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…
