Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea

  “Chelsea, I just think maybe you’re taking this relationship a little too seriously.”

  “How many times do you think you can use the word ‘serious’?” I asked him, trying to restrain myself from standing up and strangling him. “I think you’re being a little dramatic.”

  “Well, I had a feeling you would be upset and take this badly.”

  “Okay, you know what, Red? I am not upset about you breaking up with me. Well, it is kind of shocking, but the fact that you are being so dramatic about it is quite alarming. This is hardly a serious relationship.”

  “Fine,” Austin said. “Intense might be a better word. Things have gotten a little intense.” This is when I blew a gasket.

  “Intense? Intense?” I yelled. “You want to talk about intense? Try dating three guys at the same time. I’m trying to remember names and keep secrets and shit!”

  I don’t know why I said “three,” when actually I had only been dating two people. I quickly invented a third person in my head to back up my story. I decided his name would be Luther and he would work with animals. Who did Big Red think he was? And who did he think I was? I felt like I had been doing him a favor.

  He stared at me, apparently shocked by my outburst. “And by the way,” I added, “you really think highly of yourself.” I wanted to add something about his hair, but decided to leave that to the next girl he dumped. “Please go. I have a date with a very dynamic zookeeper that I do not want to be late for.”

  Red got up and walked out of my bedroom toward the front door. Before he made it out I added one last thing: “And you might want to think about trimming your bush!” Then I ran back into my room before he could say anything about my beaver and slammed my bedroom door. I knelt down on the floor and lifted the comforter up as Darryl rolled out from under my bed.

  “Ha ha!” Darryl sang as he crawled out. “You got dumped! I don’t know which I liked better, the rash or the zookeeper. That guy was a moron. Could you imagine anyone being that clueless?”

  I tried to keep a straight face while wondering if Big Red could ever be convinced that his pet had tripled in size over a two-week period and had brightened its skin color by taking fish supplements. Darryl and I started laughing so hard, we were crying. The fact that we were laughing at two different things was a perfect summation of our relationship.

  “You want to hear something really funny?” I asked him in between snorts. “Maude died.”

  “What?”

  “Maude, your fish.” I took another deep breath in order to get the sentence out without guffawing. “She’s dead and I got that new fish from my aunt Gerdy’s house.” Then I went into another fit of hysterics, except this time I was laughing alone.

  “How could you do that and not tell me?” he asked, instantly sobering up.

  “What?”

  “Chelsea, I’ve had Maude for six years.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. It’s not like it was intentional. I tried to revive her, but she was out like a light.”

  “It’s not funny, Chelsea. This is not funny at all.” Darryl was on his feet and getting dressed.

  “Oh, Jesus,” I said, now feeling like a complete asshole. There’s nothing worse than ruining a perfectly good moment by thinking someone else will find humor in something they absolutely do not. “I can’t believe you’re really upset about a fish.”

  “It’s the principle. I trusted you to look after Maude.”

  “Yeah, and obviously you made the wrong decision. You know I don’t particularly like animals, especially ones you can’t tickle.”

  Darryl stormed out of the apartment while I sat on my bedroom floor, dumbfounded by the day’s events. I picked the phone up off the floor and called Ivory.

  “Big Red broke up with me.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because he thought I was getting too serious.”

  “Well, that’s absurd; you couldn’t even have sex with him during the day.”

  “I know, and then Darryl stormed out because his fish died on my clock.”

  “Huh?”

  “I was babysitting for Darryl’s goldfish and the little hooker went belly up on me.”

  “Why does Darryl have a fish?” she asked.

  “Exactly my point!”

  “Why didn’t you just get him a new fish?”

  “I did, but it was a few shades darker and a little longer and after Big Red left, we were laughing so hard, I thought he’d think it was funny too.”

  “Why was Darryl there when Big Red dumped you?”

  “He was over when Red showed up unannounced.”

  “So Big Red broke up with you in front of Darryl?”

