Go-getting Bettie rendezvous with Big Frank in the Big Apple before their even-bigger flight across the Atlantic.
I’m not sure what was more stupid: that in the wake of 9/11… 10… er, 11… Big Frank’s choice of el cheapo airline was the Arab-stuffed fuselage of Air Islamabad or that my diary’s Word of the Day for today was: Tchotchke. Being the only passenger to leave the airplane not in a burka, is it any wonder that I fell under the watchful eyes of the hyper-tense TSA officers? Guess it was also not the day to test-drive the new La Perla Underwire G-String, either.
Still, at least having eight hours of solitary confinement meant I could simmer down from my stepsister scrap-fest, and catch up on action items for my overnight in the Rotten Apple:
(1) Rendezvous with husband #3
(2) Overnight in Manhattan
(3) Witness Wanda’s new hairdo
(4) Leave country forever
I really didn’t know which I wanted to do least.
Already with an attitude set to ‘shred on sight’, I wasn’t best pleased to find that Big Frank was nowhere to be found. Typical, as this left me to dodge the herds of Save-A-Soul extremists barring my way between baggage reclaim and the real world. In the devastating aftermath of Hurricane Xevadiah, they were trying to raise much needed cash for distraught victims. I settled on a combined clothing and food parcel: an Alexander McQueen Spring Casuals collection and twelve dozen Beluga bagels, all to be airlifted to starving survivors at the Gramercy Park rooftop restaurant.
Finding Big Frank, our luggage and a cab all in the same New York minute, we finally arrived at the Waldorf=Astoria at the stroke of midnight. Salvation! Well, that was until I walked into our twelfth-floor pied-à-terre and found that Big Frank’s Girl Friday had booked us a double bed. Well, that just wasn’t happening. But, instead of insisting we move hotels, I gave him my spare pajamas. They were far too small, but I insisted, saying, “If I roll over in the night and touch your naked flesh, I’ll be sick.”
Next morning I set off to meet Wanda, my NYC girlfriend. Our midday meet-up hardly filled me with glee as Wanda is a bon vivant, fashionista and ten years my junior. Not sure exactly what Wanda does for a living. Mostly she seems to just stand around and look fabulous. Her latest tweet was all about her new blood-red bouffant – ‘Dear friends, by the time you read this I will be red…’ – and now I was to see it for myself. “Whatcha think?” the fur-coated pop-tart asked, on the curb outside that half-peeled Guggenheim place. I told her it was ‘beyond intensity’, but – really – it made her look like a cherry-flavored Charms Blow-pop stuck to a Chinchilla’s back.
