest. “Are there many redheads in your family?”

Claire shook her head. “Why, Dr. Hastings?”

“Because your daughter looks so much like her grandmother, feature for feature. I thought that maybe the red hair came from your folks.”

Claire responded with such a spontaneous look of alarm on her face that he lingered for a moment longer.

“Of course, many towheads are born with reddish hair and after a few months’ time the first hair falls out and we get the real color. Congratulations on your daughter, my dear.”

Claire nodded, her hormones and hurt feelings welling tears into her eyes. She was supposed to have delivered a boy and instead she had presented the Harrisons with a redheaded girl who would be bald in a matter of weeks. She hoped Harrison wouldn't be disappointed. Or Harry.

Ophelia was jubilant. Her pink-cheeked grandbaby had actually stretched out for her with her tiny arms. Even Dr. Hastings had witnessed it. Sara Woolsey Harrison, with a fine set of lungs and a bright-red corona crowning her head, was whisked from the hospital and ensconced in Tuxedo to be attended to by a chorus of nurses, nannies, and society pediatricians. Ophelia had insisted upon “Woolsey,” it being her own mother's maiden name, and “Sara” was a grand gesture honoring President Roosevelt's mother, deceased nearly a year to the day of her namesake's birth. How could Claire argue with that? Ophelia promised her she could name the next one as she sat busily opening up baby gifts. Claire watched her as Ophelia scissored her way through the pretty ribbons, wondering if she would ever be able to cut through the Harrison traditions that were rolling right over her. Claire agreed to everything in order to keep the peace. For now, Sara's apple cheeks and her milky baby smells eased any friction at Charlotte Hall.

Even the recessive red hair was assimilated into Harrison family lore as portraits of two distant ancestors, formerly relegated to the quiet basement, were dusted off and relocated to the grand foyer's walls because of their like-colored hair. There they were hung on either side of the Titian with its own russet-haired beauties. Claire and Sara's names were added to the traditional Harrison family greeting card to be sent that December. This year the Christmas message featured the priceless foyer masterpiece on its front, designed by Tiffany & Co. especially to Ophelia's specifications.

Peace in the New Year
read the gold-letter engraved sentiment inside. Determined to preserve it, Claire chose not to share with Mrs. Harrison, Sr., the resolution to the mystery surrounding baby Sara's red hair. Her father's mother had red hair, Violet had whispered, careful not to let the Aunties overhear; and some of the Organ cousins had purportedly been carrot tops, too. Her mother's news had made Claire feel infinitely better. She had had a hand in creating Sara after all.

The family routine they fell into was ultimately to everyone's liking. Ophelia, Harrison, Harry (by letter), and finally Claire had all agreed it was the best choice. Even little Sara had had a voice.

After a few weeks back at Charlotte Hall, Claire was finally made to realize that what it took to raise a Harrison was a team. Whereas Claire had originally thought she and the baby would move into the Willard so she could continue her war work and wait for her husband, her romantic balloon was burst by a hundred pin-sharp reasons. The air in Tuxedo was fresher—there was no smog, no pollution, and no heavy humidity hanging in the air to pollute Sara's little lungs. Charlotte Hall's gardeners would grow the vegetables and fruits fresh in the garden, or the winter greenhouse, straight from the stalk to the plate, just as Harry had been nourished, and hadn't
he
turned out a healthy specimen.

Then there was the surprise-attack issue. If the Japanese or Germans ever made it over again—Remember Pearl Harbor!—wouldn't they shell Washington before they bombed the peaceful idyll of Tuxedo Park? As all his inner circle knew, even the president kept a gas mask hanging from the side of his wheelchair, just in case. And why would Claire want to give up the work she was so good at, especially now that Harrison had requested that she assist him in highly sensitive dealings conducted from his White House office?

Claire had agreed to think about it and even sought Anna Roosevelt's thoughts on the matter when, over a cheese soufflé lunch at the Sulgrave, she had suddenly asked the president's daughter to be little Sara's godmother, realizing that since moving to Washington she had been living in a man's world and hadn't made any other good female friends. The two women, following their first meeting, had bonded instantly. Like Claire, Anna had felt frustrated and impatient being the only member of her family excluded from the great events of the war. And like Claire, she had been determined to find relevant work and to help the war effort in a meaningful way. For the last few months she had been working in her father's White House office.

“But you must come to work in the White House!” Anna said, her eyes shining like a schoolgirl's. “Don't you know it's lonely being the lowest man—I mean lady—on the totem pole. Since you're younger than I … I'll finally have someone to boss around.” She flashed the famous Roosevelt grin. “It's almost like a promotion! Oh, please do!” Anna reached across the table. “We'll have such fun!”

Claire's decision was temporarily pushed aside when that fall she welcomed President and Mrs. Roosevelt to Sara's christening. Claire's face was radiant as she watched Anna hold the child in front of the golden baptismal bowl, Sara resplendent in Harry's antique lace christening gown. And it was with a lump of pride in her chest that she was able to introduce an overjoyed Auntie Wren to her heroine Eleanor Roosevelt, as she recorded the moment and all the day's highlights on her Kodak box camera so Claire could send the snaps to Harry. Violet, elegantly dressed in her eponymous color from head to toe, and Slim, glamorous and sophisticated in her chic black suit with ropes of costume pearls wound around her neck and wrists, were enlisted right on the steps of Tuxedo's Presbyterian church by Ophelia, all business once the ceremony was over, to support her wartime plan for bringing up Sara. Claire would work Mondays through Thursdays at the Capitol, for as long as the war continued, arriving back in Tuxedo by noon Friday to spend uninterrupted time with her daughter until Monday morning.

