An entire room full of laughing and chatting people suddenly went as silent as if they had all been struck dumb. Even the ice in the glasses stopped rattling. The men in Vita’s group went visibly pale before her eyes.
Vita, who had her back turned to Betty Raye at the time, seemed to be the only person able to move and speak. She casually turned around, her expression unchanging, and with warmth and poise said, “Why no, Mrs. Sparks and I have somehow managed to miss one another until now.”
Vita smiled and extended her hand and in a pleasant voice added, “Hello. I’m so pleased to finally meet you at last.”
Betty Raye was dazzled by Vita’s large diamond spray pin and her beauty in general but did manage to offer a faint “How do you do.”
Vita smiled again. “It’s so lovely to meet you, Mrs. Sparks. I hope we’ll see each other again sometime.”
“Thank you,” said Betty Raye. As she made her way back out of the crowded room, Mrs. Ross, thinking she had just done a good deed, said, “That’s nice, I am glad I was able to introduce you two.”
As soon as Betty Raye got to the door and it closed behind her, an ice cube managed a weak little clink and gradually people began to move and within seconds, Vita, who had never blinked an eye, continued her conversation as if nothing momentous or so potentially dangerous as wife-meets-mistress had just happened.
On the drive back to the mansion Betty Raye thought about Mrs. Green. When they had met she had so gracefully and effortlessly moved her black cigarette holder from one hand to the other, with such elegance and style. She was like one of those movie stars that she and Anna Lee had seen at the Elmwood Theater. Betty Raye wondered if she should try to take up smoking. Vita, on the other hand, who had only seen Betty Raye in photographs, wondered how Hamm could have ever been attracted to this rather plain, nondescript person, a woman who, she was sure, was perfectly nice but had looked more like the help than a guest.
Hamm, who had been in another room at the time, had missed the entire event. Betty Raye had not said a word or seemed the least bit suspicious but Hamm was furious and promised Vita that it would not happen again. From that day forward, Betty Raye was never out of trooper Ralph Childress’s sight for a moment.
Power
AFTER BETTY RAYE and Vita had the near miss Cecil said to Hamm, “It’s your life, honey, but you are not being very considerate of your wife and that’s all I’m going to say.” But Wendell Hewitt, the attorney general of the state, was worried about Hamm getting hurt politically. Wendell knew how fast that could happen firsthand. He had been caught with a blonde and ruined his own chances at being governor. But most of all, Wendell and Rodney had been used to being his only advisers and they resented Vita’s influence over him. They tried to warn him how dangerous the situation was. But Vita never worried about what anybody said as far as Hamm was concerned. She knew she was the one he ran to when he was happy, sad, or scared or needed advice. She accepted who he was without question or judgment and he knew it. The night he gave his speech in front of seven thousand people at the state Democratic convention, he came back to her exhilarated, his eyes shining. He always ran a temperature about three degrees higher than most people but tonight he was burning up. “I tell you, Vita, that feeling, knowing all those people are listening to you and you can tell them anything, it scares the hell out of me how easily people are led.” He looked at her, his eyes still glowing. “You know, sometimes I get so tired of having to fight Earl Finley and the rest of them for every little thing, running myself in the ground trying to push stuff through. I started asking myself why. Why was I doing it? What for? But tonight when I got up there in front of all those people, I knew that was the thing I’d been chasing after.” He got up and paced the room. “I wish I could describe what it feels like to have thousands of people listening to your every word, how easy it is to please them, to get that applause and to hear them out there screaming for you. It’s like being in control of one big ocean and you can calm it down or make it roar. God, Vita, it’s not even people anymore, it’s one big thing you want to control and once you’ve had a taste of it, you’re hooked. It’s like if you don’t have it you will die, do you know what I mean? Somebody’s handed you the baton and you can lead this rich, powerful orchestra. Does that make sense to you? I mean after that, leading a five-piece band means nothing, not after you’ve led that orchestra, thousands of people all playing the song just like you want them to.”
