Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [137]
“Something’s wrong. I can’t put my finger on it but the whole time we was there Hamm goes one way and she goes another. It don’t seem right to me. Ferris and me was never apart a day or night from the first day we was married in 1931, by the Reverend W. W. Nails. He said, ‘Who God is joined together let no man put asunder,’ and I never forgot it . . . and I’ve got me a feeling that there’s something asunder going on.”
Vita Green
HARRY S. TRUMAN ONCE said there were three things that could ruin a man: power, money, and women. Hamm already had power and the promise of money. And a woman was getting ready to walk in any day now.
Hamm was determined to be the best governor he could and he worked hard at it. He made sure he was informed about how people felt on every issue. Along with talking to as many people as he could, he also read every paper in the state before starting work each morning. Although he never paid much attention to the society pages, he did begin to notice something in the Kansas City papers. He kept seeing pictures of this one woman, always photographed at some party or function. He usually did not have much use for the rich or any interest in their silly activities but as the weeks went by he found himself starting to look for pictures of her in the paper and being disappointed when she was not there.
One morning he called Cecil into his office. “When you were in the funeral business in Kansas City, did you ever know a Mrs. Vita Green?”
“Know her?” Cecil said. “She was one of my best customers and still is. We do the flowers for all her parties.”
“Is that so?”
“One year she gave a party for my theater group and we did her entire terrace in white roses. She has the whole top floor of the Highland Plaza apartment building, with a view from every room.”
“Huh,” said Hamm.
“You should see that place sometime. It is spectacular.”
“I’d like to sometime. What does the husband do?”
“Just made a lot of money is all I know. She was divorced before I met her. Why?”
“No reason. I was just reading where this Mrs. Green was named head of some arts council and I was thinking that it might be a pretty good thing for the governor to get involved in.”
Cecil looked surprised. “Really?”
“You’re always bugging me about all that artsy stuff, aren’t you? So I figure maybe I’ll give it a try.”
Cecil left the office, pleased that all his attempts to get Hamm interested in culture had finally paid off. Vita Green was one of the well-known cultural leaders in Kansas City and was admired by everyone, especially the men. She was a tall, striking woman of forty-three with shining black hair that she wore parted in the middle and pulled back in a bun at the nape of her neck. She was always dressed exquisitely but simply, usually in bright red, or emerald green to match her eyes, with one spectacular pin on her right shoulder. At first glance she could have been mistaken for Spanish or Greek aristocracy. Few who met her would have guessed that she was 100 percent black Irish. But in addition to being a pure pleasure to look at, she was smart, witty, and a man’s woman in every way. She could converse on any subject and hold her own in any crowd. But when Mrs. Vita Green received the note from the governor asking if they could set up a meeting to discuss the state of the arts in Missouri, her first reaction was to laugh. Vita, along with the rest of her crowd, had always