Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang (6 page)

"Get churros," he replied.

There are churro stands about every two hundred feet at the Santa Monica Pier, so it felt totally natural to yell, "Ted, that's why Dudley liked the pier. The churros. He loved churros!"

"Oh, Jesus Christ. No wonder the dog is fucking dead if he was eating fucking churros."

At this point I was starting to pee a little and kept having to grab my vagina. Luckily it was windy, so it was easy to hide my face behind the hair being blown across it. This was beyond ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as Ted taking a bite out of one of the churros as he crossed back over to where I was.

"What the hell is that?" I asked, pointing at the top of the bitten churro.

"What?" he said, trying to hide the churro under his lapel.

"Those are for Dudley, Ted!"

"But he's dead."

"They wanted to spread the churros with his ashes."

"Chelsea, you can't throw churros over the pier into the water. Dudley would want us to have them. Come on, we're going to be late."

"Just flip that one upside down and don't take another bite."

Fifty yards later we came to the end of the pier, where there were people scattered about. I immediately saw Johnny facing us, wearing a hoodie and holding a video camera. The sign was to his right. I knew that Ted's keen sense of unawareness would help him take a while to find either one, so I let him run around like a labrador retriever for a few minutes looking for the funeral party while I was trying to stop my urethra from fully discharging all over the Santa Monica Pier. Once he came down from the observation deck, waving his arms in the air, saying, "We missed it! I knew we were going to be late!" I got myself together enough to point to the poster.

"What's that?" I asked.

This was the sign we had made:

Two days later I showed the video on
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
. I haven't played any jokes on Ted since, but Brad did try to persuade me to fake Dudley's death again a week later to see if Ted would believe it. "Say he really died this time!" Brad howled.

Chapter Five

Wedding Chopper

M
y oldest friend in Los Angeles, Lydia, was getting married, and it was a miracle. I didn't ever expect her to have the wherewithal to actually follow through with a wedding that would require others to attend. She'd been engaged for over two years, and my assumption was that Lydia would approach her nuptials like most other milestones in her life: She would most likely lose interest.

When she finally did notify me about the imminent wedding, it was by an AOL instant message: "Chels, save the date. The wedding is going to be on May 28 in the Palisades!"

"Is this the invitation?" I typed back.

"No! Of course not! What's your address? I'm doing them right now!"

That is how Lydia operated. Her disorderliness had always been her strong suit, and this is coming from someone who hasn't worn a matching pair of socks since Reagan was shot. It wouldn't have been a surprise to me at all if I had received a third-grader's birthday-party invitation to her wedding with the time, date, and location all filled out in block letters on top of preprinted horizontal black lines.

Something along the lines of:

Occasion:
WEDDING

Time:
2-4
P.M.

Location:
OLIVE GARDEN

I typed in my address and asked her where the wedding was.

"At Mercedes's."

"The dealership?"

"LOL!!!"

I wasn't joking, but I quickly lost interest in the conversation due to the fact that despite my having spoken to Lydia at great length about misplaced enthusiasm, she insisted on using exclamation points in lieu of periods and continued pairing them with my least favorite invention, LOL. You wouldn't say LOL if you were out to lunch with someone, so why would you write it in an instant message or an e-mail? Just laugh alone in your office or house. I don't need to be notified that you're laughing. If someone is busy laughing, then how do they have the time to be typing the letters LOL? More important, I was midway through a letter to Dear Abby that I'd been constructing for the better part of the winter, and I wasn't about to lose my confidence now. I hated that after Abby crossed over, her daughter continued her mother's advice column without changing its name from "Dear Abby" to "Dear Abby's
Fucking
Daughter." It wasn't an easy pill to swallow for those of us who didn't read the column the day Abby's daughter informed readers that she was taking over. The one day she decided to mention her mother was dead happened to coincide with me taking a one-day tie-dying class at the Y, and for months I was left nonplussed by Abby's out-of-left-field advice.

"I'll be there," I wrote back to Lydia. "Wouldn't miss it for the world."

I hadn't spent a lot of time with Lydia since she'd gotten herself engaged. It wasn't intentional at all; we just sort of drifted apart after she asked me to be a bridesmaid in her wedding, and I coughed loudly enough to pretend I didn't hear her.

I instant-messaged Ivory and asked her what Mercedes's was.

