The Hangover: Part IV

At just after six in the morning that Thursday, a mere three days after the pre-rehearsal rehearsal dinner hosted by Alan, the usual suspects could be found sitting around the seats at their American Airlines boarding gate. They were tired and slumped against each other, listening to iPods, messing with their phones, reading books, drinking coffees or talking to one another.

Phil had his daughter Penny on his lap. The girl had just turned five and had blonde hair like her mother but looked more like Phil than her older brother did. Her feet were still bare from when they'd all gone through security but now Sam was helping her put them back on, trying to show her how to tie them as Phil looked on with a smirk. Beside him, Eli was engrossed with his cell phone in his hands and iPod earbuds in his ear listening to whatever music tickled his teenage pickle. A few seats away, Stu and Lauren sat one seat apart; their two-year-old son Henry sitting between them looking as cute as can be in a pair of plaid overalls and white polo shirt. He was anything but sweet though as he wriggled and squirmed in his seat, starting to throw a fit because he wanted to get down and play and was just overtired from having to be up earlier than normal for the awaiting flight.

Doug and Tracy were sitting a row behind Stu and Lauren, their four-year-old daughter Sarah the picture of good behavior in her little pink dress and brown locks tumbling down past her shoulders. Even her toe nails were painted pink. In Doug's arms, he was holding a sleeping one-year-old, his second daughter Megan. Because the little one was asleep, it couldn't be seen that she had her daddy's blue eyes. Talking among themselves, a few seats over from where Sam was, sat a black woman named Yolanda and a gay, white guy named Sean who was a little porkish like Alan but as manicured as a woman. They had been Sam's closest friends since she first came to Los Angeles seventeen years before and it only made sense that they were part of the wedding party.

There was also an older couple in their mid to late sixties who bore a striking resemblance to Phil, meaning they were probably his parents. Sam's family was not at LAX because her parents had left for Ibiza earlier in the week to get a head start on everything while her sister Amanda and sister-in-law Emily would be catching the same flight to Ibiza that Sam, Phil and the others would be on after their layover at JFK.

Last but not least, Alan was sitting away from the others, but not too far away. He was wearing a black, tuxedo T-shirt and a pair of khaki pants and sandals. He was taking turns letting his eyes drift from family to family; Phil's, his sister's, Stu's. Alan was frowning, a little sad. As he went to put on his headphones, Penny slid off her father's lap with her shoes finally on, and walked over to Alan and patted him on the knee.

Alan removed the headphones. "What do you want?"

Penny looked up at him with doleful blue eyes and gestured to him so she could whisper in his ear. Alan leaned forward and listened as she cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered, "Is Santa Claus your daddy?"

"Why?"

"'Cause you're fat and have a beard like Santa...but your beard isn't white 'cause you're not old like Santa. Are you his son?"

"Penny," Phil chastised, overhearing his daughter.

Alan held up his hand. "No, it's okay. I got this, Phil." He turned his gaze from Phil to Penny. "Santa isn't my dad. My dad's name is Sid Garner. You met him the other night at dinner, remember?"

"Oh."

"But I do know Santa."

Penny's blue eyes widened with delight. "You do?"

"That's why I look like this. I work for Santa," Alan spoke, stroking his beard. Stu turned his attention toward Alan and Penny, listening in on what he was saying and finding it rather sweet.

"I thought you were a stay-at-home son?" Stu questioned with a chuckle in his voice. Phil and Sam both shared the same impish look as they watched the interaction between Alan and Penny.

"I have many jobs, Stu. I like to keep busy," he replied, deadpan.

"What do you do for Santa?" Penny wondered, touching her fingers shyly to her lips.

"I keep him updated on who's naughty and who's nice in Southern California." Leaning closer, he got right in Penny's face and knitted his brow together in seriousness. "Have you been nice this year?"

Penny nodded her head furiously. "Uh huh."

Alan sat back up. "Good. I'll send Santa a text later to let him know," he replied. "What about your brother? Has he been nice?" Alan gestured to Eli who was in his own world.

Penny giggled. "Sometimes. He doesn't let me in his room and when I want him to play with me he shuts his bedroom door in my face."

Phil gave his son a sidelong glance and then smirked back at his daughter. He sat back in his seat, grabbing Sam's hand and lacing his fingers between hers. He stretched out his long legs and continued to listen.

"Sometimes isn't good enough. He has to be nice all the time." Alan pulled out his cell phone and pretended to send a text. Penny's eyes lit up as she watched, enthralled. "I'm letting Santa know your brother has been naughty. He can expect to get a bunch of coal for Christmas."

Penny giggled, finding pleasure in the fact that she believed her brother would in fact get gypped by Santa. She turned and grinned at her daddy and went skipping back over to him. Placing her hands on his knees, she leaned forward and bared her teeth as she smiled up at him. "Eli's gonna get coal for Christmas 'cause he wasn't nice to me sometimes."

"Why does that make you happy?" Phil asked with a laugh.

"Because it's funny."

"Other people's misfortune makes you happy?" Phil rolled his eyes and scooped Penny up to sit on his lap. "Damn, you are my daughter straight to the bone."

