I looked quickly to the beginning of the e-mail chain to see what my dear friend and boss had done to ruin my life. I knew she’d done something terrible, because if there’s one thing I can say about Chelsea, it’s that she never does anything half-assed.
I started with the original corporate-wide e-mail. Enjoy.
From: Kenneth Falcon
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2008, 8:42 AM
To: Office—Los Angeles Courtyard—All
Subject: Sunday, Sept 28: Wilshire Closed Between Fairfax and San Vicente
All—
For your planning purposes this weekend, please note that the Israeli Consulate is hosting a major event on Sunday, September 28, 2008, in front of their building at 6380 Wilshire Boulevard.
Wilshire Boulevard will be closed between San Vicente Boulevard and Fairfax Avenue between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. The planned ceremony will start at 1:00 p.m., and a large crowd is anticipated.
If you will be in the office or are scheduled to work on Sunday, please allow extra time to make it to the office.
From: Johnny Milord
Friday, September 26, 2008, 10:00 AM
Subject: RE: Sunday, Sept 28: Wilshire Closed Between Fairfax and San Vicente
Kenneth—I’m glad you sent this e-mail. Although I’m not Jewish, I have several friends who’ve volunteered in the Israeli Army and, through them, have become familiar with their tradition and some of their holidays, such as Rosh Kipper. I firmly believe it’s our last line of defense in the Middle East. In fact, I’d be interested in getting your thoughts on which presidential candidate is better equipped to deal with this ongoing debacle. Hope to hear from you soon, Johnny
From: Kenneth Falcon
Friday, September 26, 2008, 10:55 AM
Subject: RE: Sunday, Sept 28: Wilshire Closed Between Fairfax and San Vicente
That is an interesting question. While I do support Obama, I do understand that McCain has more experience in foreign policy. I’m really glad the debate is moving forward tonight and look forward to what each candidate has to say on the subject.
From: Johnny Milord
Friday, September 26, 2008, 11:17 AM
Subject: RE: Sunday, Sept 28: Wilshire Closed Between Fairfax and San Vicente
I feel exactly the same way. However, I do feel like there’s a lot more I could know, and I’d love someone with more experience and the same like—mindedness to kind of spitball with. Do you have any free time over the weekend?
From: Kenneth Falcon
Friday, September 26, 2008, 11:47 AM
Subject: RE: Sunday, Sept 28: Wilshire Closed Between Fairfax and San Vicente
I’m actually in the desert this weekend. Maybe we can hook up for lunch or coffee next week. You’re in the 12312 building right?
From: Johnny Milord
Friday, September 26, 2008, 12:00 PM
Subject: RE: Sunday, Sept 28: Wilshire Closed Between Fairfax and San Vicente
I could come out to the desert.
From: Kenneth Falcon
Friday, September 26, 2008, 1:43 PM
Subject: RE: Sunday, Sept 28: Wilshire Closed Between Fairfax and San Vicente
It’s actually a working weekend. My partner and I are putting one of our places in Palm Springs for sale this weekend and we need to wrap up some things before we meet with our agent Sunday.
Let’s shoot for lunch next week… Wed is the best day for me as I can sit in on Tammy and Lauren’s weekly meeting.
Let me know.
“I could come out to the desert.” What the fuck did he think when he read that? “I’d love someone with more experience and the same like-mindedness to kind of spitball with.” Why hadn’t I just come out and asked him if I could French-kiss his soft mouth during a steamy slow dance at this year’s Palm Springs White Party? Maybe in between the Appletinis and tea-bagging perhaps we could have discussed the complex situation in the West Bank.
This was not an ideal situation for many reasons. I didn’t know anything about Israel or Jews in general, I didn’t particularly care for the desert, and oh yeah, I happen to have an affinity for vagina.
At this point Chelsea showed up at my desk to see the results of her handiwork and to bask in her glory. This is the moment she lives for, and as soon as she saw the panic on my face she doubled over in uncontrollable laughter and peed in her stupid workout stretch pants. Whenever Chelsea laughs really hard, the veins in her neck protrude, her face turns red, and she wets her pants. Not a lot, but just enough to make it look like she sat on a large lemon wedge. I think she should get that checked.
