He has his hand on her shoulder. Oh. Deep conversation. Rude to interrupt? Not at five thirty in the morning, I decide.
I forget Guy is there for a moment and stride towards my best friend. I am not having her walk over me like she did this past Thanksgiving. This will NOT happen. All of the rage built up from Thanksgiving comes flooding back, and I forget where I am, who I’m with and that oozy cuddly feeling I had just moments ago. I feel a tug on my shirt, and whip around ready to attack.
“What?” I say with fire in my belly. My heart immediately softens when I see those eyes, but not enough.
“Whoa.” He lets go of my shirt immediately and looks like he’s about to flee, my eyes still burning with at least half of the embers that were there a split second ago. “Why don’t we just let them be for a few more moments. To butt in right now could be rude as it seems they-” I turn my back to him, and continue on my way to Chelsea. Any doubts about whether or not this is a good idea has been drowned out by the last scotch and water. I tap her on the shoulder.
“Chelsea.” She swings around slowly as if coming out of a daze and her eyes are puffy. Has she been crying? No matter.
“Adele? Oh, hi. Um. Where did you come from?” Chelsea says, dabbing at her nose.
“Can you come here for a second?” I pull her away from Miles and, amidst the stares of the two English boys, I give her my look of death. I walk far enough away so that they can’t hear what I am about to say to her. I’m glad the casino isn’t completely empty, I don’t want to have free reign.
It never used to be like this. I was always the one who had to pry young Chelsea from the arms of her mother, who had to convince her that sneaking out at night to go to that party was for the good of her country; that smoking that cigarette wouldn’t really do her any harm, and would in fact not only make her cooler, but deepen her voice to a sexy rasp. I had been the bad influence. She was the one who used to have to drag me home after a late night out in a club. I was the one who didn’t ever want the night to end. Funny how time changes things.
Perhaps growing up with someone stops you from seeing them in their present personality and state - it’s their headgear, frizzy soft curls and pre-pubescent potbelly that’s still fresh in the mind. I wonder if she looks at me and still sees my chubby cheeks, blue lipstick and bandanas.
“What? Adele?” Chelsea looks fragile, but I’m not going to let that sway me.
“What? You seriously have no idea why I’m angry?”
She starts to laugh at me, her eyes become glassy. “No, I don’t. I thought -”
“Chelsea, I have been calling you for the last two hours and you haven’t responded.”
“Oh, is that all? I didn’t-”
“No, that’s not all. Do you know what time it is?”
“Well, it didn’t seem like you were having such a bad time. I figured I’d give you your moment.” Her words are slightly slurring.
“That’s not the point. We promised we would stay together tonight. You told me you would keep in touch with me.” My voice is rising at each interruption. I am getting more and more irritated each time she dismisses me.
“We’re not teenagers anymore, Del. I knew you would be able to handle yourself. And plus, I figured you needed a little more time with Guy.” She sways back towards Miles and giggles. I pull her back towards me, a bit too forcefully. “Ow. That’s my arm.” She yanks it away.
“I know we’re not teenagers anymore,” I say through clenched teeth. I feel like throwing a tantrum, if I’m not doing so already. “And, I am perfectly capable of knowing how much time I’ll need with someone, but I have work tomorrow. And, you’ve completely ignored our pact once again. It’s past five in the morning.”
“So, you don’t like Guy?”
“Of course I like Guy. That has nothing to do with it! I have work tomorrow…I mean, today. In a few hours. And, if I don’t show up, I may get fired.” I need to nail this home to her. Make her feel even worse. “And if I get fired then that means no rent for next month, no gas in the car, no food, nada. It’s the beginning of a freaking recession, and I don’t want to have to find another job. And, besides, what the hell are you doing with Miles anyway?” There’s the clincher.
“We’ve been talking. About a lot. He’s really helping me -”
“You’re married.” I cut her off. I can’t help it. Someone needs to knock sense into her, and those two words will do the trick. “Do you see this ring on your finger? What is wrong with you?!” I am being mean and I know it. She deserves to hear this.
