The Chameleon

by Sugar Rautbord

  “Shush, Slim. Cyrus has been dead a decade.” Violet nervously carried her daughter's dark sheath over to the dressing table, where Claire, still in her slip, was powdering her nose far too slowly for a renowned hostess whose guests were already assembling downstairs.

  “Let's help get her ready.”

  Once again Claire was back at the 28 Shop, getting dressed for Cilla Pettibone's deb party. With one pleasant addition: her daughter.

  “Don't rush her. I don't want Mother to look harried.” Sara poked her unruly red curls out of the closet. Both older women picked up their heads at the word “Mother.” Slim even knocked Violet with a feather-light elbow to her ribs.

  “Careful, dear. Evidently some unpleasant business has resolved itself overnight,” Violet whispered.

  “Indeed!” Slim pronounced.

  “I think you should descend the stairs like a swan, head up, after everyone's already gathered, and just make your announcement at the bottom of the landing,” Sara told her mother.

  “What announcement?” Violet and Slim's voices chimed in.

  “Does Grant know about this announcement?” Violet was the voice of caution.

  “No, it's really for him. Something Mother and I cooked up.”

  “I don't know if that's how you keep a husband happy. With an announcement.”

  “I think it's how you keep this one.” Claire spoke through pinched lips as she applied her bright pink lipstick.

  “Here, Mother. Try the aquamarine sheath. It's more festive.”

  “All right, dear.” The smile on Claire's partially painted lips made Violet and Slim breathe a collective sigh of relief. If Claire was this happy, they would be happy too. If she was making announcements on a husbandless happy birthday, she must have her reasons.

  “Oh, my God!” Slim shouted from her seat by the window. “It's Jackie O.! She's arriving with Senator Kennedy. How did you get Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis to come?”

  “Pam Harriman arranged it. Mother wanted someone really interesting to put on Grant's right.”

  “I think she hit the jackpot,” Slim crowed.

  “You sure it isn't Grant's birthday?” Claire winked. “Has Grant arrived yet, Sara?” She slipped on the shoulder straps of her gown with the dramatic train that Sara had selected, a relic from the Hollywood days. She had worn it to the Oscars.

  “About five minutes ago.” Sara was getting minute-by-minute updates from the security person on the foyer phone.

  “Alone?”

  “No. He arrived with Charity Foxley and her ex-husband.”

  “How civilized.” Claire was pleased the six-year-old dress still fit “Figure's still good?” She lifted her eyes expectantly.

  Three heads bobbed enthusiastically.

  “I think I'm a nervous wreck. I'm too old for these dress-up parties.” Violet was smoothing the back of Claire's satin train and mopping her brow with a scarf.

  “Nonsense. Don't be an old hen. This is fun. Just like old times.” Slim brought up the slack.

  “Did you rearrange the place cards?”

  “Yep. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis is on Grant's right. Coretta Scott King is across the table and Betty Ford is on his left. I put ol’ Charity at the end with her ex.”

  “Good girl.”

  “The first lady Mrs. Ford?” Violet asked. “Am I missing something here?” She had been trying to follow the exchange between her daughter and granddaughter. “I thought you were the Democratic congressperson.”

  “I am. Incidentally, I've decided to run for me Senate. Sara's brainstorm. But Grant runs a bipartisan newspaper, so Sara and I padded the guest list yesterday and today to make it more interesting for him. Didn't we, dear?”

  “You bet.”

  “Maybe, if he's good, we'll even give him the scoop on my candidacy.”

  “Oh, Claire, you look beautiful.” There were tears of joy in Violet's lovely eyes—for a variety of reasons. But mainly because Claire and her daughter seemed to have pulled open the heavy curtain between them.

  “Go on, you dears. I'll be down in a second.” Claire's voice was exquisitely calm.

  “Oh, I love it It's like we're the bridesmaids.” Slim gaily patted her black-and-gray bob, her sheared bangs worn long to cover any forehead wrinkles. “This is so much fun. It's like flying in the eye of a hurricane!”

  “Sara, will you come with me?” Claire asked over her shoulder on the threshold of the bedroom door, one bare arm stretched behind her to hold her daughter's hand.