So now she was rolling around in her own urine, crying, and gasping for air, and everyone was gathering in my office laughing just as hard as Chelsea. And to make matters worse, Chelsea’s older, more mature lover, Ted, who just happens to be the president of E!, stopped by and wanted in on the sick fun. He came into the room like the dorky kid in the cafeteria who walks up to a group of cooler kids who are cracking up and stands there laughing along like he’s one of the gang.
“What are we all laughing at? What’s so funny, guys?”
Chelsea was laughing so hard she could hardly lay out the story between the tears, the drool, and the pee that I was sure by then had soaked her socks. When it became clear to Ted what exactly was going on, he immediately stopped smiling.
“No, Chelsea, you cannot do this.”
“Oh shut up, Ted. This is hilarious.”
Ted was adamant. “Chelsea, no! You’ve gone too far. This is unacceptable!” He was so animated that his middle-aged silver hair helmet almost moved. “Chelsea, you cannot do this to an executive at E!.”
Apparently silly little e-mail jokes to the staff of Chelsea Lately were fine. Like when she sent a message from me to our newly hired production assistant, Ian, saying, “Welcome to the team, buddy. I love what you’re wearing today. I think we’re going to hit it off. What size shoe do you wear? XOXO Johnny.” Ted didn’t give a shit when “I” e-mailed the new production assistant, but when it came to corporate officers, it seemed Chelsea had gone way too far.
Ted and I were on the same page here, and I don’t always agree with him. For example, I would never wear monogrammed shirts or get my jeans pressed. But he was right. This was unacceptable. Plus, I don’t know if I need to point this out, but if he were forced to choose between Chelsea and me, I’m pretty sure Ted would fire the one who was not fucking him.
I told Ted that I would just write my now dear friend Kenneth and explain that Chelsea had a severe mental problem and had hijacked my computer. I knew it was not the kindest thing to do, because generally if I’m coming on to a man, I don’t want to turn cold so quickly. That’s never a good way to end a relationship with a man you’ve never met. I prefer to do it like a gentleman: in a steam room, wearing a towel. But if it has to be done, then it has to be done.
Ted said, “By no means can you ever let Kenneth know that this was a joke and that people over at Chelsea Lately are messing with him like that.” In fact, he told me that I was going to have to go through with having lunch with Kenneth and treat him nicely.
What the hell? Now I had to go on a date? What would I wear? And who was going to tutor me on what the fuck is going on between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
I started to panic. “Ted, there is no way I’m going to lunch with this guy.” Also, I didn’t think Ted was taking into consideration that I’m pretty goddamn charming, so most likely Mr. Falcon was going to take a liking to me—and then what? More lunch meetings? What if that led to a dinner? Then, before you knew it, I’d be over at his meticulously decorated apartment when his partner was not there, and he’d put on some Teddy Pendergrass and open a bottle of French champagne. Actually this was starting to sound pretty nice, except for a few minor speed bumps commonly referred to as a penis and a set of balls.
Chelsea couldn’t get enough of this. It was so much more mortifying for me than she had ever dared to dream. This was when her r
eal evil genius kicked in and she said to me, “Jill, we can’t let him know what you’ve done. Ted says you have to follow through with this. It’s out of my hands.” Thanks, Chelsea. Then she added, “So it’s settled. You’re having lunch with Kenneth Falcon.”
I made an executive decision of my own and decided to pretend none of this had ever happened and hope for the best. I’m guessing Mr. Falcon made the same executive decision, because that was the last I would hear from my dearest Kenneth.
