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.”
