"It's your party! This is Brady," I say to everyone in the general vicinity. Everybody raises their beer bottles.

"Congratulations, man!" one guy says, putting up his hand to high-five Brady.

"Who are these people?" Brady asks me.

"Don't leave him hanging!" I say to Brady, who looks at the guy still standing there with his hand up waiting for him to respond. Brady finally high-fives him, and the guy turns back to whatever he was doing.

"Are you ready to have an Effen good time?" I ask Brady.

"Heaven!" Brady says. "What is this?"

"It's your party," I say. "We couldn't stay in a hotel dubbed the 'Riot House' and not oblige. Plus . . . we're celebrating!"

"Celebrating what?"

"Superhero! Them going with you."

"How did you know?"

"I knew. I had faith," I say. "I was right, wasn't I?"

"Yeah, you were," he says as a big grin spreads across his face. I jump up and hug him.

"But what if they hadn't?" he asks.

"Then this would be a come cheer Brady up party."

"And I ask again . . . who are these people?"

"Neighbors," I shout. "People staying in the hotel. Cool people I saw downstairs going to Chi, which Justin Timberlake owns, by the way. Did you know that? The place right downstairs is his new restaurant bar."

"I didn't know."

"Well . . . he's busy. He couldn't attend."

"You invited Justin Timberlake?" he says.

"No, he wasn't there. But Kevin Dillon was."

"Who's that?"

"Matt Dillon's brother. He's actually over there," I say, pointing. "In the red bowling shirt. Next to the girl with the fake boobs. Wait-that's every girl in this room." I hand Brady a beer. "Drink up, bud. It's our last night in L.A., and this party is in honor of you, my friend."

"You did this in a matter of hours-"

"Yup. I pretty much just gave out the room number, and the rest is history."

"You are a strange and wonderful creature," Brady says. He takes the beer, and we clink bottles. "I take it this party was B.Y.O.B.?" he asks as he looks around and sees all the alcohol. Then he notices the table full of Effen Vodka. "And where did that come from?"

"Jon," I reply.

"And Jon would be?"

"Only the coolest guy ever! I was downstairs, and I saw these two guys hanging out by the restaurant, so I invited them. Turns out one of them founded this new vodka called Effen Vodka. Cool name, huh? Anyway, I sat down with them for a half hour and we got to talking about launch strategies-kind of a specialty of mine. I threw out a couple ideas they fell in love with-"

"Like what?"

"'Effen Cool' merchandise and wearables, an Effen-sponsored worldwide poker tournament . . . stuff like that. His guys were doing a little promotion downstairs at Chi that didn't seem to be generating much heat, so I found them a ready-made, targeted audience of qualified prospects."

"Meaning?" he says.

"I told him they'd be suckers if they didn't supply free booze for your party. So . . . we are among the first to try Original and Black Cherry Effen Vodka."

"Effen unreal," Brady says. "Only you could pull this together and manage to somehow get a liquor company to sponsor it." He shakes his head in amazement, and we spend the next five hours making new friends and hyping Brady's new band.

We both wake up with black cherry hangovers. The phone rings to deliver our wake-up call, and it's akin to a megaphone pointing directly in my ear. We went to bed approximately seventy-eight minutes ago.

"Make it Effen stop!" I say. Strummer looks at me like I'm talking to him, and he cocks his head to the side. "Not you, boy."

"Hello?" Brady moans into the phone. "Thank you," he says and hangs up. "Get up. Time to go. We have to be at the airport in an hour."

"Ugggh," I groan, dragging myself out of my bed.

I hear the shower turn on in the bathroom, and I walk over to the door and push it open.

"I'm coming in," I say and head to the sink to wash my face.

"In here? That's new," he says.

"No, dumbass. You must still be drunk. I'm just washing my face."

"Well, I'm glad that we're comfortable enough to share a bathroom now," he says, oozing with sarcasm.

"Not like I can see anything in there. Or want to. Do you pee in the shower?"

"No," he says vehemently.

"Liar," I say back.

"Whatever," he says.

