Lady Claire

Most of my mother's friends were short, dumpy, unattractive women, heavy smokers and overly fond of canasta and their afternoon Icebox Manhattans. Claire was the exception – tall, not thin but perfectly proportioned, with ivory skin and a mane of fiery red hair – always manicured with impeccable make up and dressed to the nines, right down to her designer shoes. Her easy, elegant ladylike-ness scared the daylights out of me, made me feel like a grubby-faced street urchin in need of a hot bath and a good meal. I was never quite sure why, but I wanted desperately to dislike her. No one should have that much self confidence, I thought resentfully.

Her husband, Stan, a great bear of a man who favored trenchcoats and fedoras and always reminded me of Robert Mitchum, was as brash and loud as she was understated and soft-spoken.

He smoked like a chimney, drank his whiskey straight and wasn't afraid of an off color joke as long as there were no ladies present. He held her chair, opened doors for her, always helped her on with her coat. They seemed superficially mismatched but you couldn't argue with the fact that they made a good looking, attention grabbing couple.

On the cold, snowy Christmas Eve that I'm remembering, they arrived shortly after supper. Stan was in a tuxedo and Claire wore a floor length emerald green gown that matched her eyes.

They were on their way to a party and couldn't stay, they explained, but they'd brought us an early Christmas present. Stan reached into his trenchcoat pocket and produced a fawn colored boxer puppy, no more than 8 weeks old, with floppy ears and huge doe eyes.

“Merry Christmas, Jan,” he said gruffly and placed the pup into my stunned mother's lap. For a moment there was silence, then the little bundle whined softly and I watched my mother cradle it gently before she dissolved into helpless tears. My daddy arrived with Fritz, our beloved dachshund at his heels, and made the proper introductions. It was love at first sight.

It had all been pre-arranged, of course. My mother had fallen hopelessly in love with the puppy the week before at one of the canasta games held at Claire's house and hadn't been able to help herself and it hadn't taken much to win over my daddy. He was always for anything that might distract her from her drinking and her own misery and the responsibility of a new puppy seemed ideal. Surprisingly enough, it worked pretty well. Lady Claire, as she was immediately named, was a handful as a puppy but she grew into a sweet tempered, beautiful dog as delicate and fine as the lady for whom she was named. Stan and Claire visited often in those days, watched her progress and saw her grow up. The more I saw of them, the harder it was to try and dislike Claire and eventually I stopped trying.