Sam laughed and reached her hand up to brush some hair out of Penny's face. Both of Phil's kids had accepted her into their lives pretty easily. Part of it probably had a lot to do with the fact that their mother had already moved on and was already one year married to Lauren's cousin, Ting Deng Sisai, a Thai-born plastic surgeon. Their mom had moved on, so it wasn't a shocker when their dad moved on as well. Eli was the only one who gave any attitude toward Sam at times, but it was only in the context of his teenage hormones getting the best of him. It was never anything truly directed at Sam as if he didn't like her. In fact he was very comfortable with her in their lives. Penny was too young when her parents divorced so all she would ever know was them living separate lives with different people, so Sam fit easily into her world as a second mommy. In the midst of these separate lives and sharing custody of the kids with Stephanie, he was glad that she was not poisoning their minds against him or filling their heads with negativity about Sam. Stephanie was actually pretty amiable about the whole situation and had, just after her marriage to Ting Deng over the summer the year before, confided in Phil that she was truly sorry about how she ended their marriage and he had been a good husband while they were married. Ting Deng was just something she wanted more in her life. It was nothing against Phil, and she remarked that it was meant to work out the way it did, because it led him to Sam who he was really and truly happy with.

Phil looked at Sam as she touched his daughter's face with loving hands, smiling at the five-year-old as if she were her own. Sam was the yin to his yang, the up to his down, the Abbott to his Costello...

"What?" Sam asked, catching Phil slightly off guard. He hadn't realized she'd noticed him staring.

"Oh, just thinking about how you...and me..."

Sam smirked, giving him a knowing look before bringing her gaze back to Penny. "Are you excited to go on a long plane ride to a whole other country?"

Penny nodded. "Where are we going again?"

"Ibiza. It's a beautiful island off the coast of Spain."

"How long is it going to take?"

"Well, we have to make a couple of stops before we get there," Phil cut in. "But, about seventeen hours. Almost a whole day."

Penny frowned. "Why do we have to make stops?"

"'Cause the planes we're gonna be flying on need to put more plane fuel inside them so we can fly the long distances."

"Sammy?" Penny looked up at Sam.

"Yeah?"

"Can you color with me on the plane?"

Phil chuckled lightly at the innocent question as Sam nodded her head. "We'll color all the pages in your coloring book and if we run out, we'll buy another one while we wait at one of our stops."



Their American Airlines flight out of LAX had left at seven and arrived to JFK sometime after three in the afternoon, east coast time. They had a two-hour layover where they all met up with Sam's sister Amanda and sister-in-law Emily who were introduced to Phil's parents for the first time, and it was only the second time since their wedding two years and three months before that Amanda and Emily had seen Doug, Stu and Alan. And now they're were being introduced to their wives and children.

At five fifteen, their flight out of JFK took off without any delay. About three hours into the flight, it was eight-something in New York but only five-something back in Los Angeles. Phil was seated next to Eli, trying to explain what the time differences were at the moment. Spain was apparently six hours ahead of New York, which meant at that very moment, it was two-something in the morning there but they were all still very wide awake.

One row behind, Penny sat with Sam who kept her promise and was coloring with her. Doug was on the other side of the plane with Sarah seated next to him, coloring with her as well, but was occasionally looking back to throw Tracy sympathetic looks as she dealt with a momentarily cranky Megan who was squirming in her car seat.

"We should've left her home with my parents," Tracy griped. "It's not like she's going to remember this trip. She's only fifteen months old."

"Well, we learn from our mistakes," Doug replied with a bit of a laugh in his voice as he glanced over to his right at the center of the plane that had rows of three seats where Stu and Lauren sat with Henry between them in his own car seat.

Stu met his glance and gave him a nod of the head. Henry was thankfully in a good mood now. He'd napped during the flight from LAX to JFK and was good to go for a few more hours.

Scattered around the rest of economy class, Amanda and Emily were seated together, Phil's parents were seated together and Sam's friends Yolanda and Sean were seated together. The one person not present was Alan, who, at that moment, appeared at the curtain dividing economy from the business class. He was holding the curtain aside and stepped forward, walking toward Phil and Eli.

"How's the flight going for you?" Alan asked.

Phil looked up from his conversation about time zones with his son to meet Alan's gaze. "Uh...good. How's life in first class?"

"Boring. The woman in the seat next to me is sleeping and won't talk to me. So, I thought I'd come visit."

"I don't think you can just stand in the aisle, Alan."

"I'm pretty sure that's not a rule."

"Probably not, but it's frowned upon. They like the aisles clear in case of an emergency."

Alan harrumphed. "I should've book a seat back here with the lesser folk." He looked around, resting one hand on the back of Phil's seat and the other on the back of some of some old guy's seat. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other and gave a quick flick of his head as if tossing invisible locks of hair over his shoulder and out of his face.

"Dude, we're not sitting back here because we're any less better than the people in first or business class. We're sitting back here because it's more affordable."

"I'm sorry, Phil. I didn't realize I was being classist. Please accept my apology."

Phil shook his head. "Apology accepted. Just...go back to first class and if you want to talk, text me or something."

