Chapter 35

With the girls finally back home, things got back to normal. Or as normal as things ever were at the Harris compound. Mother delivered her baby, an adorable little girl that she and Dad named Karen. After nearly thirty years, I finally had a sibling, and she was utterly adorable. Of course, my parents were so proud, you would have thought they invented the little things!

Tina gave birth to a boy, as did Liz. The younger girls were utterly ecstatic! Now there were four babies for them to goo over and take care of. It was funny, I guess. You hear that a woman’s work is never done, particularly if there are infants around. But not at our compound! It seemed to work the way it did for Jean Dawson: One of the younger girls would fetch the baby, change it, bathe it, and then bring it to its mother — or any convenient milk-laden tit if the mother was otherwise occupied — wait while it was fed and then burp it and return it to its bassinet. The mother’s rôle? Very tough. She — or her stand-in — had to bare a nipple all by herself, although the young girls helped with that occasionally, too.

In the meantime, the situation with Diane and Steve remained unchanged, to the continuing amusement of the rest of us. Steve continued to phone Diane for dates, they continued to chat on the phone at a distance apart of about four feet, and they continued to sleep together. We did learn, though, that Steve had become increasingly creative with ways to get Diane as horny as a mink. For her part, she tried desperately to try to keep him from doing it. That was a competition that Diane regularly lost, though.

Then, in late March, Mother took Diane aside. There was a whispered conversation that resulted in Diane taking a couple of personal days off from school. As it happened, Steve took off the same days. Diane knew he was doing it, but he didn’t know she was doing it, too.

Oops! Forgot something: Trudy Elliott’s Mrs. magazine. Before going forward with this tale, let me fill you in on that enterprise. First of all, Little Bit was correct when she said funding would not be a problem. She was correct in the sense that there was plenty of money. She was also correct, though, in claiming that controlling who could invest how much would be a problem. It was, and remains one. The funding offers from the extended families alone were a very large multiple of the magazine’s need for capital.

Then there was the organization and its initial operation. Because of her interest in it and her help in getting it started, Little Bit was named the publisher and Trudy, the editor in chief. Normally, the publisher, representing the business side, and the editor, representing the creative side, are constantly at war. Mrs. was no different. But the positions were the reverse of the usual condition.

Normally, the editor has all sorts of grandiose schemes for the publication, while the publisher strives to restrain the schemes in the interest of the bottom line. At Mrs.? Naah. There, representing the wishes of the owners, Little Bit was constantly pushing for ever-more-elaborate layouts and exquisitely expensive story ideas. Trudy, on the other hand, insisted that they had to walk before they tried to run and insisted on keeping projects manageable. The funniest things of all, though, were the meetings between the business and editorial sides. Without exception, they ended with everyone howling with laughter at the rôle reversals, and Trudy and Little Bit ended up hugging and kissing each other.

There were other changes. First of all, Trudy lost no time in hauling Bill Jones to the altar. Immediately thereafter, she became Trudy E. Jones, Editor in Chief, and wherever possible she referred to herself as Mrs. William T. Jones. Moreover, by the time of their wedding, Trudy was a stunning beauty, as were her key staff members brought over from her former employer.

For the staff, the ground rules changed dramatically: From having to be heavy and mannish, they were encouraged to be slender and girlish. Furthermore, it seemed that all of the other girls had men on the side that they had kept hidden even from each other. In a very short time, they were all married, too, and, like Trudy, were pregnant. Beyond that, though — and using the services of New York’s top public-relations firm — the girls were featured in the gossip columns, the about-town columns, and even the society pages. Suddenly, being married and pregnant was in!

This was reinforced by the appearance of the first issue. Kimberly Kramer took up virtually the entire issue. Beyond that, though, the whole publication was elegant and was perceived that way. Trudy and Little Bit were guests on countless TV shows and they just reinforced the image. And you know what? In spite of spending money like it was water, the publication was in the black with the very first issue! Beyond that, though, Trudy’s very lovely — and very pregnant — advertising director was reduced to rationing advertising among prestigious advertisers waiting in line to buy space.