Vita smiled at him and he stopped. “I’ve had too much to drink, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. You don’t ever have to hold back or be afraid to tell me anything, don’t you know that? The more you tell me, the more I understand you. I love you, I’m on your side—remember that.”
He sat down. “You must think I’m an idiot but I can’t talk to the boys; hell, they wouldn’t understand. You’re the only person I can trust. Betty Raye’s not interested in politics—the whole thing scares her. Oh, she tries but all she ever really wanted was a quiet, simple life and look what I drug her into. I try to leave her out of it as much as I can. She was put on display as a kid and she just hates it, me being governor.
“But God help me, Vita—I love it.”
On the other hand, Betty Raye was counting the days when they would be out of the governor’s mansion at last and into a real home they did not have to share with a hundred people. As per Hamm’s instructions, Rodney had driven her past a brand-new red-brick house in a nice subdivision outside of town. And later when she walked into the governor’s office Hamm did not look up but said, “Well, is that what you had in mind?”
“Oh, Hamm, it’s more than I could have ever hoped for.”
Having been a used-car salesman, Rodney was able to figure out how to make deals in different ways and made an under-the-table, verbal agreement with a real estate agent to hold the house until Hamm left office.
Betty Raye would not miss being first lady but she would miss a few of the staff. Cecil, of course, and over the years she had grown quite fond of Alberta Peets, the ice-pick murderess, who besides cooking had helped her with the boys and was a great baby-sitter. When she said for them to go to bed, they did. They minded her much better than they ever had their mother or father.
But other than that she could hardly wait to pack up and get out of the governor’s mansion for good.
Hamm tried to resign himself to the fact that he was going out of office but as the May primaries grew closer and closer, the more anxious and restless he became. While Betty Raye and Cecil shopped for furniture and dishes and silverware for the new house, Hamm complained and bellyached to anyone who would listen about the fact that a governor could not succeed himself for a third consecutive term. He even ranted and raved to a group of unsuspecting visiting Girl Scout leaders from Joplin.
“If I hadn’t had to fight Earl Finley and the damn Republicans I might have done it but two terms is not enough time to get anything nailed down. I need at least four more years to finish what I started and now Earl is gonna bring in that idiot Carnie Boofer and wreck it all. . . .”
Betty Raye and Cecil were busy looking for rugs and drapes to match, but as the days went by Hamm became more irritable and could not sleep. The guys tried to cheer him up. Nothing seemed to work. Finally, one day Rodney said, “You need to get out of here for a while.” So Wendell, Rodney, and Seymour drove him down to the secret boathouse and took The Betty Raye out for a cruise.
Usually the boat was where he loosened up and forgot about everything and enjoyed himself but not today. He did nothing but sit and stare at the water and try to think of what he could do. He turned to Wendell, who had his feet propped up on the side, drinking beer. “If we were to call the legislature into special session, what do you think our chances are of getting an amendment added to the constitution?”
Wendell knew what he was up to. “Hamm, there’s no way in hell they are going to let you succeed yourself; it’s a state law.”
“But l
aws have been changed, haven’t they?”
“Yeah, but you ain’t gonna change this one. The Republicans won’t vote for it and Earl is determined to bring in Carnie Boofer, so why don’t you just relax and take it easy for the next four years. Then all you have to do is come back in and clean up the mess old Boofer makes. In the meantime, just sit on your boat, take a few trips, and enjoy yourself, boy.”
Hamm had been offered jobs through Vita’s friends but nothing that excited him. The next time he was at her apartment they sat on the couch and he tried to tell her what he was feeling. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offers, Vita, I do. I don’t know how I’ll be able to stand just being a nobody again. I’m gonna miss being out of that limelight now that I’m used to it.”
“But, darling, you can run again in sixty-eight . . . it’s only four years.”
