The Chameleon (3 page)
“It's a girl!” Miss Slim announced.
“Thank heavens—it's
not
a gallstone,” Miss Wren fanned Violet with her
Collier's.
“Claire Organ!” Slim shouted out the first French name she could think of, thus christening Violet's daughter amidst the pearl necklaces, silk lingerie, high-fashion shoes, and women's fancy custom apparel directly beneath Louis Comfort Tiffany's grand mosaic dome.
“Boil some water!” A customer scurried through the aisles on rubber soles.
“Marshall Field's has just given birth to a baby girl!”
Miss Slim pulled on a long pair of white opera gloves from the fake display arms on the counter and helped pull the child into the commotion on Field's fifth floor. One sales clerk rushed over with a monogrammed motor blanket while Miss Wren seized the scissors used for wrapping gifts.
“I'll cut the cord!” Miss Slim called out as gaily as if she were cutting a holiday ribbon.
Miss Wren took it upon herself to scurry down the back stairs to Four, where she purloined a bassinet, two swaddling blankets, and, just for good measure, a silver rattle. After all, it wasn't every day a Christmas baby was born at Marshall Field's Department Store. As soon as she turned the corner on her return sprint, she saw Miss Slim kneeling on the floor, proudly holding the loveliest, tiniest babe in her bloodied evening gloves and showing her to an astonished Violet Organ.
“Oh joy!” Mrs. Winterbotham clasped her hands together and waddled closer for a better look, the nodding minks wrapped around her neck as a stole still in possession of their eyes and noses. “Imagine being born in this great store and having all of these wonderful layette doodads and imported baby things at one's fingertips.”
The nurse and doctor from First Aid on Seven bundled Violet and baby off the floor and onto a stretcher, carrying the new mother away as if she had the bubonic plague. Mrs. Winterbotham hurried off to telephone her husband, who was the editor of the
Tribune,
to tell him of the wonderful miracle that had happened on the fifth floor of Field's.
“Henry,” his wife puffed into the phone, her voice carrying the news as rapidly as one of her husband's wire services. “A mother and child born practically in the manger display. Why Henry, right in sight of the stuffed barnyard animals and women wearing jewels and garments as splendid as the Three Kings, this child was born! And to a working girl! Henry, a simple working woman whose husband is missing. Well, I don't know. In Egypt I think. Oh Henry, what if it's the Holy Land? Henry, it's a story!” Indeed. It was the
Tribune's
front-page Christmas Eve story, Field's being the
Tribune's
biggest advertiser and all.
In her febrile state, it was Violet Organ's true belief that fate revealed her daughter's destiny that December day. The new mother somehow felt it was auspicious of great things to come that her dimpled daughter was born in the midst of luxury, even if it was only a warehouse of other people's luxuries. After all, it wasn't as if Claire had been born on the eighth floor among the toasters and vacuum cleaners.
It was the article in the
Tribune
that saved Violet from being fired on the eve of Christmas 1923, when the not easily amused store manager, Mr. Trost, treated Violet to her own private inquisition in the bleak maternity ward of Cook County Hospital.
“Where is the father?” he demanded to know.
“Wandering the desert.”
“Missing in action.”
“Dead.” Miss Violet, Miss Slim, and Miss Wren answered in unison.
To the next question they silently established an order of protocol.
“Oh she's married, all right. They had a church wedding eighteen months ago. I was there.” Slim was the authority on romance.
“Legally married.” Wren was practical as she handed over the marriage certificate.
“It's just that he's excavating King Tut's tomb,” Violet apologized.
“He doesn't know about the baby,” Miss Slim added helpfully. She didn't know, so how could he, she thought to herself. How could Violet have been so duplicitous or so dumb? Either way this baby was going to be too much for Violet to handle on her own. Why, Violet could barely fend for herself! They'd just all have to knuckle down, pull up their socks, and pull together to be a family for the poor child.
When the nurse excitedly arrived carrying the freshly powdered infant and a late edition of the paper, Mr. Trost had to admit it would be bad policy to fire the mother of what the
Tribune
heralded as “Field's Littlest Christmas Miracle.” The caption ran under a photo of an expensively swaddled Claire cradled by Violet, wearing a quilted satin bed jacket, her long, wavy tresses flowing past her shoulders like Lillian Gish's. The two salesgirls, whom the article described as the infant's aunties from the Field's family, were gathered around the mother and child bearing gifts from First Floor State Street and Baby Goods on Four. Mr. Trost was later promoted for his good public-relations sense.