  “No. It's your spotlight.” Sara clasped a triple-stranded pearl bracelet with a narrow diamond clasp around her mother's wrist. And she added to her mother's ensemble a pair of diamond-and-turquoise earrings borrowed from Pam.

  “Don't you think it's too much?” A little upside-down V furrowed its way onto Claire's brow.

  “Not for a lady who has to wow them. And him. Go for greatness.” She gave her mother's narrow wrist a little squeeze.

  “Thank you, dear. Whatever happens tonight, it's already the best birthday I've ever had.”

  “Hurry.” Sara shooed her out. “I'm right behind you.”

  Spotting Claire at the top of the stairs, Peter Duchin lifted his fingers from the piano keys and signaled his band to pause and then begin anew. A twelve-piece orchestra, including one trombone, rolled out a musical fanfare. And Claire began her studied descent, shoulders back, head high, as she glided down the curved staircase that rose thirty feet in to the incongruous hodgepodge of a house that Claire had fallen in love with.

  Every eye lifted as the crowd below strained to get a look at Claire without her traditional day-to-dinner suit. And jewelry. There was a sense of anticipation swelling from the cocktail party that had already been going on for an hour without the legendary hostess. An audible sigh of approval rose as they appraised the elegantly transformed Claire. She could feel everyone's eyes riveted upon her.

  She sized up the crowd and assessed the room like the astute politician she had become and decided to wait until after dinner for her speech. A sideways glance at Grant from the corner of her eye told her savvy antennas to wait until he'd drunk a glass of champagne to her health and been thoroughly Jackie O'd and Betty Ford-ized at dinner.

  She moved gracefully through her guest list of the mighty like a barn dancer swinging around the room, handing off one partner even as she do-si-doed to the next. She avoided Grant on purpose, for Charity was boldly annexed to his sleeve. She'd put distance between them at dinner, too. At the one rectangular table set under the green-and-white tent erected behind the house for dinner, she'd put herself at one head, separated by twenty-two boldfaced names from his seat at the opposite end.

  The party was lavish by Washington standards. The tent was heated, the dinner catered by the Jockey Club, whose waiters were attired in scarlet riding coats. And as a last-minute homage to her husband, the side panels of the tent's canvas interior had been hung with U.S. Week's magazine covers, a project that had taken three Washington Herald staffers and Anita Lace all afternoon to assemble. With the brightly burning silver candelabras, the boxwood dotted with silver and white roses hand-tied to the hedge's green branches ringing the dance floor, and long, skirted white tablecloths trimmed with holly leaves and berries, the tented space was visibly exciting. But the biggest decorative coup of all was draping the room with Washington and New York A-list celebrities and then topping it with Jackie O., the beguiling mystery guest who had hardly set a foot in Washington since she had departed years before under the glare of a thousand flashbulbs, fleeing doe-like from unrelenting attention with her two young children. The picture of the young Jackie in her pink suit stained by her husband's blood was etched on the collective memory of everyone in the room—pink raspberries. Claire wondered at how much grief this woman had had to suffer. She had done it privately and with dignity. Now here she was, the most photographed woman in history, charmingly whispering into Grant's ear, the candlelight illuminating the irises of her dark eyes
, her animated face glowing. The grin on Grant's face grew wider as her voice, a breathless hush of excitement, parlayed international items of gossip and news in an unhurried roll. She had come on the arm of her brother-in-law Senator Edward Kennedy, with whom Claire had conferred only this morning. Claire spoke to all the extra invitees she had added, starting early the day before. As quickly and gaily as Sara, Anita, and Pam could dial their unlisted numbers, Claire had corraled them in. A Herculean effort, all to rearouse Grant's interest. It had been a surprise coup that Jackie was visiting in Middleburg on a private hunt weekend with Polly Sully, her millionaire husband left behind.

  Practically all the other A-listers shone brighter and elevated their conversations a notch up in the presence of Jackie, America's eternal first lady. The current first lady was almost giddy to be in her company and, emboldened by good wine and champagne, managed to glimmer herself. The rest of the awed guests were impressed with themselves simply for being invited.

