The Chameleon (28 page)

So the summons calling her back to Tuxedo, when it came, was in the form of a letter. Harry was merely the process server carrying Ophelia's subpoena.

Iwo Jima Island
March, 1945

Claire,

Good news from the South Pacific. The temperature is a balmy 77 and the seas turquoise, perfect weather for capturing an island with coconuts in the palm trees and grass huts camouflaging the Nips’ big guns. In our new B-29 we were able to shoot out most of the Japs’ firepower from the air so that our landing forces could capture the island just by cruising up to the shore in their PT boats, after Buzzy, Flip and I cleaned up the beaches for them, of course. I have to admit capturing Iwo got a bit messy. These guys never give up. After the battle only 200 soldiers out of 21,000 were still alive and rather than surrender like good sports, they committed hara-kiri by jumping feetfirst into the flaming Suribachi volcano. Talk about sore losers.

But never mind, my darling, this island with its funny name makes me think of one of those drinks from Trader Vic's. Toast me from Chicago with a Mai-Tai, will you? You can celebrate the fact I have just made Lieutenant Commander.

And then the newly promoted officer issued his first command.

Clairest, Mother is deeply concerned that you not keep Sara away from her routine and real home for too long. I certainly can understand your homesickness—I feel it so often—but Mother is right about this. She's afraid the Aunties will spoil her and undermine Mother's efforts in bringing Sara up the Harrison way. So be my good girl. Treat yourself to a shopping spree and head back to Tuxedo. On the next train. That's an order. Don't go AWOL, otherwise Mother and I will send out the marines! Let's keep it in the navy.

Love from Lt. Commander,
Harry (Tux) Harrison

A stunned Claire didn't know whether she should feel like a prisoner of war or a double agent. She rose, wadded up his letter, and threw it in the lobby fountain where other people made their wishes.

While Claire had gone home to her mother, Harrison had exiled himself to London. But there he was forced to take stock of his personal feelings, something he had never been required to do before in his self-assured, on-track life. Ever since that night when he had broken the rules and succumbed to a wilder call, he had wandered aimlessly, sleep-walking through his work.

As rich as he was, he had endured an impoverished emotional life for years. Now tasting true passionate love, he was seized by the need to be with her again. Only guilt had kept him away; as much as he wanted Claire, he had to remember that she belonged to his son. But in spite of being a father, he was also a man, and all the elements of her unavailability made her that much more enticing.

He had been in shock when he boarded the special plane back to Washington within an hour of Roosevelt's death. But once in the air he used his first unscheduled hours in ages to think. High above the real world, his mind floated back to the one lovely thing in his life, Claire. This tall and willowy slip of a girl had taken possession of his heart with an iron grasp. Claire had an uncanny ability to follow his intellect and comprehend his every thought, and an eagerness to please him. All of it thrilled him. Most of the world considered him an important man, but only Claire had seemed able to make him really
feel
important. He anguished over whether or when to see her and what he would say. And then Ophelia sent her like a test of mind over heart to greet him.

His spirits lifted instantly when he saw her standing off to the side hatless, her hair blowing in the spring wind as she hesitantly lifted her arm for him to find her. The invisible grip she held on him immediately tightened. The fact that she would stay at a different hotel was the practical decision, one he would have made. She had, as always, anticipated his thinking. Stealing shy glances, barely lifting their eyes from the sidewalk, they began to make their way toward the car.

“You're looking well,” he said, searching for ground at sea level. He had to get out of the clouds. If he were another kind of man, he would have said “beautiful,” but Claire, who understood the subtle shadings of his vocabulary—as well as his intent—merely smiled. She instinctively laid her arm across his as they walked, their heads bowed toward each other, talking softly. Finally, she slipped her arm through his in the most natural way.

