“How is the old man?” I asked.
“Oh fine. Just pestering me.” She vaguely laughed as she rummaged through the CDs. “What other music do we have here?”
My phone started ringing now. It was my friend Gregory - not Greg, never Ory - just Gregory. I was waiting for this phone call.
I hadn’t told Chelsea yet because I wanted to wait to make sure we could get the tickets. He was the talent manager of Wayne Brady and told me he would be getting us VIP tickets with free drinks and dinner to Mr. Brady’s show on Saturday night. I had always liked Wayne Brady, ever since seeing an improv show that he did. But, as one of my bosses in casting once said, “He’s too white to be black, and too black to be anything but black.” So, Wayne Brady went to Vegas.
“Hello?”
“Adele, Gregory here. Bad news and good news. Which one do you want first ya bearcat?” He had a knack for turning any situation into a 1920’s gangster film, with his staccato speech.
“Bad please, Big Cheese.”
Chelsea looked at me as if I were crazy.
“As much as I’d like to beat my gums with you, gotta get back to work. Let’s make it snappy. Wayne Brady is sold out. However, our mutual good friend, George Wallace, has some seats to another comedy show. It’s a good show. He is, after all, the best eleven o’clock show in Las Vegas. Food and drinks will be on me. What time you getting in?”
“Oh, we should be there by four this afternoon. What -”
“Great.” He cut me off. “I am tied up today, and would love to see you but can’t. Tickets will be at the box office at the Flamingo hotel under your name. Be sure to get there early. Show starts at eleven p.m. sharp tomorrow. Order the champagne. That’s the stipulation. Don’t go unless you order the champagne. Think you can handle that?”
I winked at Chelsea. “I know we can.”
“Show your Jane a good time, and let me take you to dinner when you get back.”
“You’re the best Gregory. We really appreciate this. Thank you.”
“Have a whoopee of a time ladies.” He hung up. Saying goodbye was very passé. I have had a hard time not saying goodbye.
In LA, it’s like a game: the ‘who can hang up at just the right time, knowing when the conversation is over’ game. Truly an art form. If one person hangs up too soon, he’s insulted the other party; but if he hangs up too late, then he obviously wasn’t riding the wave of the conversation. Out of touch with the flow, man.
“Who was that?” Chelsea asked.
“My friend, Gregory.” I told her what we had planned for the next evening.
“Oh, champagne! This is going to be so much fun!” she said. “Who’s George Wallace, though?”
“No clue.”
“Oh, well. It doesn’t matter – champagne and best friends – what more do we need?”
“And, we’ll be VIP, don’t forget,” I reminded her.
“We are already are though, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are. We must dress appropriately. There’ll be time to head to the clubs after the show. You got your dancing shoes on?”
***
Getting out of LA wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be on a Friday afternoon, and although there was a line of cars on their way to Vegas, the extra lane built on Interstate 5 seemed to be keeping the flow of traffic moving. 75 mph at one point, and the Explorer was only doing a minimal amount of creaking.
Everything was going smoothly. We were two hours in and halfway there - until the smell. So ghastly, one would think a small cat had crawled up in the engine and died - two weeks earlier. Opening the windows didn’t help, if anything it made it worse by wafting the stench around the entire car, making it grow harsher and harsher.
“Adele, you swear you didn’t fart?!” Chelsea accused.
“Chels - when have you known me to fart and not admit to it! I’d be proud if this was one of mine!”
“What is that? That’s horrible. Do you have any old food in here that might have gone off?”
“No, I cleaned the car completely before you got here. I know it doesn’t look like it now, but trust me I did.” And so the conversation went for the next fifteen minutes with Chelsea climbing into the back bravely trying to assess what was causing the stink.
“Should I pull over?” I asked.
“I don’t see what that will do. If there is something rotting in the engine, I certainly don’t want to be the one to find it.” She opened the glove compartment. “Oh, here! What is this? Citrus spray?” Without looking at the bottle and before I could reply, she pushed down the button and sprayed it in the air to dilute the smell.
“Noooo!” I couldn’t get the word out fast enough. I thrust my hand at the bottle, nearly punching Chelsea in the face. The car swerved into the other lane. Honking horns. “Chelsea. No, no, no. I need to pull over. I need to pull over. Oh my God!!! It burns!!!!!!! Roll down the windows!!”
Pepper spray was burning in my eyes while driving on the highway at 65 miles per hour, with no exit in sight. Like a fork stabbing my eyeballs - that’s how much it hurt. The pain seared me. I tried to keep my eyes open, but tears were weeping out of my eyes. My pores were being attacked by the irritant. I continued to drive through the suffering, my heart racing.
“What is that? My eyes – Owwwww! Pull over Adele! Ow. Ow. Ow. Shit!!” Chelsea screamed, rubbing her eyes.
“What do you think I’m trying to do?! Don’t rub your eyes!” I grabbed her hands away and held them down, keeping one hand on the steering wheel.
The fork dug deeper into my eyeballs. I had to slow the car down, and pull over – it was all becoming too much.
