The Chameleon (52 page)

Lefty looked up from Sullivan. “You got my attention. If you could take the passion you feel and put it on the screen, you'd have something. And you
were
there …” He ran his tongue over his lower lip. “Go for it. Call up Eleanor and negotiate the film rights. Go for greatness.” His eyes shot her an adrenaline hit through his windowpane lenses.

“Do you think I could? Could
I
rescue
her
reputation?” For a moment Claire wondered if someday someone would do the same for her. She asked Lefty her own sixty-four-thousand-dollar question. “Lefty, will this town take me seriously? Eleanor Roosevelt as remembered by me? People may not even want to work with Claire Harrison Lefkowitz.” A blush colored her high cheeks.

“Well, it won't be easy. But this town loves a comeback. It won't be the first time somebody came to town and changed their reputation. Norma Jean was just a pretty girl with a lot of problems, but Marilyn Monroe's a big star. You won't know unless you try. But give the audience a break, Claire, and bring Max Factor into the movie. I know she's a hell of a dame, but Mrs. Roosevelt could use a little mascara.” Lefty toasted her with his buttermilk.

Truth be known, Claire liked him even better on their first anniversary than on their wedding day. She gazed fondly at the cross-hatched lines etched on the road map that was his face, as if a chicken had run across it in a panic. She wondered why she hadn't noticed how handsome he was before now.

Certainly, he was pint-sized. But then again, so were most of the leading Hollywood players. Claire towered over the likes of a petite Liz Taylor, and even the voluptuous Marilyn Monroe, who liked to kick around without her shoes, came up only to Claire's clavicle. Claire often wore Capezio flats to client dinners once she realized that she was like a skyscraper over Spencer Tracy, young Paul Newman, and Eddie Fisher in the buffet line.

Eleanor, on the other hand, was a towering figure, larger than life, and Claire knew it wouldn't be a simple task to bring her to the big screen. Or to do her justice. The project was ambitious, but in her new California can-do environment, and with Lefty's encouragement, so was Claire.

She assembled a list of all of the people she would need to contact: Anna; wounded soldiers whom Eleanor had visited in the hospitals; Mary McLeod Bethune, the director of NYA's Division of Negro Affairs; Secretary of State Stimson; and all the grandchildren. She didn't dare contact Harrison. As she reviewed the old newsreels, though, she discovered that now she had an opportunity to play the black-and-white movies costarring the man she loved. She hadn't seen him in two years, but when she caught her first glimpse of Harrison on the news footage, her pulse raced as if it had been only yesterday. She felt a secret thrill each time she saw him climb the steps of the
Sacred Cow
to fly away with Franklin, or trim the sails with Eleanor at Campobello, his shirt open at his tanned throat.

Violet, however, had reservations. There was a note of concern in her voice as she expressed her doubts about the Eleanor project to her daughter.

“You can't spend all day sitting in a dark projection room. You already have two full-time jobs.”

Claire was fidgety. Her fingers tapped on the turquoise poolside phone as she waited for a potential documentary director to call back.

“You are helping run your husband's agency, and doing a fine job, dear.” Violet paused, then plunged ahead. “And then there is your real job. Raising your child.”

Claire turned to look at her daughter. Sara was standing poised on the edge of the diving board. The lanky fifteen-year-old kept racing out on the board and then back as if she couldn't decide whether or not to jump. Sara hung her toes over the edge, swinging her skinny arms out over her head, and then abruptly caught herself before pacing back again. The springboard bounced over and over. It made Claire nervous. But she had been tense ever since her mother and Sara arrived in L.A. for Easter break.

“Sara, come over here and I'll put some lotion on you. You're getting too dark!” Claire called through the old-fashioned megaphone Lefty had bought for her.
PRODUCER
was painted on it in big bold letters.

Sara ignored her mother.

Claire turned to Violet. “Honestly, Mother, I don't know what to do. She never listens to me. Look at her skin. She's as dark as the yardman!”

Violet cleared her throat as she continued pulling the thread through her needlepoint. “Sara's suntan is the least of your worries. She's on the edge, you know, and I don't mean of the diving board.”