"Madonna does," I say.

"She told you this?"

"No, I think I saw it on Letterman. She told Dave. Apparently it's good for you. She said it is."

"This should be interesting," Brady says.

"It prevents athlete's foot."

"Okay then."

"So . . . that's all I'm saying. Were you so inclined to pee in the shower . . . it may be gross, but it could be beneficial."

"I don't have athlete's foot," he says. "But thank you for the newsflash."

"No problem," I say. And then I add, "You're probably peeing right now. Make sure you aim at your feet."

"You're retarded," he says. I leave the bathroom and start to pack my bags. I pack four six-packs of Jolt for Brady at the bottom of my bag. Not that he'll go through all of them in Seattle, but he'll have the option-which is nice.

When we get to the airport, we have a little time to kill. So we check in and see if they'll give us a free upgrade. They won't. And once again, Brady has an aisle seat. He won't budge, and I don't want to be stuck in the window again. So I ask if there's another aisle seat available. Turns out the aisle seat right in front of Brady is open, so I switch my seat.

When we board the plane nobody is sitting next to Brady, and I have some thinnish droopy guy sitting next to me. He's not overweight, but he looks like at one time he was very overweight. He's got that Jared-from-the-Subway-campaign thing going. I can almost see him proudly holding up a pair of pants that were ten sizes bigger and then stepping out in his new svelte form. Speaking of which . . . the new Subway ads have Jared with his shirt untucked-possibly hiding something?

"Well, how's it going?" he asks. "I'm Evan." He smells like chicken noodle soup.

"Fine," I say. And knowing that my name rhyming with his will spark all sorts of hilarity in him, and at least thirty more minutes of conversation, I decide not to tell him my name. "I'm Belinda."

"Well, that's an unusual name," he says. And I immediately wish I'd gone with Jane . . . or Mary . . . or Cathy. Maybe Sue. "You know this is the bulkhead seat, right, Belinda?"

"Yeah," I say. "More room for us. And by the way, you misheard me. My name is Sue."

"Well . . . oh," he says with an odd look. "But listen . . . when the stewardess comes by she's going to ask us if we're okay with opening the emergency door and helping people exit the plane if there's a problem." And then he leans in. "Just say yes," he says.

"Okay . . ." I say.

"Well, a pilot buddy once told me that if we crash . . . the emergency exit door is useless, anyway. Plus, there are going to be so many cracks in the fuselage that we'd be better off just crawling out through one of the cracks."

"Um . . . okay," I say, not exactly sure why he's discussing this with me moments before we take off. I'm wondering why everything he says begins with "well," and starting to get the feeling that all is not well with this man.

"And as far as helping the other passengers . . . I say-" And he doesn't actually say anything, but he dismisses all of humanity with a wave of his hand. What is wrong with this man? I can hear Brady snickering behind me too. With his damned empty seat next to him.

"Thanks for the tip," I say. I open up the in-flight magazine and pretend to read an article about Queen Latifah so he'll stop talking to me about plane crashes. Of course, this doesn't work.

"Well, when they go into their little demonstration about flotation devices? Just plug your ears and go la la la, because if we torpedo into the ocean . . . well, your seat cushion is about as useful as-well, it's not very useful. If we crash into the water, we're all dead. Flight 21 Soup."

Okay . . . there is a certain way to behave on an airplane. There's a little thing I like to call "Jetiquette," the rules that govern appropriate behavior whilst flying on an airplane. I don't know what kind of egg this Evan was hatched from, but apparently good breeding and social graces were not high on his family's list of priorities. And just as I'm about to get up and reclaim my seat next to Brady, the fattest woman I've ever seen comes and sits next to him. She barely squeezes herself into my would-be seat. And the cherry on top is . . . she's got an infant with her. Splendid.

" I've worn dresses with higher IQs, but you think you're an intellectual, don't you, ape?"

-Wanda, A Fish Called Wanda.

" No, no, you've always had that wrong about me. I really am this shallow."

-Will, About a Boy.

Brady.