  “No, asshole. Darryl was under the bed.”

  The next sound I heard was a dial tone.

  This had been a day full of rejection, and frankly I was pretty sick of it. I wanted to experience unconditional love without the hassle of getting a dog or giving birth. It was clear that this was a turning point in my life. I logged on to AOL.com and Googled “hunger.” It was time to adopt a baby. Two, maybe, depending on how expensive they were.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dining in the Dark

  I had finally received the paperwork confirming my adoption of two children from overseas. One was a nine-year-old girl from Guatemala and the other was a thirteen-year-old boy from Zimbabwe. The even better news was that they didn’t come to live with me right away. I would just be paying for their food, clothing, and books for school. Once they turned eighteen they would be allowed to visit if we both agreed on meeting. I was, of course, invited to visit them at anytime, but Guatemala and Zimbabwe weren’t exactly on my top ten countries to see list. I was looking at both of their solemn faces in the pictures they had sent, pleased that I had done exactly as I set out to do when buying my kids online—picking the two who looked the most upset.

  I decided right then and there to call them both Earl.

  The phone rang and it was my U.K. publisher calling to ask me if I would be interested in crossing the pond to do a little press for my book’s British release date. They told me my services would be needed for a period of ten days in February, which luckily happened to be one of the eleven months I had absolutely nothing planned workwise. “Bloody hell,” I told them in my best Madonna impersonation. “I’d love to.”

  I called my friend Sarah, who had just been broken up with by her Cuban fiancé, and was the one person who needed to get out of the country faster than my cleaning lady. Sarah and her fiancé had dated for seven years, and two weeks before the wedding he decided to tell her he wasn’t in love with her. Coincidentally, he had realized this after sleeping with a waitress who worked down the street at the International House of Pancakes.

  Watching your friend get news like that and seeing her go through the emotions of canceling a wedding—and the life she thought was going to come along with it—is heart-wrenching. All you want is to be able to fix it, but you and all your friends are completely helpless. It was the night of her breakup that I vowed never to have children, for fear one of them might be a girl and get broken up with. That’s why I turned to adoption.

  “Wanna go on an all-expense paid vacation to London?” I asked when she picked up the phone.

  “Yes, let me just quit my job.”

  It upset me that I was going to have to desert my children so soon after acquiring them, but truth be told, I was exhausted. Motherhood was no joke and neither was lying awake every night wondering where in the hell they were and if they had been able to score some rice that day. The bottom line was that Mommy needed a break. My next step was to get an all-clear from my OB-GYN to travel abroad.

  Once we got to London, I realized that going on vacation with Sarah was slightly more enjoyable than getting a glass eyeball installed. She had more energy than the Energizer bunny and was in nonstop planning mode, toting printed-out itineraries, maps, charts, color graphs, and recommendations for what we would do each day. There was s
hopping and museums, we had to go to Parliament, Bond street, Piccadilly Circus, Cambridge, and then the London Eye. The trip was turning into a full-blown nightmare, and it finally occurred to me why her fiancé had broken up with her: He was probably scared to go on their honeymoon.

  The thing about Sarah is that she can be a lot of fun to be around. She’s smart, she’s funny, she drinks like a fish, but she has way too much energy for someone without a crystal meth addiction. She’s one of those people who should either be working on a campaign trail or running a wild animal park.

  “Hey, asshole,” I told her. “This isn’t a scavenger hunt. You need to relax. All these activities are making my head spin. Can’t we just go to a pub and get some bloody fish and chips?”

  After only three days in London, I was hell-bent on using all of their colloquialisms, partly because I love English accents and all the phrases, but primarily because it was driving Sarah nuts. She didn’t believe that “cheers” could actually mean “hello,” “good-bye,” and “thank you,” so I spent every waking moment saying it to anyone and everyone we came in contact with. It didn’t even have to be someone I was having an exchange with. I would just say it to people we passed on the street, in the park, lifts, loos, lorries. What pissed her off even more was when people responded in kind, which was almost automatic. “Cheers,” along with “bollocks,” “blimey,” and “rubbish” became my go-to phrases in response to almost anything. It only stopped when we came home after a night of heavy drinking and ordered room service at two in the morning.

