Deader Than Deadski

After her recent shock that Big Frank was seriously thinking of relocating to the Middle East, beleaguered Bettie discovers that her third husband has one last surprise to spring on her.

Though I may have a fine woman’s portal and world class back-end support, I now no longer have a husband. Big Frank has cashed in his chips. Hung up his tackle. Jumped the last hurdle and fired his last shot. Yep, my beloved Hubby #3 has gone to that big roulette wheel in the sky. 

The official report? He was found floating off the island’s east coast after suffering a – qu’elle surpise! – heart attack. What didn’t make the Isle of Man Examiner was that his total ticker failure was brought on by dancing the horizontal kalinka with the wife of a local Russian Mafia boss. Well, doesn’t that prove it’s always the quiet ones…

It’s fair to say, diary, that this came as quite a shock, as I had a pretty full day planned – and Baz and Lionel don’t like customers who cancel. And trust Hubby #3 to get himself bumped off on Two-For-One Tuesdays. Luckily, before heading off to identify the body, I did have time to swing by Ballasalla for a tidy up and found that, in a special today-only promotion, they were doing twenty percent off for Brazilians.

“Isn’t that racist?” I asked the gum-chewing girl behind the marble counter.

“Nah, it’s off the treatment, not the people…”

Which cleared things up, but surely, diary, I would have thought a Brazilian was ninety percent off. Still…

It’s no surprise that the Douglas morgue is not a classy establishment, and certainly did nothing to jazz up a dull afternoon. But, I must say after they pumped twelve gallons of Irish Sea water out his lungs and chiselled the cement from off his ankles, my bloated beloved looked fairly good considering. Unfortunately, his demise was the least of my worries, as he may have finally paid his debt to nature, but all his other debts have fallen to little ol’ me. All nine, three-inch stacks of them.

After two days drinking the foulest machine-dispensed cappuccino the world has ever imagined with Hubby #3’s even fouler accountant, all I can say is it’s just as well Frank Tortano Culatello Passalacqua is now resting in the St Peter’s bosom, otherwise I’d be finishing him off with my own bare hands. The basic upshot is that 39-4-Ever.com, the website for women with more waistline inches than birthday candles, my jobs moonlighting as Miss No-Hope and Mystic Tracy – all this, it transpires, is worth jack shit. 

When I finally saw the bottom line, at first I thought I was reading the gross annual bill for JLo’s dress allowance, but no, the long red number was actually our negative assets. 

I got home in a state of shock, and had just finished checking down the back of the last sofa, when Eleanor Roosevelt entered the room being pushed by Dr. Dinkelïcker.

“Bettie,” the USS Invincible announced. “My therapist needs a few words.”

“Well, unless it’s ‘Come On Down!’ make it quick.”

“In my professional opinion,” Dinkelïcker started, “your stepmother–”

“Father,” I corrected.

“Your father requires further treatment.”

“Surprise me.”

“She–”

“He.”

“He needs to go on a Goodwill World Tour to garner support for her–”

“His.”

“His UN Human Rights Bill.”

“With you and your wife as chaperones, no doubt.”

“Ja.”

“Fine. But it’ll have to wait until after the funeral.”

“Funeral?” they both said.

So, only a week after my fruitcake family’s gathering for Bunnie and Warren’s wedding, who knew they’d be reuniting again so soon. And this time the busload of Mohammeds would be schlepping to our very own sacred mountain: the fabled Isle of Man…

Better The Devil You Know

Repentant Bettie cries, “Oh, Ambassador!” as she whips out the posh chocolates to celebrate her new love affair with all things Manx

Call me old fashioned, but I never imagined I’d share anything with Salman Rushdie, but after the Palestinian Council got wind of certain aspects of our 39-4-Ever scouting tour, the resulting fatwā was a mere formality. Of course, Big Frank had changed his mind about relocating way before then, as we weren’t an hour out from the Mount of Olives Bed and Baba Ghanoush when even my penny-pinching Hubby #3 had seen enough.

“Bettie,” he announced over the sounds of machine gun fire at our third roadblock. “We have to get out of here.”

“No problem,” I replied from beneath my ebony shroud, and in full view of a sizable crowd gathered for the daily stoning, I exposed myself. Yep, diary, both elbows.