I'm sitting next to the fattest woman in the world. This is no exaggeration. There are rolls of fat overflowing into my seat, touching my arm, and I think I may very well get sick. She's got a baby on her lap, and I genuinely fear for that child. What if she falls asleep and crushes it? One wrong move and that little tot is a pancake. And then if she gets hungry . . . oh, the horror! All right, that's just gross. But she's really fat. And I'm really wishing Heaven and I didn't change our seating arrangements.

"They make these seats so small!" the woman exclaims, and I bite my tongue. "I hate flying," she adds.

"I do too," I say, and I pull out my iPod.

"God, this is a tight squeeze," she continues. Does she really need to keep bringing this up? The Suez Canal would be a tight squeeze for you, lady! "Did you know that Southwest Airlines actually makes heavier people buy two seats? Two seats?" she scoffs. And I'm thinking, two . . . maybe three. Then again, it's not such a bad idea. She is clearly in my personal space. "Do you think that's fair?"

How am I supposed to handle this one? I feel Heaven's eyes on me, and indeed they are. She is peering through the seats in front of me with this shit-eating grin, just waiting for my response.

"Um . . ." I say, "no, I guess it's not fair." And I should have stopped it there, but of course I'm a little miffed, so I keep going. "If it's not their fault."

"Oh, so if I'm what society calls fat, and it's because my thyroid doesn't work properly, then I shouldn't have to pay for two seats . . . but if I'm fat because I just can't stop stuffing my face then I deserve to pay double? Is that what you're saying?" I look at Heaven, who is nodding her head yes. She's egging me on, but she doesn't have to sit next to this woman.

"Sort of?" I say, and I almost wince like she's going to hit me or something. I regret it as soon as I say it. In fact, I even tried to stop, but it just came out. I think Heaven may be rubbing off on me. This is not a good thing.

"Well, that is a violation of my rights as a human being," she says. "Do they make people with body odor pay for two seats because the person sitting next to them is uncomfortable having to smell their stink?" Sounds good to me.

"I don't know. Until now, I didn't even know they made . . . larger people pay for two seats."

"Well, they don't. There is no smelly penalty. I mean, I'd rather sit next to a fat person than someone who hasn't bathed since the Reagan administration."

"I'm with you there," I say. But you are obese. So why would you mind sitting next to someone who is obese, is what I'm thinking.

"You're with me there, but you still think I should have bought two seats," she says with some attitude.

"No, no, not you," I say. "I wouldn't put you into that category." Here I go, trying to worm my way out of this one. "You shouldn't have to pay extra."

"Oh?" she says.

"No!" I say in a way that totally dismisses the silly possibility that she could be overweight. She puffs up a little like a happy bird. Heaven is mouthing something, and I'm trying to make it out. I can't. So she turns to the annoying plane-crash guy sitting next to her.

"I wonder if they'll have chicken on this flight," Heaven says, bulging her eyes out at me. So that's it. She's calling me chicken. Fine, I can live with that. I'd rather be chicken than have this woman hate me for the next two hours and thirty-seven minutes. Thank God this isn't a cross-country flight. How much can go wrong in two hours?

"Well, thank you," the fattest woman alive says. "I do struggle a bit with my weight, but I've lost some weight recently. Maybe it shows." Damn right it shows. But if you pulled your pants up a little, it might not so much. And she lost weight? You mean to tell me she was fatter?

"Well, I didn't know you before, but you look great," I say, and Heaven actually laughs. I kick her seat in front of me.

"This is Henry," she says as she smiles at the baby boy. "I think I just put on some baby-weight." So when are you due, I wonder. And how many are you having? "He's just two months old," she says proudly.

"He's really cute," I say. And I browse through the artists on my iPod, close my eyes, and start listening to Bright Eyes.

Within fifteen minutes I feel something on my arm. It's warm and fleshy, and I think it's got to be one of her folds of fat-but she was wearing long sleeves. I can't imagine what it is. I open one eye and immediately shut it. I squeeze it so tight that I also inadvertently start holding my breath because I'm in something of a state of shock.