  When the food arrived, I took it upon myself to scream, “Bollocks!” as I opened the door.

  After the waiter regained his footing and collected our burgers that had been strewn all over the hotel’s hallway like shrapnel from a pipe bomb, I ended up giving him a hundred pounds as compensation for scaring the living shit out of him.

  The next day, after promoting my book on some woman’s show who is supposed to be England’s version of Oprah, but in much less expensive clothes, my publicist informed us that we had the night off to do as we pleased.

  “I’ve already made reservations for us,” Sarah informed me.

  “There’s a surprise.”

  Sarah had made three copies of my press schedule prior to even arriving in London. One for her, one for me, and one for the concierge at our hotel.

  “We’re going to Dans le Noir. It’s going to be great,” she told me. “You eat in the dark!”

  “Why?”

  “Apparently, it’s huge in France, and it’s supposed to heighten all of your senses. Being unable to see, the food and conversation take a much more prominent role in your dining experience. Your ears and taste buds go into overload.”

  “Are you reading that straight out of the Zagat guide?” I asked her. “Because you sound like an asshole.”

  “Chelsea, it’s dining in the dark! Haven’t you heard about this?”

  She hailed a cab and twenty minutes later we pulled up in front of a restaurant that looked like it wasn’t finished. Once inside, we were in what appeared to be the front room of the restaurant. There was a bar with a bartender behind it and three misplaced cocktail tables that looked like someone had thrown them into the room and left. Two homosexuals were sitting at one of them, and a large transsexual-looking black woman was sitting alone at another. An unbelieveably annoying French mâitre d’ took our coats and greeted us unctuously. “Ladies! Welcome to Dans le Noir, vat is the name on ze reservation and vould you like ze key for your lockehhhr?”

  “Our locker?” I asked him, confused. “Are we at the YMCA?”

  “Ze lockehhhrs ah for your sha’kets and valubellz. Yu are not to bring anything into ze dining area!” he told us, rolling every r and overly dramaticizing every z and s sound. I had been there for five minutes, and I had already lost my appetite.

  “We’re not even allowed to bring our purses?” I asked him.

  “No, that iz vat ze lockehhhr is for. Here iz your key. Zen you come back and peek a look at ze menu.”

  I rolled my eyes, handed Sarah my coat and purse, and headed toward the bar. “Triple Ketel One on the rocks, and lemons.” Any true alcoholic who’s been to London knows that getting drunk there is nearly impossible, due to the bartenders using an exact measurement of one ounce of alcohol per drink. It’s no wonder everyone there drinks Guinnesses. In the midst of explaining to the bartender that “triple” meant “three,” Sarah interrupted me.

  “I don’t think that mâitre d’ likes us.”

  “No one likes us, Sarah, we’re American. Everyone hates us.”

  “Right,” she concurred, and ordered herself a triple Bombay martini dry. I grabbed a menu and flipped it open. “Wow,” I said. “Look at the choices. There’s either ‘Duck’ or ‘Surprise’.”

  Those were the two things listed on the menu. “Duck,” and underneath it read “Surprise.”

  Don Juan DeMarco came over and explained that we could choose one or the other.

  “That’s quite a selection,” I said, handing him the menu. “I’ll take the surprise.”

  “Do you ladies have any allergais?” he asked. “Ve must know before preparing ze food.”

  “Yes,” I told him. “I’m allergic to duck.”

  “Aaaah, zank you, and you, madame?” he asked, looking at Sarah.

  “I’ll take the duck.”

  “Okay, ladies, you vill be seat-ad in just a few momenz.” I couldn’t help thinking that this man was faking his French accent. No one in his right mind could take himself seriously enough to talk in such an affected manner.

