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The Grand Old Party
by
Diane Leslie
On election day, when Adlai Stevenson ran against Eisenhower the first time, Fleur’s mother, known to her daughter and, for that matter, the world as Charmian Leigh, sashayed into her polling place. "Here comes the Democrat," the people behind the ballot table whispered scornfully. Fleur lowered her head, but the slap didn’t bother Mrs. Leigh; she stamped her ballot with conviction. Earlier that day, Fleur’s first-grade class had taken a straw poll. A child who assiduously avoided mistakes, Fleur weighed the choices carefully. But she lacked knowledge of the election. Only when her teacher impatiently thumped a pencil against her desk, did Fleur cast a vote for her parents’ candidate. Three conspicuous children voted for Stevenson. "Too bad," the teacher said to the losers in a voice reserved for low grades. "Bands play wherever Eisenhower goes. Parades follow. You could have picked a hero, a five-star general, as head of state." Fleur pictured the thin, glossy, gold paper stars personally licked by her teacher to honor distinguished students. Dwight Eisenhower had received five of them.
On their return home Fleur and
her mother noticed an unusual hubbub at The Leighs resided in an authentic Spanish colonial with Gothic embellishments designed by a renowned and bona fide architect. It had the height and stature of the hillside to which it had been attached so that the Crockers’ dwelling, in the bowl of the canyon, seemed to squat at its feet, or so said Mrs. Leigh. All afternoon the Leighs’ gardener, Constantine, who also worked for the Crockers, raked, trimmed, and hosed so that the landscape appeared to be hothouse raised. The groaning and grinding of gears echoed throughout the canyon as delivery trucks labored up the San Ysidro Drive grade.
Fleur watched with anticipation
as muscular men freighted dollies loaded with hampers of wine glasses and crates
of liquor. A copper samovar and a crystal champagne fountain were hurried to the
service entrance. Caterers and bartenders who, in their uniforms reminded Fleur
of upright killer whales, transported stacked trays of canapés and crystal bowls
of melon balls. Covered chafing dishes, no doubt ensconcing culinary
delectations, joined the procession.
While light still lingered in
the tree branches, an enormous covered truck pulled up and parked on Fleur’s
side of the street. She witnessed four men struggling to set in place a heavy,
elaborate ramp. After resting a few minutes on the curb, they climbed inside the
truck and "Keep your distance, little girl," the trainer warned as he threw a cape worthy of the Rose Parade over the elephant’s back and cinched it around his stomach. "This jumbo is tame, but you never know." "Is the jumbo going to the party?" Fleur asked, though she most certainly knew the answer. She simply wanted connection with the masters of the magnificent quadruped. "You bet. He’s a premier member of the Grand Old Party," the trainer said. "Is there going to be a parade?" Fleur asked, thinking of her teacher’s assertion. "Depends who wins," he said, laughing as he led his charge away. On her return to the patio, Fleur found her mother, a woman who adored parties even more than she disdained the neighbors. "Are you going to the Crockers’ tonight?" Fleur asked. "Not on your life. Even if I had been invited. Why would I associate with people who haven’t the brains to appreciate a brilliant, eloquent man like Stevenson?" All Fleur knew of Stevenson was the hole in the bottom of his shoe. The image had been reprinted in her parents’ pamphlets and magazines. It signified his connection to the working man, Charmian said. For the last three months the woman had been wearing a gold pin in the shape of a shoe sole. A diamond had been set where the hole would have been. Just then Constantine appeared in his yellow jalopy. He had changed or, rather, put on some clothes. Only on special occasions did the man wear a shirt. Its purple silk clung coyly to each of his muscles. And he had removed his usual stocking cap so that his Clairol Canary locks were unveiled. "Traitor," Fleur’s mother hissed behind his back. She wasn’t referencing their identical shade of blond, she said. "I’m speaking politically, tu comprend? He’s an immigrant for crying out loud. Working at a Republican function makes him a collaborator in my book." Fleur ran after the gardener. "Constantine," she said, pulling on his silky