And here is the marijuana. Also known as the highlight of Camp Dumbo.
I decided to e-mail my doctor and make sure it was okay for me to ride an elephant three weeks out of surgery. His response was, “Please, Chelsea, no.”
I leaned back in the leopard-print dining room chair I was stationed in and felt it buckle. “Is there an adult camp for obesity?” I asked. “I am going to need to pick up a parasite. Or an African girdle.”
“Yes, somewhere with trust falls and zip lines,” Sue responded.
I got up, took some raw macaroni out of the kitchen pantry, and when I couldn’t find a bowl, I poured some into a martini glass and popped it in the microwave. I looked quizzically at my dish as I was putting it in the microwave, wondering if I was missing an ingredient. But in the hopes of appearing like a conscientious chef prepared for all things culinary, I soldiered on. After standing directly in front of the microwave for what felt like an eternity, I heard glass shattering, and hopped backward on my good leg. I now know that the key ingredient I was missing was water, and I regret not knowing this when it mattered the most.
“Well,” I announced as I hobbled back into the living room with the girls, “another signature dish gone awry.”
Simone looked up from her phone and asked me what I had e-mailed her soon-to-be ex-husband.
Hannah was typing and mumbled without looking up, “How are you getting service, Simone?”
Simone ignored Hannah and kept her eyes set on me.
“Well, you can’t leave on a note like this,” I told Simone. “We need to reunite with Rex. He said he had time off. Don’t think he’s not coming to join us.”
“Chelsea, I have to move houses. Are you proposing that I force three children to pack up and move themselves? What did you write to him?”
“First of all, it’s not like they’re toddlers. Seneca is almost ten. There are child labor camps all over the world with kids much younger than that. Third of all, Shana, Roy, and Mike are all around to help out. The movers are going to do everything anyway.”
“You can’t hold me hostage,” Simone mumbled.
“I simply told him that I need you here for physical and emotional support, that this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip, and that he should set a good example for his children by allowing you to celebrate your divorce on a seventeen-star safari.”
“She’s right, you know,” Shelly chimed in.
Simone looked at Shelly like a mother protecting her chihuahas. “You are an enabler, Shelly, and you, Chelsea, are a bully.”
Hannah looked around and jammed her finger in her ear. “Does anyone have Internet service?”
“Yes!” the five of us responded together.
“You are an enabler,” Sue agreed.
Shelly then turned to Simone. “Seriously, what are the chances you are ever going to come back to Africa? Chelsea does have a point, bullying as it may be. It’s like a bully with money.”
“It’s like two bullies with money,” Simone said, eyeballing Shelly.
“Like Laverne and Shirley with money,” Sue added.
“Then who’s Squiggy?” I shot back at Sue. “Because it feels like I’m looking at him.” I went back in the kitchen to check on my pasta and remembered halfway there that it had already exploded in the martini glass.
After Sue had prepared the apple properly, we got extremely high, which turned out to be a welcome respite from all the alcohol we had been drinking.
By the time Norman—the South African version of Leave it to Beaver—picked us up for our 4:30 elephant ride, we were supremely out of sorts. Every time I get stoned, I always write a note to myself to do it more often, and then I always forget where I put the note.
Before our scheduled elephant romp, we stopped by a man-made pond to watch the sunset and stare romantically at the wind. This gathering spot was comprised of two picnic tables covered with the African equivalent of saltines, some sort of processed cheese cubes, and an array of wet meat. We tried to make small talk with another couple there but became dispirited when we found out they were headed to Londolozi in the morning. “We wish we were going with you,” I told them with tears in my eyes.
We sucked down champagne out of plastic flutes and gnawed on beef jerky in silence while watching the sunset from lawn chairs. “I bet that sunset isn’t even real,” Sue garbled while she tried to remove the hair whipping around inside her mouth like a spin cycle. This place was like a microclimate. One minute the sun was burning down on your face and the next minute you were in a Saharan sandstorm.
After stepping away from our group to take a phone call on his cell, Norman returned and revealed to us that the elephant ride had been canceled and it would now be in the morning.
“Did the elephants make other plans?” Sue asked.
Norman nervously laughed, then explained that one of the elephants was sick, which would prevent her from leaving her shed, which would prevent her four sisters and all their baby elephants from leaving their barracks. “They travel in herds,” he reminded us, as if we had not just come from a fucking safari the week before.
“None of the elephants get sick at Londolozi,” I assured the couple who were headed there.
I looked at Shelly, who had her eyes fixed on Norman. “What are you talking about? Isn’t this the whole point of the camp… to ride a goddamned elephant?” Shelly’s testosterone was kicking in. She lashes out to protect me so that I don’t have to complain and then have people talk about what a bitch I am in person. Instead, they talk about what a bitch she is, and wonder what someone as sweet as me is doing traveling with someone as cunty as her.
Simone put her arm around my shoulder. “This place is what you would call a ‘hot mess.’ It’s off. Way off. I think you should call Rex and see if he can put his money where his mouth is. It’s just not the same without him.”
I felt bad for Norman, because clearly he wasn’t in charge of this camp or, for that matter, anything in his life. He offered to take us on a night ride and we decided, against our better judgment, to assuage his insecurity and our disappointment by obliging. Also, there was nothing better to do. We had the sunset-picnic bartender make us some dry martinis to go, because we were all getting heartburn from the fake lime juice in the margaritas.
During this night ride we learned that in place of a tracker, Norman used binoculars and a flashlight. When Shelly asked him why he didn’t have a tracker like Rex, he said he didn’t need one. Hannah began cross-examining Norman—what kind of training program had he taken, where had he gone to school, and what his real experience with animals was. “Have you ever even seen a lion?”
When he disclosed to us that the only prerequisite to working here had been a three-week training course online—which would be equivalent to me getting an archaeological degree from the University of Phoenix—I tossed my martini glass over my sister’s head and into the woods. Somehow, a giant rock moved itself into the same place as the bush I was aiming at, causing a rather loud crashing sound. Norman hit the brakes and asked if we had dropped something.
“Simone!” I yelled. “What is your problem? You were supposed to catch that.” Simone was sitting three seats behind me.
Norman stopped the car and got out. As he retrieved the broken glass, he pointed out a rabbit running across the road.
“I didn’t fly twenty hours to see a fucking rabbit, Norman,” Sue snapped.
Sue is never mean to people, but we were at our wits’ end and Norman was exceptionally stupid. What kind of safari features rabbits and flashlights? If I wanted to go on a Cub Scout trip, I would have become a Scout leader. That was actually exactly what Norman should have been doing. Leading Scouts. Girl Scouts.