Read Online A View From a Broad by Bette Midler - Free Book Online Page A

fifteen minutes later, they told me I was lucky to be alive. I had somehow managed, in reaching behind me for a weapon, to stick my finger directly into the electrical converter that was lying on my table, waiting to receive my hair dryer. At first, as I lay sprawled out over the rouge and depilatories, everyone thought I was dead. Now they were concerned that I felt no ill effects.
    Ill effects? One look in the mirror and I felt terrific. The shock had lent a certain becoming color to my cheeks, curled my hair, and left me with a warm, tingling sensation where before there had been only chills and shivering. Furthermore, except for Miss Frank, who stood off to one side mumbling how this was only the beginning, everyone was standing around me, being so solicitous and attentive that every self-absorbed, self-centered fiber of my being was appeased and purring happily.

    Now I could go out and face those thundering, non-English-speaking Swedes. Let them walk out on me! Let them not understand! I had my friends! My family! I needed nothing more!
    “Come, Miss Frank,” I bravely cried, flinging my split ends over my shoulder, “cinch me in! And make it tight! I’m going to go out there and turn that ice rink into a wading pool! . . . If I only knew a little more Swedish . . .”

• THE JUTEBORY SCANDINAVIUM •
    G ood Evening Ladies and Germs and welcome to another breathless evening of Tit and Wit! I stand before you nipples to the wind, ready to please you in every way you hoped I might and some you hoped I might not. . . . Am I talking too fast? Am I talking too slow? . . . In honor of my first trip to the North Countries, I come to you tonight mean as Scrooge and twice as horny, full of stories, songs and little pieces of exotic information you might not have known had you not bought a ticket to see this demented demiblonde. Ain’t that right, girls? How many of you think I’m still talking too fast? . . . How many vote for too slow? . . . How many of you think I should just shut up and go home? . . . Where was I? Oh, the girls. Look at those girls. The new lot. Each and every one of them a former Miss Matjes Herring. New girls, but the same old drag. You know me, honey, I am the Queen of Recycling! We didn’t have auditions to find these three —we had fittings . . . but I tell you, I am as proud as a peahen over these three yentas. Notice I did not say peacock. My consciousness has been raised. But I suggest you take notice of it right away, as there will be less and less evidence of it as the evening wears on. . . . Am I talking all right now? . . . Is everything okay? . . .



After our tremendous success in Jutebory I sensed a subtle change in my girls. Their worldly success had gone completely to their heads, and I thought that a walk through the tawdry carnival nightlife of Liseberry, the local amusement park, might remind them of what they once had been, and might easily become again—if they displeased the Gods (or Goddesses).



I t all began reasonably enough. As there were only two flights out of Gothenburg to Stockholm, one at 8 A.M. (too early) and one at 6 P.M . (too late), a private plane was hired to take The Divine and Miss Frank to the distant Swedish capital. The plane, a Cessna six-seater, was scheduled to leave at noon, and at noon (thanks to some incredibly deft work on the part of Miss Frank in arousing The Divine at such an ungodly hour), the bedraggled twosome arrived at a small airport in the woods just north of Gothenburg.
    Miss M took one look at the plane and swooned. She had heard that the Swedes were into suicide, but this was ridiculous. Still, there seemed to be no choice but to board the fragile aircraft. Wrapped to the point of suffocation in multifarious layers of unfamiliar animal skins, and still fighting off the effects of last night’s celebrations, Miss M was sullen but obedient as the pilot strapped her into her seat.
    “Now, you