Page 4 of My Big Fat Italian Break-Up

We’d probably still be married if it hadn’t been for that telltale text message in the exact moment I was in the hospital awaiting a stomach bypass. (She was, she wrote, wearing red stilettos and no panties, waiting formyhusband. While I was battling with a tissue-like robe with blue flowers that was nowhere near big enough to cover even the tiniest ass, let alone mine. You get the picture).

Scratch that – rather than still being married to him, I’d most likely have killed him, judging by the amazing amount of killer fantasies I’d had towards the end of the marriage. At one point I’d gone as far as to consider throwing a hairdryer into his bath on one of his ‘let’s bash Erica’s person’ nights. Oh, yes! In those days I could have written a book titled,A Gazillion Ways to Kill Your Husband.

Even now, occasionally, Ira will pop into my mind and I marvel at how little I loved myself to put up with him and his cruel words about my looks and how I’d never be the perfect housewife. Of course I couldn’t, not while working round the clock. Things had got so bad that I’d begun to grind my teeth in my sleep.

And then, once Ira was finally out of the picture, I’d slowly started to blossom. Thanks first to the kindness and later the love of Julian who had chosen to be with The One Who Didn’t Have It All Together. As opposed to some of the other moms who did, and would have given their right arm for just one night with him. Of course, I know that they’re not better than me. But boy, do they manage to pretend they are!

Yeah. This was definitely my second shot at life and I’d be damned if I wasn’t going to get it right this time.

*

While the gently lapping waters of the pool caressed my skin, I had a brainstorming session with myself about how to drum up some business this coming summer. I was just about to make a chronological list of the steps to be taken when the telephone interrupted my strategy-building. Could it possibly be a blessed booking? I jumped out the pool, stubbing my big toe on the stone steps, cursing as I limped in all my rotund glory to the cordless phone on the garden table, ow-ow-ing in agony.

‘A T-taste… of Tuscany… good afternoon,’ I managed through gritted teeth as I shoved my foot under a towel to dull the pain.

‘Is that the way you answer the phone? Did you learnnothingall those years as manager of The Farthington, for goodness’ sake?’

I groaned. Marcy Bettarini Cantelli. My stepmother and my mother’s twin, better known as the bane of my younger years and still today a thorn in my side, despite a few sporadic attempts to get along from both sides.

It figured that when I lived within a ten-minute drive from their place, she’d never bothered. Unless it was to criticize my taste in clothes, or to try to sabotage my relationship with my aunts, the lovely Three Ms: Maria, Monica and Martina, of whom she was killer jealous. But now that I was in Italy – and at peace with the world, for once – she called at least twice a week just to rub me up the wrong way, knowing that she could, with the result that I was agitated for days after. Of course, it’s mostly on me. I could easily not give a damn. But I do.

Sure, we’d had that stepmother–stepdaughter atonement thing going on when she confessed how she’d come to marry my dad. Who was still in love with her own dead twin. Marcy had suffered greatly for always being second and all. And it’d had a softening effect on me. Because, let’s face it, I’m a forgiver by nature. To a certain extent.

When would she ever get over herself? And why didn’t she instead aggravate my siblings, Judy or Vince, who lived only a few blocks away from her? Why didn’t she disapprove of their lifestyle, like when Judy had had a cheating spate on her saintly husband, Steve, or when Vince had fallen in love with another woman, who wasn’t Sandra? So much for being at peace with myself and the world. I know, I’ve still got some work to do in that department. I’m a Work In progress. But I can accept that, now.

So why did she not torture them? Because I never spilled the beans on their mistakes, while my slip-ups were always thrown back in my face.

‘Hi, Marcy,’ I groaned. ‘Sorry, I hurt my foot.’

‘What? When? Are you alright?’

For a woman who had barely spoken to me in my youth except to tell me to stop stuffing my face and sit up straight, Marcy had morphed into one hell of a pain in the ass ever since I found out she wasn’t my real mother. I almost preferred her before.

‘I’m fine, Marcy.’

‘Well?’

‘Well what?’

‘Aren’t you going to tell me how it’sgoing?’

Lately, Marcy was starting to speak in italics. And hyperboles. It was her new way of getting everyone’s attention. Nothing was nice, good, OK. On the contrary, it wasabsolutely fabulous,tremendousor, in my case,horrendous.

‘Very well, thanks. We’ve got guests coming tonight.’ Albeit the only ones, but I wasn’t telling her that.

‘Are you booked the last two weeks of August?’

The last two weeks of August – meaning the two weeks I was going to book in Sicily for sun, sea, sand and around-the-clock room service. She wasn’t about to invite herself over, was she? Oh, dear God in heaven, please, no.

‘We have plans to come over,’ I heard her say.

You know when you hear something crystal clear but you’re hoping, against all logic, that you’ve only imagined it? Absolute horror thrummed through me like electricity down a power line and I was sure she could hear the zing as it zapped up my spine.

Other than that, I was slipping into a state of panic. Marcy,here, lounging around this very pool and making me cater to her every need while she downed Martinis and criticized everything from my placemats to my shower curtains? Nuh-uh. Not happening – if I valued my sanity, my marriage and my children’s respect for me. Because Marcy would tear apart all the aforementioned in one week flat.

I could already see it, like a train wreck in slow motion, or one of those nightmares you can’t wake up from. Because all Marcy wanted, bless her selfish little soul, was to lookfabulouswhile others looked like shit. And Marcy always got what she wanted. But not this time, if I could help it.

Because if she flew out for the last two weeks of August, once she knew the wedding was in September, there was no way I was getting rid of her until then. Which meant that I’d have to put up with her for the best part of six weeks. Not happening.

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