Somehow, I was able to turn the flashers on. Chelsea screamed. I jumped. The car swerved again. Moses parted the freeway and the three lanes of traffic diverged out of our way. Through one squinting scalded eye, I steered us off to the right in a powerful four-lane crossover. The shoulder finally arrived. Screech! Stop. Our car shook, as honking, cursing trucks whizzed by.
“Water. Water. Do you have the bottle?” I urged. “Burning. I think I am burning in hell.”
“It hurts. It hurts. What was that?” Chels felt around her seat, and came up victorious.
“Get out. Be careful, but get out quickly. Pour it in your eyes.” Against the roaring cars, she and I climbed out. She pried open her puffy, swollen, pepper-sprayed eyes and flushed them with the water bottle.
“Owww. shit, it burns. What the heck was that? And why do you have that in your car?!” she shouted over the traffic. I poured the rest of the water over my eyes.
“Pepper spray. You never know when someone might want to steal that beauty of a Ford beast. Someone’s gotta protect it.” I jumped up and down to help take my mind off the pain. We both circled the shoulder, letting the air and water work their magic. My heart was pounding in my chest and my ears filled with the sound of my pumping blood. Silence followed, until the ground was firmly under our feet again, and we felt back to normal.
“That was instantaneous. Like the second I hit the trigger, my eyes and my throat started bleeding,” Chelsea said.
“Your eyes were bleeding?”
“They sure as heck feel like they are, or were. I think you’re trying to kill me on this trip - the pepper spray, the bad driving, dead spiders - have you turned into some kind of witch?”
“Oh, shut up. If anything, I’m saving you on this trip. A little adventure to spice up your life,” I joked.
“Yeah, well just leave the pepper out of the spice rack next time, OK?”
We stood on the shoulder for another thirty minutes until our nerves and discomfort subsided.
“You all right to drive?” Chelsea asked.
“I think I can handle it now.” We climbed back into my car, checking for remnants of pepper spray about, and drove off again. The smell was still there, but at this point, we welcomed it. Smoking cigarettes would have to ease the pain and the funk. Along with music. Music could heal. We hummed along to the
beats for some time as we drove. Then, Chelsea started giggling.
“What is it?” I glanced over at her; she was curled up and shaking with laughter.
“Your face -” She laughed harder now. “Your face, trying to pull off and your arms. Your arms were like, flying around, as if you were swimming to the shoulder of the road. Oh my God. Hysterical. (wheeze) Oh Lord, you were trying to pull off…(giggle) and the spray was in your eyes.” Laughter was pouring through her like a surge of electricity. “Your arms were flying…(laughter)… around and your mouth was like…(more laughter)… gasping for air. You looked like a flapping fish. I’ve never seen you so exasperated. And then the cars…(yet more laughter)…they all started disappearing. My God - how did that happen?!” She re-enacted my fantastic, flapping fish fiasco. I couldn’t help but start laughing with her. It all did seem so ridiculous.
“I can’t believe you have never seen a pepper spray bottle before. You just sprayed it! Oh my God, what a dumb ass!” We were both in such fits of laughter, I wasn’t sure I could really see the road again.
I was laughing like I hadn’t laughed in what felt like years. The laughter eased its way down into spurts and ripples of heavy breathing, sniggering and sighs. God it felt good.
I turned to Chels to see tears rolling down her face. “Chels?! You OK? Is it the pepper spray?” I looked for an exit off the freeway once again.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffled, wiping away tears between fits of laughter. “I don’t want to ruin this trip, and I don’t know what’s come over me - (more laughter) - it’s just, and I haven’t told anyone this. Last week we started talking about trying to have a family - (more tears) – he makes me feel so guilty about not being ready to have children yet, and every time we walk by a child or go to his cousin’s house to see their little girl, he’ll say something in front of everyone about how he wishes he had children and then he’ll give me this horrible look.”
“Oh God,” I mustered. “Are you crying, Chelsea?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” She wiped her eyes with the tissue she pulled from one of her purse compartments. “I do feel so guilty, but at the same time I just don’t know if I’m ready. I know I want children eventually. Anyway,” she continued, “I agreed to start trying as soon as I get back. There’s no other option, and his business is starting to go well, so I’d be able to stop working - even though a part of me can’t help but feel like my career is just starting to take off… I’m just so confused about it all. But, the other thing that I’m worried about is that, when he got back from Colombia, and - ” she hesitated. “Swear you won’t say anything, I know you wouldn’t. Oh, please keep this between us. I can’t handle other people knowing right now.”
“Of course I swear, Chels. I would never tell anyone anything you didn’t want me to.”
“He had these weird bumps on his penis….” She paused. I registered what she said and measured my reaction. She blew her nose. “Isn’t that disgusting?”
“Wow.” I didn’t know what to say. “Did you find out what it was?” I tried to hold back the stunned and disgusted look behind my eyes.
“He told me that the doctor said it was this thing called ‘molluscum’. I’ve never heard of it before. Remember on Wednesday night, I went out to the courtyard when he called? He had just gotten the results back. He said that he had gone swimming a lot and probably got it from a towel at one of the pools. Is that possible?”
