My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands

  "Nathan," said Nathan with a venomous look on his face. "I think you were a year or two older."

  "Yes, I think you're right," said David. "So how are you doing?"

  "So you met my wife?" Nathan said to my horror.

  I started to object, but Nathan jumped in, saying, "It's hard for her since she got out of rehab ... I mean to be around other drinkers, you understand." He picked up my drink and sniffed it. "Goddamn it, Beulah! No drinking!" he reprimanded, pointing his finger in my face. Then he shook his head, took me by the elbow, and said, "Let's run along now, dear, shall we?" I couldn't even look at David. There was no point in explaining myself out of that one, so I just turned and walked away, as if everything Nathan said had been true.

  "Why are you being such a queen?" I asked him. "He was adorable and he was straight."

  "He's an asshole. I know him. You don't want anything to do with him. And he used to think I was gay."

  "You are gay, assfucker!"

  "Shhh," he whispered. "That crazy lady was practically raping me thanks to you, and she works for the school so I couldn't tell her I was gay."

  "Oh, I'm so sick of this shit with you. No one cares if you're gay or not already! I need to have a good time too. This is not all about you!" I yelled as we argued in a corner of the patio like an old married couple. Then I left him and walked over to the first table I saw with an available seat.

  "Hello," I said to the older black couple who were already sitting there. "Do you mind if I join you?"

  "Oh, absolutely, what we need is some young blood around here to liven things up," the woman said with a big warm smile. I liked her instantly.

  I used to think I was a black person in a past life because I looooove black people. It's the way they express themselves that draws me to them. White people, for the most part, are too conservative with their emotions and not nearly as effusive as black people when they get excited. If you've ever watched a game show where a white person wins and then, later, a black person wins, you've seen the difference. Black people don't stop and think before they jump up and down in celebration. They are so much more spontaneous and festive, and I've always felt that without that kind of energy, what would be the point of anything.

  "Are you and yours having a little tete-a-tete?" the woman asked me, motioning in Nathan's direction. Apparently they had seen our little spat.

  "Yes," I said. "He'll be okay, he's just having a little episode. I'm Beulah."

  "Well, that's just beautiful. Is it a family name?" she asked me.

  "Yes," I said. Technically, it wasn't a lie. Beulah had to be someone's family name. The only Beulah I knew of was Beulah Balbricker, the crazy gym teacher in the movie Porky's who was a complete mess.

  Their names were Valerie and Larry William. I loved the way Valerie spoke. Everything she said rolled off her tongue in a soft mellifluous melody. It had a soothing southern sound to it, and she was one of those people who just kept smiling and whose skin was as smooth as a Milk Dud.

  They told me their son had gone to this school, and he was now on the road playing professional basketball, so they had come in his honor. Couples who have been together for so long intrigue me. I am genuinely curious to know what was so different thirty years ago that you actually had a desire to wake up next to the same guy every morning for the rest of your life. Watching Larry rub Valerie's hand, I wanted to be in love like them. But as long as Nathan was around, that wouldn't be happening any time that night.

  They were in the middle of telling me about how Larry William proposed to Val, when Nathan plopped down in the seat next to me, slammed his drink on the table, and introduced himself. His tie was crooked and he was licking the corner of his mouth, trying to free some hummus. He was clearly drunk, and I had finally had it with his behavior. I didn't know why I was doing him any favors when obviously he had some serious personal issues to deal with.

  I decided it was payback time, and it hurt me to have to bring Val and LW into it.

  "Hi, honey," I said in the best beaten-wife tone I could muster.

  "This is my husband, Nathan," I told Val and LW, "but you wouldn't know it because he refuses to wear his ring."

  "That's not true," Nathan said. Nathan meant it wasn't true that we were married, but it came out sounding as if it wasn't true that he actually refuses to wear his ring.

  "Junior, that's just plain disrespectful," LW blurted out. I loved that LW had referred to Nathan as Junior. This was turning into a real-live sitcom. Nathan was flustered. I jumped in before he could get his bearings.