“Thank you for stating the obvious, Adele. Anyway, it’s not like that. You won’t believe all the things we’ve been talking ab-”
“I saw the picture. We walked by his friends and they showed me the picture of you two kissing. And, I just can’t believe you would put me through this after what happened over Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Last night. Now, tonight. You’ve put these men before me now three times, and I fucking hate it. I hate it. Do you have any idea how that makes me feel, hanging around, waiting for you alone.” I take a breath in, trying to regain my composure.
I feel so agitated with Chelsea. Nothing about our blow up over Thanksgiving has been discussed. We’ve been sweeping the problems under the carpet and masking it with everything else.
Problems with men will always be there causing confusion, paranoia, aggravation. We’ve dealt with them our entire lives. So why we felt they were more important than dealing with our own friendship, I have no idea. Then again, perhaps we just assumed our friendship could withstand more. And here it was coming to a head. “Look, I’m sorry, I’m not alone, and I’ve been away with G -”
“Yeah, I do know how it feels actually. Now you know how it feels,” she interrupts.
“You know how what feels?” I am taken aback.
“Now you know how it feels,” Chelsea repeats.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“How many times growing up would you ditch me for some guy, put our friendship on hold, and expect me to be there when you got back? How often was I left to find my own way home? How many times did you pressure me into something I didn’t want to do? I’m not the only one who can be selfish, Adele. Don’t go on being such a fricking hypocrite. I don’t want to hear it.” Chelsea’s standing up for herself for the first time since we were eight years old and she drew a line of chalk down the middle of our road. I wasn’t to cross it.
Since then, she was always so complacent, so gracious and pliable. But now, I can’t believe she’s bringing up stuff from our past. That has nothing to do with it.
“That’s what this is all about? You’re getting back at me for shit I did as a teenager?” I cross my arms, hurt. “Wow, I would never ever hold something against you for years like that. I’m glad to know that this is what it all comes down to. Petty shit from our teens. We’re adults now, Chelsea. I thought you were more mature than that.”
“I’m not the only one bringing up stuff from our past. Look at you, bringing up Thanksgiving.”
“Thanksgiving is something we never dealt with. Our teenage years are. We’ve been there; we raked through that pile of shit years ago. Low blow.”
“Fine.” Chelsea throws her hands up. “Fine. I will explain. Is that what you want?”
“I’m done with letting you explain,” I say. I turn away from her, my jaw is rigid. I don’t want to deal with a confrontation from her, this is too much for me.
“Del?” Chelsea grabs my arm.
“What?” I say, shaking my arm away and flinging my face towards hers. She freezes, her eyes lucid and staring back into mine.
“God, you can be quite scary when you want to be,” she whispers into my face. She’s done it. She cracks me. A smile breaks free from my control and I lower my face to the ground and shake my head.
“Stop making me smile. This isn’t funny,” I say.
“Can I explain?” I can see her smirking from the corner of my eye. I was su
pposed to make this hard on her.
I take a moment and leave the question hanging in the air for as long as I can. “Fine,” I finally answer. I sigh a really good, long, victimized sigh to let her know how hard this has all been on me. We grin at each other again. “One second. I have to get my serious face on again.” We both laugh. Then, I take a moment and refocus. I steer her to the floor. We both sit cross-legged.
“OK. This had better be good,” I finally say. She has stopped smiling as well. I don’t want to fight with her, and I don’t really know why I am. I’m not going to work today, that’s definitely decided. This is all like a big pantomime. Something I needed to burst and let out. I hope this is being filmed so that we can look back and see how ridiculous it all is.
“None of this was payback,” Chelsea says. “I have my own reasons for last night and tonight. What happened over Thanksgiving was wrong of me, and I see that. When Victor slapped you…” she winces at the memory. I remember the sting I felt afterwards and the look of satisfaction in his eyes. “I let it happen,” Chelsea says. It finally registers.