"Some new girl Lydia's made friends with who works a pai gow table in Vegas."

"Is she Asian?"

"No, she's blond with Orange County boobs."

"Well, the wedding's at her house, and Lydia should be instant-messaging you with the invitation shortly."

"OMG. I can't wait for Ted to meet Rooster. Do you think they'll duel?"

The thought hadn't occurred to me that I would have to bring Ted to the wedding and that he would meet several people I'd slept with, including Rooster. Rooster is someone I'd accidentally fallen into bed with several times in my twenties. He had taken up with Lydia shortly after I explained to him that I didn't want to deal with a long-distance relationship. The commute from Santa Monica to East Santa Monica was putting too many miles on my car, and his car hadn't started since I met him. Not long after we broke up, we all went to a costume party, and I woke up in an M&M's costume next to him and Lydia moaning.

A plethora of misfits from my waitressing days would surely be in attendance at Lydia's wedding, and it was bound to be fairly horrifying.

Two weeks before the wedding and fourteen days before I purchased her gift, Lydia e-mailed everyone telling us there was a change of venue. She was no longer having the wedding at Mercedes's house. It was now being held at a hotel around the corner from where Ted and I lived.

I e-mailed Ivory. "Lydia just changed the locale of the wedding. No more Merecedes. What do you think her game plan is?"

"With the wedding?"

"With life."

"Just be happy you're not a bridesmaid. You're bringing Ted, right?"

"Yes, I'm bringing Ted. Don't worry. You'll get your day in the sun."

The change of locale was perfect for Ted and me. His major issue other than having to attend a wedding for a person he was convinced he'd never met was that it was on the Saturday night before Memorial Day, and he wanted us to spend the weekend in Laguna Beach.

"How long do we have to stay at the wedding?" Ted asked.

"I don't know. It's probably like four or five hours with the ceremony."

"Four or five hours? We're not going to get down to Laguna until midnight!"

"Well, sorry, Ted, but this isn't a roller-skating party. It's somebody's wedding."

"Who is this person again, and what is in your hair?" he asked, squinting at my head.

"A hair clip, and her name is Lydia. You've met her three times. I've known her since I was twenty, remember?"

"Why does it say Doritos on it?" he inquired upon closer inspection of my head.

"Because it's a chip clip. I couldn't find any hair bands and I wanted to go for a run. Is that okay with you?"

"So what's holding the chips together?" he demanded to know.

"Really, Ted? The chips are more important than me getting some cardio in? I mean, seriously."

"Chelsea, answer the question."

"What is the question?"

"What is holding the chips together?"

"The chips are gone."

"Exactly. Those were the chips for the helicopter, Chelsea. I swear sometimes I feel like I'm living with a refugee."

I didn't want to travel further in the direction this conversation was headed, so I removed the chip clip from my hair and tried to attach it to his penis.

He dodged my attempt, retrieved the clip, and returned it to its proper surroundings.

"We're going to have to get a driver if we're going to be drinking, so if the wedding starts at five, is it okay for the car service to come at seven?"

"I don't know, Ted. Have you ever been to a two-hour wedding?"

"Well, what if I have the car there at seven and then we have the option to leave whenever we want?"

"That will be a waste of money, because we won't be leaving before nine. We need to be there a minimum of four hours. What aren't you copying?"

"But I don't even know any of these people."

"That's not their fault. I know Lydia. She knows me, and unfortunately I know you. You're lucky I'm even allowed to bring a guest. This could have gone either way."

"I don't feel lucky."

Ted has little patience for weddings or birthday parties and has no problem telling the person whose birthday or wedding it is that he doesn't understand why they're celebrating. I, on the other hand, take both of these events very seriously, as long as nothing more than attending and providing gifts is expected of me. I don't like to make speeches, and I don't like to wear assigned clothing. I love birthdays, and I love weddings. Funerals can also be fun, but only with the right mix of refreshments.

Ted and I have always had different policies when it comes to other humans. He's generally not interested in people and doesn't even pretend to try, whereas I am fascinated by anyone and everything, especially if it involves a childhood story about an inappropriate uncle or obesity.

I've attempted to explain to him that just because he doesn't think the anniversary of someone's death holds any real meaning, the person who lost his or her parent most likely feels differently.

