Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [151]
“Why?”
“If Hamm Junior was old enough, I’d run him.”
Wendell grinned. “Damn, boy, next you’ll be trying to run your wife.”
Seymour Gravel said, “Yeah, Hamm, or how about your dog. He’s pretty smart, a hell of a lot smarter than Carnie Boofer.”
“But then who ain’t?” Rodney added.
They all laughed except Hamm, who sat with a glazed expression, staring into space. Then he looked at Wendell. “Why not?”
“Why not what?”
“Run my wife.”
“Oh, hell, Hamm, I was just kidding.”
“Is there a law against it?”
“No, but you can’t do that.”
“Why not? Tell me one good reason. It would be almost the same as voting for me, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes, but nobody is gonna vote for a woman even if she is your wife.”
“Why not?”
Now Seymour asked Wendell: “Yeah, why not?”
An hour later, after going back and forth in a heated debate over why not, Hamm said, “Excuse me a minute, will you, boys?” and went in the other room to make a call.
Vita had invited people over for dinner and they were still in the living room having after-dinner drinks but her maid Bridget came in and said, “Mrs. Green, the archbishop is on the phone and said he needs to speak to you right away.” Vita excused herself and took Hamm’s call in her bedroom. When she heard what he was thinking she threw her head back and laughed with delight at his crazy idea. But he was more excited and enthusiastic about this than he had been about anything lately and was talking a mile a minute.
“Listen, Vita, it would be the same thing as me buying a house and putting it in somebody else’s name. Wouldn’t it? It would still be mine. I’d still be the governor . . . it would just be in a different name, that’s all. . . . So what do you think?”
She was still laughing so hard she could not answer.
“I’m not joking, I’m serious.”
“I know you are, Hamm.”
“What do you think?”
“Well,” she said, “it’s a completely insane idea . . . but it would almost be worth it just to see the look on Earl’s face when you announced it.” She wiped the tears from her eyes. “Oh God, you’ve made me laugh so hard I’ve ruined my makeup.”
“So, Vita—should I do it?”
“Why not,” she said. “Go ahead and try. What do you have to lose? If nothing else, it will be fun to watch.”
He came back into the office, sat down, and said, “I think we should do it.”
After he got everyone to agree, Hamm pushed a button on the phone and said in a syrupy voice, “Betty Raye, could you come down here for a minute?”
They heard her answer over the speakerphone: “Hamm, I’m already in my nightgown.”
“That’s alright, honey, put your robe on and come on down the back stairs. I need to talk to you.”
Rodney looked grim. “She ain’t gonna go along with this, I can tell you that.”
Hamm said, “Yes, she will. But now, you boys have got to help me out here, make her see how it’s our only chance.”
Betty Raye could not imagine what Hamm wanted with her at this hour or what he wanted, period, but she put on her robe and, wearing the big fuzzy pink bunny slippers that Ferris, her youngest boy, had given her for Christmas, went down the back stairs. When she opened the door she was startled to see a room full of men. She clutched at the neck of her robe. “Oh, I didn’t know you had people here.”
“That’s all right, come on in, Betty Raye, and have a seat,” said the spider to the fly.
As she reluctantly walked in she became even more uncomfortable. All the men in the room turned and stared at her as if they had never seen her before, including her husband.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
“No, not a thing, sweetheart. The boys and I just want to talk to you about a little something.”
An hour later they were upstairs in the bedroom and Betty Raye was crying. “How could you do this? You gave me your word that this was the last time. Just four more years, you said.”
“I know I did, honey, but you heard what the boys said. I’ve got to finish what I started. If I don’t, Earl Finley will undo everything I did and those roads will never get built. I owe it to the folks that voted for me . . . and you running for me is our only chance, our only hope.