Are You There Vodka? It's Me Chelsea Read online

  “I want everyone to know that dinner is on me tonight, because I’m about to come into an inheritance. I’m paying for everyone.”

  “Absolutely not,” Six chimed in. “Not one of us here is going to let you pay for your own birthday dinner. It’s simply unheard of!”

  “Yeah,” I said under my breath, as I poured some more vodka into my glass under the table.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Aubrey,” Ivory jumped in. “It’s your birthday.”

  “You’re right,” she said as she sat back down. “This whole inheritance thing is really turning into a drag. I mean, you’d think an inheritance would be something to celebrate…” She obviously wanted someone to ask about her inheritance, and that someone was going to be me.

  “Tell us everything; what is it? What is going on?” I said with complete zeal.

  “Well,” she started, “my parents are millionaires,”—the first of many loud coughs from Lydia was heard at this point—“and as you all know, my brothers and sisters have been fighting over the estate for years.” This was the first I had ever heard of this and knew there was no way Ivory or Jen had heard any of this either. I also knew that there was no way her parents were millionaires, because anyone whose parents are millionaires doesn’t go around advertising it. I was zooming in on each of my friends with a hard glare, but none of the girls would look in my direction.

  “I’m sorry,” I interrupted. “Your parents are still alive, right?”

  “Yes, they are, but it’s all very com-pli-cated,” she said slowly, as if the whole concept of an estate would be way too much overload for a brain as small as mine.

  “But if they’re still alive, can’t they decide which children get what?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” said Ivory matter-of-factly. “You shouldn’t be arguing about this with your brothers or sisters.” Then she tried to change the subject. “Do you girls all want to split stuff for dinner?”

  “Yes!” Lydia jumped in. I was enjoying this and I wanted to hear more. I wanted to know if Aubrey suffered from full-blown hallucinations or if she consciously made these tall tales up in order to get attention. I’ve been known to lie compulsively too, but only when I’m so intoxicated that I have trouble remembering the difference between fact and fiction.

  “My brothers and sisters are all really jealous of me because my parents have left me the most out of everyone,” she said, loudly enough to quell Jen and Ivory, who were discussing the menu. She upped the volume another couple of decibels and said, “My brothers and sisters think I don’t need the money because of my screenplay, but the fact of the matter is (long, dramatic pause)…I probably won’t see that money for months.”

  I couldn’t wait to see who was going to bite the bullet and ask her about that one. Everyone except for Six pretended like they were looking at their menus. Ivory is very good at tuning things out and was doing just that. Lydia was coughing into her lap, and I was smiling so hard my cheeks started to shake.

  “I know, I know, it’s all so dramatic,” Aubrey said with a wave of her hand in response to no one.

  “I can’t believe you wrote a screenplay,” Six exclaimed. “I’m an actress!”

  “Really?” I asked. “Do you have, like, a monologue or anything we could see?” Ivory works in television. Ivory pretended not to hear me and continued looking at the menu. “Ivory,” I said loudly, “Six is an actress.”

  “Anyway!” Aubrey was now screaming, for fear the topic of conversation would move on to someone else. “It’s the difference between like three million and ten million dollars, so I want to make sure I get my fair share!”

  “Let’s open presents!” Ivory exclaimed.

  “Okay, okay, okay,” Aubrey responded grudgingly, as if we had been begging her to open presents for the past three hours.

  The waitress walked over and we all ordered. “Let’s not forget a piece of cake at the end for the birthday girl,” I told her. Ivory looked in my direction with an unsettlingly calm gaze on her face. “Open mine first,” she said to Aubrey, still staring at me pointedly while handing Aubrey a small box.

  “Seriously, you guys, you did not have to get me anything.”

  “Oh, bollocks!” Six interjected.

  “I’m sorry, are you British?” Ivory asked her.

  “No, but I just got back from England and I love, love, loved it!”

  Aubrey finished unwrapping Ivory’s present to discover the very same cross that Ivory had gotten from our friend Morgan months earlier.

  “Oh my God, this is beautiful! I absolutely love it,” Aubrey said as she leaned forward so that Ivory could help her clasp it in the back. Ivory looked at me with a huge smile on her face, and Jen was wiping her mouth with a napkin—before we had been served any food.

  Lydia was slurping down her third glass of wine and was too preoccupied with Six’s ponytail to realize what was happening. It was amusing to me that Ivory thought she had pulled one over on Aubrey and that we were all pawns in her little game of re-gifting. Little did she know who would be getting the last laugh tonight.

  Six took her present off the pile next. Aubrey opened it to find a basket of lotion and bath oils. Lotion and bath oils are the most impersonal gift you can buy someone, which is why it’s perfect that when she opened Jen’s present next, it was another basket of lotion and bath oils. This was getting good. “Oh, how funny!” Six exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

  She reached for my present, but I knew patience was a virtue and that soon I was going to have my moment in the sun. “Open Lydia’s first,” I told Aubrey as I watched Ivory continue to ride her wave.

  “What are you laughing at?” Aubrey asked Lydia, who was now starting to laugh more and more uncontrollably. This was all too much for her. When Lydia laughs hysterically, it’s infectious. It is also not long before she starts snorting. I was trying to avoid losing it completely and kept averting my eyes from Lydia to Ivory, who had assumed Lydia was still laughing at Ivory’s clever gift to Aubrey. Ivory was looking at me proudly, like she had given us all a night to remember.

  “Let’s take a picture!” shouted Aubrey, as she pulled out her camera.

  I took this opportunity to walk over behind Ivory’s chair and whisper, “You are hilarious, so funny!” and then leaned in, put one arm around Ivory and the other around Aubrey, and smiled like I had just gotten a B12 shot.

  I sat back down on my side of the table and Aubrey opened Lydia’s gift from the Gap.

  “That’s sweet,” Aubrey said condescendingly to Lydia. “I know you’re on a budget.”

  This was the only time of the night Lydia stopped laughing. I could see her mind scrambling to say something, but surprisingly, she was able to stop herself. The last present was mine. Ivory leaned in with Aubrey, who was squinting to read my writing on the gift.

  “Oh, how dear,” Aubrey said with a grimace on her face. “I haven’t seen newspaper wrapping since the sixties.”

  “How do you know about the sixties if you’re only turning thirty?” I asked her inquisitively.

  “Ha, ha, ha, somebody is paying attention,” she said with a wink in my direction.

  Did this mean she was lying about her age? Aubrey was exactly the type of person who would lie about her age.

  She was unwrapping my gift with her head cocked to the side when Ivory’s head also cocked to the side. It brought back memories of the synchronized swimming team I had never been part of.

  Aubrey pulled the Rehab game out and held it up. Ivory was still unsure of what was taking place and looking at the game the same way you would look at someone you met ten years ago.

  “Wait a second! That’s the same game I bought you for your birthday,” she said, perfectly oblivious.

  “Yes,” I said, with my teeth closed and eyes wide. “The exact same.”

  “But where did you get it?” she asked, genuinely perplexed. “I found it at some store in the Valley.”

  My expression remained the same as I