Flights from Jerusalem to the UK are not what you would call frequent (or even necessary), but thanks to Air Hallelujah, I was back in strapless and stilettos, puffing away on 20 Marlboros and slinging back the Floridita daiquiris in less than an entire day. Still, it wasn’t all for nothing. Under that coal-black burkha, I sweated off close to fourteen pounds.

After the big mess that was the Holy Land, our arrival back at the Douglas dock front was – dare I admit it – a welcome relief. And so started my renaissance with the much maligned Isle of Man, because, after Palestine, this ancient seat of democracy and tailless cats seemed like The Inn of the Sixth Happiness. To Big Frank’s rapture and delight, we found that in our absence the government had hired a gambling ambassador to make things lovely again for us gaming operators. Never the one to miss a chance for some world-class schmoozing, I was soon busy planning an All-You-Can-Eat Prawn Ring and Hankie-Pankies welcome wagon for the island’s bigwigs.

The final evening’s festivities were rewardingly well-received, but I have to admit I hardly knew a soul.

“So, who are you?” I asked a particularly scruffy individual.

“I’m acting PM,” the man said.

“Oh, sorry,” I replied, “I don’t do theatre,” and headed off to hurry along the Ferrero Rocher pyramids.

On my way I passed Big Frank, and commented on how well the party was going.

“Yeah, it’s great,” he said between mouthfuls, “but we’ll still need to make a few more cutbacks.”

“Like what?”

“You have to fire your success coach.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s not like you’re having much success, are you?”

Sheesh kebab, diary, it was hard to argue with that…

Still, when I finally phoned and broke the bad news to Jerinda, she seemed fairly non-plussed.

“Oh, that’s quite all right. I’m going to be far too busy…”

“Oh?”

“Why, yes. I’ve just signed up to exclusively promote Mona’s first collection.”

“What?”

“Take a look in this month’s Harper’s Bazaar,” she suggested.

I had it right there.

Whipping through page-after-page of Beyoncé Eau de Hot Butt double-page spreads, I saw something that froze my blood. Splashed across the center pages was a photograph of what I first thought was a dried-up river bed, yet turned out to be a close-up of my maid’s wrinkled face endorsing a variety of hairy hats and handbags. And beneath was a single byline:

‘Because nothing says ‘I Love You’ like a clutch purse woven from her own pubes.’

Ramallah-A-Ding-Dong

After recent shocking revelations, Bettie’s mixed-up mind has no chance to settle before she finds her next mission is to put the fun into fundamentalism.

Look, I’m not gonna get all mushy. Mother’s back and turns out she’s cooler  than Steve McQueen in a Mustang convertible. The USS Invincible’s just as crazy. We’re just as broke. So what’s next? The Mamas and Papas ride off into the sunset for a lurid lesbian affair?

For the record, mother’s summation of the last thirty-plus missing years is that upon discovering my father’s high heel and hemline hijinks, she tried to top herself, then when that failed fled in shame. Father continued to be stuck in his sexual revolving doors for a few years – hence, ta-da! Muffy – but ultimately settled on what mother’s calling “genital verification surgery”. And, hey, how was this particular 2nd Grader to know that the woman she saw leaving the house most weekends was in fact daddy slipping in and out of frocks. Or indeed that my real mother hadn’t “flown up to join the angels”, but instead was sucked into this weird mind-controlling cult, was shut away without contact to the outside world, and bound by a moral code that, frankly beggars belief. I mean, poverty, chastity and obedience? So, yep, mother in absentia turned Mother Superior. I mean, could this story get any stranger?

Yet this does mean nobody was killed by anyone, which, though comforting, does also kinda feel like I’m being somehow short-changed in the drama department. But after mother’s personal life history 101, it still leaves one big burning question: Just how crazy is my stepmother? Father. Whatever.

OK, so to put the final nail in the Bunnie/Warren wedding coffin, let’s finish with a few bon mots from the airport limo:

Big Frank: “Oh, wasn’t Bunnie’s wedding like a religious experience?”

Muffy: “I’m bulimic because you left us!”

Dinkelïcker: “Interesting…”

Jerinda: “Right, after the I-dos, it’s back to the to-dos!”

Mona: “I hate America. It gets on me nerves.”

Me: “Om Mani Padme Om… Om Mani Padme Om…”

Back at Akron International while Mona, Jerinda, stepmother – sorry – father – sorry – second mother, his – sorry – her psychiatrist and his –yeah, his – wife all went left, we went right and boarded a plane with weird squiggles graffitied all over it.

“Guff Air?” I said, looking at my ticket. “That doesn’t sound like it’s going to England.”