Both women turned to look as the young girl finally sprang from the board and expertly jackknifed into the water, setting off a series of rippling circles in the cold, smooth surface.

“Claire, your daughter needs you.”

Without seeing, Claire could tell that her mother's eyes were leveled directly at her own.

“But they've only let me see her a few times this year.”

“Look at her. She's wound up as tight as a mummy. Each time one of her wounds has started to open and ooze, Ophelia has just slapped on another bandage and told her people of their class don't display emotion. I fear that one day soon it will all be too much to hold inside and she'll just unravel.”

“But what can I do if they don't let me near her? I can't mother her by mail!” The word brought back memories of her own childhood and a father who existed only in a handful of postcards. “It practically takes an act of Congress just to arrange these little visits.”

“I know you do your best, and I know you had to sign away your rights in Rome. But with you out here in make-believe land, as nice as it is, dear”—Violet coaxed all the honey she could into her worried voice—“and Sara living in Wuthering Heights”—Violet had adopted Sara's nickname for Charlotte Hall—“she's not getting the old-fashioned graham-cracker-and-milk kind of parental love and stability she craves.”

A flood of guilt squeezed Claire's gut. “Ever since Six died—”

Violet held up her hand. “Sara's the only one who truly needs you now. We just have to arrange it so Sara insists on visiting you. Lefty's a good man. He'll share you with your daughter.”

Claire nodded. One of the main reasons she had married Lefty was so she could bring Sara back into her life. She tried to imagine luring her daughter the way she had reeled in recalcitrant generals to the table in the war years or coaxed skittish actors to the Lefkowitz Talent Agency.

“Lefty and I filed for custody the day after we married. It's impossible to fight Ophelia Harrison, even in the California courts. Mother, help me. If Sara doesn't conform to Ophelia's ways, she'll banish her to some mental institution. And the stupid laws are on her side. I knew I wouldn't have a chance without a husband, but now …” Her voice trailed off.

It was ironic, she reflected, that her untraditional, cash-poor family had raised her beautifully without the benefit of husbands or a father. They had given her values, self-confidence, and unconditional love—all the things Claire was failing to provide for her daughter. Even with the head start of high social position and untold wealth.

“Is it my fault, Mother? Did I do this to her?” Claire's eyes glistened with real tears. “I abandoned her, didn't I?”

“No, dear. Sara's the child you were never allowed to mother. Ophelia stole those early years. Now you must do everything you can to rescue her.” Violet's warning was spoken in kindness.

“But how?”

“Sara loves you, Claire. It's just buried in all the confusion. What's happened to Sara has happened. If she is going to survive what's already fallen across her path, it will depend on her own strong will and her support team. Us.”

Sara climbed out of the pool, shaking herself like a rude Irish setter, sprays of water beads flying off her wet red hair.

Claire brightened. Finally, the guilt was being replaced with a plan. Dodging the water spout, she stood to hold out a dry beach towel for Sara. She'd been world famous for catering to the desires of all sorts of difficult folks, persuading people who wouldn't even speak to one another to dine together at her table; surely she could convince her daughter to accept an invitation to lunch. To some, an egg-salad sandwich with the crusts cut off was a dull prospect, but for Sara it was a comfort food that brought back the best of times. Only Claire would serve it up in a place where they could begin to make new memories.

Claire pitched the idea to Sara as enthusiastically as she had proposed her Eleanor film to the studio. “Why don't we all go out for egg salad?” Honey to catch the bear, live bait to lure the sailfish, and a sandwich to reel Sara back in. “Three generations at the Brown Derby could be fun.”

“Sounds like purgatory to me. A bunch of old farts and has-beens talking about their old movies and eating dead animals, medium rare.” Sara groaned. “I'd puke.”

“Now, now, we're talking about eating lunch, not spoiling everyone's appetite.” Violet managed a laugh and a stern look at the same time.

“Mine's already spoiled. I'm going into the kitchen to ‘lunch’ with Lorenza. Don't worry, I won't play with any sharp knives. That was what you two were talking about, wasn't it? Gram, look at my tan lines.” She snapped her bathing-suit straps to show her grandmother.

“I'll be so black they won't let me in the Tuxedo Club.” When Sara smiled, which was rarely, she displayed a prominent overbite, a physical characteristic she shared with Ophelia.

