Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang Read online

  I pulled all the drapes shut. I wanted to be alone and lie in bed for a long period of time. I didn't need to be reminded that other people were outside swimming through life like Nim and Jodie Foster, making the most of their Saturdays, doing cartwheels and high-fiving each other on Rollerblades. I also didn't need anyone looking in my window and seeing me wearing nothing but a visor with the E! logo, sunglasses, and a bra I'd bought three years ago from Walgreens. At this point it was more like a backpack.

  I considered taking an Ambien to knock myself out, but just like with women's basketball, I hadn't had the best acquaintance with this nighttime drug. The last time I tried it, I woke up early one Sunday morning in the backseat of my car with an empty tank of gas and a Crock-Pot of half-eaten spaghetti in the passenger seat.

  I looked down at my thighs and thought it best to head over to the freezer and select a Lean Pocket. I don't know who is responsible for coming up with all the different flavors of Lean Pockets, but whoever you are, you have my blessing. Ted does most of the shopping, and thanks to him I had three different options of breakfast pockets, or I could go straight to a midmorning snack and opt for a ham and Swiss or cheeseburger and light cheddar. "I'll start with breakfast," I told myself. "You have all day." Then I opened up the pantry and grabbed a snack-size bag of Cheetos for dessert. I had made it my business to abstain from Cheetos when in another person's company, primarily due to the aftermath of gas but also because of the bright orange residue, which sticks to your fingers and can be shed only at a Korean spa.

  I took my meal back to my bed like my mother had taught me to do, but not without being a lady and ripping off half a paper towel and grabbing a steak knife.

  Nim's Island was just ending, with a scene on the beach where Gerard Butler appears to be paddling toward the beach in a dinghy straight out of the Pacific. This is where he finds Nim, his eight-year-old daughter he's left for several weeks alone on an island who's made a new friend in Jodie Foster. Then they all dance around the beach and start a happy new family like a trifecta of sand assholes. Abigail Breslin is around nine in this movie and, from what I could tell, was turning into a real dick.

  Definitely, Maybe was about to start. I put three pillows behind me and one underneath my knees in my tireless attempt to thwart osteoporosis. I went back to the kitchen and ripped off the top of a cucumber to dump in my glass of ice water for the total spa experience. I made sure all doors exposing any sort of light were tightly closed, turned my air-conditioning to a breezy sixty-eight degrees, and grabbed some lavender-scented oil, just to have the option for a self-administered foot massage later if I so desired. I checked to see if my eyeshades were on my nightstand in case I fell into a deep, therapeutic slumber, hopped into bed, and took off my visor.

  My trainer, whom I had renamed Wolf Woman, texted me to see if I wanted to work out. After months of clinical observation and serious assessment, I had determined that the former bodybuilder I paid to train me was indeed two parts wolf, one part woman. I kept trying to lure her back into her natural habitat, the forest, to observe her there, but she insisted she lived down the street in the Marina. Working out with her was never easy; even if I faked sick, she had little sympathy and was fond of saying, "Your body can do anything for forty-five seconds."

  I texted her back. "No."

  If I had gone to the theater to see Definitely, Maybe, I would never have reacted the way I did watching it in bed. I didn't want it to end, and I couldn't figure out which girl he was going to wind up with. I wanted him with everyone. It was like watching the Olympics and rooting for the United States, but then seeing one of the Up Close and Personal stories about some Russian named Oksana and thinking, Oh, fuck it, just give her the medal. If our American loses, at least she doesn't have to go home to that Russian coach of hers who is probably going to make her live outside the Kremlin in a forty-foot snowdrift until she learns how to dismount without kicking herself in the face.

  I was bawling by the time the movie ended, and not in a normal way. It was more like heaving. Heavy, loud groaning, drool coming out of my mouth and nose--not very different from the afternoon I lost my virginity to our neighborhood Santa Claus. I had fallen in love with Abigail Breslin. I hated myself for doubting her in Nim's Island. I wanted to call her and apologize but pointed out to myself that we had never met. So I made a mental note to make amends if I ever ran into her at a Chuck E. Cheese or Stride Rite. I love Abigail Breslin, I scribbled on the E! notepad next to my bed as a reminder.

  It was time for another Lean Pocket. Even though I'm leery of any food item that is not an actual burger but claims to have a burger in it, I knew that these weren't normal circumstances, and I opted for the cheeseburger Lean Pocket. I thought about taking a look outside but didn't want to upset myself further with the sunlight. "It's best to get back to your area," I said with a little disdain, and then noticed a houseplant that needed a trim. So I backtracked to the kitchen to grab my kitchen shears and went and cut the plant some bangs.

  Four hours and two Lean Pockets later, I was immersed in the movie version of Sex and the City. "Not prepared" is an understatement. I had to pause the movie several times during the wedding to gain control of myself. Not only was watching that kind of rejection heart-wrenching, but my face had become so swollen from crying that I could barely see out of my eyes. I also had a modicum of concern that if my tear ducts didn't get a rest, there was a risk of reversing my recent LASIK surgery. I hadn't cried like this since Norbit.

  Tissues surrounded me in my bed, along with plates covered in Lean Pocket crusts, because I had eaten only the insides. It dawned on me right there and then, propped up in my bed wearing nothing but my bra and underwear, that I had spent the better part of my day hysterically crying while eating out Lean Pockets.

  There were spilled glasses of Diet Canada Dry ginger ale strewn next to my bed that I hadn't even attempted to clean up, leaving the carpet with the same texture it would have if the Octomom's water had broken.

  I nearly jumped out of my skin when my landline rang. I had heard it ring before but was unsure who was calling or how to answer the phone. I looked at it, looked at my BlackBerry, then decided to go to the kitchen and see if the phone in there was any more user-friendly.

  I ran out of the bedroom, but in my path was a fork that I vaguely remember hearing fall from one of my plates earlier. In order to avoid stepping directly onto its tines, I maneuvered myself to land directly into the wall. I fall on a pretty regular basis, so I was able to recover quickly enough to yell, "Chelsea, what the fuck is wrong with you? Get your shit together!" Then I got up to make myself a Bloody Mary. My BlackBerry started ringing, and I could see on the screen that it was Ted calling.

  "Chunk?" I asked when he answered the phone.

  "What's wrong, Chunk?" he asked.

  "I just fell and hit my head."

  "Are you okay?"

  "Not really. I'm watching Sex and the City: The Movie!" I sobbed into the phone.

  "Oh. I'm sorry."

  "I'm so upset," I managed to get out between wails. "P-p-please t-t-t-tell me y-y-you would never leave me at the altar if we got married."

  "But you don't even want to get married," he reminded me.

  "Who?"

  "When?"

  "I said, p-promise me-e-e-e-e-e that you will never humiliate me in public, and you'll n-n-n-ever do anything that will make me break up with you."

  "I would never do that to you. You'll probably do it to me, but I would never do it to you."

  "That's sweet, Chunk. Thank you. I have to go now."

  "Honey, maybe you should get up and go for a run or go out. You sound awful. You can't just watch movies all day. Is it nice out?"

  "No. There are forty-mile-an-hour winds and it's hailing, Ted."

  "Well, it can't be hailing."

  "You don't know what's going on here. This isn't some walk in the park like Hawaii, okay? I am deep in the trenches of Southern California."

&n