Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me (4 page)

“Well, I’m not going to do it, because I’ll make her cry, so you’re going to have to.”

Contrary to what people might think, as much as Chelsea loves fucking with people, she has a big heart, one that prevents her from wanting ever to truly hurt someone’s feelings. And this was one of those situations.

Later, after I spoke with her, Rose was hysterical as she reviewed the card for fifteen minutes. “See, right here.” She pointed to the minuscule black mark between the words dress and accessories. “There’s a comma after dress. I just don’t know how I could have misunderstood that. I’m so ashamed,” she wailed.

I couldn’t take it. “Chelsea wrote the card!” I bellowed, at that point not wanting to be the bad guy.

Chelsea was not pleased with me for selling her down the river, not so much because I was inept, but because Rose made her attend extra prayer circles to pray for better lines of communication in their relationship. I should have known it would be but a matter of time before I had to do my penance.

A few days before the wedding, Rose announced that she had a surprise.

“You’re pregnant!” Chelsea exclaimed.

“No, that’s not something Jesus would approve of,” Rose replied.

“I can assure you that if there is indeed a Jesus, he’s not up in heaven strategizing about your wedding,” Chelsea commented. I didn’t have a fry this time, so I laughed into a pillow.

Rose put in a CD, then ceremoniously stood and announced to me, Chelsea, and the other two bridesmaids, Shannon and Theresa, that she was going to perform an acoustic version of Shania Twain’s “From This Moment On” at her reception.

Three of the bridesmaids’ responses were: “That’s great,” “Good for you,” and “How romantic!” Chelsea’s response was to walk straight out of the room. Rose couldn’t sing. “Tone deaf” would have been a compliment. Nonetheless, we listened as she rehearsed, secretly wondering how she could be so oblivious to the fact that she was going to make a complete ass out of herself at her own wedding.

One night, after another of Rose’s mandated dress rehearsals, I was in the restroom trying to figure out how to balance on my head the flower wreath she’d chosen for each of us when Chelsea popped in.

“We have a situation,” she said, throwing her wreath into the sink.

“Did Rose find Jesus again?”

“No.”

“Then what is it?” I asked.

“You know how she can’t hit the high notes—or any other notes, for that matter? Well, she doesn’t want to embarrass herself, so she wants someone to perform with her.”

“Shut up!” I said, not buying it.

“It’s true,” Shannon added, her flower wreath dangling by a bobby pin. “She was in tears.”

“We took a vote, and you have the best singing voice, so you have to step up,” Chelsea explained.

“You think I can sing? I never really thought I could.”

“Yes, you can, especially in the upper registers!”

“I don’t know,” I said as I thought about it. I wanted to help out Rose, but I was terrified of speaking in public, much less singing.

“Why didn’t she ask me herself?” I asked, suspicious.

“Because it just came up and it’s almost her wedding day. She has a lot on her plate! Are you going to help out your friend or not?” she snapped, irritated.

“Fine. I’ll do it.”

“Good decision. As soon as she starts the song, you’re supposed to enter from the hallway,” Chelsea instructed. “She wants you to really belt it out, especially the high notes. Don’t worry, you’re going to be great,” she said as she slapped a CD into my hand. “Now, you’d better get rehearsing. You don’t want to screw up her day.”

When the blessed day arrived, the ceremony was long but lovely, and included several references to Chelsea’s friend Jesus.

“Who’s Jes—”

I elbowed Chelsea in the ribs, while trying not to laugh in front of two hundred spectators.

By the time the reception was in full swing and the moment of the performance upon me, I felt prepared. I’d spent every spare moment learning the lyrics and making sure I’d gotten the melody right. Chelsea had even taken me to a karaoke bar to practice, so I felt confident I was going to be an asset to the team—until Rose began singing and I walked out onto the floor behind her, belting out the song. I couldn’t tell which one of us sounded like a dying hyena, but I was starting to suspect it was me.

That’s when I saw Chelsea, Shannon, and Theresa lose their shit. They separated from each other and split off into opposite corners of the room. I locked eyes on Chelsea, who was beet red and laughing so hard she was shaking the ficus she was attempting to use as cover. Was this a setup? Was I even supposed to be out there? I got my answer when Rose turned to me with a confused, deer-in-the-headlights look.