Claire sighed. MGM was an easier sell than this subversive fifteen-year-old. She'd just have to try harder, matching each of Sara's insults with a forgiving hug. As Claire watched her sullen daughter enter the house through a sliding glass door, she wondered to herself if she would have loved her flesh-and-blood offshoot better if she resembled Harrison and not her paternal grandmother.

When Harrison's invitation for lunch arrived, Claire assumed it must be about Sara. Or related to the documentary. Probably in response to the dozens of letters she had sent out in request for home movies of the Roosevelt White House years. As connected as Harrison was, she was sure he'd heard about the project.

She immediately recognized the handwriting on his imposing stationery with a World Bank address, and for a moment before opening it she felt as giddy as a schoolgirl finally receiving a note from the football captain she'd had a secret crush on for years. His letter curtly informed her that he'd be stopping off in Los Angeles for two days before his aid mission left for Hong Kong, and asked that if the date coincided with her calendar she might join him for lunch at the Bel Air at 12:30 on the fifteenth of the month. And then came the little phrase that stirred her heart:
No reply necessary.

As the date approached, Claire found herself getting leaden fingers while she practiced Lefty's favorite show tunes at the piano and unable to concentrate while she read over new properties for her clients. She figured if she went to a psychoanalyst like everyone else in town, or even to an advice-giving hairdresser instead of doing up her own French roll, they would have advised her to attend this reunion and just get it out of her system. After all, she had been contentedly married for over a year.

The morning of the lunch she felt like a fourteen-year-old. Lorenza couldn't understand why her lady had to try on everything in her closet just to meet a former father-in-law. Hats, gloves, sweaters, even some of the Dior suits that hadn't seen the light of day for ages were strewn around her dressing area like when one of those Hollywood wives got a divorce and held a luxury garage sale. The final choice was pretty boring, according to Lorenza's point of view: feet first, a pair of open-toed pumps; a slim white linen skirt with a subtle kick-flair; and a plain-necked cashmere sweater set.

Lorenza shook her head in the mirror behind Claire. “The signóra looks like she was just in a stick-up.”

“You think so? I look too naked without any jewelry?” On a scale of one to ten, her nerves were jittering at a twelve.

“
Forse,
the signóre's secretary dresses this much”—she held her forefinger and thumb a good two inches apart—“more exciting.”

“Oh, it's noon already. I haven't got time to change. I'll be late. Harrison hates late.” She had already spent two hours trying to get herself together. While Claire breathlessly ran into her bath to spray a last whiff of vanilla around her shoulders and then hurriedly brush out her hair, pins flying everywhere, Lorenza scurried to her own room and dashed back with her prized pop beads from Woolworth's. She snapped the fake pearls together at the back of Claire's neck, and assured the signóra that now she looked like the lady she was. In her rush, Claire barely noticed the bubble-gum-machine quality of her borrowed jewelry.

She parked her sports car beneath the bell-shaped leaves of a ginkgo tree and, pulling the scarf off her head, she quickly stepped under the Bel Air Hotel canopy and then over the winding pathway past the quaint stucco cottages and white-picketed rosebeds, as casually as she could.

Harrison was already seated. He stood when he saw her enter the restaurant and waited for her to walk over to their table. She was struck by how out of place he looked out here in Southern California, with his formal manners and aristocratic bearing. It was almost as if he had stepped off the set of a period film, a graying Gregory Peck immaculately tailored for his role as the distinguished ambassador in a war movie.

It had been almost two years since she'd seen him. And so many ruined lives ago. She was so apprehensive she was trembling, but she lifted her head and tried to disguise it. She might have pulled it off, too, if he hadn't taken her hand. Suddenly, every day, every hour away from him, the man she was destined to love, lifted away like an early-morning L.A. fog. The last time they'd been together, he had asked her to run away with him. He held her hand in both of his for a long moment and she left it there, confused and lost in remembrance, before she took her chair.

Their table for three was placed at the end of the room, far enough away from the others for privacy and overlooking a deep bay window. The empty chair seemed to symbolize that someone was missing. Their son. Claire bit her lip, not acting at all.