Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang

  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
ies a sequel," Ted revealed.

  I turned to face him. "Can you please shut the fuck up? Obviously I know that. This is a different set of circumstances, considering the subject matter of the movie. The two at the end of the title could have been tipping a hat to the act of going number two. Ever think of that, smarty pants? Anyway," I said, shifting my attention back to Steph, "what were you saying?"

  "The documentary's amazing," Steph said. "You should hear Ali speak. It's pretty intense. He's like a prophet."

  "Is he the one with the grill?"

  "No. That's George Foreman," Ted explained, patting his hair. "It's a pretty fantastic item. He also just came out with a panini press. You want to talk sandwiches, I'll give you a sandwich. George is a great guy. Known him for years." Then he looked at the helipad's windsock. "If this wind hits thirty knots, I'm gonna need access to a hairbrush. I may have to go down and get our bags."

  People were starting to file in, and it looked as if the event was getting started. I tried to avoid eye contact with all the usual suspects, since I knew I would have plenty of opportunities in the next couple of hours to reminisce about the days when Ecstasy and Vicodin took up most of my mornings and early afternoons.

  Instead I opted to interrogate Steph about the documentary and find out as much as I could about why anyone would have the desire to get hit in the face for a living.

  "The Tyson documentary is pretty amazing, too," she added. "Have you seen that?"

  "No, but I would be more interested in seeing one on Muhammad Ali," I told her.

  "The Tyson documentary is very telling, Chelsea," Ted argued. "You see a side of him you didn't expect to see."

  "Did you see it?" Steph asked Ted.

  "Of course he didn't see it," I told her.

  "You don't know if I saw it, Chelsea." Then he turned to Steph. "I have not seen it, but that's what everyone's saying."

  "It's true," she agreed. "You do see a different side that I didn't know he had."

  "Well," I informed then both, "I'll tell you what I do know. I know that Mike Tyson has a tattoo on his eye, and that's a pretty good indicator that all cylinders are not firing."

  Ted had lost interest in the conversation and had moved on to his BlackBerry. "Do you think I have time to run to the market for some chips and salsa to have on the chopper?" he whispered.

  "No. The wedding is about to start and we're on the roof of a hotel. And please don't refer to it as a chopper. You're not Al Roker, and I'm not a Doppler radar."

  I looked back to see all the groomsmen lined up at the perimeter of the roof, ready for their walk. When the music started, Ted was still on his BlackBerry, so I elbowed him in the ribs.

  "I'm just ordering the chips and salsa."

  Lydia was bawling before she even hit the aisle and her soon-to-be-husband looked like he was going to vomit. Ted made a half-assed attempt to cover his mouth and leaned in.

  "Is he okay?"

  "Shut up."

  "That's the groom, right?" he asked, pointing to the only man in a tuxedo standing next to the justice of the peace, whose hand he had shaken five minutes earlier. "He looks sick."

  The justice of the peace was clearly on sabbatical from his duties as a Carnival Cruise director. The enthusiasm with which he was conducting himself was about as believable as a three-legged alligator that also does magic. He obviously had no history with Lydia and her fiance but was acting like he had rescued them both from orphanages and raised them for thirty years. He looked like John Ritter if John Ritter had been an asshole. I had to assume that his name was Tito, and not the black kind. He was white and the type of person who announces "I love meat" every time he's in an Outback Steakhouse.

  I imagined that Lydia had likely hired this guy after a friend of hers had promised to get an online marriage license and then forgot to.

  After Tito said that Lydia's love for Joey was something that could only be found in a Shakespearean play, I watched as Joey's face twitched. It was pretty windy, so some of the stuff I couldn't hear, but luckily the wind died down for this: "Joey, the passion you feel for Lydia is something only you and Lydia can know about, and you are agreeing today to never allow your passion to flee from the sanctity of this day, or from Lydia...." I looked at Ted. His head was cranked so far away from me, as he was trying not to laugh, that my only recourse was to bite down on one of my knuckles. Then came two knuckles, and then, before long, my entire fist was in my mouth. "Love is like a Ferris wheel. Round and round it goes, and sometimes it will get stuck right at the top, and sometimes it will skip past the spot at the bottom where ticketholders are supposed to get on and off. No pun intended."

  "Oh, my God," Ted groaned.

  I removed my fist, wiped the slobber onto my dress, and whispered to Ted, "And sometimes, if you're Chuy, you can't even get on the Ferris wheel."

