Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (15 page)

“She’s on the beach. I tied her leash to the deck, she’s fine. I can’t let Pepper go; he just keeps attacking my package,” he said through clenched teeth. There were several people around and none of them were talking to Mohammed.

“You look like a molester, sitting out here with that dog in a headlock. Let go of him.”

“Fine,” he said, releasing his grip. “Watch.”

Pepper jumped up, squealed, and then buried his head right between Mohammed’s legs.

“See? He won’t stop! Everybody’s been watching.”

“This is ridiculous.” I was thoroughly annoyed at this point, and walked back inside. Every time I looked outside, it was the same scenario playing out. Mohammed oohing and aahing with Pepper like they were having an affair behind my back. An hour later I had had enough and went and collected my dog whisperer and the two dogs. “Let’s go. I’m hot.”

The rest of the weekend was spent with Pepper following Mohammed around the house like cheap perfume. After two full days of being rebuffed, Pepper finally gave up and put himself in a corner. Not only did he refuse to eat, but when Mohammed went anywhere near him, Pepper would shake violently and growl. He was spurned by his lover and his heart was breaking.

Mohammed and I eventually broke up, but not because of Pepper. A couple of weeks later he took me to meet his parents, who lived in San Clemente, about an hour’s drive away. His father was nice enough, but his mother was not at all what I had expected. Not only was she extremely unpleasant, but she looked exactly like a man. She had an unreasonable amount of facial hair along with what appeared to be a large mole or herpes sore on the corner of her mouth that was sprouting additional facial hair. She had Nick Lachey’s body, a deep voice, very small boobies, and a crew cut. It would have come as no surprise if she had walked into the backyard to compete in a rock-hurling competition after dinner.

I did not like the looks of her and was surprised that Mohammed had made no mention of the fact that he had two dads. Not only did she blow her nose several times during dinner, she barely spoke a word to me, and when she did, it was to ask me to pass her a turkey leg.

“What’s the deal with your mom?” I asked him on the way home.

“What do you mean?”

“Well, don’t you think she’s kind of manly?” I asked him. “Does she lift weights?”

Mohammed hit the roof upon hearing the last sentence and said I was a spoiled brat who was disrespectful and had no sensitivity. I was pretty surprised to see that side of him. He had no sense of humor about it, and was being very defensive and nasty. If we couldn’t laugh at his mother’s appearance, then what kind of future did we have?

“I just asked you a question,” I said, hopping out of the car when he dropped me off without even pulling into the driveway. Without a response, he sped away, leaving me standing in the middle of the street.

A year later I ran into him at a Starbucks. I was at the counter ordering a cappuccino when I saw him through the window, seated outside…with a Peekapoo. I walked outside and stood in front of him face to face. “Well, well, well. It looks like you really found what you were looking for, ya sick fuck.” A girl from inside walked up and stood next to us, glaring at me. It was clear she was with him.

“Is this your dog?” I asked her.

“No, it’s mine,” Mohammed answered.

“I’ll bet it is, ya sicko. I’ll bet it is.”

Then I turned to his new girlfriend and smiled big. “He’s so great with dogs. You can leave the two of them alone and you never have to worry about any hanky panky. I mean, unless you’re gone for more than an hour.”

The look on her face was the perfect revenge. I patted her on the shoulder sympathetically, smiled at Mohammed, and turned on my heels to walk away triumphantly, knowing that I had delivered the perfect innuendo with considerable aplomb.

It became clear as I got in my car that Persians are only really good for two things. Oil and hummus.

CHAPTER NINE

Re-Gift

M
y friend Lydia and I had been living together in Santa Monica for two years. I was having a hard time learning the lesson of why it’s not a good idea to live with friends. Along with not drinking and driving, not having sex on the first date, and always carrying a tampon, this was yet another example of me learning my lessons the hard way.

Lydia has the work ethic of Santa Claus: She prefers to take most of the year off. While my work ethic is not much better, at least I can blame my lack of motivation on the fact that Oprah and Dr. Phil now air back-to-back.