There would be a lot of busy hours ahead. The business side of Harrison took over as he outlined the assistance Eleanor would certainly be needing, preparing for the state funeral in Washington and the private burial at Hyde Park, as well as packing up twelve years of personal possessions from the White House—daunting tasks. Harry Truman, the new president—the name tripped over his lips—would undoubtedly be relying on Harrison's experience and would want them all to stay on. With the end of the war in Europe in sight, this was no time to desert his country. The business side of Claire nodded her agreement. If he stayed, so would she. They would be colleagues again. It was a safe zone, familiar and tested; and who better to help him? She fit his mold so well because he had poured it himself.

But as he lifted Claire's elbow to help her into the car, both of their memories returned to the last time they had ridden together and to the hours that followed their dawn encounter at the Willard.

She had moved into his arms with a push and pull that betrayed her guilt and anxiety, the luminous morning making it all so much more forbidden. But after the touches, caresses, and kisses, they both felt that nothing so good could be wrong. Then she ceased thinking as he touched her again, this time running his fingers through her hair, which was unruly after her restless night. He piled a mass of it on her head, taking his time to examine the planes of her delicately chiseled face, letting the heavy hair fall slowly, strand by strand, to her shoulders. She watched him, mesmerized, as he lifted her chin with a finger and then brought both hands down to trace the outline of her body from her shoulders to her hips through last night's pale ivory silk dress, his touch setting off an involuntary shiver. There was something erotic about the sight of evening clothes first thing in the morning. He felt unrelenting arousal in wanting what he wasn't supposed to desire.

For a man who had regularly breakfasted on oatmeal and a slice of white toast at the same time every day for thirty years, standing there with her in last night's rumpled clothes, still tasting like last night's smoky oysters and brandy was foreign and intoxicating. The light of the beginning day seemed only to illuminate his desire. It was like exploring dark, silent mysteries in the brightness of noon. The curves and softness he might only have felt in the propriety of darkness were blatantly defined for him. He not only wanted to touch her, but needed to see her, not only for the beauty of her body but to see if there was desire in her own eyes.

She had heard his thoughts that morning and helped him as he unbuttoned the back of her dress. He had dug his fingers into her shoulders and brought his mourn to her clavicle and the soft valley of flesh below. His elegant hands made their way to her perfect breasts, risen since motherhood like white-and-pink-petaled roses that had blossomed overnight.

She arched her back to lift them closer to his mouth. He pulled the rest of her lace slip away and buried his head in the mounds as smooth as pressed satin. He had watched them for months take their new shape beneath his furtive glances in the rooms they shared, trying to deny his growing desire. Now he reached out for her, excited by her faint smells of vanilla and talc mixing with the brandy on his breath, a heady recipe for a man accustomed to dry toast.

His long fingers traveled down her torso, igniting her hesitant passion. Her eyes fluttered shut as he set about touching places on her body he had dreamed about with such inexorable frequency it had almost driven him mad. Slowly he caressed the scar on her leg. Harrison found the jagged dog bite sexy. It emphasized her vulnerability, and it excited him more than anything in his marital memory.

They were friends first, admirers of one another of the highest order, and nonsexual lovers already. Theirs was the love of lingering looks and sighs. After all, the logical man inside him reasoned after they had consummated the physical act, they were relatives only by marriage. And as the electricity of one ignited the other, even that distinction faded. When they were spent, lying in one another's arms, softly breathing each other's breath, lightning bolts didn't strike them, nor had they gone blind. They had just fallen hopelessly in love.

After all these months they were alone again. This time in the cocoon of the gray-felt interior of the Lincoln. There was no mention of that night. And in Claire's mind there never would be, though every night before she went to sleep she listed all the reasons they could never be together, like a mantra.

He leaned toward her, apprehensively. His smooth hand resting on her sleeve, her hands at the wheel. He peeled back the white gloves from her light skin like a delicately operating surgeon and tried to turn her toward him by taking her two hands in his own.

As their fingers touched, an involuntary heat ran through her body.

“Why did you run away from me?” His voice gripped her.

“Because one of us had to.”

“I'm supposed to be the gentleman. I should have been the one to leave.”