  We sat at one of the tables in the front room as the door next to the lockers opened and what appeared to be a blind waiter peeked his head out and called for the two gay men who were sitting at one of the other cocktail tables. They got up and walked over to the waiter, who turned and with his back facing them, took the first man’s hand and placed it on his own shoulder, leading him into an abyss of darkness.

  “This is ridiculous,” I told Sarah, watching them.

  “I’m getting scared,” she said, wide-eyed and giggling like a schoolgirl.

  “Aren’t you happy Albert called off the wedding? Otherwise we’d never have had the opportunity to dine at Dine la…what the hell is the name of this place?”

  “Noir. It’s Dans le Noir. He’s such a scumbag. I hope he catches herpes from that waitress,” she said.

  “He will,” I assured her. “And when she dumps him on his Mexican ass, I hope he loses his job and then pulls a hamstring.”

  “He’s Cuban, Chelsea.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Do you think she’ll break up with him?” she asked me.

  “Yes, I do. He’s a loser, and by the way, he’s shaped like a woman. He’s got a woman’s ass.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, he has a woman’s body, and with time, it will become increasingly more and more bitchlike.”

  “He did kind of have man boobs,” she said.

  “Sarah, they were bigger than mine. He’s got to be at least a D-cup.”

  “Oh my God, he did. And by the way, he wasn’t that good in bed either.”

  “Of course he wasn’t, Sarah. Bitch tits can’t be good in bed. It makes you feel like you’re hooking up with another chick.”

  A waiter opened up the door to darkness and spoke a few words before the mâitre d’ waved us over. “Mademoiselles, I do hope you enjoy Dans le Noir,” he announced as creepily as Willy Wonka introducing all the Oompa Loompas to his guests at the chocolate factory. “Bon appetit.”

  Our waiter, who was clearly blind, and looking to my left while talking to us, introduced himself as Brian. He wasn’t French, but he did have an accent of some kind that was extremely hard to pinpoint because he had the same pitch as Michael Jackson. Sarah, at this point, was of course brimming with excitement. Not only were we about to dine in the dark, but there was a real live blind man about to escort us into our bad dream.


  “Put your hand on my shoulder,” he said as he turned on his heels and led us into a dark corridor. Thinking that sounded a lot like a song lyric, I put my hand on Brian’s shoulder, Sarah put her hand on mine, and Brian led us into what may have well as been a well. Not only was it pitch black, but I had no sense of anything around me and was relying on a blind man who had the voice of a four-year-old girl.

  “Are you having fun yet?” I called over my shoulder.

  “Oh my God, oh my God, Chelsea, I can’t see,” she whispered, squeezing my shoulder.

  “Just take it nice and slow, ladies,” Brian said as he led us toward voices and clanging noises. “Okay, just take deep breaths if you feel overwhelmed.”

  “You’re starting to sound like a porn director, Brian.”

  “Okay, girls, here we are,” he said, ignoring my comment as he led us to our chairs. “The table is right in front of you.”

  “Thank you, Brian. I would have never figured that out,” I told him, putting my elbows on the table and spreading my legs apart like a trucker. If no one could see me, I was going to take full advantage of it and break all the table manners I had grown bored with. All I was missing were a toothpick and a walkie-talkie.

  Brian took our drink orders and left us alone. There were voices near us but none directly next to us.

  “Chelsea, I’m getting really claustrophobic.”

  “Just breathe.”

  “I am,” she said, clutching my hands, “but this is freaking me out.” She was giggling, but in a very passive-aggressive way, and I wasn’t sure if there was going to be some sort of full-blown panic attack.

  “Sarah,” I said sternly, “the lights are off, that is all. Just keep breathing in through your mouth and out through your ass.”

  “I’m hot.”

  “Drink your water,” I said, feeling around for any water and knocking the silverware onto the floor in the process. “Here.”

  “I think I need to take my sweater off.”

  “So take it off.”

  “I can’t,” she whispered. “I have nothing on underneath.”