Betty Lou Carpenter hadn’t liked Rodney and Elsie at SMU, and she didn’t like them now. If Alex had told her where they were going, she would have refused the date. Maybe Alex knew that. “One of my biggest clients has asked me to dinner,” he had said, “and it’s not the kind of thing I can turn down. I don’t like to go alone. The fifth wheel, you know, the odd man out.” Betty Lou didn’t often get asked for a date, and she forgot to ask who the client was.
Rodney rambled through his whole football career, and from there into an immodest account of his brilliance and success in the home-construction business and how Dallas was definitely the place to make a million these days. Mr. Leary, a freckled Irishman, showed considerable interest in that part of Rodney’s discourse. He was in insurance, after all, and new homes meant new policies. Elsie rolled her eyes at Mr. Leary across the table, and Mrs. Leary smiled and spoke occasionally in crisp New England monosyllables. Betty Lou said little, and Alex said nothing, but the first half of the evening hadn’t been bad.
It was the third bottle of wine that launched Rodney’s tirade against Roosevelt’s “queer deal” and Truman, “that little haberdasher,” and even Eisenhower, who “gave Germany to the Russians.” Kennedy, of course, had given away Cuba and was trying to give away the rest of Latin America and Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos and was turning the United States itself over to the niggers. Rodney’s brow seemed to get narrower as he talked. His eyes, fueled by alcohol and spleen, burned black as onyx. “Kennedy ain’t just soft on them,” he said. “He’s in with them. He’s part of the conspiracy. Ain’t that right, Alex?”
Alex mumbled something noncommittal, and Rodney took it for agreement. “The Russians would be in the White House tonight if the pope didn’t want it, too,” he said.
Both Leary’s flushed, and Betty Lou decided to intervene.
“Oh, Rod! You don’t really mean that!” She knew he meant it, but the Leary’s discomfort embarrassed her. This was their first dinner party in Dallas, they had said, their first experience of Texas’s famous hospitality.
Rodney shook a beefy, freckled finger. “Look who’s defending the pinkos! Look who’s speaking up for St. John of Boston! This wouldn’t have anything to do with that account of yours, would it?” He smiled to Mr. Leary. “Betty Lou’s firm has been hired to drum up a rousing welcome for St. John, you see. Every commie in Dallas will be in the streets tomorrow, won’t they, Betty Lou? At least you hope they will.”
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. Leary said. Her husband looked at her as if he wished she hadn’t spoken, but her eyes were on Rodney.
“Betty Lou’s been brainwashing the press,” Rodney said. “She’s been paid to show St. John that Dallas loves him. Ain’t that right, Betty Lou?”
“But why—?” Mrs. Leary said.
Betty Lou interrupted. “Rod, you know the image of this city—”
“To hell with the image!” Rodney boomed. “It’s a disgrace for Dallas to kowtow to the likes of him! What’s he ever done for us?”
“Rod, darling,” Elsie said sweetly, “why don’t we continue the discussion in more comfortable chairs, over a brandy?”
So they had moved to the living room, where Elsie, waving her arms like a traffic cop, assigned each a seat. Alex and Mrs. Leary were given the ridiculous purple French provincial love seat, Betty Lou was assigned the hard-seated antique rocker, and Elsie trapped Mr. Leary beside her on the pink sofa. Elsie waved Rodney to the black, imitation-leather recliner, but he ignored her and lined six snifters along the marble mantel, poured from the crystal decanter, and passed the snifters around.
Betty Lou seized the moment of shuffle as a chance to change the subject and asked, “What business are you in, Mr. Leary?” He answered that hours ago, but he smiled gratefully.
“Insurance,” he said. “Regional office manager. We were moved here just last month.”
“I guess you’re hardly settled, then,” Betty Lou said.
“Heavens, no!” Mrs. Leary said. “We’d barely gotten Jason settled in school in Hartford. Then we moved here and had to start all over.”
“They like the Kennedys up there, don’t they?” Rodney said. He was standing at the mantel, his legs spread wide, holding the decanter in one hand and his snifter in the other.
“Well, yes…” Mrs. Leary seemed flustered. She was a small, dark woman, birdlike in a quiet, nervous way. She reminded Betty Lou of New England schoolteachers she had seen in movies. Betty Lou guessed she had intelligence but was too shy or modest to show it often.
“Are you active in politics, Stacy?” Elsie asked.
Betty Lou cringed inwardly. It was the first time Elsie had used Mrs. Leary’s first name. She was digging now. She wanted information.
“Well, yes, I—”
Mr. Leary caught his wife’s eye this time and shook his head slightly.
“I vote, if that’s what you mean,” Mrs. Leary said.
“Ha! If you stick around Elsie, you’ll be doing a lot more than that!” Rodney said. “I’m a politics widower! There’s hardly a night Elsie’s not off at some meeting. White Citizen’s Council, National Indignation Committee, John Birch Society, Friends of General Walker, Texans for America…Always on the go, ain’t you, honey?”
Both Leary’s looked startled. They had just realized where they were. Poor Learys!
“I think she loves Bruce Alger more than she loves me,” Rodney said. “Ain’t that right, honey? She’s even promoting a Goldwater-Alger ticket for ‘sixty-four. What do you think of that?”
“Well, what’s wrong with it?” Elsie said.
“Balance!” Rodney roared. “Geographical balance! Texas and Arizona are just one state apart, honey!”
“Uh, who’s Alger?” Mrs. Leary asked.
“He’s your congressman, Mrs. Leary,” Betty Lou said. “Like it or not.”
“Why wouldn’t she like it?” Elsie said. “Do you know of a better one?”
Rodney brandished the decanter. “Betty Lou’s on the other side, honey. Until tomorrow. Ain’t that right, Betty Lou? But Bruce won’t make it, even if he wants it. They’ll have to get some Yankee to run with Barry.” He laughs. “I kind of like old J. L. Fischer’s idea. Billy Graham and Barry Goldwater. By God, who could vote against that?”
“That old fool,” Betty Lou said.
“Fool? J .L.’s one of the richest men in the world, young lady. He’s brought in more oil wells than a dog has fleas. I wouldn’t call that a fool. Would you, Alex? And he’s a damn good Baptist, too. Ain’t that right, Alex?”
Alex grunted.
“We go to Highland Park Baptist,” Elsie told Mrs. Leary.
“I’ve tried to get him to try my church, the Episcopalian, but he won’t.”
“Dyed-in-the-wool Baptist I am!” Rodney said. “Every inch of my hide baptized—and once saved, always saved. What church do you folks go to, Mark?” He and Elsie looked at Mr. Leary, who looked uncomfortable.
“Catholic,” Mrs. Leary said quietly. “We’re Irish Catholics. And we both voted for John Kennedy. Mark, have you forgotten the baby-sitter?”
The room was quiet. Rodney set the decanter and his snifter on the mantel. Alex looked at his watch. “Yeah, we’d better go, too,” he said. He and Mrs. Leary rose and headed toward the coat closet in the hallway. Rodney and Elsie said nothing.
When