Lydia was working freelance for a publicity firm that allowed her to go in for a couple of hours a day, or every other day. She preferred to “work from home,” or what I like to call “work from bed.” She got the job from a publicist friend of hers named Aubrey, who was a complete and utter basket case.

At around noon on a Wednesday I got an e-mail from Lydia inviting me to Aubrey’s birthday dinner that very night. The e-mail was in the form of an Evite and was sent to Ivory, Ivory’s roommate Jen, and me. There was one other person on the list—someone I had never heard of but whose name I didn’t like the sound of. The number of invitees for her “thirtieth birthday bonanza” totaled five. And the heading read, “Aubrey wants to be with her closest friends for her birthday tonight. Can’t wait to see everyone!” Ivory’s roommate Jen had met Aubrey once.

Aubrey is the type of girl who insists on telling unbearably long-winded stories that go absolutely nowhere with no point and no punch line. Not only does she present them as if she’s doing a one-woman show on Broadway, she takes painfully long pauses, leaving the listener wondering if the story has ended or if she is just making up details as she goes along. The most ridiculous part is that she tells these tales with the same gusto Richard Simmons would use to gear up for a back handspring. She’ll build up momentum tantamount to a downhill slalom, only to reveal after a laborious forty-five minute monologue that Mariah Carey likes to take baths with her dog. In between these painfully long diatribes she somehow also manages to insult the listener.

“Chelsea,” she said upon meeting me for the first time, “I have to be honest, normally I don’t love dark roots on blondes, but it’s weird how they kind of frame your face. You’re so angular!”

The backhanded compliments are not nearly as annoying as her stories, or the complete and utter disappointment you experience after getting sucked in to one of these tales expecting a pot of gold, only to get a pile of shit. Ignoring her is the obvious option, but it doesn’t work. The problem with this tactic is that if you look away or appear disinterested, she’ll simply turn up the volume. She’ll speak louder and louder until you are paying attention, and if you try to change the subject, she will interrupt you. The simple act of listening becomes exhausting. “Land the fucking plane!” you want to scream at her.

Another unappealing quality about Aubrey is that she is always telling you the kind of person she is. “I’m a very loyal friend,” she’ll tell you in the middle of one of her stories, with the emphasis on
I’m
. “I’m one of those people who will give someone the shirt off my back,” she’ll stand up to say, as if she was a rabbi giving a sermon.

It’s been my experience that people who make proclamations about themselves are usually the opposite of what they claim to be. If someone truly is a loyal friend, then they wouldn’t need to broadcast it; eventually, people will figure it out. Who talks about themselves like that? I have a lot of good friends and not one of them ever introduced themselves by saying, “I’m a very good friend.”

The more time I spent around Aubrey, the more I realized that she was simply born in the wrong decade and would have been better off doing vaudeville in the twenties. I made it very clear to Lydia that she wasn’t allowed to bring Aubrey around anymore.

Unfortunately, Lydia is not a good listener.

I promptly responded no to the Evite, wrote something about having diarrhea later that night, and headed back to bed to rub one out with my vibrator. A full minute hadn’t gone by before the phone rang, which I ignored. Then my cell phone rang. I looked at the screen and saw Lydia’s cell phone number. “This is Chelsea,” I said upon answering the phone.

“Chelsea!”

“What?”

“Listen, I don’t want to go to this fucking dinner either, but she is really upset about turning thirty and she’s not speaking to anyone in her family, and she really needs us there.”

“What are you talking about, ‘needs us there’? I’m not even friends with her, and I don’t appreciate getting seven hours’ notice for someone’s birthday dinner,” I told her. “And by the way, the fact that she’s not speaking to anyone in her family is a pretty good indicator that
she
is the problem.”

“I know, but she had no plans and I feel terrible. It won’t be bad if we all go.”

“I have pinkeye.”

“No, you do not.”

“Yes, I do, my eyes are all red.”

“That’s because you’re hungover.”

