Unknown - 19_Cat_In_A_Red_Hot_Rage

This is a side effect of the process known as “fixing.” I do not know why it is called that.

But I think that Miss Serena could use a bout of that herself.

Chapter 28

Debate to the Death

Five thousand Red Hat Sisterhood members pouring into the Crystal Phoenix and the Goliath hosting hotels made the Black Hat Brotherhood vastly outmanned for the day’s debate. Luckily, only a few hundred Red Hat women showed up for it.

Even so vastly outnumbered, the fifteen men entered the hotel like a posse surrounding a wrestling favorite. In fact, overnight the golden oldie boys had come up with Americanflag-blue rhinestone hatbands and red-dyed pheasant feathers to stick in those glitzy new bands.

Matt stood beside Temple at the back of the debate room, watching the RedState dudes in Blue and the BlueState dolls in Red file into the hotel’s small-event auditorium. The Red Hat Sisterhood outnumbered the Black Hat Brothers a zillion to one, but on the raised dais, at the neutral white-linen clothed tables featuring a small tabletop podium for Matt, it was four black-and-blues against four red-and-purples.

“I can see why the TV stations sent so many videographers,” Matt murmured to Temple, blinking at the colorful and sparkling gathering. “Makes me happy radio is my medium. Saves me a lot of eye strain and headaches.”

“TV loves people willing to make spectacles of themselves.”

“Which is why you counseled me to wear an ivory shirt and blazer, no tie. Not even a blue and red one.”

“You do get the association?”

“It’s a neutral color scheme for a moderator,” he said, eyeing his bland facade.

Temple raised her eyebrows and said nothing.

“Oh, I get it! Red, white, and blue, reading left to right. That is ‘spin’ with a capital S.”

“Plus,” she said, adjusting the collar of his open-necked shirt, “you look so dreamy in off-white.”

“The PR maven is making decisions based on how ‘dreamy’ the moderator looks?”

“Absolutely. Perk of the job.”

“I just hope I can keep these extreme debaters from each other’s throats. Maybe you really needed Jerry Springer.”

“I do have some Fontana brothers muscle lurking in the wings.” Temple nodded to her own version of bodyguards standing at the extremes of the debating platform.

“Good Lord, I’m dressed like a Fontana brother clone,” Matt realized.

“Northern Italian, where the blonds come from, not southern. Those natives are brunet.”

“You’re also going for a revival meeting look here too, aren’t you?”

“My dear man, I’m trying to touch on numerous subtle cultural nuances.”

“I never knew PR was so manipulative.”

“Or that I was?”

“If I weren’t so nervous about doing this moderator gig, I’d probably have a long answer for that one.““You’ll be great. You improvise six nights a week live on your radio show. How could this be any worse?”

Matt forbore to say anything more.

“Oh,” Temple added. “There is one thing.”

“Yeah?”

“You look somewhat suspicious.”

“It’s that ‘one thing’ element you mentioned.”

Temple grimaced. “We have a prima donna on board.” Matt waited.

“Savannah Ashleigh, fading D-movie actress, is a celebrity emcee for the Red Hat Sisterhood. She’s really hard to hold back. I had to allow her to introduce you.”

“I don’t know her and she doesn’t know me. How can she introduce me?”

“She’s show biz. I gave her a bio. How much damage can she do? It was that, or have a bloodbath offstage, like in Macbeth.” Matt sighed. “I thought one always called it ‘the Scottish play’ or it would be cursed by some new death.”

“This isn’t a play performance,” Temple said. “And it will actually boost your career. You deserve more than radio exposure.”

“I don’t need it.”

“But your panting public does.” Temple went on tiptoe to demonstrate what his panting public needed with a quick but thorough kiss.

Then she backed off.

She felt like a nervous matchmaker, as she always did at a full-press media event. Now she had to sit back and watch all the ingredients blend into some powerhouse super-salad of hype no one could predict, least of all her.

Especially unpredictable was Electra’s red-hatted presence in the audience. Temple was uneasy about that, but maybe seeing Elmore make a public ass out of himself would be cathartic, which was a fancy word for feeling self-justified. Templeunderstood that this was so traumatic for Electra, having her past zooming back at her like a motorcycle out of control.

Temple had been there recently… .

Matt would be the sane, neutral bridge between two volatile substances: manly men and womanly women. Both had enough years on them to add up to media TNT.

Temple prepared to bite her nails as Savannah Ashleigh did a Marilyn Monroe wiggle to the podium to start the show. Even her voice was MM breathy.

“Ladies and gentlemen. I am so proud and happy to introduce your host for this event, the yummy-on-the-tummy and even ears and other areas too—Mr. Midnight! Matt Devine from ‘The Midnight Hour’ on station WCOO, that’s pronounced W- `cooo,’ and we will when we hear him over the microphone. I must say that he looks as yummy as he sounds, so voice isn’t everything.”

Temple felt her eyes crossing, but the TV cameras zoomed in on Savannah’s cleavage and then on Matt’s face as he approached the podium.

Claps and whistles faded.

Matt leaned toward the microphone, looking boyishly mischievous. “I would like to thank the pulchritudinous Miss Ashleigh for her extremely wholesome delivery of the introduction.”

The paraphrase of JFK’s response to Marilyn Monroe’s notoriously inciting “Happy Birthday” serenade spawned another round of hoots, applause, and catcalls.

Temple let out a long-held breath. Matt would do just fine. Now, let the games begin!

“Girls just want to have fun,” Candy Crenshaw was saying into her microphone. “Boys just want to have guns.” The Red Hat Sisterhood’s clown princess was ready to crack wise.

Only four minutes into the debate, tempers were already boiling over.

“Just a minute, Ms. Crenshaw,” Matt said. “Let’s get this straight. “You’re saying that grown men can’t indulge their fantasy personas, but that women can?”

“Women can-can,” Cal Crenshaw shot back, leaning to look around the moderator’s podium to glare at his ex-wife. “I happen to know this woman is sixty-three and a half years old. Why is she got up like a saloon girl from the Old West?”

A titter stirred the audience, for the feather boas did scream

“saloon floozy.”

“Thank you, gentlemen and ladies,” Crenshaw went on with a tip of his Western hat brim.

“Why are you got up as Wyatt Earp?” Kit asked quickly.

“To match you gals,” another BHB panelist said. “Anything you can do we can do better.”

“Can you get five thousand soul brothers to meet in Las Ve-gas?” Candy Crenshaw asked. “How many of you disgruntled dudes are there? Fifteen in all?”

“That’s enough to ruffle your feathers,” Crenshaw bragged.

Matt intervened. “Let’s have a duel of the membership numbers, ladies and gents. Gentlemen?”

“Mmmble-mmmble,” Crenshaw muttered into his mike.

“I didn’t quite hear that,” Matt prodded.

“Forty-five:’ he answered.

“Must be their waist sizes,” Candy Crenshaw quipped.

The audience roared.

“Look who’s talking?” Elmore Lark riposted.

“Enough,” Matt said, “or we’ll all think you’re comparing IQs.”

Laughter came from the audience and both sides of the debating table.