Fannie Flagg - Standing in the Rainbow

Tot took another drag on her Pall Mall and put it back in the black plastic ashtray. It was an interesting question, one she had never been asked before. She thought about it for a moment. "Well, let's see, there was the wedding. Other than Daddy getting drunk and passing out in the vestibule and me having to walk down the aisle by myself, that went fine, right up until we went outside the church and James got that piece of rice stuck in his ear. The honeymoon was ruined from the minute we got in the car because all he did was complain about the ringing in his ear. That ear drove him crazy for over two months. He was so dizzy all he did was lie down. It was so bad they had to operate on it three times looking for it, and we went into debt paying hospital bills."

Norma said, "I had forgotten about that."

Tot continued, "So I spent the first three months of my marriage being a nurse and then after he got drafted and went off to the army he came back home five years later a full-blown alcoholic, just like Daddy, who I'd married James to get away from. So I was happy from the time I said I do until we got outside the church and somebody threw rice in his ear. How long does it take to go from the altar down the aisle to outside the church, a minute? So you can say I was happy for a minute."

Norma felt terrible that she had even asked the question. "Poor Tot," she said. "I'm so sorry."

"Well, don't be, because it's my own fault. I did it to myself. I should have known when I had to give my own self away, it was a bad omen. I should have just turned around and gone home but everybody wants a wedding, I guess. Women are fools; they will marry anything that has a heartbeat just to have a man." She glanced over at Darlene again. "I'm still paying for her last fiasco, number three. And it's not just the womenDwayne Junior has already got two girls pregnant that I'm having to pay child support to. Sometimes I wish both my kids had turned queer and saved the world a lot of trouble."

"Mother, I don't think that's funny."

"I know you don't but it's true." Tot looked at Betsy in the mirror.

"From fifteen to twenty-five she managed to marry every half-wit in town and is dating number four."

Her daughter defended her latest fiasco: "He has a job, Mother."

Tot rolled her eyes. "Well, if collecting beer cans in the back of a truck is considered a profession, then I stand corrected." She changed the subject: "Darlene, run down the street and get me a tuna fish salad on whole wheat and a bag of chips. Do you want anything, Norma?"

"No thanks, I just had lunch. I've been up since five-thirty."

After Darlene left the shop, Tot shook her head. "Norma, just be glad you have a daughter with good sense. Darlene is about to drive me crazy. I tell you, from the day she flunked out of tap school it's been downhill ever since. I went in her house the other morning and she's sitting there at the table with a brick. I said, What are you doing and she said, I'm filing my nails. I spent a fortune sending her to beauty school and she's filing her nails with a brick. After the tenth grade she was flunking everything but fooling with her hair night and day so I shipped her off to beauty school. I figured she'd be good at it. But I was wrong. And I don't know where she got that thin fuzzy hair. She didn't get it from my side of the family. She got it from the Whootens. No telling what's in that gene pool, but it's the worst possible advertisement for the hair business. I swear, between her and James and Dwayne Junior I'm so worn out I can hardly get up in the morning."

Although she did not want people to know it, Tot had a heart of gold and would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it. That was the main reason she was so tired all the time. After working in the shop all day and on weekends she would pack up her kit and go over to all the older ladies' homes and fix their hair for them. Most were either sick or bedridden and could not pay but Tot did not care. She said as long as her fingers could move no lady she knew was going to do without her weekly shampoo and set.

And as much as she complained about Darlene and Dwayne Jr. she let them have just about anything they wanted and baby-sat her grandchildren anytime they asked, which, unfortunately, was often.

Hamm had been campaigning for president for only a few months but already Hamm ("Tell It Like It Is") Sparks had become a big thorn in the side of a lot of people. Once more he was making powerful enemies in his own party, only this time on a national level. What had started out as a fly-by-night, grassroots campaign was suddenly not so funny and could no longer be dismissed. Besides, his poor English and backwoods manner were an embarrassment to the elite East Coast Harvard and Yale, pipe-and-tweed Democrats in Washington and elsewhere. They also believed that his radical, black-and-white, take-no-prisoners brand of politics was dangerous for them and for the country. The powers that be called him in and tried to reason with him, get him to step down for the good of the party, but Hamm was like a dog with a bone. He would not withdraw and if they threw him out they knew he might run on an independent ticket and take the votes with him anyway.

On December 31 Dorothy's first New Year's resolution was the same as last year:

1. Lose ten pounds.

On December 31 Minnie Oatman sat down at the small table on the big silver bus that was headed for a New Year's Day gospel sing in Bloomington, Illinois, and wrote out her same old resolution:

1. Lose fifty pounds.

Tot Whooten wrote out her yearly resolution, as she had for the past seven years, only this time she stuck it on the refrigerator:

1. Do not loan Darlene or Dwayne Jr. another dime.

But across the country a new resolution appeared on the top of a lot of people's lists that year:

1. Get rid of Hamm Sparks. They did not write it down but they thought it.

He gained momentum every day. They knew Hamm could never have the numbers to win the election he was too much of a wild card but now even the Republicans were beginning to worry. To their utmost irritation, Hamm was quietly receiving thousands of dollars from a lot of big-money supporters that should have been going to their man. Both parties were afraid of his growing popularity. Despite the fact that all the newspapers, magazines, and national television network news shows were either ignoring him or ridiculing him, he gained on them every day.

Something had to be done; if he continued on with this momentum he was going to upset the election for everyone. Some of the people who supported Hamm financially did not want it known. And there were some people he was willing to take money from that he did not want known.

Rodney was contacted by Mr. Anthony Leo, the man who had given Hamm The Betty Raye eight years before, and was told there was a friend of his in New Orleans who might be willing to contribute a lot of money under the table. But he wanted to talk to Hamm about who he was considering running as vice president before he committed.

Hamm agreed to a meeting. Both he and the man felt that for privacy reasons it would be best for them to meet on the man's yacht in New Orleans. When the time was right, Hamm blocked out a weekend.

Unfortunately, it was the same weekend he had promised Betty Raye he was going to come back to Jefferson City and spend with her. She had been so looking forward to it, not only because she missed him but also because she had so many questions to ask. That Friday morning, he called from Jackson, Mississippi, and informed her he would not be coming home because he and the boys had decided to go on a hunting trip instead.

He said they would have to fly out of Jackson on Monday to another speech and he was not sure when he could get back. When Betty Raye hung up she was almost in tears. Alberta Peets, who had been in the room, saw how upset Betty Raye was and went over and put her arm around her. "Them mens better stop treating you so mean while I'm around 'cause they liable to get me all riled up again… They need to remember what happened to the last one who did that."