“It isn’t,” Big Frank replied. “It’s going to Palestine.”

Diary, I wasn’t sure if it was time for his medication or mine.

Turns out that, since our finances were lower than a well digger’s ass, Big Frank Googled ‘cheapest server space on the planet’, top of the list was this Palestinian refugee camp just outside the capital Ramallah. Apparently, it’s got all kinds of perks – weak gaming laws, automatic shielding from legal liability, being twinned with Chernobyl – but no mention of the fact that me and yashmaks aren’t exactly best buddies.

Apparently, Hubby #3 thought I’d be pleased as, with all that sand and burning buildings, at least it’ll be a damn sight warmer than the Isle of Man in the winter. Of course, he could have picked any number of other sunny gaming jurisdictions; Antigua, Malta, Vanuatu, Curaçao… in fact, anywhere else in the fricking world. Boy, and he wonders why whenever he boards a plane, I get the weirdest urge to run down the aisle screaming: “Pigs can fly!” 

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” he explained, showing me a printed letter of introduction. “It’s just a quick scouting trip…”

“I await you with my pleasure,” the email finished. Great.

We finally met up with our guide – Mahmoud – at the terminal, which wasn’t easy as everyone looked as if they were off to an audition as Osama Bin Laden’s body double. Personally, standing around in wide-brimmed hat and Versace halter dress, I was petrified of being stoned to death as a barbarous infidel for showing my shoulders. I shouldn’t have worried. Because that’s when our beaming Muslim Tonto handed me my burka…

Taking The Cake

Post-wedding comedown, Bettie checks out of her horror hostel and immediately checks into a whole new mess of family trials and troubles.

Well, that does it, diary. It’s too much. Life finally ditched its usual hand of five low numbers in three different suits and just went for all Jokers. As everyone knows, family reunions bring out the worst in me at the best of times, without having to deal with one’s dearly departed crashing the party. Deceased mothers do not just turn up. Apart from the technical issues involved, it’s also bad form.

Woke with a hangover and swore never to drink Bellini chasers again. The horrors of yesterday at first seemed like an alcoholic’s nightmare and it was quite a shock to find out it wasn’t.

After everything that happened at the wedding, all the fake flowers, fake bonhomie and, er… fakirs in the after-party Arabian Nights-themed disco marquee, my head felt like a snowglobe shaken madly by a hyperactive child. I wanted to just lie in a darkened cellar for… oh, about a week or so, but, regrettably, that had to wait as I had somehow, beyond stupidly, booked a breakfast power session with my success coach.

I found the bright and breezy Brit bitch already looking fabulous in the velvet Love Lounge that doubles for the Happy-Happy Joy-Joy’s chowhouse.

“Let’s kick off with a quick Q&A!” Jerinda began immediately.

“Can you turn down the perky a notch. I’m­–”

“Oh, you big baby. Of course, I only allow myself three hours sleep every night. That way–”

“Perhaps a touch more.”

“OK. Let’s go… Open question. Quickfire: How’s your holiday?”

Diary, I must’ve talked for twenty minutes after that. All about being stuck in this god-awful hostel where the knife rack in the kitchen is always empty and the only other guest signed his name as Jason A. Loonie. About herding the 39-4-Ever entourage first to the Caribbean then all the way across the Southern States on a Greyhound. About the crazy fairy tale wedding where the beautiful and alluring princess (me), who was abandoned as a child and brought up by an evil stepmother is reunited with her dead mother in the third act. And, hey, just who poisoned ma mère if the USS Invincible didn’t. Or didn’t poison her as she was most definitely alive last I saw as I ran screaming into the hills.

“What happened? Where has she been? She was dead!”

“I think I can sense a splash of negativity here.”

“Ya’think?”

“Perhaps you should go and speak with her?” Jerinda suggested.

So that, diary, is what I just went and did.

“What happened? Where have you been? You were dead!”

“It was your father’s decision that drove me to it,” Mama began.

“Drove you to what?”

“My suicide attempt.”

“So you weren’t murdered in cold… er, herbal infusion?”

“Ut-uh. Nothing like that. Who would want to murder me?”

So I spelled out my stepmother conspiracy theory and how the USS Invincible had the perfect motive to bump everyone off.  Still, if I thought those revelations were shocking, she’d saved the best bombshell for last.

“Bettie,” she said, far too calmly. “Your stepmother is your father.”