Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang Read online

  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."

  The "equipment" he's referring to is a snorkel that comes with a built-in radio, which allows music to enter through his mouthpiece. He also transports two arm paddles, goggles, and a pair of ill-fitting Speedos to whichever hotel we vacation at. He will put all of these items on, then get into a pool and do laps. He expects people who are already settled and relaxing in the pool to move out of his way. If they don't, he'll orbit around the innocent bystanders once in each direction, then get up and argue with them about "pool etiquette," while his snorkel and mask are still in place. It's at this time that I get my belongings together and move to a different area of the resort so that no one thinks we're together.

  "Well, we're going to have to take our bags at some point. How would you like to do it?" he asked me.

  "I just don't want people to know we're leaving in a helicopter."

  "Why not?"

  "Because it's a little obnoxious, Ted. I used to wait tables when all these people knew me. I was driving around drunk in a preowned Toyota Echo and getting Us Weekly from the public library. It wasn't my finest hour."

  "Well, I'm sure they've all grown up, too, right?"

  The last time I had seen Rooster and his cohorts was at a bar in Santa Monica where they were head-butting each other to a Fleetwood Mac song and I was supposed to be doing stand-up. After he spotted me, he harangued me for thirty minutes as to why I hadn't written about him in my first book. I explained to him that I didn't think he would want me to but assured him I wouldn't forget him in the next one, which I did not.

  Rooster was by far and still is the biggest mess of a group that I hung out with during the latter part of my twenties. He has been given several opportunities to work as a writer's assistant or in some other lower-level position but each time has decided he'd rather wait tables. He's been working on his screenplay for twelve years.

  We got to the wedding just before five o'clock and were ushered upstairs to the roof of the hotel for the ceremony. It overlooked the marina, all the boats in the harbor, and the Pacific Ocean beyond.

  "This is where the helipad is," Ted exclaimed as he looked around to see where the landing was. "We can fly out of here whenever we want. This is fantastic!"

  "Try to stay focused," I told him. "There's Joey. That's Lydia's fiance."

  It was a beautiful day for a wedding, and we made mention of that when we said hello to Joey, even though I wanted to ask him if he knew that his wedding had been canceled and rescheduled via instant message. I looked over at the arranged seats and saw my friend Steph in the back row.

  "You're here early," she said as we joined her. "I just watched the best movie. Did you ever see the Muhammad Ali documentary?"

  "Of course," Ted interrupted. "Cassius Clay."

  "I haven't," I told her. "Is it good? The two things I know nothing about are boxing and the Strongest Man Competition. Or when they throw that rock."

  "That's the same competition, sweetie," Ted informed me.

  "Have you seen The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants?" I asked Steph.

  "One or two?"

  "That was a sequel to another movie?" I asked in disbelief.

  "Yes, Chelsea. In the movie business, the 'two' impl