There was something else that had been haunting me since that night, but I have tried hard not to think back to it. I just wanted to forget the embarrassment and the shock I felt. Now it comes to me. What I had been trying to forget for the past four months – the tiny smile that had formed around her lips for only a split second after the blow. It was so subtle and so quick that I was sure I had made the entire thing up. Surely, my best friend wouldn’t gain satisfaction from seeing her husband hit me?
“He has never done it to me before,” Chelsea continues. “And in some weird twisted way it made me feel closer to him after he did that to you. God, I’m so embarrassed to admit this, and I am so, so sorry. I so badly needed to feel that he loved me. Everything has been so bad for so long. He never looked at me, never complimented me like he used to. But that moment that he slapped you and for a few weeks afterwards, it was as if I had him all to myself again. I was crippled with guilt towards you, figured we would never speak again. After all, how could you forgive me for something like that? And then I just left you there.”
I had to find a cab ride home that night, my face stinging. “Victor was so volatile at that moment. But the overriding feeling was relief after you left. I had my husband back,” she says. “I think your words that night triggered something in him. I know you weren’t being mean - you were just being how Adele gets when she’s too honest. He took it as a judgment on him. You couldn’t have known how badly he wanted his children to be light skinned, or how much pressure he was putting on me to conceive his kids. You know, his mother pulled me to the side on our wedding day and thanked me for whitening their race?”
I gasp. I couldn’t imagine. I always thought being dark skinned was a blessing – you could stay in the sun for longer, have a better tan and wouldn’t age as quickly. I had always wanted to be darker, and thought it somewhat of a curse that I inherited my mother’s whiter complexion.
“He slapped you because he was jealous of you. Victor truly hates his skin color and when you said what you said, it made him hate you. And, I could become his confidante once again,” she continues.
“But then it just got worse after a while. He went back to treating me like shit and then I lost you too, and I’m so sorry…oh God….”
I wait for the tears to start flooding and the sobs. I look around for some tissues, and I see Guy with Miles. He mouths ‘Do you need anything?’
‘Tissues,’ I reply. He sprints off in another direction.
But, no tears. Chelsea straightens up. “It’s over. It’s all over, Adele. I can’t go back to him. He won’t even sign up for life insurance like I asked him to.” That last point doesn’t seem as severe as the others, but added to the mountain of other faults, I assume it topples them over past the point of forgivable behavior. And, then, she says it again, “He hit my best friend.”
Now, the convulsing starts. Those wailing sobs that come from a long build up of frustration, torment and pain come from both she and I. Fatigue only allows us to relish the release of emotions for a brief moment, until they’ve stopped completely. She looks up and says, “Please forgive me. You’re my best friend.”
I know that I will never be able to comprehend what happened that Thanksgiving. I also know it doesn’t matter anymore. This isn’t me trying to patch things up quickly and cleanly without thoroughly uncovering all that was going on that evening. I simply was a casualty along the way, and Chelsea’s marriage and my involvement with it transformed into a dream, hovering in her subconscious.
Of course I wish Chelsea had reacted differently that night. I wish she had stood up for me. I wish she had divorced him right there and then. I wish she had seen his maliciousness before it got worse. And, if we didn’t have so much history and love for the other, I would never have allowed a friend to treat me like that. I would have chalked it up to a malfunction in her personality, and would have rid myself of that friend for good. But I do know Chelsea, and I know that if she hadn’t been in the direst of states emotionally and mentally, it would never have happened.
“You’re such a bitch,” is the only thing I think of to say.
“Ha.” She sputters. “Yes. I am. You are too. Bitch.”
“Whorebag.”
“Dimple butt. I still can’t believe how hard you hit him back. He had a black cheekbone for almost two weeks,” she says, a snort coming from her nose.
“You snorted!”
“I know! I do snort!”
