Bonnie Zepf

The Dinner Party Bonnie Zepf

It was the early fifties and things were changing, including Ethel. She left her poverty behind on a farm in Canada while The Hawk, the Chicago wind, blew away all remaining traces of her humble beginnings. She knew her beauty and guile would take her to where she wanted to go, and that was far from where she was. The mistake of her marriage to a philanderer and the three children from that union, would not prevent her from attaining her goals. So a quick divorce and placing the girls in boarding school safe and sound, freed her and her parvenu ways to have the life she knew was waiting for her: wealth, luxury, furs, jewelry, and men.............lots of very powerful men, leaving many wives in her wake.

Her marriages were mere stepping stones in her journey of perdition that finally landed her in La Jolla, with her fifth and final husband, Harry. Now older and a tad alcohol laced, she decided she wanted her family around ............... a dowager of sorts. Unfortunately for Ethel, her family bifurcated in all areas including locations, lifestyles, religion, and politics, hence rendering any effort at being a family, dysfunctional, hilarious, and pathetic.

Her final days were in the care of Susan, one of her daughters, and Frankie, an Elvis look-alike care-giver whose acidic tongue matched Ethel's making for a colorful exit. As a young woman her entrances were breathtaking, but that final exit......................well, it's a story worth telling.