Leaving the floor at that moment would have embarrassed everyone, so I kept singing, trying as hard as I could to make it look like this was all part of the plan, and so did Rose, who wasn’t about to let anyone think things had gone awry on her big day.

Later, after Rose saw her wedding video and realized what an awful singer she was, she thanked Chelsea for having me take one for the team. Chelsea told her she should probably thank Jesus instead, because she didn’t intend to save Rose from anything. Her sole purpose was to get back at me for the whole dress/punctuation mark fiasco, which she did, because I couldn’t hit the high notes either.

Several years later, Chelsea had successfully climbed to the top of her career. I was still doing the old climb and slide, did not have my shit together, and was kind of depressed. Chelsea suggested a night on the town to shake things up.

We were at a bar and she had just gone to the restroom when some ancillary friend of a friend, Chuck (a drug dealer), announced that he had Ecstasy. I had never done it, but when I saw how excited some other people got about this news, I knew I wanted to.

“What does it do? What does it feel like?” I asked.

“You lose your inhibitions and are just happy,” Chuck suggested.

“I’m in!” I exclaimed. Chuck handed me a little blue pill, which I immediately popped in my mouth.

“You should probably take a couple more, since it’s your first time,” Chuck said, grinning lasciviously. So I did. Why wouldn’t I trust a drug dealer?

Chelsea returned to the group just as the happy pills were starting to kick in. I began smiling and petting her like Lenny from Of Mice and Men, so she immediately knew something was amiss.

“You did what?!” she asked in a tone more protective than pissed, illustrated by the smack in the forehead she gave Chuck for giving me a tab of E. “Stephanie, you can’t handle Ecstasy.”

“I need this, Chelsea. I need to, you know, be happy for a minute. I’m not like you. I wasn’t raised a Jew in a big city in New Jersey with things actually happening for her. I’m a guilty Catholic from a freak-ass small town in Wisconsin who needs something to happen for her. Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad,” she replied, then smacked me in the forehead when I told her I’d taken three. “Just stay with me,” she commanded. “Do not leave my side, and do not kiss me on the mouth.”

“You got it,” I promised, then kissed her cheek, told her how much I loved her, and danced off into the middle of the crowd.

I was transported into a world where I didn’t care about anything other than smiling, laughing, dancing, drinking orange juice, and telling my friends and random strangers how much I loved them. The happy pills were like fairy dust, their magical components capable of taking every dark thought I had and shooting them over rainbows. That was my perspective.

While I was busy being enamored of all things breathing, and imagining a world made of unicorns and gumdrops, Chelsea was being a solid Marine who wouldn’t leave a man behind. Later, at nine the next morning, she broke into Chuck’s apartment through the kitchen window and dragged me out. After we got to her place, she sat me down and played a video she had taken when we were all at Chuck’s apartment. She had left me there for the night when it was clear I wasn’t going anywhere that didn’t involve penis, but made sure to be there bright and early the next morning.

“This is what you did last night. Are you proud of yourself?” she queried, then continued when I found I couldn’t speak. “Under no circumstances is it okay to do naked cartwheels in front of anyone,” she firmly stated. “I don’t care how much Ecstasy you took. And Chuck? Really? He has the complexion of a rhinoceros’s ass.”

“But I had fun, right?” I asked.

“That’s not the point.”

“It sort of is—”

“Look at yourself. You look like you belong in a women’s shelter.”

She directed me to the full mirror in her bedroom, which was covered with Post-its filled with obscure words she’d copied from the dictionary in an attempt to expand her vocabulary. Damn, that girl was always trying to better herself. Between gelid and myocardial infarction, I saw myself.

“Oh, my God!” I shouted. Apparently sometime before or after participating in my own rendition of Cirque du Offensive, I had slept with Chuck, who did have the skin of a rhino’s ass, which had apparently been rubbed all over my body. All night.

She shook her head, disgusted as she applied antibiotic ointment to the myriad wounds covering me.

“I’m sorry.”

“Be sorry for yourself. If you were still in your twenties, maybe this would be acceptable.”

