Lies That Chelsea Handler Told Me - Chelsea's Family, Friends [7]
One final thought: Chelsea Handler is my friend.
Johnny Kansas is like the sister I never had, even though I have two. There is truly no one on this planet I would rather spend time with sober, drunk, or asleep than Johnny Kansas. It’s not my fault she feels abused and terrorized at work. That is the only way I know how to show affection. It isn’t mature, it isn’t right, but it’s what I know, and it keeps everyone on their toes, or, in Johnny’s case, her talons.
—Chelsea
Johnny, finally accepting his species and reading up on himself.
Chapter Two
Pap Smears and Punctuation Marks
STEPHANIE STEHLING
The first lie Chelsea told me was on the day we met. She was a new hire at the franchise wannabe Italian restaurant where I worked, and we immediately bonded over our ridiculously large families where every sperm was sacred and everyone shared a contempt for all things ignorant. Naturally it wasn’t long before we got into personal matters.
“So, I’m about to be homeless,” she casually mentioned while on a smoke break. “My fucking aunt and uncle are kicking me out.”
“That’s terrible!” I replied.
“Whatever. It’s not like I want to live with all those kids and farm animals anyway.” Chelsea’s always had a remarkable ability to look onward and upward without concern.
“You live on a farm?” I asked.
“It’s worse. At least a farm has the decency to have stables. Those disasters keep the pigs in the house. There are so many children and so many animals, you don’t know who is who.”
“You can stay with me,” I blurted out. I’d just met her, so I didn’t think she’d accept, kind of like when you ask how someone’s day went. You assume they’ll say, “Fine,” not tell you they’ve got a yeast infection.
“That would be great, thank you,” she quickly responded.
Later that night, as Chelsea entered my apartment carrying two plastic bags filled with clothes, I wondered how I was going to tell my roommates there’d be another box of tampons in the bathroom.
“How long do you think you’ll be staying?” I asked. “I mean, it’s not fancy, but you’re welcome as long as you want.”
Chelsea and me. She was twenty-two in this picture, and my age is my business.
“Couple weeks, maximum,” she replied, taking in the room’s appointments, which were, as I’d said, not fancy.
We lived together for almost two years.
One night we headed out to a club, where Chelsea pretended to be Pamela Anderson to get out of waiting in one of those cattle call lines where the biggest boobs, celebrities, and attitudes were allowed instant access, and the rest of the suckers, like me, were left pining. Even though the doorman was adamant that she wasn’t Pamela Anderson, Chelsea was even more adamant that she was, and so through the velvet ropes she went.
I expected to be left with the rejects when I couldn’t pull off “Helen Hunt,” per Chelsea’s mandate. But always a loyal friend, “Pamela” demanded that I and my sensible blazer, scrunchie, and Payless shoes, which she had earlier condemned as “day wear,” be allowed inside with her. This was the first time I’d seen her in action and I was immediately impressed. I watched as she knowingly smiled at her minion from our VIP table.
“Someday I’m going to be pretty successful,” she informed me. “And I’m probably going to make a lot of money.” Her nineteen-year-old confidence was infectious.
“Of course you’re going to be rich and famous. You think you already are,” I replied.
Much as I loved being entertained by Chelsea’s harmless shenanigans, I was a rookie when it came to their execution. Once, she hooked up with some guy at our weekly Santa Monica stomping ground and ditched him shortly before the sun rose. Our practice was, if you met them in the bar, you left them in your dust, never to be seen or heard from again. Unless they frequented our place of employment, which this sad sack had the misfortune of doing.
“Fuck!” Chelsea grunted as she used her finger to stir some poor customer’s iced tea one day at work.