"Oh, honey, I'm sorry," he told me on the second anniversary of my mom's death. "I wish I had something to say. I just don't understand what meaning this day holds." Then he rubbed the back of my head while I looked at him the way I looked at my father each time he'd ask me if I was a C or a D cup.

I thought it might be fun for all of us to watch Lydia get married. I've always wanted to see a bride in her wedding dress smoking a cigarette, and I knew Lydia was the one person I could count on to make that dream come true.

A week before the wedding, Ted's assistant happened to find out that there was a helipad on top of the hotel where the wedding was being held. That's when all hell broke loose.

"Chelsea, we could take a helicopter from the hotel in the marina to another hotel in Laguna. We could be in Laguna by seven!"

"The wedding starts at five."

"Eight."

"I'm not bailing early on my friend's wedding because you want to get to a beach community when it's already dark out. What's the point anyway?"

"There's tons of dancing in Laguna, Chelsea! They have discos all along the coast."

I had been dealing with this level of activity for the better part of two years, and his "dancing"--or what I would describe as more of a shuffle-ball rotation--didn't seem to be coming to a simmer at all. Ted loves to dance, and the main problem with this bustle is that he doesn't move his feet, so he ends up looking like a human Tilt-A-Whirl. He maintains this position while also twittering his fingers in the way that someone would do to help someone else back out of a parking space. Then he moves on to what is best described as a basketball dribble, with no basketball and no other players. His eyes are mostly closed, but when they open, they have a look that says, "You're welcome."

I've explained to him that it's an impossible dance to do with a partner and if that is any indication of his skill set, he should maybe reevaluate his choreography. "Who are you waving to?" I've asked him after witnessing this move. "No one is coming over to you."

"People are too intimidated, Chelsea. This is pure Jackson."

Part of me was scared he would perform one of his recitals at the wedding, but another part of me was even more scared that Rooster and Ted would have a dance-off. They're both pretty delusional about their dancing and suffer from the same false confidence that people with Bell's palsy are prone to. The thought of leaving before the Electric Slide suddenly seemed appealing.

"Eight," I told him. "Have the helicopter pick us up at eight."

Helicopters had become our favorite mode of transportation after we saw coverage of that fall's Malibu fires. They're fun, they can land anywhere, and, as a helicopter pilot once told us, "If anything goes wrong on a helicopter, you've got several different ways to save your life." I liked the idea of not dying while flying, and I liked the idea of boarding with a drink in my hand instead of using that hand to take off my belt after getting screamed at by the maniacs at airport security. Plus, the great thing about helicopters is that because you fly so much closer to the ground, you can actually wave to people who think they are in the privacy of their own backyards or Jacuzzis, naked.

The day of the wedding, while Ted was packing, I was in bed watching
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Two
, while I wondered out loud why they didn't call it
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Period
.

"What a gross concept," I said with disdain.

"Why?" Ted asked, looking up at the TV.

"Do they ever wash these pants?" I asked.

"Nope. That's the whole point. They never wash them."

"Don't you think that's foul? These girls are fourteen or fifteen, and one of them was playing soccer in Mexico. I'd rather borrow Linda Hogan's underwear after a day of motorcross."

"The real plot point that they missed is that the jeans fit all the girls perfectly. A lot of people didn't catch that, but I did."

"Ted, it's pretty obvious that they're not all the same size. I'm sure there are other moviegoers that caught that. I caught it, and I'm on the lower end of the IQ seesaw."

"Well, no one's brought it up to me."

"Why would anyone bring it up to
you
?"

"You'd be surprised," Ted reassured me.

"I just don't understand what the point is. I don't like wearing other people's pants, and I certainly don't understand why each of them has such a confused look on her face every time they get a FedEx box. It's obviously the fucking pants."

"All right, sweetie, let's go. We're gonna be late. The wedding's at five, right?"

"Yes." I clicked off the TV and got up. "Where are we going to put our bags?" I asked him. "We can't walk into the hotel with them."

"Why not?"

"Because that's weird. Why are we walking into a hotel that we're not staying at with our bags?"

"We can check them at the front desk and get them when we leave."

"Well, can you at least put your snorkel and swimming equipment in the suitcase? It looks ridiculous coming out of that E! Entertainment beach bag."

"My swimming equipment doesn't fit in any other bag."