“After all,” trilled Ophelia, glancing at the other two Aunties, “you yourselves were working mothers, and look how well your Claire has done.” Ophelia made her case with a sharpshooter's precision. Bull's-eye, thought Claire as she watched the flattered ladies vigorously and noisily signal their approval. Even E.R. had agreed, in a short handwritten note. While extolling the joys of motherhood, she reminded Claire that in times like these, everyone had to make sacrifices. Claire just wasn't sure who would be giving up more, her or the baby.

Nevertheless, it was a plan. Full of promise, mothering, excitement, and productivity. And in Claire's mind the arrangements were sealed when after four weeks Sara had simply refused her mother's milking breast, pushing the primed nipple away with her tiny fist and making a sour face and pursing her lips like a finicky gourmet. Looking up at Claire fitfully with those dark, arrogant Ophelia-like eyes, her moon-faced daughter had gone on an ear-piercing crying jag until nurse number two had calmed her baby with a pre-warmed bottle of formula that just happened to be in her apron pocket. Claire watched in surprise as Sara hungrily sucked from it as though it was her beverage of choice. And so a schedule was arranged and they all followed it like the civilized people they were.

Deep down in her heart, Claire knew that a conspiracy of Ophelia's nurses had secretly wooed and weaned the infant away with their vanilla-scented formula. The nurses were white-uniformed tricksters in Ophelia's army—an army the Aunties had unwittingly joined as outlying troops in support of Ophelia's common sense and against which Claire felt she had no defense. In almost an act of revenge Claire's breasts had burst into bloom, voluptuous forever, full of milk as a regular reminder of just who the real mother was.

Secretly, Claire was glad her new full, creamy bosoms seemed to have no intention of returning to their natural pre-maternity rosebud size. It brought a private smile to her lips as she assessed her altered shape in the mirror naked, admiring her transfiguration. With her long, slim legs, thin-boned body, high aquiline nose, and recently found composure, the new high bosom and motherhood had turned Claire into what she had only stood on the precipice of before: a full-blown beauty.

It was with new confidence then, head up, posture perfect that she walked up the marble stairs of the old Executive Building to the headquarters of War Production on a glorious October morning her first week back. Ambivalent as she may have been about leaving Sara, she had to admit it felt good to be in Washington again with its high-pitched energy and sorry shortage of qualified workers.

Tom wolf-whistled as Claire strode into the door in her new custom-cut suit and hand-stitched high heels.

“Is this a Hollywood goddess come to sell us war bonds? No, wait,” he said, “it's Gene Tierney, isn't it? Gosh, Miss Tierney, you're looking good.”

“Oh Tom, you're such a child.” Claire pushed him away with a nonchalant wave of her hand and then with the other hand brushed a lustrous Lauren Bacall wave out of her eyes. The suit did flatter her new figure, and she'd sensibly bought three of them, identical, so she'd always look fresh and smart but not like she owned an extravagantly huge wardrobe.

His grin was unstoppable. “Let me guess. There's two of you now, the motherly one back in Tuxedo and the fancy glamor-puss here.”

For someone who'd never really had a platonic friend, though, Tom had become the closest thing to it. Secretly, Claire was glad he noticed the effort she had put into her appearance.

“Is Harrison in yet?” She pulled off her brand-new kid gloves that matched her suit.

“Nope. Left for London with Averell Harriman this morning. I'd say, ten days.”

Claire suddenly felt let down. Harrison could have told her, she thought. She was supposed to have attended a dinner meeting with him this evening. The frown on her face echoed the down-stitched darts on her jacket. She'd assumed that with her new higher-security clearance she could share everything with Harrison. Claire was thinking so hard she didn't even hear Tom.

“I said, there's a new batch of Harry letters here. Came with the morning drop.”

Claire brightened a little and took the packet. One of the perks of being politically connected was that things came to you quickly that others had to wait for. But Harry's letters had become so much the same of late; she held the stack unopened in her hand for a moment, as if weighing them for the postage. She didn't want to be pulled into Harry's war, with its injuries and bloody backdrops, just yet. Not when they were in Washington fighting so hard on their own front. Not when she needed him here at home to fight for her and her baby.

Because of delays with military mail, his letters were full of news she'd already known about for weeks. On the other hand, he somehow always had Ophelia's nursery news even before Claire could cheerfully put it down on paper herself. She sighed. She also didn't want to feel the pressure of his poemlike dreams neatly scribbled across the pages in his Ivy League penmanship. Dreams that featured Harry, Sara, and Claire, unrealistically perfect in their red brick house connected by a passageway to Ophelia's. She hadn't realized how attached Harry was to his mother.

Harry was still writing to Claire like she was the little girl back home when in only fifteen months’ time she had developed into a woman. Now she was a mother and a trusted intelligence aide with White House security clearance, as well as possessing a permanent place card at the best dinners in town.

“What, no tearing through your husband's sweet nothings?”

“Look, any more wisecracks and I'm going to turn you in to your friendly draft board and tell them there's nothing wrong with your eyesight. In fact, I shall recommend that they send you straight to the front so you don't have to strain your baby blues looking for the enemy.” She batted her own eyes at him as she put the letters into her pocketbook, snapping the clasp shut. She'd read them later. There was real work to do now.

“Where's the Chrysler folder? Isn't Knudson scheduled for today?” she snapped at him. Chrysler and the rest of America's automotive giants were high on Harrison's patriots list. King Bees was how she and Harrison referred to them. The industry that had once built four million cars a year was now building three-fourths of the nation's aircraft engines, one-half of all its tanks, and one-third of all machine guns.