  "It's just so hard. I mean, we've been married for two whole years and he won't even say my name on our outgoing voice mail message." I started to tear up at the thought of this.

  "Chelsea!" Nathan blurted.

  "Chelsea? Who the hell is Chelsea?" I asked.

  "Sorry . . . Beulah," he corrected himself. LW and Val looked at each other in horror. It was clear to us all that Nathan was having an affair.

  "Son, you need to get your head on straight here," cautioned LW. "Now, I don't mean any disrespect, but you have got one hell of a little lady here, and if you don't wake up and smell the cappuccino, somebody else will."

  I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Not only was a big black man defending my honor, he had referred to me as little.

  Even Nathan couldn't talk back to such an imposing force as LW. LW had James Earl Jones's exact voice and was well over six feet tall, with shoulders you could balance a midget on. Realizing he had no chance against this man, and that by resisting or trying to speak he would just come off looking like an asshole, Nathan had to surrender.

  "You're right," he said, with his head down where it belonged.

  "Now we're getting somewhere," James Earl Jones said.

  "It's just so hard because she works all the time," Nathan said, trying to turn the tables, but I wasn't about to let him overtake me.

  "What do you do, dear?" asked Val.

  "I work with the blind mostly. Some deafs too," I told her.

  Nathan spat a little of his drink out.

  "See that? He thinks it's funny. He makes fun of them," I said.

  "I do not think it's funny. I don't . . ." he told Val and LW, trying to regain composure. "I just... I just want her . . . to be home more."

  "I bear that," LW said.

  "Beulah, what exactly do you do with the blind?" Val asked.

  "I help them compete in relay races," was the next thing I said.

  LW put a piece of sushi in his mouth as Val looked at me with a furrowed brow. "And what do you do?" Val asked Nathan.

  "I manage musicians," he said.

  "Barely," I said. "He only has one band." This part was true, but now it made me look like the asshole. And I had a feeling Val and LW weren't buying my story and I needed to do some damage control.

  "I'm sorry, honey. I know you're trying, but what we do for a living isn't the problem. It's the time alone." I looked at Val and LW. "He never wants to have sex and when he does . . . well. . ."I drifted off so as to seem unsure about telling them.

  "What is it, dear?" asked Val.

  Nathan jumped in. "We have plenty of sex," he said haphazardly.

  "Yeah, but not the way I like it," I said, then looked at Val and LW with a victim's pained expression. "All he ever wants to do is anal."

  Nathan hopped up from the table and raced away as Val stared at me with horror in her eyes. LW lowered his head with one hand held over his forehead.

  "I should go find my husband," I said and excused myself.

  I strolled around for a few minutes, looking for David Stevenson. When I spotted him lingering by the buffet, I waved across the room and headed in his direction. He made a quick about-face and took off in the other direction.

  I went looking for Nathan and found him standing in a corner, with his arms crossed, talking to an older gentleman. I took out my head scarf that I had since been using as a napkin, wrapped it around my forehead, and tied it
in a big knot like an Indian chieftain. Then I sauntered up to Nathan and the man and said, "Hello, honey. Who is this you're talking to?"

  "Oh, this was my dean, Dean Edwards." Nathan introduced us with a look that said, "Don't say anything" but I was over Nathan and I was over this party, so after a couple of minutes of small talk I leaned in.

  "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I have to go take a dump."

  Nathan and I met outside by the valet moments later, at which point we had no choice but to laugh uncontrollably until I actually started to wet myself. I hadn't peed in my pants in months! But that had been in Vegas and I was asleep so it didn't really count.

  Exactly one week later, I went to a Lakers game on a date. As I walked down the aisle, I bumped directly into Larry William. "Hello, sweetie, how are you?" he asked.

  "Oh, wow!" I said, "Hi! Your son must be playing against the Lakers." Larry nodded. "How are you?" I asked.

  "Great. Are you here with your husband?" he asked, right in front of my date.