“I snort too!” I snort and laugh. “I’m so glad he had a mark. My face was fine. He is a weak little bastard. It didn’t hurt at all. Just the shock of it, I guess. I would do it again, you know?”
“Yeah, well. I’m glad you did. God, I need a tissue.”
“I think your problem will be solved in a few minutes,” I motion towards the missing Englishman. She glances over and then quickly turns back to me.
“Nothing has happened with Miles and I.”
“It hasn’t? But, I saw a picture of you guys and it looked like you were kissing.”
“Like we were kissing? I mean, he’s been trying most of the night, but I swear to you, nothing has happened.” She stops when she notices Guy inching behind us with a roll of toilet paper.
“It’s the only thing I could find. Sorry to interrupt girls.” Guy hurls the TP into my hands. “We’ll just be at the bar. Do you want us to wait for you?”
“Yes.”
“Yes.” Chelsea and I echo each other.
“We’ll be at that weird platform bar,” he says, and gives me that wink that I love. I get up and grab him before he goes.
“I didn’t mean to ignore you when you were trying to help earlier. I’m sorry.” He just shakes his head and smiles. He kisses me on the cheek and if I weren’t in the 21st century, I would have fainted.
“Whoa. Don’t do it, Del, don’t do it,” Chelsea says after he’s disappeared.
“Don’t do what?”
“Marry him.”
“What? Let’s not go there. I don’t know what you’re talking about. Anyway -”
“I’m just saying. You see what marriage did to me and our moms.”
“Look, we’re not getting married.” I pause and squint my eyes. “At least not right away,” I jump up and down, smiling largely.
“You’re in deep.”
“Yeah.” I stop jumping and smooth my shirt. I sit down beside her once again.
“So, wait. What was this picture of us kissing?” she asks. I explain to her what I had seen, and she remembers that moment. “It was so enticing…” She pauses to remember the moment and her eyes sparkle unlike I have seen them shine in many years. “I felt so sexual and passionate. You have no idea the will power I had to find to say no.”
She looks up as if she’s in awe of her own strength and recognizes that it doesn’t necessarily come from inside her.
“I don’t know how I do it, but I just
am not willing to live with the consequences. Plus, a minute later, Victor called,” she says. Her lips tighten into a straight line. “That’s when I put the phone on silent. That’s why I didn’t pick up your calls.” I believe her. There’s no reason for her to lie to me. Not now.
“What are you going to do about work?”
She asks the question I’ve been trying to ignore.
“I don’t know. I need to find a computer to email her. I’ll think of something. Should we go and find the boys?” I say.
They are where they said they’d be, and they greet us with big grins. We both apologize, but try to laugh it off as girl drama, ‘this is what you get when you put two best friends together in Vegas’ type of thing.
GOODBYES
“We can drop you off at your hotel. Where are you guys staying?” I ask them as they walk us to our car. It’s seven a.m., and the sun is up. There is nothing left for us to do but go back.
“The Luxor. It’s not far from here. Are you sure? You don’t mind?” Guy says. He regards me worriedly.
“No, not at all. It’s on the way back to my uncle’s anyway.” After a bit of convincing that I was OK to drive a few miles to my uncle’s house, and promising that I would get a little bit of sleep before I drive back to Los Angeles, the boys give in and let us go. Miles and Chelsea get in the back seat, and I pray that no one smells the rotten cat odor that still lurks. Guy sits next to me.
“Do you have any Oasis?” he asks while fiddling with my iPod. Men and their music.
“Oasis? What are we back in 1995?” Chelsea mocks and laughs. “Oh, I know. Let’s show them our favorite song.” Oh no.
“What song is that?” I play dumb.
“Here, let me see it.” She grabs the iPod, and I continue trying to maneuver my way out of the maze that is the Palms parking lot. I have an inkling of what she’s up to, and if she does play it, I’m right there with her, I decide. Hey, if they don’t have a sense of humor, I don’t want any part of it.
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