He looked at her almost desperately. “Vita, I don’t think I can wait that long. I don’t know how to explain it but it seems like I’ve been freezing all my life and it’s the only place I feel warm, really warm. The thing is, once it gets ahold of you, you can’t let go even if you wanted to. It’s too late. Once you’ve been up there, there’s nowhere else to go but down. That’s where you live, the only place you feel alive, and you’ve got to fight to hold on. And what if I can’t get back in? What if Carnie Boofer messes up so bad that the next time they elect a Republican? People forget about you once you’re out of power. The truth is, Vita . . . I’m scared to let go.”
A Drowning Man Is a Dangerous Man
HAMM WAS BACK in Jefferson City, sitting in his office having a few drinks with the guys, when Hamm Jr. ran in and asked for more quarters to put in the pinball machine in the basement and ran back out. When he left Hamm asked Wendell, “What’s the age limit on running for governor?”
“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.”
“Oh, but Hamm, the whole thing is ridiculous. I don’t know anything about politics much less how to be a governor.”
“You don’t have to know anything. You wouldn’t really be the governor, you’d just be standing in for me.”
She went over to the dresser to get another Kleenex. “And that’s another thing. I’m the mother of two children. I don’t want to be involved in some scam, something that’s illegal.”
“But it is legal. Wendell told you it was.”
“Maybe so. But it’s totally dishonest. To pretend to be the governor when I’m not. What will people think?”
“Honey, it’s not dishonest. People will know they’re voting for me. And people will thank you. You know how high my ratings are. They would vote for me anyway if it were not for that stupid law. You’re doing everybody a favor. Wendell told you that.”
“Well then, why doesn’t Wendell run?”
“Because. Honey—”
“I’ll tell you why. Because everybody knows he’s got good sense and I’m just an idiot you can push around. That’s why.”
“Oh now, Betty—”
“And what about my house? I’ve waited eight years . . . and you promised me, just four more years, you said.”
He came over and sat down on the bed. “I know I did, sweetheart, and I’m just as sick about it as you are. But we have a duty to the people.”
“But what about us? We’re people. What about the boys? I wanted them to have a normal life for a change. They never see you. I never see you.”
“But, honey, this is about the boys. And their future. I don’t want them to have a daddy that failed. My name is all I have to leave them. I want to make sure for their sake the Hamm Sparks name is one they can be
proud of. I owe it to them.”
He could see she was now at least listening. He pulled out his big guns. “Betty Raye, I’m ashamed to tell you this but I haven’t been completely honest with you. I was seriously thinking of running again in sixty-eight. But now I know it would be too late. If I don’t hang in there now, while I still have a foothold, and fight now for everything good I did, all the work and sweat and sacrifice will be for nothing. And honest to God, Betty Raye, I don’t think I could take it. You’re the only hope I have. . . . Do you think I’ve enjoyed being away from you and the children so much? No. But if you stick with me one more time—”
“Hamm, don’t. I’ve heard that before.”
“I know you have. But—and I mean this—if you will do this, I will swear on my life, on my children’s life, that I will never run for governor again. I’ll swear it on the Bible in front of the Missouri Supreme Court if you want me to.”
Another hour of Betty Raye crying, with Hamm pleading, went by and Betty Raye was beginning to weaken.
“Hamm, please don’t make me do this. If you do, then you might as well get a gun and shoot me right now, because I’ll just die if I have to get up there and make speeches.”
“You won’t have to do a thing—just stand up, introduce me, and sit down. That’s all you have to do. Other than that, everything will be exactly the same as it always was. The only difference is this time you and I will be together twenty-four hours a day. I’ll be right by your side all the time; all you have to do is just be my silent partner. Why, if I was to take a regular job I’d be gone every day and we’d never see each other. Don’t you see, honey, this way we can be close like we used to be. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, you know I would but—”
“It’s just four little years and then I can leave knowing I’ve done the best job I could and we’d be done with politics forever.”
She swallowed hard. “Are you sure it’s the only way?”
“You heard what Wendell said. If you don’t do it the whole state will suffer.”