  “Wall-to-wall legends.” The news editor of the New York Times practically panted.

  But Grant was the most intrigued of all. He had to hand it to his clever wife. She was one in a billion. At one meal she had fed him a loquacious Jackie as well as direct access to the president. Claire noticed with some satisfaction that he hadn't given a glance to a peevish Charity Foxley all through dinner. The hostess took the unhappy expression on this guest's face as a good indicator of how her party was going.

  “When did Sara, you, and Claire cook all this up? If Patty Hearst jumps out of the birthday cake I'll just collapse,” Slim prattled to Anita from her front-row seat at their round table adjoining Claire's, and Coretta's, and Jackie's, and Betty's, and Grant's, and Charity's, and the Hammans’, and the Kennedys’, and Kay Graham's as well.

  “I worked like a bat outta hell to change every damn detail that had been set in stone. My feet are hurting like crazy. Even my bunions are exhausted.” The two women spoke behind a thick cover of unfiltered cigarette smoke.

  “Damned if this ground isn't levitating with all the power sitting on it.” Slim's excitement at being at this social altitude was unbridled.

  “Yeah, it'll fertilize the crops.” Mouth opened, Anita chewed and spoke at the same rime.

  At the other table, flanking Claire's back so she could listen to their merry prattle, were her other prized guests, cutting hungrily into their glazed slices of Virginia honey-baked ham and butterscotched sweet potatoes. Grand Claire's grandchildren were here, colorfully dressed in trust-fund hippie style, and so were Lorenza, her husband, and their two children, who were dressed like foreign princes in velvet suits, along with some of the youngsters from the Virginia chapter of Eleanor House.

  “So is it doing the trick? Does Grant look impressed?” Slim craned her neck to see. Grant was engrossed by the mesmerizing Jackie, who was complimenting him on a recent editorial, calling it “litra-cheur,” stretching out the word in her heavy Bouvier accent. The ladies watched as he melted into putty. With every breathy whisper she uttered, he fell further under Jackie's spell. As the table's candlelight shone on her bare shoulders and reflected off the gold cuffs worn at her wrists, Grant too felt fired by her flame. Occasionally he turned to the present first lady, only to return as quickly as he could to the living legend beguiling him with shared secrets.

  “Really, I don't see why Claire wants to keep the priapic fool around. She's turning fifty and he's the one having a midlife crisis,” Slim snapped.

  “Oh, Claire's doing it for us. She always wanted us to have a man in our lives since she was a small girl.” Violet sighed.

  “Frankly, if you ask me, her only romance is a secret one—”

  Slim was unceremoniously silenced by Anita Lace, former ace reporter, always wary that another paper's spy might be planted at a nearby table. In this age of wiretapping and peeping-Tom pranksters, Anita was convinced the day would come when no secrets would be safe in Washington.

  “We all suspect the same secret. Let's keep it that way—a suspicion.” She peeked under the tablecloth to make sure. “I was called at six this morning to hightail it over here to learn I'm running her senatorial campaign! Honestly, you'd think we women could learn to plan our lives better. A fine woman like Claire still rotating her life around a man's. When will the Claires of the world realize they can address the issues of the day without a lump of testosterone in their beds? Who needs ‘em?”

  “But look at her!” Violet said proudly. “She's so happy.”

  Anita snorted and dipped a stumpy finger in the centerpiece, one of the frosted gingerbread houses designed in the shape of HurryUp that were placed in the center of each table.

  “It's delicious,” Anita croaked.

  “Isn't it all?” Sum crowed back.

  When she felt the timing was right and after Senator Kennedy, as prearranged, had toasted the “life of his Party, the Democratic one,” Claire stood. Averell Harriman poured her champagne flute full as she in turn toasted the illustrious persons in the room, singling out her mother and her daughter.

  “I want to thank my generous husband for giving me the best gift of all. No, it's not an editorial endorsement.” She waited until her happy guests stopped laughing. “It's this house. HurryUp.” She beamed proudly.