For the next few months I went back to the comfort of my daily routine full of wedgies and being called a little girl. I did wonder if Mr. Falcon and his partner had ever closed escrow on their Palm Springs hideaway or if I had negatively affected their relationship. Perhaps he started using me against his boyfriend when they’d fight, saying, “If you’re not careful and don’t start respecting me more, I have this sweet young man over at Chelsea Lately who is very interested in me and wants to know how I feel about worldly topics.” But then I noticed that Chelsea had stuck my peanut butter and jelly sandwich to the ceiling and it was seconds from falling on my head. So that was that.
Then one day a mixer was thrown on our stage so people from the E! corporate offices could mingle with us Chelsea Lately folk. I wasn’t planning on going to it, until some grinning son of a bitch walked up to my desk and said, “Hey, Johnny, that guy Ken is downstairs.”
“Well, holy shit! Yippee ki-yay, Mr. Falcon!” Now let’s see what you look like.
I needed to know. I had been this close to sharing an intimate, lustful desert experience with this guy. I wanted to see if, had things worked out differently, he would have been up to my standards. I mean, if we had ever been seen out together, he’d better be pretty goddamn good-looking. I wouldn’t want people to think I couldn’t pull an attractive man. That would have been plain out embarrassing.
When I did finally catch a glimpse of him, while I was trying to look nonchalant, standing in the corner eating a piece of the delicious cookie cake, one thing stuck out immediately. He had a goatee, or as Chelsea likes to call it, a flavor saver. I don’t really care for facial hair on a man, especially a goatee. But in a perfect world, I’m sure I would have been able to persuade him to shave it.
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.
“What?” I asked while stealing bites of some other poor customer’s pasta. We were standing near the wait station.
“That’s what’s-his-name.”
“Who?”
“That guy with the outdoor apartment,” she said, finger-stirring another iced tea as we surreptitiously watched a not-too-unattractive guy take a seat in my section.
As she passed among the tables, head low, on a mission not to be noticed, the guy grabbed her arm.
“Hey!” he said, smiling. “I thought you were going to call me.”
“What are you talking about?” she countered.
“Chelsea, it’s me, Bobby, from last weekend?”
“Oh, I’m not Chelsea,” she responded, her deadpan already perfect. “I’m her twin sister, Kelsey. Ugh, Chelsea is such a slut.”
She walked off to deliver the iced tea the customers regarded as the best they’d ever tasted, then returned to me.
“If he asks, I’m Chelsea’s twin, Kelsey.”
The only problem in this situation was that I was not a very good liar. “What am I supposed to say?” I asked.
“Nothing, unless he asks, in which case you say I’m Kelsey.”
“But your name isn’t Kelsey,” I pointed out.
“It is today. It’s not that complicated, Stephanie.”
The whole Chelsea/Kelsey thing was beyond stupid, but she was so committed to it, I started to believe she was Kelsey. I had seen her pull the same line on several other occasions when she ran into people she had no interest in connecting with again, be it an old neighbor at the grocery store, a customer from work, or someone she had accidentally fornicated with. One would have thought peopl
e would catch on to this, but, as Chelsea explains it so well, “No one would ever believe anyone was that psychotic.”
“Just fucking do it,” she ordered me in the restaurant that day.
“Okay,” I quickly responded, wanting to get this right. Chelsea was the kind of friend who always had your back, so you wanted to be able to do the same. Knowing she was watching and expecting me not to fuck up something so simple, I casually strolled over to Bobby and offered him something to drink, perhaps a Pellegrino?
“That girl over there, what’s her name?”
I looked around, past Chelsea and back to the guy. “Who?”
“Her. The one right there.”
“I don’t see anybody… So, that was a Pellegrino, right?”
“The one hiding behind the bread display.”
“Oh!” I successfully feigned surprise, pleased with myself. “You mean Chels—Kelsey?! Goddamn it!”
I scurried away, passing Chelsea on my way to the Pellegrino.
“You are retarded.”
Like I said, not a good liar. And when I’m on the receiving end of a lie, I’m a sitting duck. While I’m older than Chelsea, I’ve always looked up to her and have a tendency to believe whatever she says, even though experience should have taught me time and again not to.
Such as the time Chelsea called me with a very important request.