“Listen, I feel bad for her too, but I can’t stomach an entire dinner with her. Those stories are just too boring. Plus, I don’t have a present for her, and I’m certainly not buying one.”

“Just get her something cheap; it’s not like you have anything to do today,” Lydia said.

That annoyed me. “Listen, you have no idea what I have planned for my day,” I said as I put my vibrator down. “Where are you anyway? You sound like you’re in a washing machine.”

“I’m in the bathroom, because I didn’t want Aubrey to hear me calling you. She thought you were serious about the diarrhea and I told her you were just kidding.”

“I was serious about the diarrhea.”

“Chelsea, stop it! You need to do me this favor tonight and come. How many of your stand-up shows have I been to?” This was true. Lydia was pretty loyal and she would come to show after show of mine and laugh riotously after every punch line despite the fact that she’d heard it a million times before, even when the jokes were about her.

“Oh, fine! But if my eyes don’t clear up, I may have to wear a patch.”

“Good, I hope you do.”

“I hate you,” I said, and hung up the phone.

I needed a gift. I went into my closet and looked for something I hadn’t worn yet, or maybe something I hadn’t worn in awhile that looked new. I looked at an old pair of boots and wondered if I could pass them off as vintage. I had never re-gifted before and didn’t know what the guidelines were. I decided to call Ivory, who, incidentally, had a job that she went to on a daily basis.

“Can you believe this?” I asked her when she picked up the phone.

“No, actually, I can’t. Can Aubrey tell if I’ve viewed the Evite?”

“Yes,” I told her. “And Lydia says we all have to go.”

“I know. She’s instant messaging me right now, saying you’re going.”

“Apparently I am.”

“Well, maybe it will be fun if we all go,” Ivory said.

“No, it won’t be fun. Can you get her a gift from us?” I asked.

“Chelsea, I’m at work, I don’t have time to go out and get her a gift. I’ll probably give her something someone gave me. I barely know the girl,” she told me.

“That’s what I was thinking too. I have a first-aid kit I’ve never used.”

“I have to go,” she said hurriedly and hung up.

I looked around my apartment at all the possible things I could re-gift and was torn between a picture frame that held a picture of me and my sisters, and a candle that had only been lit once. My head bobbed back and forth between the candle and the picture frame, the same way it would if I were watching a tennis match. After what seemed like a long period of time, I finally decided I really liked the picture frame, and I would just cut the top part of the candle wick off. Lydia walked in the door as I was looking for my pocketknife.

“Well, that was a hard day of work you put in. It’s almost one p.m., you must be exhausted,” I said, rummaging through my fanny pack.

“Ugh, Aubrey is so annoying. She’s been crying all day, going on and on about turning thirty; it is so fucking depressing. I had to get out of there.”

“I’m giving her that candle,” I said, pointing at the candle I had placed on our coffee table right next to an old newspaper I was planning on wrapping it in.

She walked over to take a closer look at the candle. “It’s already been used.”

“I’m going to cut the wick off,” I told her.

“Then how is she going to light it?”

“Not my problem.”

“Chelsea,” Lydia said, in the same tone my gynecologist used when I told her I would need a month’s supply of morning-after pills. “I’m sure you can find something else. You can’t give her that.”

“Sure I can,” I said as I went over to my computer to check my e-mail, since that is primarily what takes up my day. I love e-mail and much prefer it to the telephone. I had two new e-mail messages. The first was from my brother, who sends me daily greeting cards from a site called gbehh.com. This one had a bunny rabbit holding a piece of paper that read, “You’re a fag!” There was a personal message from him underneath that said, “Chelsea, I just finished Melvin’s taxes, and according to my calculations, last year our father raked in a grand total of $7,300.62!” My brother Greg is an accountant and is constantly updating me regarding our father’s finances and tax evasions. None of my brothers or sisters has any idea how our father supports himself, and my brother Greg thinks it’s hilarious.

