Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg [153]
She looked at him. “No speeches?”
“None.”
“Do you swear?”
“I swear. On the Bible.”
She moaned. “Oh, God, Hamm, I can’t believe I’m letting you talk me into this. But if it’s really for the good of the state . . .”
And so, at 2:34 A.M., the woman in pink fuzzy bunny slippers agreed to run for governor.
He looked at her, genuinely grateful. “Oh, thank you, honey, you won’t regret it. I know I haven’t been the best of husbands but from now on things will be different, you’ll see. I promise.” He kissed her and quickly jumped up and ran off to the office.
As she sat on the bed and blew her nose with a fresh Kleenex she wondered what she was in for now.
She sat there for a while and tried to think about what Hamm had said. Maybe he was right, maybe this would bring them closer together. After all, it was the first time he had really needed her in eight years. Maybe it would not be so bad. She did get to keep the house and he had promised to swear on the Bible that this was the last time; he had never done that before. Maybe it could be like it used to be. She hoped so. Because for better or worse, she was still in love with her husband.
The Two-for-One Sale
Earl Finley called Vita, screaming at the top of his lungs. “That sorry son of a bitch promised me he would support Boofer. We had a deal and now he’s harpooned me in the back. You tell that son of a bitch that I’ll get him if it’s the last thing I ever do.”
“I’ll tell him, Earl,” Vita said.
“I could kill him with my bare hands.”
“I know how you must feel. Believe me, I was shocked. Just shocked when I heard.” Vita put the phone down, smiling. To hear a man who had done nothing all his life but pull one dirty deal after another so incensed and outraged that it had happened to him was highly amusing.
Minnie Oatman was in Pine Mountain, Georgia, at a Singing on the Mountain when she heard the news. She had just finished doing her new hit, “I Love to Tell the Story,” when someone came running out onstage and handed her a note. She then threw her hands up in the air and called out to the boys, “PRAISE JESUS, YOUR SISTER IS GONNA BE GOVERNOR!”
When it was announced to the public that Hamm was running his wife, the news was met with mixed reactions. The people who were for him laughed and winked at each other, tickled that their man had pulled one over the big shots. The rest were furious. They felt Hamm was making a fool of himself and them. But for him or against him, the announcement caused a loud stir. This was news. So far in the entire history of the United States, there had been only two women governors and they both had been elected back in 1924. In a special election, Nellie Ross of Wyoming had succeeded her husband after he had died in office, and Miriam Ferguson of Texas had stepped in after her husband was impeached for misappropriating funds. In 1964 women in politics were still considered a novelty, as well as something of a joke. The Fergusons of Texas were laughingly called Ma and Pa Ferguson and when it was joked that Missouri now had a new Ma and Pa team, Hamm loved it. The national magazines had a field day, coming down and taking pictures of him in an apron and with a feather duster in his hand. And they all wanted to interview Betty Raye but everyone on staff was instructed, “For God’s sake, whatever you do, keep her away from the press!”
Contrary to what Hamm had promised, Betty Raye was immediately picked and poked at by a slew of hairdressers and makeup artists and dress designers Cecil brought in to “improve her image,” as he put it. Not that she had an image, as he also said. After endless hours of Betty Raye trying on dress after dress, “look” after “look,” and standing there while Cecil and his friends argued back and forth, it was decided they would go with the Jackie Kennedy style, simple little knit suits and pillbox hats.