Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me - Chelsea's Family, Friends [42]
“It’s okay, Chelsea,” I would say to console her, handing her a tissue. “Everything happens for a reason.”
“I know. It just sucks,” she would say in between crocodile tears.
“I know. I know it does.”
This was my breakup, but for some reason, Chelsea was taking it way worse than I was. One night, while we were at her aunt and uncle’s house in Bel Air drinking vodka and eating more than a pound of Costco-size brie, the usual Sunday staple at the Burkes’, a hot guy came over to pick up Chelsea. Chelsea got a little weird and tried to hurry the guy out of there, saying he was her accountant and she had to go do her taxes.
I didn’t question the tax session with a hot guy on a Sunday evening in July. Why would I have? Who would lie about doing taxes? As soon as Chelsea left, her aunt informed me that the guy was a date, someone Chelsea had met on Myspace (yes, Myspace) and didn’t want to tell me about because she thought it would hurt my feelings, what with my breakup. Truth is, Chelsea needed this rebound to get over my ex more than I did. I had been encouraging her to start dating again for weeks.
At 2:00 AM, Chelsea came over to my dad’s house (I had moved in with him after the breakup) and crawled into bed with me, to make sure I didn’t spend the night alone or wake up alone. She was very persistent about this, and for months she had slept in my childhood room, in my canopy bed draped in Paper White linens, with my glow in the dark solar system overhead and the Laura Ashley flower-print border wrapped around the room.
One morning, I woke up to sunlight pouring in through my bedroom window, heating up the room like a sauna. Chelsea was lying above the sheets buck naked except for her underwear. Her tank top, which had started the evening on her body, was tied around her eyes like a bandana to shield her from the light.
“Um…?” I couldn’t help but laugh. She looked ridiculous.
“Fuck off. It’s ninety degrees in here! How can you sleep like this?” Chelsea asked.
“I dunno. I’m used to it.”
“Well, you’re going to have to start sleeping at my place.”
My seventy-five-year-old father is always freezing. In ninety-degree weather, he sports a long-sleeve shirt and pants. There’s no way he’d let me sleep with the air on. I tried it once. The minute he heard it, he shut it off immediately.
That night, I started sleeping at Chelsea’s apartment, which was a whole different experience. Air-conditioning on full blast, curtains as dark as a hotel room in Vegas, and eye shades. Regardless, the company was nice, and Chelsea was right—it would have sucked to go to bed and wake up alone. While promoting her first book, My Horizontal Life, she flew from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to San Francisco and then back to Los Angeles all in one day just to make sure I wasn’t alone.
I think what got me through the breakup was the fact that I had to be strong—for Chelsea. This brief period may have been the only time in our friendship when Chelsea didn’t fuck with me. But the moment she heard me talking about other boys and dating again, she was back at it.
Let me explain something before you think I’m just another one of those gullible idiots duped by Chelsea. As an only child, I didn’t grow up playing practical jokes on siblings. My biggest lies involved why I was late for curfew. I am an amateur; Chelsea is a professional. And what makes her so good is not only her commitment to the lie, but a deadly combination of speed and creativity. When you’re grilling her for the truth, she has already thought of the next answer before you even have the question. Plenty of times I’ve smelled such an answer coming from a mile away and called her out for being full of shit, but there has been a time or two when I’ve fallen prey to one of her lies.
I was on the phone with my psychic one morning when Chelsea called on the other line. I didn’t want to click over to her because I was getting good info on my love life, but Chelsea was relentless. She kept calling until I picked