Slim read aloud from the paper. “‘The young lady appeared promptly at nine-twenty a.m. Field's newest accessory weighs seven and a half pounds, has sapphire blue eyes, a button nose, and a little figure that could model any fancy infant ensemble.’”
“Five toes and five fingers on each little hand and foot.” Miss Wren beamed broadly.
“‘Customers,’” Slim continued reading the story, “‘actually registered to buy gifts for the new baby from the store's vast collection of antique silver baby cups, christening gowns, warm woolen flannels, and English baby prams.
“‘Marshall Field's special events coordinator, one B. Cunningham, said, “You can't say that Field's doesn't deliver!” and presented the baby's mother, Mrs. Leland Organ, the wife of a prominent archaeologist’”—Slim rolled her eyes as she read on— “‘with a two-volume leather-bound boxed set of Lewis Carroll's
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
and
Through the Looking-Glass.
What a lucky little girl!’”
All the women's eyes were tearfully focused on the child, who was noisily sucking air around her. What would become of her? They looked at one another conspiratorially and nodded. They would see to it. The child would be safe in their collective bosom.
“We'll all be little Claire's aunties,” Miss Wren announced, making a mental list of all the practical things they would need. She clucked happily at the thought of reading to their baby.
“I'll teach her French and dress her in Paris couture.” Miss Slim could hardly wait. Maybe the war widow hadn't been denied a child after all.
“We'll love her.” Violet grazed her finger against her baby's dewy cheek.
And “their baby” she became. The three women and Claire had somehow bonded amidst the bloody opera gloves and the excitement of a new birth, all in the spirit of Christmas. It was tacitly understood at this moment that they had become a family for a variety of reasons. Each of the lonely women had room to spare in her heart, room Claire would fill for all their lifetimes.
Elevators and Escalators
Being a Modern Heroine, she realized that no Gallant Knight would come Riding to her Rescue—even if that could have done any good. No, she must do her own Rescuing. So she set about studying ways and means of Achieving her Purpose. She thought of this and she thought of that and at last she heard about the Lanchere Beauty Salon on the Fifth Floor at Field's.
—From “How She Triumphed,”
Fashions of the Hour,
Spring 1934
C
laire peered her curly head from behind Miss Slim's hip, holding on to her hem, and smiled shyly at Sally Pettibone, who was being fitted for her traveling trousseau. The Perils of Pauline paled in comparison to the Adventures of Claire at Marshall Field's. For the precocious second-grader, school was only a prologue to the encyclopedia's worth of experiences to be sampled daily at the store.
“Come here, my little darling. You've got chocolate on your smocking.” Miss Slim scolded her favorite confection as she rubbed the gooey stuff off Claire's chin and the front of her dress.
“You've stopped off at the candy kitchen again, haven't you?”
Claire nodded. It was part of her everyday routine. Instead of coming home to cookies and milk in the family kitchen, seven-and-a-half-year-old Claire simply took the Illinois Central train downtown, accompanied by the seamstress Mme. Celine if one of the Field's delivery men couldn't pick her up and deliver her directly to the store. There were sure to be a dozen deliveries a day to Hyde Park anyway for the fleet of russet brown trucks all bearing the Field's insignia, carrying washing machines, coffee tables, bedding, and party dresses. When the Bret Harte Public School let out at three o'clock, all Claire had to do was dial the telephone exchange “State 1000,” and one of the uniformed drivers would be quietly dispatched to bring the child back “home” to Field's. There the after-school treats offered in the candy kitchen, with its bubbling copper kettles emitting inviting aromas of melting chocolate, mint, and vanilla, were infinitely tastier man anything her schoolmates were snacking on at home.
“I think I prefer the blue Schiaparelli but I don't want this silly design on just one sleeve! It's rather lopsided, don't you think?” Sally Pettibone pouted. She pointed her perky nose in the air so high she appeared to be snubbing her own shoulder.