  "No, actually we ..." There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence, which LW, Val, and I had been through before, and then I said, "separated, we separated." Then I leaned in and whispered in LW's ear, "I think he's gay."

  LW whispered back in my ear, "I think you might be right."

  I introduced my date to LW and Val, and when we parted Val gave me a hug and whispered to me, "We'll pray for you."

  "Please do," I responded.

  My date and I went to find our seats. When we sat down he turned to me and said, "Well, that's terrific news. How long have you been married?"

  RERUN

  IT WAS VALENTINE'S Day and I had spent the day in bed with my life partner, Ketel One. The two of us watched a romantic movie marathon on TBS Superstation that made me wonder how people who write romantic comedies can sleep at night.

  At some point during almost every romantic comedy, the female lead suddenly trips and falls, stumbling helplessly over something ridiculous like a leaf, and then some Matthew McConaughey type either whips around the corner just in the nick of time to save her or is clumsily pulled down along with her. That event predictably leads to the magical moment of their first kiss. Please. I fall all the time. You know who comes and gets me? The bouncer.

  Then, within the two hour time frame of the movie, the couple meet, fall in love, fall out of love, break up, and then just before the end of the movie, they happen to bump into each other by "coincidence" somewhere absolutely absurd, like by the river. This never happens in real life. The last time I bumped into an ex-boyfriend was at three o'clock in the morning at Rite Aid. I was ringing up Gas-X and corn removers.

  Usually, I like to celebrate Valentine's Day by hot-air ballooning around the greater Los Angeles area and pointing out all the different apartment buildings I've slept in. This Valentine's Day was different because I was still in a deep funk from being dumped by a man with skinnier legs than me. If you've ever seen the hind legs of a German shepherd trotting away from you, then you know what my ex-boyfriend's calves looked like.

  I had been dating my landlord for about nine months before the breakup. He wasn't the Schneider of One Day at a Time type of landlord, running around the building with a tool belt and a detective's mustache. He was a clean-cut, good-looking, bashful type of guy with a harmless disposition. He owned the building and the one directly next door, which he lived in. After meeting him for the very first time, while signing my lease, I called Ivory to give her the news. "I'm going to have to start dating my landlord."

  "Really? Is he hot?" she asked.

  "It's not hot. It's something else. He's shy and it's going to take some work. I think he might be scared of me. I'll have to wear him down."

  And that's exactly what I did. I called him repeatedly with emergencies such as my pilot light going off (after I blew it out) and my sliding shower doors falling off their tracks (after I dislodged them). This would time and time again lead to coffee and/or a meal. After hanging out together for a couple of months and him not making a move, I finally confronted him. "Listen, landlord man, what's the story here? Are we going to start dating or what? I've got a crush on you and I'm not interested in any new friendships. The only reason I'm hanging out with you all the time is to get in your pants. And I'm exhausted." I had never put so much work into a relationship that hadn't even begun. "Either we become a couple or no more Chelsea."

  "Let me think about it," he said.

  Two days later he showed up at one of my stand-up shows. "You want to come back to my place?" he asked me afterward, as he walked me outside.

  "Yes," I said and found myself skipping for the very first time since puberty.

  My landlord was a soft-spoken type and we got along great--but we also fought a lot. He wasn't like any guy I had ever dated before. He was ultraconservative, insecure, and unsure of almost every decision he made. But at the same time he was also thoughtful, very funny, and really good at math. He wanted to spend almost every minute with me, which didn't annoy me like I thought it would.

  We had completely opposite personalities. He would buy clothes, appliances, and supplies for the building and then, almost immediately, return them. This mentality drove me crazy. I didn't know men could be such flip-floppers. I had never returned anything in my life. If the item didn't work for me when I got home, then I would just throw my hands up and drop it off at Goodwill.

  He always wanted the thermostat set at a minimum of seventy-five degrees; I would wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and sneak out of bed to turn it below seventy. The next day, he would complain of a sore throat and tell me it felt like a meat locker. One morning I woke up to find him wearing a ski cap. So dramatic.

