The Chameleon

by Sugar Rautbord

  “Well, that's not exactly how it was, Max.” Violet scolded sweetly. “We didn't want to stir up a fuss, what with your late husband's estate laying claim to your underwear. And I checked with the Art Institute, but one can't just go around selling Italian masterpieces that have been shipped out of the country willy-nilly.”

  “Swapped it to a Sante Fe art dealer for two genuine oil paintings and some cash. That's my Violet.” Max was clearly besotted with his resourceful wife.

  “Yes. Two Georgia O'Keeffe paintings. Blooms in the Desert. One for you, the cow's skull with the white flower, and one for us.” She patted Mr. Zolla's sun-reddened hand. “So you've given us a magnificent wedding gift. Only this fits a lot nicer in our Santa Fe living room than Tiepolo's rather vast Allegory of Love.” She smiled, nudging Claire to smile back.

  Claire couldn't help it. The tears streamed with a mind of their own, over her chiseled cheeks and into the frosting of her mille-feuille. Not until she examined the envelope and found in it enough for a year's rent in something a little more sensible than the Ritz did she realize the extent of her mother's love.

  “Why don't you come out to us for a while? Or back to Chicago?”

  “No, not yet.” She was pleased for her mother but couldn't help feeling resentful that she could find joy in a world without Six. She put a brave smile on her lips. “I'll come back when I'm more on my feet. It will be soon.” Her voice was full of false vibrato when she lifted her champagne flute and with a deep gulp toasted the kindly Mr. and Mrs. Zolla. A gossipy diner turned to observe the notorious Claire Duccio seated behind a leafy palm at a “Siberia” table in the hotel's dining room. Celebrating.

  Eleanor House, Claire Duccio's personal charity for sending European orphans Stateside, is going belly-up. The foundling home and placement center for kiddies with accents was always funded big-time by two noble families that no longer speak to Madame Ex: the rich, rich Duccio clan of Italy and the quietly rich, distinguished, and close-knit Harrison family of Tuxedo Park, Washington, and Newport. They raise ambassadors like other families raise rabbits. Seems the questionable lady who once raised eyebrows for her Communist liberal-leaning tendencies won't foot the foundlings’ bills. Tsk, tsk, Claire. Is it because you were half a foundling yourself? Mrs. Duccio of the long lashes and longer gams has been seen celebrating around Paris while still in widow's weeds. Born in a department store—literally, folks—in Better Dresses and Lingerie, Claire could easily sell one earring and keep Eleanor House alive.

  Léonide was swinging Anita's column in a wide port de bras, as befitted a dancer from the Ballets Russes.

  “Of course Anita's column is accompanied by da picture of you in about two centimeters of rubies and emeralds like da czarina's. What did become of dat necklace?”

  “I'm going to sell the damn cross. And keep Eleanor House going.” Infuriated by the columnist's words, Claire was stalking the room like a cornered tigress. The orphans’ placement center she had founded had grown into an important institution that had found homes for more than six thousand children. It was equipped with a legal department and a health center, and was a sterling role model for other foundations like it. And if it wasn't exactly a full-time career for Claire, it was her song to the world. If the critics were going to boo her off the stage, she at least had to make sure the music lived on. How dare they make hundreds of children suffer just because she had become notorious! She walked faster, remembering the agreement she had signed with the “help” of Tom. She had only just recently bothered to read the damn document Anything she still retained from the marriage that had a value of over five thousand dollars immediately reverted back to Duccio's estate. It was the “Cross Clause.” No one had been able to find it after Claire had been carted off to jail. Apparently, she had torn it off and flung it on the floor at the dead Duccio. Lorenza, resourceful even in a panic, had kicked the multimillion-dollar relic under Duccio's silk chair and retrieved it when everyone else's attention was on the corpse. For four frightened days and nights, the ladies’ maid had worn it under her uniform, along with a garlic clove to keep the devilishly curious away. Then she gave notice to her new employers, was given a week's salary without a letter of recommendation, and mule-packed herself off to join the beleaguered signóra once she knew where to find her.

  “I'll give it to Eleanor House anonymously. They can be the ones to sell it. Let them think it came from Duccio, and he can get his posthumous honor in hell. And don't think I'm not going to fire off a letter to that lousy Grant character who owns this vicious columnist. Anita Lace, my foot. Arsenic and lace is more like it. And if she tries to dish up dirt on those little two-year-olds, I'll kill her!”