I considered this as she put a Dora the Explorer Band-Aid on my chin, the only kind of Band-Aid Chelsea uses. “You’re right, CJ. Thanks.”

“No problem, honey bunny. Now put on a bra. We’re going running.”

“I was thinking maybe I’d journal or something.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea to leave you alone with your thoughts right now.” She sized me up then grabbed two bras from a drawer and threw them at me. “Jesus, when did your boobs get so big?”

As we ran that morning she grilled me about my career and love life, which were at that point both turning up big fat goose eggs. Even though she was doing what she always did, trying to cheer me up and help me pull my head out of my ass, it didn’t work. The downward spiral continued, with a lot of partying, which led to a general lack of productivity. Chelsea was unimpressed with my lack of progress reports and suggested one of her vacations, which anyone with a pulse would enjoy, to help get me out of my funk.

“That sounds amazing!” I exclaimed, then proceeded to ask her who was bringing the drugs, specifically the Ecstasy.

“Really, Stephanie? After everything we talked about?”

“It’s vacation! Come on, people are going to love it!”

Chelsea stared at me for a moment then let out one of those guttural sighs signifying supreme annoyance. She said, “I’ll take care of it,” and walked away.

On the day we were leaving, as I was about to enter the Santa Monica hangar where Chelsea had chartered the flight, she approached me with a very delicate matter.

“What are you saying? You want me to be your drug mule or something?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” she calmly replied.

“But I thought you said you—”

“If you want them, bring them.”

“I’m willing to do that,” I quickly responded.

“Here’s a bunch. Now stick ’em up in there,” she said, handing me a Ziploc bag filled with little blue pills and directing me toward the women’s room.

“Wait, what if I get caught?”

“I’ll bail you out and hire you a good lawyer. Simone. Simone’s an excellent attorney.”

I knew her sister was a lawyer and assumed she was a good one, as I’d met her and she had seemed smart. “Doesn’t she do patents or something?” I countered.

“Yes, but that’s just a hobby. Her main line of work is international crime,” Chelsea responded with a tinge of annoyance in her voice. It was exactly the amount of annoyance that I always knew meant not to ask any more questions.

“Okay, but do I really have to have them up there for the entire flight?”

“Yes. At some point everyone has to take one for the team. This is your time. Just fucking go.”

I headed for the women’s room feeling a bit nervous, but also like a proud renegade who was doing everyone a favor.

Once we arrived in Mexico and deplaned, I was feeling confident if not uncomfortable. A three-hour turbulent flight is made slightly less fun when there’s a plastic bag up your coslopus. I was wearing a sundress and taking small steps, which I hoped might pass for normal. From beyond the security line I was approaching, Chelsea motioned for me to hurry up. I picked up the pace, all the while telling myself to act cool and be normal and just make it that last fifty feet. I made it only five.

In order to “hurry the fuck up,” which was what Chelsea was now saying, along with waving, I expanded my stride, which expanded the area housing the vacation contraband. In the split second I felt the Ziploc dislodge, I tried everything I could think of to keep it up there, while maintaining composure and speed. I even attempted Kegel exercises, but only ended up peeing on myself and the baggie, which flopped to the floor right in front of someone I was certain was a federale. He picked up the baggie, careful to avoid what was either my perspiration or my urine, and examined its contents.

It’s amazing the thoughts that run through your head when you’re in a foreign country, with bright lights flickering above you and a uniformed officer with a badge you can’t read staring at you and holding the Ziploc bag filled with little blue bippies that just fell out of your vagina.

I started thinking about my dog and how much I was going to miss her. She was six, so I wondered if I could cut a deal and be out before she got too old. Then I remembered how Marley and Me had destroyed me emotionally and thought that maybe being away when she met her demise would be a good thing. I thought of Vince Vaughn and Joaquin Phoenix and Anne Heche and that movie where Vince Vaughn sacrificed himself for his best friend and the brother of the woman who was his love interest and ended up in jail watching his best friend die despite his sacrifice, and I wondered if I was going to be Vince Vaughn or Joaquin Phoenix. And then I wondered how long it was going to take Chelsea to get her international legal expert sister across the border.