  The worst things about him were his scrawny legs and the fact that I was pretty sure I could take him in a fight. He would cuddle so intensely with me in bed that when I'd get up to walk in the kitchen for a glass of water, he'd still be attached to me like an orangutan.

  It wasn't the actual breakup that hurt so much. It was the fact that I had been planning on breaking up with him first but hadn't gone through with it because I thought he would be too devastated--only to come home from a weekend ski trip to Aspen and be blindsided. It was a complete blitzkrieg. I didn't appreciate the fact that I had been considering someone else's feelings while he was telling me to hit the road. While I knew that the relationship could never work long-term, mostly because we would never be able to wear shorts together in public, I kept secretly hoping that maybe some new calf-enhancing technology was about to hit the marketplace.

  A couple months went by but the pain didn't seem to be subsiding.

  Ivory called on Valentine's Day to tell me there was a costume party that night and attendance was mandatory. "It's at a warehouse downtown and it's a fund-raiser to help children with disabilities." Finally, something I had been lying about doing for years could actually become a reality. I had no desire to leave my bed, but I had to pull through for the kids. "We're meeting at the Compound to preparty," Ivory said.

  The Compound was the apartment building where Lydia lived with all of her degenerate neighbors. It was kind of a Melrose Place-type building minus the pool and six-figure incomes. It was a fun place to hang out and party, but not a fun place to wake up. Lydia and all of her neighbors had slept with each other at one time or another, and it had become an official lazy Susan.

  "I don't have a costume," I told Ivory.

  "We can make you one."

  I reminded her of months earlier when, on Halloween, Ivory and I had gone as bull dykes, wearing black mullet wigs, huge Levi's jeans, chained wallets, and black-studded belts. Our wife-beaters read, "We support Bush" and "Bush Rules." Since the party was after we had invaded Iraq, people thought we meant the president.

  Not only did I learn my lesson that night about supporting George W. Bush in California, I learned my lesson about wearing something unattractive to a costume party. It was a clear opportunity to slut it out, and we had
completely missed the boat. No one wanted anything to do with us. Even the friends we had gone to the party with were too embarrassed to be seen around us. Ivory and I spent the entire night sitting in a corner by ourselves; the only person who approached us was the bouncer to tell us it was last call.

  "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that," Ivory said. "Go rent one."

  "I can't. Bobby and Whitney's E! True Hollywood Story is on in ten minutes."

  Ivory called minutes later to tell me her roommate Jen had an extra genie costume with a bustier that would look hot. "The pants are see-through, so wear full panties," she warned.

  "I don't have any full panties, only my period underwear and those are too ugly."

  "What color are they?"

  "Red," I said. "Not from my period, they're just red."

  They were nylon tummy tuckers and they sucked everything in when you were bloated. These weren't panties I wanted to show off. Generally, this type of underwear wasn't worn by anyone under sixty.

  "No one will see them, it will be dark out, just wear something that covers your ass. Or wear a bathing suit bottom."

  "What color are the pants?" I asked Ivory.

  "Chelsea, just give it a rest. Be over at Lydia's by eight and we'll get ready there."

  Parking at Lydia's was always a nightmare, so I called our friend Holden who lived around the corner and parked in his garage. Holden is like one of the girls. He's a sweet guy and we've all been friends with him for years. Holden's only fault is that he has a severe case of ADD. He's the type of person who asks you a question and then interrupts the answer with another question. This habit can be very annoying, especially if you're upset--which has resulted in many dramatic breakup scenes with his girlfriends involving clothes and furniture being thrown off balconies. Holden doesn't mind being yelled at, so that would help release the anger related to him not listening in the first place.

  Holden didn't know about the party, probably because he wasn't paying attention when he got invited, so I invited him again. He didn't have a costume either, so I told him to wear one of his wet suits. Holden owns his own beachwear company, where he sells everything from scuba suits to surfboards. He keeps all his equipment at his apartment, and it comes in handy every time I decide to spend more time underwater.