“I've made arrangements to be with Anna tonight.” She pulled her cheek away, taking stock. “She needs me.” While her demeanor and words were impersonal, Claire's soft eyes betrayed her feelings as she turned to face him.

Harrison abandoned his patrician aloofness.

“I'll
need you.”

“But, I thought we decided—”

Harrison finished her sentence by closing her mouth with his. It was such an uncharacteristic public display of affection that it startled even him. Perhaps he was going to hell in a handbasket, but the world had gone mad and Franklin was dead. Harrison pulled back, reflecting silently on his friend's life. At least Franklin had been with Lucy at the end. Perhaps Harrison should take a cue from his friend's example and grab what little happiness he could in this life.

“Mother keeps avoiding me. She acts as if I'm responsible—I don't know how to talk to her.” Anna kept her chin down as she hoisted a stack of watercolors of Campobello, then a model sailboat FDR had built himself and forlornly laid them into a cardboard packing box with some of her father's papers. There were tears in her eyes and on her moist cheeks.

Claire knew better than to try to respond, so she silently continued helping Anna pack her famous father's lifetime into crates. There would be enough to fill twenty army trucks before they were done. Eleanor had promised the Trumans she would be out of the White House in a week, and her promise would be kept. Anna was busily helping out with guilt-edged fervor even as mourners were gathering downstairs.

“Oh, Anna dear, she'll come around.” Claire squeezed her friend's hand. Both of them were dressed entirely in black.

“I only did as he asked. Which one was I supposed to please? Mother or Father?” She put her head in her hands for a moment and then pushed the tears away with her palms so as not to stain FDR's letters.

“Grace told me how terrible it was. She was there when Mother found out,” Anna confided, referring to Franklin's private secretary.

Claire nodded her head slowly. The newspapers had reported that a grieving Eleanor had arrived in Warm Springs at midnight. She waited for Anna to continue.

“You know how Mother is, always the emotional rock. She comforted everyone gathered around her and then sent them all off to bed like children who were having a bad dream. Now that she was there she would make everything better.” Claire understood. She had seen that Eleanor a thousand times.

“Finally alone with her cousins Daisy and Laura Delano, Mother sank into a couch and asked them to tell her exactly and precisely how it happened.”

“According to Grace, they all just looked at one another. No one knew what not to say. And then Laura—you know how gossipy she is—blurted it out, claiming that Mother was bound to find out sooner or later. ‘Franklin was sitting for a portrait right over there,’ she said, and actually got up and pointed to the specific spot. ‘And he was looking better than he had in weeks in his double-breasted gray suit and crimson tie. Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd picked out the tie herself. The portrait was going to be his gift to her.’

“Claire, can you imagine Mother hearing this!” Anna ran her fingers through her soft, waved hair and went on reliving the moment.

“Mother clenched her hands and struggled for her next breath. But Laura wasn't letting her up for air just yet. Oh no. She told her, ‘Well, we can be grateful for the fact that the last thing he was looking at was the smiling face of a beautiful woman.’

“With that, Mother rose and walked into the bedroom where Dad's body was laid out on the bed. You know, we kids used to know whenever Mother was feeling really troubled because she would walk unusually erect with her head held high. She's been walking very erect since.”

Claire looked compassionately into the face of her friend who bore her mother's mouth and her father's lustrous eyes. The devoted daughter had just lost one parent and perhaps the respect of the other. What could Claire possibly offer in words? She knew better than to tread on other people's betrayals. All she could do was be a good listener and help Anna through these next hard days.

“Let me get you a cup of tea,” Claire said. “You'll need your strength for this afternoon. I'll be right back.” She shot a look at her wristwatch. The State funeral was at four.

She rushed toward the family kitchen but skidded to a halt when she spotted a rigid Eleanor walking purposefully, her head bent forward several inches ahead of her black stockings and shoes, toward the East Room, where the president's body lay in a closed coffin. Claire backed into the curtained alcove so as not to disturb her. Too late, she realized she was in the red-velveted cubbyhole where the grandchildren spied on State receptions without being seen.