The second e-mail I opened was from my friend Morgan who lives in San Diego. She e-mailed me a picture of her dog. Alone. Morgan is also the girl who gave Ivory a gold cross for her birthday one year. Contrary to her name, Ivory is the most Jewish person any of us know. She is constantly using Yiddish phrases, loves food more than anyone I know, and is my only Jewish friend who actually goes to temple.

I understand if people want to e-mail pictures of their babies by themselves, but there is no way I’m going to join Kodak’s photo gallery to look at a picture of someone’s pet standing by itself in front of Niagara Falls. This is not the first time this has happened to me, and I was actually pleased because I had gathered the materials necessary to respond appropriately. I clicked reply and sent Morgan a picture of my cleaning lady. Standing next to the toilet, alone. I attached a message that read, “Not interested? Me neither.”

“I’m not letting you give Aubrey that candle, Chelsea,” Lydia said as she put the candle back on the shelf where I found it.

“Well, I’ve spent the last hour trying to find something and I refuse to spend money on a present. Can’t we just buy her dinner?”

“Look in that closet, you have tons of shit in there. I’m sure you can find something,” she said, pointing to our hall closet the same way someone would yell “Sit” to a dog.

“I’m giving all that stuff to Fantasia,” I told her.

“Who is Fantasia?” Lydia asked me.

“Um, I don’t know, maybe the cleaning lady we’ve had for two years?” I reminded her.

“Her name is Florencia, Chelsea.”

I stared at her, wondering if this was true. Florencia did have a familiar ring to it. But I could have sworn Florencia was a name from my past.

“Well, whatever,” I said. “She’s been calling me Yelsea since she started working here and I go along with it. Every time I call her I have to say, ‘Hi, Fantasia, this is Yelsea.’”

I was looking through the closet when I found the present that Ivory bought me for my twenty-sixth birthday. Ivory had gone on and on about this present for months leading up to my birthday. “Chelsea, I can’t wait to give you this gift!” she kept telling me over and over again. “I know you so well, this is the perfect Chelsea gift.” With all the hype she gave it, you would have thought she had bought me a vibrator that could also make tacos.

After three months of enticing me with the “most amazing gift one person could buy another person,” she gave me a board game called Rehab. Not only do I make it a personal rule to never play organized games, if an occasion presents itself where I am forced to play one, I prefer it not to take place on a giant piece of paper. It’s called a board game because it’s supposed to be on a board. This game came with a giant piece of paper the consistency of loose-leaf that had different rehabilitation facilities spread over it, much in the same vein as Monopoly. It came with some wooden pieces that I actually burned one night when we ran out of firewood.

“I’ve got it!” I yelled to Lydia as I pulled out the Rehab game. Next, I opened up the Yahtzee box that was on top of the closet, stole three of the dice, and put them in the little plastic Rehab bags, along with a couple of the wooden pieces that were partially scorched.

Lydia walked over to the closet. “Oh my God, I forgot about that game. I actually played that one night.”

“You did?” I asked. “With who?”

“I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

“Were you alone?”

“I may have been,” she said as she opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Chardonnay.

Luckily, the box the game came in looked like it could have been new. I wrapped it up in the newspaper I had set aside. Then I took a black Sharpie marker and wrote “To: Aubrey, From: Chelsea” directly on top of the newspaper.

“Wait, Chelsea.” Lydia laughed. “Ivory is coming tonight! She’ll see the game and realize what you did.”

“Oh, who cares?” I exclaimed, exhausted from the day’s shenanigans. I needed to burn off some steam. I walked into my bedroom and dropped to do a set of push-ups. After the third, I got up and walked back into the kitchen, where Lydia was sorting through our bills with a confused look on her face. She did this every month, questioning one bill after another, wondering aloud why we would be charged for electricity two consecutive months in a row.

“That’s usually how things work, Lydia.”

“No, it doesn’t make any sense. Last month we were charged $47.32, and this month we were charged $75.45.”

I then inspected the bill and explained to her that we never paid last month’s bill, and that was the reason for the increase.