“It's very Paris that way. Schiap says fashion is art and art isn't always symmetrical, but we will do whatever you like, Miss Pettibone,” Slim fawned. If the silly girl insisted, they could cover the beaded abstraction of a woman's face, although it would be a fashion sacrilege. Slim was just grateful that the new fiancé hadn't been wiped out in the Crash. So what if a Lake Forest debutante thought she knew more than the current Parisian queen of fashion? The pretty blond with the marcelled waves was nearly eighteen and already impossible. But with a mother and three younger sisters all determined to be in the height of fashion from morning to night, they were a salesgirl's gold mine. And since many of Slim's clients had disappeared after Black Thursday two years ago when the stock market collapsed, any customer with cash was king.
“A jeweled eye on one sleeve simply won't work anyplace but in Paris and we are only spending two weeks of our honeymoon there and where else will they know it's a real Schiaparelli and be impressed? Do they know about Schiaparelli in London and don't I have to wear tweeds there? Abra Tipps says I do and she should know. She didn't come back to Miss Porter's last year because she married that old duke.”
“Ah, Miss Pettibone. Where love is concerned, age doesn't matter.” Miss Slim sighed aloud. Nor do looks, Slim thought to herself, having seen the
Tribune's
society page photos of Sally Pettibone and her Labrador-eared fiancé.
“Imagine having to call your husband Duke,” the girl went on, nodding at a curious Claire, whose long skinny legs were twisted around one another like a pretzel. “Sounds like something you'd name a Great Dane, doesn't it? Oh, could you call up to Field's Travel for me and get tickets for the best plays—and Miss Slim, ask Violet to step in. She has such taste, don't you know. Ouch! And tell this seamstress not to prick me. I know I have a small waist but a girl simply has to have an inch to breathe.”
“Mais oui,
Miss Pettibone.” Miss Slim bowed out of the fitting room backwards, running her next sentences together. “Your figure is blessedly divine. You could wear anything better than the French mannequins they showed this ensemble on. It's terribly smart on you. Madame Celine, please be careful with the pins. You mustn't stick the customers. Pansy, we'll have a cup of tea in here, please. Claire, remember your posture. No man wants to marry a slouch.” Slim pushed Claire aside and hurried along to find the long-sleeved Charles James gown, decidedly more subtle than Schiapparelli's winking, surreal design.
“Pretty girl,” Violet said to Slim as they collided in the hallway.
“Yeah,” mumbled Slim. “Too bad she's got her mother's arms, thick as fence posts.”
Claire skipped out of the fitting room and gave her mother a quick peck on the cheek as she turned the corner.
“Why on earth is Slim looking for a husband for a seven-year-old?” Sally Pettibone whispered to her mother. “Unless she's a midget. She's not a midget, is she?” She pulled off the priceless dress with such disregard she tore the basting stitches.
“A fatherless midget? God would never be so cruel.” In Millicent Pettibone's own mind, she had a heart.
Claire knew she'd have a better time in the Costume Shop on Four, where she could try on every outfit from Guinevere to Robin Hood. This was her current favorite place to play and pretend, but today for a change she might pop into the Young People's Theater where trained dogs commandeered from a traveling circus were performing this September afternoon. The entertainment was bound to be better than the frantic grown-up theatrics in the dressing rooms of Custom Designs and Finer Dresses.
“Afternoon, Homer.”
“Good afternoon to you, Miss Claire.” A grinning Homer opened the elevator door wide for his best passenger. “Elevator”—or something closely approximating it—had been her first word.
“And which magical land am I taking you to today?” he asked, pulling the iron gate shut. Homer was the wide-eyed child's guide to the diverse selection of worlds that were all gathered under one roof. Each time he stopped the elevator it was as if Claire were entering an entirely new land. Endlessly curious and fiercely independent (as long as she stayed within the confines of the store), Claire didn't need fairy tales or children's games to entice her imagination. She had the store catalog to dream on and all of Marshall Field's to explore, just like a little Gulliver. With its gossip, activity, and fancy goods from all over the world, Field's was like a giant playhouse, an enchanted land of make-believe, and hadn't Auntie Wren observed just the other night that having a vivid imagination was essential for a child to bloom in the modern world?
Smoothing her school frock and wiping the ubiquitous chocolate off her mouth with the back of her hand, she pushed her chin out and looked straight ahead, mimicking the customers’ elevator etiquette.