  Léonide put his hands to his ears in horror. “No, no, Claire! Don't ever use dat word! If dey find her with da speargun in her heart, Léonide may be called to testify!”

  Claire ignored him. “How do you suppose Sara feels when she reads trash like this? And how about my orphans? Where will they go? What now? Anita Arsenic Lace is destroying much more than me. If I'm supposed to be a crazy murderer, then let me at Lace and Fenwick Grant!”

  Léonide hoped that Claire was only venting her rage, like a hot-blooded Russian artiste. But with the anger a light started to burn in her dull eyes.

  “Ah, anger. It ees a very good sign. Ees part of da healing.”

  If Claire thought that perhaps another woman might show her the way out of the tunnel, it wasn't going to be Pamela Churchill. The two women had been friends for years, but it was a friendship based on shallow reciprocity and not the depth of a true female bond.

  “Well, why don't you just find some rich man? That's what I would do.” After several telephone calls, Pam had agreed to see her. “Just not in public. Why don't you come up for tea?”

  They were seated on the perfectly proportioned Louis XVI divan, a gift from Baron Elie de Rothschild, in Pam's Paris apartment, which was paid for by Gianni Agnelli. Pam had targeted and chosen her lovers carefully. “And you mustn't go ‘round so mopey. That's how I got Elie. His wife kept grieving for her sister Theresa. Men hate grief.”

  Claire bristled. But she reined in her feelings, for the good of her newly devised plan. She had come to ask the woman who had houseguested months at a time with her at Palazzo Duccio for the loan of her apartment until her own little place was ready in a few weeks.

  “I'll be gone by the time you return from the south of France. You won't even know I was here.”

  “Frankly, darling, it's not that I'm worried about. It's that you've become so infamous, and I have to guard my reputation.”

  Claire laughed aloud. The infamous Pam worried about reputations?

  “But Pam, you always said you were above the bourgeois business of morals.” Hadn't Pam just generously loaned the Bentley to Louise de Vilmorin for a tryst with Orson Welles? And she wasn't a bit perturbed when it had come back with cigar holes in the leather seats. But then again, Louise's social credentials were impeccable.

  “A little adultery isn't the same as a shooting. If you had just winged him, he would have gotten the point and you wouldn't have lost your caché.” Coming from the woman who kept the world's richest husbands keeping her, Pam's rejection bordered on the comical, but as this was just the most minor in a series of grave disappointments, Claire squared her shoulders and put down her teacup. She knew now that any hopes of counting on old friends were as farfetched as a shop girl's daydream.

  Some mornings were better than others. One day she had fight and resolve. Others she could barely climb out of bed. Today was one of the dark days. Gloriously bright and sunny, the sky was like an artist's bright blue canvas before he had introduced the realism of a cloud. It was the worst kind of day for Claire, because it reminded her of all of Six's unrealized days. All morning long she had seen him impishly exiting a revolving door, hurrying around a bend, out of the corner of her eye the way a widow might see her husband standing beside her or someone who has lost his leg feels his missing
limb. Twice today she sensed Six beside her. Was he beckoning her to follow him or encouraging her to stay? She was by herself for the first time in weeks. Lorenza was off on a picnic with her cousin, the sous pastry chef, and his eligible friend, the meat chef. After all, Lorenza hadn't lost her life or misplaced her loved ones. She was very young, only twenty-three. Her life was ahead of her. She shouldn't have to baby-sit Claire.

  At thirty-two, Claire felt she'd seen too much. One child dead, another stolen away. She'd spent the whole day wandering around the city of light and had waited until dusk to take the long solitary walk across the bridge. She stopped to search into the dark water, but the Seine only stared back at her, cold and uninviting, not even throwing back her own reflection. She continued on over the Seine toward the little chapel on the Left Bank where the priest always welcomed her. The fall wind blew and she quickened her step, squaring her shoulders against each heavy gust of wind. The smell of chestnuts in the air, dinner wines being uncorked, different mixtures of hot fish stews and braised meats filled her nostrils. She walked past low houses that afforded her a view of a low-slung moon in the blue sky while daylight still danced around the darker, orange-streaked twilight. She missed Six. She felt more alone than ever as she listened to her solitary footsteps on the cold cobblestones. Claire hesitated in front of the old church, so small that most people missed it as they hurried by. But she was in no hurry. Vesper services were just beginning.