sleeve. "Isn’t there some way I could be at the party too?" Then, thinking of the services she performed for Charmian at her soirees, she said, "I could collect dirty glasses and empty ashtrays." Constantine shook his head with a wistful smile. Soon men and women, their clothes for the evening suspended from hangers, assembled in the street. Others arrived carrying cases that could have contained musical instruments or, Fleur thought, if this had been one of the movies her father produced, Tommy guns. When night enveloped Beverly Hills and the guests began to arrive, Fleur’s parents retreated to their bedroom. Eager for a vantage point, Fleur balanced atop their headboard and focused race track binoculars on the scene below. The high bedroom window afforded a clear view of the Crockers’ front entrance, their rippled tile roof, and the whole of their hacienda courtyard. Cars, with exteriors so shiny and rounded they resembled womanly flesh, were greeted by valet attendants. Fleur lost sight of the guests once they entered through the front door, until a few moments later when they emerged, champagne glass in hand, into the Crockers’ outdoor atrium. It had been strung with Chinese lanterns. "They’ve got it mixed up. The Chinese worked on the railroads, not the rancheros," Charmian said when she took a peep. Thanks to the muted glow, Fleur could see a swirl of dancers on a gleaming, made-for-the-night dance floor. The donkey and the elephant stood next to the band who riffed on "Wheel of Fortune" to build suspense. Dancers didn’t have to miss a step since waiters disseminated drinks and hors d'oeuvres across the dance floor. Fleur prayed that dinner would be served outside. As the glasses clinked and the silverware clattered and the donkey brayed and the Republicans conversed with gaiety and exuberance, the band played with ever more verve. Every so often, shouts of "I like Ike" could be heard. Fleur’s parents knew what was best for the United States just as they knew what was best for her, Fleur consoled herself. But now her father, in his underwear, and Charmian, in a frayed and faded negligee, sat staring glumly at the television set. Charmian’s ashtray overflowed with butts; the whiskey in her father’s bottle had dropped to an undignified level. As the election returns tiptoed from the east coast across America, and the Crockers’ party progressed into a celebratory saturnalia, her parents became even gloomier. A five star general had rendered them wallflowers. "The time has come for you to trip the light fantastic right into bed, Fleur," Charmian announced. The girl couldn’t see the festivities from the windows in her bedroom – she could barely hear the music. So, when the lights in her nanny’s room went dark, Fleur crawled out of her window, a treacherous act that required dropping eight feet to the steep, slim, flagstone steps below. In front of her house again, she sat on the clay-cold retaining wall listening to an instrumental and wondering if her parents being Democrats meant she had to be one, too. The parking valets had no customers for the moment and they were passing around a thermos. Each sip made them laugh. They hailed Constantine when he bustled across the street to one of the cars and retrieved another crate of liquor. "Constantine," Fleur cried. "Are you having a wonderful time?" The gardener smiled and walked briskly to her wall. Then he turned his back to her and said, "Fleur Leigh. Constantine taking you inside." He set the box of liquor down in the Crockers’ butler’s pantry and, without removing Fleur from his shoulders, carried her to the courtyard so that she could view the merrymaking up close. The gardener waltzed her through the fox-trotters as though they were hired performers. There go Nijinksy and Pavlova, Fleur imagined her mother saying. Then, before she realized what he’d contrived for her, Fleur was seated atop the elephant. The trainer coaxed the jumbo in all his finery to trot across the dance floor in time to the music. The donkey followed, and soon a conga line formed. While bystanders lifted their glasses in salute, they paraded around the courtyard. Hadn’t Fleur’s teacher described the great man’s effect on the populace? "I like Ike," party-goers roared. The hole in a civilian’s shoe certainly lacked the cachet of a general’s five stars. Fleur wished to amend her vote. From atop the elephant she called to the Republicans, "I like Ike. I like Ike, too."
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