  "... Remember, the world is a place where two lovers..." and then a thundering noise came from the sky. Thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap, thwap. It was growing louder and louder, and it sounded like someone had gotten a flat tire. I looked up and saw a helicopter.

  "Oh, my God."

  "No," said Ted.

  "This better not be our ride," I said through gritted teeth.

  He lowered his sunglasses on his nose in order to be clear about what he saw. "That can't be ours, it's too early." The helicopter was getting closer and didn't look like it was turning around. I closed my eyes and imagined a world with only dolphins and Abigail Breslin.

  "Ted."

  "What? No, that's someone else's."

  "No one else ordered a helicopter. I can guarantee that."

  "You don't know that, Chelsea."

  "Yes I do. You are the only person who would do that. You and the coast guard."

  The helicopter was headed straight for us, but I believed in my state of panic and horror that if I stared the helicopter straight in the eye the way people suggest you do when coming into contact with a bear, it would eventually lose interest and head in the other direction.

  "Oh, my God, is that going to land here?" Steph asked as softly as was permissible in the current hailstorm of conditions.

  I had one of Ted's balls in my grip. "You are the worst."

  "No, no, no, no," he repeated as he released my hold on his testicle while keeping both eyes on the incoming aircraft. He was now squeezing my hand and saying, "I'm so sorry. I really don't think anyone can even hear it with the wind."

  I didn't look around to see if this was true for fear of finding out that it wasn't. Taking the wind into consideration, it was plausible that depending on where you were seated, you might be oblivious to the fact that a helicopter was about to land on our heads. I looked down at my toes to try to come up with some believable explanation as to why a helicopter pilot was about to get out of a helicopter on the roof of a hotel, in the middle of my friend's wedding, and most likely say our names.

  "They can't land. It's a total safety hazard. They're not going to land in the middle of a wedding," Ted assured me. The thwap-thwap-thwap was getting closer, and more heads were turning. It was definitely only the seats on our side that could hear it; the other side seemed lost in Tito's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs comparison. Finally Ted threw his hands violently up in the air with a wave that would only be necessary if he was directing a Hannah Montana video. Nonetheless, it turned out to be an effective movement, because within thirty seconds the helicopter made a hard right and was veering away from the building, back toward the marina.

  "Oh, thank God," I said, with my hands in prayer position. Then I attempted to do the sign of the cross, but me being a half Jew, my hands crossed signals and I ended up slapping Ted's earlobe. Right then I saw Ivory for the first time that afternoon; she had the very familiar look on her face that implied she had no intention of making eye contact with me. I hadn't told her about the helicopter, but it was clear she was one of the people who'd heard it. We had vowed a long time ago to never again sit next to ea
ch other at weddings, funerals, or quinceaneras, because of my inability to be serious at important events. I tried to get her attention, but she insisted on respecting the fact that we were at a wedding and locking eyes with the gazebo under which Lydia and Joey were getting married. This wasn't the first time Ivory had disappointed me, and it surely wouldn't be the last.

  I moved closer to Ted. "The only thing that will make this day any better is if that minister guy turns around after he's done marrying them and jumps off the roof of this hotel."

  "I mean, really. He is astonishing."

  "His name is Tito, and he's Caucasian."

  Once Tito pronounced them man and wife, I knew we were in the clear, except for the face rape Lydia applied to Joey's face.

  Kisses swapping DNA should be saved for the bedroom, living room, or media lounge. "Ew," Ted and I both said in unison.

  We finally got up and headed toward Ivory. "How's your hair?" she asked Ted.

  "Not great. Not optimal conditions."

  Ivory explained to us that there had been some confusion about which room the reception was being held in and that the room they had promised her was not the room she was getting.

  "What kind of operation is this?" I asked.

  "Let's go get cocktails!" Ted exploded, with his fists pumped.

  Ivory loves Ted and Ted loves Ivory, and there were plenty of times I thought they should just go off and marry each other. The three of us said our casual hellos to everyone as we passed them on foot doing about thirty miles an hour toward the elevators. I had heard Rooster out of the corner of one of my ears and mentioned to Ivory that we might as well get the introduction between him and Ted over with, but she thought it would be more of a shitstorm if everyone was properly liquored up.

  "You're right," I said, and grabbed her shoulder. "You're an amazing friend."

  We grabbed the closest table to the bar that was available and were joined by Lionel and Sharona, a couple Ivory and I both knew, but who were much closer with Lydia. Two hot messes who had one baby and one on the way. It took a few minutes for Sharona to lower herself down into the chair, with Lionel and Ted assisting.