  She lit her candles and walked heavily to her spot, a hard, wobbly bench on the aisle. She always went to the same pew. She recognized the same disheveled man who always hogged the pew in front of her; out of habit she nodded to him and he grunted back.

  She smelled the lady behind her before she turned around. Her sense of smell had been so keen lately. The woman smelled good, like autumns in Maine and warm clothes that had been in the closet all summer and just pulled from their cedarwood storage for their first chilly outing.

  When she finally turned to put a picture with the friendly smells, she had to smile back, as the woman was already smiling at her. She was suntanned and weathered, with tousled hair and bright teeth. Claire knew at once she was an adventurer. She looked more closely as the services began in the candlelit church. Was it Amelia Earhart? Her heroine, who by just a casual contact in the store, taught her independence and inspired her to go places? The flying lady's shining spirit had seen her through two births, both times Claire hallucinating that Amelia was flying her to safety. Maybe she had returned to wing Claire far away, to take her to Six. Claire turned back to the altar but the lady leaned over her shoulder to speak into her ear.

  “Claire, I'd like to talk to you.”

  The words were spoken so calmly that she had to listen. She couldn't be real. Not with a lovely voice like that.

  “Claire. Perhaps I can help you through this.” Claire knew she must be dreaming, but she gave herself up to this gentle hallucination.

  “How? Have you suffered too?”

  “Oh yes.” The soft voice had a twang, but was somehow privileged. “I lost a little boy, too. He was killed. Murdered. But I didn't have him as long as you.”

  Claire turned to face the woman.

  “Do you still miss him?”

  “Every day.”

  “And the pain …”

  “It never goes away. But somehow you shutter it away inside you. Pretty soon it's just your private sorrow and no one comes around to pay condolences. The world likes to remember glory, not loss.”

  The woman tossed her head, her short hair different dusty colors in the candlelight.

  “Stay alive, Claire, and live well. Only you can keep his real memory alive. You mustn't lose his glory.”

  Together they prayed from the little French service book. Prayed for Six and her lost boy. The woman put her hand on Claire's shoulder and she could feel its weight. It struck Claire that no one had ever touched her in a dream before.

  “I sensed you were in trouble. Steer by your own stars, Claire, and take this time to carve out another life for yourself. You can't have the same one back again. It won't be easy, but it will be worthwhile. You'll try, won't you?”

  “I will. How did you know I was in trouble?”

  “I was there. A long time ago. This is the hardest part now. When part of you wants to go on and the other part wants to hang on to the past. And when your face is flashed around the world it makes it hard to find a quiet place to heal.” The woman reached into her pocket. “You can call me sometime. To talk, if you like.”

  “I didn't know angels had telephone numbers.”

  “I'm just a woman who lost a child. I felt you might want another person nearby who's suffered that way too. For a long time I was jealous of women who hadn't known my kind of sorrow. It's easier to swallow compassion from someone who's been there. But it's always a bitter taste.”

  The woman pulled up the hood of her jacket. Evidently the dream was over.

  They shook hands at the church door, not quickly, but holding each other's hand the way women friends do.

  “Good night, Claire.”

  Claire stopped under a street lamp to read the card. If it hadn't been her, if it had been just an ordinary woman, it would have had the same impact on Claire. She would have been equally grateful. But she was touched nonetheless that it was a woman world-famous and yet invisible who had reached out to her. She turned and watched Anne Morrow Lindbergh retreat into the shadows.

  Slim, spruce in a yellow linen suit, gustily threw open the heavy draperies.

  “Up, up! Vite! It's noon, a bit warm, but a lovely day.” Slim was thrilled to be living the bohemian life in Paris. At last. She put her hands on her boyish hips and surveyed the sun poking around the vegetable garden in the courtyard of Hotel Emilon.

