The crowd chuckled in anticipation: witticisms were one of Bette’s strong suits.

“So he asks me, as we drained the expensive cognac, probably thinking I was buzzed, therefore possibly slower on the uptake.   “What is the first thing you remember when asked about your father?” 

“Easy,” I said. My dad once threw his hands up in exasperation, and exclaimed “raising a teenager is like nailing jelly to a tree!”

The crowd laughed.  Someone asked, “Then what did he say?”

“Something flat, actually,” Bette replied, ruefully.  “Nothing memorable.  Anyway, seeing I was still on my toes, he asked me another thing intended to keep me off-balanced, again,” She paused for effect.

“He asked, “What is the worst line you have heard?”

”Oh, that should be good,” someone from the crowd exclaimed, given Bette’s reputation.  Bette shook her head, grinning, “I think he knew I was gay, but I immediately said, “Well there was this girl who thought she was hot stuff, and smart and everything.  She had sidled up to me at the bar, and seeing I was agreeable, at least initially, bought me a drink. Ten minutes into our drinks she says, “People say I have a ready wit.”

“To which I naturally gave the suitable rejoinder…“Oh, ok. Do let me know when it’s ready.”

“Ouch!” someone shouted, as the rest of the crowd chuckled. “Yeah, that’s what he thought so too…. Anyway, soon after that,”  Bette paused from her story, then turned  to the bejeweled young San Francisco socialite next to her, who had been trying to catch her eye all night.  She smoothly grabbed the admiring woman’s slim left hand, holding it between her own, looked deeply into the woman’s eyes.  She murmured, inflecting a heavy French accent, “The Chairman said, Mademoiselle, you have taught me all over again what true diplomacy is – which is the art of letting someone have YOUR way. So what can I say, I have been wrong all along. Oui, oui, of course you can land your planes in my ae-er-po-ort (elongating the word). Why not? I would be a fool if I didn’t, n’est pas?”

“No way!” A handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair in a well-tailored tux exclaimed at once. “He didn’t!” he said again, in mock horror, lightly slapping his forehead. The man was an erstwhile competitor of Bette’s but who loved her dearly.