  “I want to thank my husband for giving me the most precious gift any woman can have”—only Sara could see that she was nervously pulling on her pearl bracelet—“a place to hang her hat.”

  She lifted her eyes to meet his. “To my husband. And my home. HurryUp.” She raised her glass to Grant and let the guests’ gushes fill the tent, toasting Grant's generosity. He was sitting undeniably frozen, even as a big-time lawyer like Edward Bennett Williams, counsel to presidents, legal defender of Jimmy Hoffa and Mafia godfather Frank Costello, and who had just won an acquittal for Texas governor John Connally, nodded his lawyerly head. Williams's witnessing of the bargain without vocal objection from Grant was as good as a signed deed in Claire's mind.

  She held her breath, wondering to herself what Grant would do even as she continued with her after-dinner toasts.

  Inebriated not by the medley of fine California Sonoma wines served at dinner but by the rich-bodied presence of his two dinner companions, Grant was well mellowed. If only, the Washington hostess in Claire mused to herself as she watched him, more people understood the power of the place card. She cleared her throat as Grant stood to his full height of over six feet. Would he toast her and take the house back? In front of all these people?

  Sensing nervousness on the part of her normally composed mother, Sara patted Billy on the behind and shooed him up to stand beside his grandmother.

  “Go to Grand Claire, Billy. Go on!”

  Claire showered him with hugs, to the delight of her guests, and then lifted him up in her arms. Anita, on her feet and right behind her, quickly removed the champagne glass from Claire's hand in case Newsview and the New York Times took advantage of this photo opportunity. No sense seeing the candidate from California with a drink in her hand, even if it was made from grapes from her own state.

  The beautiful woman with the high cheekbones, flawless complexion, and lithe figure didn't resemble an ordinary grandmother any more man the prim Pam Harriman looked like one of the great courtesans of history or Jackie O. with her feathery voice and wide saucer eyes brought to mind a public relations wizard who knew better than Madison Avenue how to guard a legend and keep it alive. Then Claire's gaze fell upon the unimposing woman who had saved her in person and time and time again with her written words, Anne Morrow Lindbergh. She may have faded from the public eye, but Claire would never forget the way her heroine's words helped her to live through her grief over Six.

  What did these women all have in common? Why were they all sisters to Claire under the skin? The answer would be written in their biographies. These were women, like it or not, who had the boldness to reinvent themselves, time and time again, in order to survive, protecting themselves and their children. Th
ey had done it by shedding an old life to pick up a new one when the promise of the old had been shattered.

  Claire scanned the tent full of so many faces that mattered to her and others to whom she mattered not at all. She spoke slowly, Billy in her arms, Anita's mechanically prepped microphone at her freshly lipsticked mouth.

  “Being half a century old is very heady stuff, let me tell you. It makes you reflect on where you have been and, furthermore, where you are going. I am a very blessed woman. I have family, my mother, my auntie, my two generations of children.” Her broad smile was directed at Sara. “And a talented husband who puts up with me.

  “I have decided the Senate is a good forum from which I can be an effective thorn in the side of people who feel that issues pertaining to children and sexism and racism matter less than other issues. I see none bigger. When as a young bride I sat at the feet of Eleanor Roosevelt, I would listen to her tell us that if we were all equally fighting World War Two for peace in the world, we had better make sure we had jobs and equality at home. Being a woman and a new homeowner”—Claire's eyes twinkled—“I think I will spend a few more years tidying up some of the mess in our House on the Hill. Grant, I hope I have your support.” She reached out her arm. But how was he going to react?

  At the other end of the table, Jackie applauded with her large hands and pointed them in Grant's direction. Her full lips were a breath away from Grant's earlobe as she stood to salute Claire. “I think that's your cue, Grant.” When she said his name, it sounded like an enchantress's invitation. Her voice was accompanied by the tinkling sound of her wind-chime earrings. “Nothing makes a strong man look even more important than when he is helping a good woman, Graaant. Incidentally, I'd like to be a quiet helper in Claire's campaign. Would that be all right?” Jackie's beguiling magic, the Sonoma wine, and the womanly beauty radiating from Claire tonight suddenly made Charity Foxley a forgotten hiccup.