I had just found an exit, and was turning off to park somewhere safe to get to the bottom of this. I pulled into Bob’s Big Boy parking lot.
“I have no idea. I’ve never heard of that before. Molluscum?” I said.
“Yes, molluscum. I had never heard of it either and so I did some research on it when you were at work the other day. I got nothing but conflicting evidence. Some sites said it was definitely an STD, but others said that it could be contracted other ways. It’s basically a virus that usually goes away after a few months, or he might need surgery to get it removed.”
“Ick. That sounds horrible. And, bumps on the penis? That is a bit suspicious, isn’t it? How long was he in Colombia without you?”
“Two weeks.”
“And did you talk to the doctor yourself, or was this something he just told you?”
“He told me about it, but I felt it was more suspicious because he went to get it checked out a few weeks back and said he just got the results Wednesday. I thought he would have gotten the results sooner than three weeks. Then when I told him I was leaving, he turned on me, saying he couldn’t believe I had left at a time like this, when he was in so much pain and that his wife is supposed to be there for him in his time of need. But what about my needs?”
“Do you think he’s lying to you about what he has? Is there any way you can call the doctor directly, being his wife, and find out?”
“I have no idea. I’ll have to look when I get back to see if I can find out anything. I told him I wouldn’t have sex with him until it’s cleared up. God forbid I get something he got from another woman…if that is the case.”
“Definitely God forbid,” I said, astonished. “You definitely shouldn’t sleep with him. He has some answering to do. Do you think he might have….” I didn’t want to say it.
“I don’t know.” She looked at her hands. “There has been other evidence to make me think maybe he has…but I’m in this marriage through thick and thin, and right now I choose to believe that he hasn’t. That’s my choice.” She regained her composure and sat up straighter, dried her eyes and refused to look in my direction. The steel gate had gone back down, and I was afraid I wasn’t going to be allowed back in. She was so scared.
“But Chels, how do you feel about having babies right after finding this out. Don’t you think it’s better to wait and get to the bottom of this? You have the right to know what’s going on. Just because you agreed to do something before you had this information doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind.”
“Well, the other thing is that we already told our landlord that we’re moving, so when I get back we only have a week left in Maryland before we move to Virginia.”
“What?! Have you given your notice at work? Why would you move to Virginia?”
“All of his family and friends live there, and it would be a shorter commute for him to work, plus we could live in a bigger space for when the baby is born.”
“You’re not already pregnant, are you?” I tried not to sound too panicked.
“No, no, no. And, I will stay at the same job. I’ll just have to drive a bit further now. I can’t help but feel a bit nervous, but…ahhh, there’s so much to think about. What do you think I should do?” She let her guard back down a bit.
“I think you need to seriously sit back and figure this out. I don’t think you should even think about having babies until this STD thing is figured out. You have to find out if he’s telling you the truth. God, I am so sorry Chelsea.”
We stayed in Bob’s Big Boy parking lot for the good part of two hours, while she confided to me that not only did he have this STD thing, but she had found him on dating websites before. He also had lied to her about how much money he was spending and racked up a $20,000 credit card bill in her name. He was constantly out in clubs and bars until all hours of the night. He called her fat on multiple occasions. He coerced her into marrying him a full year before their planned wedding so that he could get his green card. The list went on.
Not only was I in complete shock for not knowing any of this, but I couldn’t help but feel really, really angry. I wanted to have a word with him myself. I felt completely protective over her, and the more I thought about it, the more it all made sense.
She felt that if she told anyone any of this before that she would have to admit defeat to the marriage that everyone discouraged. She was remorseful for getting married without her mother’s consent and the Catholic schoolgirl in her felt that she needed to stand by him no matter what. I suggested marriage counseling. I wan
ted to suggest divorce, but couldn’t help but look up to her for wanting to discuss other things first. Divorce was the shortcut, but didn’t lessen the pain. I knew that better than a lot of people.
I mean, is this something you work through in a marriage? If you get married too young, do you get a “get out of jail free” card, or should you buckle down and stick to the decision you made? I had no idea.
We got ice cream cones instead.
***
“Turn this up! Ohhhh, you know hon this is the beee-zest! Shit, I never knew I would love Hugh Grant singing as much as I do,” Chelsea screamed. We were back on the road amongst the other Easter weekenders.
“Oh, you always knew you would love Hugh Grant singing. Don’t lie to this bitch right here!” I sung along with her and Drew Barrymore.
The next round I was Drew Barrymore, and she was Hugh Grant. The movie Music and Lyrics had been out for years, but I had never bothered watching it because I thought it would be just another sappy, silly romantic comedy. And it is, but I still love it.
The weekend before Chelsea came into town, I had spent the day in Long Beach at Charlie’s house and watched the film.
Charlie’s my godfather in Long Beach, or my ‘father of the west coast.’ He was the best thing about living in California. I had never met someone so giving, unselfish and open-minded. I didn’t have any full-blooded family on the west coast, so he, and his wife Olive, took me on as their adopted child. Their home was my sanctuary, a place where I didn’t have to worry about what clothes to wear or attending so and so’s party, or worry about whether what’s-his-face would show up at my door.
Three Questions Page 13