Just to quiet the questions, Little Bit had to state publically that she was engaged to be married in June. (She figured if she and Tony were married for a month before their baby was born it would be good enough.)

And that’s what happened to Mrs.

But back to Diane. I have to say, she did it beautifully. When Steve told her he would be away for a couple of days, she was properly — but not excessively — curious. She allowed him to talk his way around it without actually telling her why he was going away. Furthermore, she carefully scheduled her own trip so that she would leave after he did, but return before him. Finally, she acquired the best electronic camera available, insisting that it had to have a very powerful zoom telephoto lens. She wanted no electronic zooming if it could be avoided.

The purpose of the trip was interesting. Mother had learned — how she learned, I never did find out — that Steve was scheduled to appear at Fort Meade to receive the Medal of Honor for action in the Balkans. The specific citation was also classified for reasons I never found out, either. But that’s what it was all about, and that’s where Diane was going.

Although little publicity was given to the award ceremony, it was open to the public, and Diane was a “public”. She attended. The ceremony was very impressive, and she had positioned herself perfectly. The camera worked to perfection with the result that she came away with a perfect picture of Steve with the Medal of Honor around his neck, saluting the President immediately following the medal’s presentation.

That one photo — actually there were lots of them — was the sole purpose for her trip. On her return in advance of Steve, she showed us the pictures and we all agreed on the best one. At that point, Diane took the photo and rewrote the Department of Defense press release announcing the award, adding that Steve was a history teacher at the local high school. Then she took her selected picture along with the press release to the office of the local weekly newspaper.

The editor looked at the picture and then read the release. She was impressed. The result was that the photo and the story dominated the paper’s front page in its next issue.

And then the shit hit the fan.

When Steve first saw it, he was astonished. “How did the paper ever get this?” he asked no one in particular. “DOD promised that they would restrict circulation of the press release, and particularly try to keep it out of any paper circulating around here.” It never occurred to him that Diane might have been responsible.

The next thing that happened was that Mother received an irate phone call from Abigail Wilcox.

Now who, you may wonder, is Abigail Wilcox? I’ll make a comment before answering directly. There seems to be an interesting fact regarding suburban women, particularly in the New York Metropolitan area: As a group, they are politically at least 45 degrees to the left of their husbands. They are all for the poor and the downtrodden — people with whom they never, ever, have any personal contact. As a result, they’re fully capable of dealing with such people in a highly stylized, sanitized version of the reality. Moreover, they happily drive their gas-guzzling SUVs to meetings of local environmental groups to protest what hydrocarbon emissions are doing to the atmosphere. Oh, well...

Abigail Wilcox was also president of the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. Mother thought this was rather hysterical because, first, Abigail was not her original name — she had had a name change — and her family had arrived in the States after World War II as Displaced Persons from eastern Europe. Her membership in the DAR was by virtue of her husband’s family, not her own. Mother didn’t think this was quite kosher, but what the hell. And while Charles Wilcox was a very quiet New York banker, Abigail was a member and leader of most of the very loud, left-leaning groups in town.

But back to Abigail’s phone call to Mom: She was calling to demand that Steve Chamberlain resign his position in the school forthwith or be fired by the Board. When Mother, as Board President, demurred, Mrs. Wilcox threatened to raise forty kinds of hell at the next Board meeting, scheduled for the following Monday evening at 7:00. Mother just told her that that was her privilege and ended the call.

To say that word of the Wilcox phone call upset Kristin is to understate the reality by orders of magnitude. Smoke was coming from both her ears. She was furious! And with her doctorate in American history, she was historically incensed, as well. She did two things: First, she assured Steve of her unqualified support as did the rest of us. But second, she had Diane put the word out to the cheerleaders and through them to the rest of the school that Steve Chamberlain was under personal attack, and the more students who could attend Monday night’s meeting, the better.

On Monday night, Mother opened the meeting. After accepting the minutes of the previous meeting, she asked if there were any citizen communications. At that point, Abigail Wilcox rose to her feet — she was in the midst of a group of her leftist supporters — and demanded Steve’s resignation.