  “It's Sunday.” Claire pulled the sheets over her head. She had negotiated an affordable rate on a furnished apartment on the fifth floor of Emilon's hotel, in the less desirable back rooms facing the courtyard. The only decor she had added were her framed photographs and the Georgia O'Keeffe. In her bones she knew her situation was temporary. This little warren of rooms was just a cocoon from which she would reemerge a different Claire.

  “We've got to get you ready.” Slim, not even a little out of breath from the five-story climb up the hotel's ancient stairs, threw open the armoire where Lorenza had neatly hung all the pretty things Claire never wore. “Get up. We're gainfully employed.”

  “As what?” Claire lifted her tousled head from the pillow. For the last two months she had been working at a private antique shop on the Pont du Carousel, for the trade only. So far no former dinner guests of hers had barged in to demand she be fired. But Pamela Churchill, antiques consultant in tow, trooped into the shop weekly. She bought exquisite Louis XVI bureau plats and eighteenth-century doorknobs, letting Claire have the commission as long as she got a kickback on all the pieces Baron de Rothschild purchased for her.

  “We're going to be costume consultants! You're going to show a young actress how to walk like a great lady. It's Hollywood in Paris!” Slim fanned herself with a copy of Vogue, a panoply of fashion whizzing by as the colorful pages whirred into a homemade cartoon. “I'm so excited. They're making a film of Colette's novella Gigi.”

  “The one about the young French girl raised by her auntie to be a courtesan? I think I've seen that movie.” Or lived it, she thought.

  “Oh, it's going to be so romantic. Maurice Chevalier is starring. Did I tell you it's a musical? Put this one on. It's gray. You've been in black for a year.”

  “What are we supposed to do? Are they paying us?” She swung her feet over the side of the rumpled bed. Violet's daughter was ever mindful of her lack of money.

  “Gobs. Sacks of francs.” Slim tossed a slip and two silk stockings over her shoulder like a striptease artist. “Cecil Beaton is designing the sets and costumes. And guess who's directing?”

  “No idea.” Claire pulled a stocking onto one of her long legs. The silk felt
odd against her bare skin. She hadn't bothered to dress since she got off work on Friday. Paris was sweltering. The hottest spring in years had segued into the steamiest summer in decades.

  “Oh, come on. Play along. Guess who's directing Gigi. I'll give you a hint” She pointed to the window, from which Claire could see the spire of Notre Dame.

  “Quasimodo?”

  “Vincente Minnelli.”

  “Uncle Vin?” All the male visitors to the Windermere had been Uncle Something or Other, but the name Vincente Minnelli brought a smile to even Claire's rigid lips. He had been the clever young window display designer at Field's, the one who had made the custom canopy with the fairy-tale trappings for Claire's bed. Now he was directing musicals. And movies.

  “Hurry up. Dépêche. It's the month of Août. The antique shop is closed for three weeks. What else did you have planned for today?”

  “Write Sara letter number seventy-six.”

  “You can do that when we get home. Who knows what will happen? After all, it is Paris.”

  The opening and closing shots of Gigi had been set up in the leafy Bois de Boulogne. The twenty-four hundred acres of city park in the sixteenth Arrondissement, with its shimmering ponds and well-mannered gardens, were abuzz with activity in the midday sun. The mood was fun and fast-paced. There was a festive frenzy around these creative folks making a fairy tale come alive with their zoom lenses and melting extras. And it was a fairy tale Claire could relate to: the story of a poor, fatherless girl who was trained to be a rich man's companion and hostess. Admittedly she knew a thing or two about the process of going from schoolgirl to society doyenne in the space of a week. At any rate, it was good to hear English spoken again, along with a peppering of French, as Claire led the way through hammering and construction in the quiet gray Dior dress that Lorenza had, as Slim put it, “saved from the fire.” They wound their way in the stifling heat through the crew of actors, technicians, and carpenters, and giggled like schoolgirls as costumed cocottes, strapped into their constraining corsets, fainted dead away in the heat, fake trees collapsed, and Maurice Chevalier without his glasses mistook Claire for Her Serene Highness Princess Grace and congratulated her on winning last year's Oscar for The Country Girl. Claire, suddenly feeling very lighthearted, nodded regally to the famous French singer rather than explain. Lorenza joined the game, following behind Claire as if she were her lady-in-waiting. The world of make-believe and Hollywood—even on the Seine—felt very free and inviting to Claire.