"But your voicemail says texting is gay."

"Most of the time, yes." Phil could see Eli's raised eyebrow out the corner of his own eye. "Just sit back down, okay?"

Alan sighed. "Fine." He walked away with a wave to Penny in the seat behind Phil and then threw a wave over to the others before disappearing back up front.



They reached Barcelona, Spain a few minutes after seven in the morning on Friday, local time. Again, Phil explained to Eli how, with the time differences, it was just after one in the morning in New York but in Los Angeles is was just after ten at night and still Thursday. So, while this part of the world they had just arrived in was waking up and starting the day, their internal clocks were still stuck on Los Angeles time and it was night time for them, time to get ready for bed. Especially since they had been up since very early the morning before to get to the airport.

After an hour layover in Barcelona and an extra fifty-five minutes on their Spainair flight, they finally touched down to Ibiza. Once they were all off the plane, they headed out of the gate and made their way to baggage claim where they all picked up their luggage and made their way outside, breathing in the warm Mediterranean air.

A driver was standing beside a large shuttle bus that was parked at the curb outside the airport. He was holding a white placard with Wenneck-Simmons Party written on it in black. Phil gave the driver a nod.

"I'm Phil Wenneck," he greeted, pointing to himself, then gesturing to Sam. "This is Samantha Simmons. We're the names on the sign."

"Hola, señor, señora. Bienvenidos a Ibiza. Yo te llevaré a tu hotel ahora," the driver spoke, opening up the door to the shuttle bus for everyone to pile in.

Phil looked confused. "What?"

Sam pushed Phil aside; her luggage rolling behind her in one hand while she also held Penny's hand. "He said hello and welcome to Ibiza and he's going to take us to the hotel." She looked at Phil with a smirk. "How have you lived in Southern California all your life and never learned any Spanish?"

Once they all piled into the shuttle and figured out where to position their luggage, the shuttle drove away from Ibiza Airport and headed about twenty-five minutes slightly north to the town of San Antonio, situated on San Antonio Bay on the west coast of the island. Their hotel was right on the beach and had all the trimmings; fresh water pools, a play area for children, a spa, two restaurants and a bar, even a nightclub. As soon as they checked in, Sam's mother and father appeared in the reception area to greet her daughters.

Not surprisingly, Dr. Colleen Kirkpatrick-Simmons pulled Amanda into a hug first. "How were your flights?" she asked as she finally embraced her eldest.

"Long," Sam replied.

"Well, come get some breakfast by the pool. All of you have to be starving. Plane food isn't exactly preferred cuisine."

"Mom, it's late at night for us. We're tired. Sleeping wasn't easy to come by on the planes. We just want to head up to our rooms and sleep for a while before we get into anything." Weary-eyed, Sam gave her mother a look which caused the older woman to back off slightly.

"Of course," Colleen conceded. "Get your beauty rest but not too long. You and Phil need to meet with the priest who's officiating your service before the rehearsal dinner tonight."

Sam simply smiled at her mother but when she turned to look at Phil, she rolled her eyes. "No hay problema, mamacita."

Phil snickered at her use of Spanish as they all walked away from Colleen and headed for the elevators. Everyone's luggage was on several luggage carts similar to the one the guys had used to transport Mike Tyson's tiger six years earlier. Stu was pushing a stroller Henry was sitting in and Doug was doing the same to the stroller Megan was sitting in. Looking between each other, Stu, Doug and Phil all smirked tired smirks.

"This place is gorgeous. You can just smell the salt in the air coming off the sea. It's refreshing," Stu commented with a contented grin on his face.

Alan walked up, holding a pamphlet he must've picked up off of the reception desk. "This says the west coast of Ibiza has an amazing view of sunset every night. We should make sure we see how amazing it is tonight after dinner."

Doug nodded. "Sounds good, Alan."

By the time everyone got to their hotel rooms or suites, depending on what they booked, each and every person all but crashed. Phil and Sam had a two bedroom suite booked but they were going to sleep apart until their wedding night. Phil was bunking in the same room as his son and Sam was going to share a room with Penny. Since Phil's parents weren't well off like Sam's parents, Phil had offered to pay for his parents' room while they were in Ibiza for the wedding. They even worked it so that on their wedding night, Phil and Sam would switch places with his parents so Phil and Sam could have a room to themselves. His kids would end up sharing a room together in the two bedroom suite while his parents took the second room. It worked better that way because his parents would be traveling back to the States with his kids while Sam and him remained in Ibiza for almost another full week as their honeymoon and the two of them would have no use for a two bedroom suite by that point.

Once they were settled into their suite, Phil tucked Penny into bed to take to the same long nap they were all looking forward to. Phil set his alarm on his cell phone for three-thirty. That gave them about five hours of rest before they needed to be showered and dressed to meet with the priest and then head to the rehearsal dinner Sam's mother had finagled.

Before they parted into their respective rooms, Phil stopped and grabbed Sam's arm, pulling her up against him as he laid a kiss down on her lips.

"Sleep tight," he muttered.

"Don't let the bedbugs bite," she replied. Pressing her lips against his once more, they went into their rooms and closed the doors behind them.