Are You There, Vodka? It's Me, Chelsea (2 page)

“Melvin,” my mother said, “that is going to be extremely humiliating.”

“Well, she certainly can’t go on pretending she’s going to be joining the army with some Hollywood hotshot.”

“The sequel isn’t going to be as much about the army as it will be about sea creatures,” I corrected him.

“Chelsea, what are you even talking about?”

“I can’t tell the truth. Then the older girls will go back to calling me a dog.”

“Listen to me,” my father screamed. “We’ve been over this before. If those girls are going to make fun of you because of the kind of car your father drives, then they’re not worth your time anyway.”

“That’s nice, Dad,” I told him. “But it doesn’t matter if they’re not worth my time or not, it’s a lot more pleasant going through the halls at school not getting growled at.”

“How many times do we have to tell you that spending money on material things is not important? What is driving around in a Mercedes or a BMW going to teach you?” he asked.

“I dunno,” I said, still clinging to my mother. “That I want a Mercedes or a BMW?”

“Chelsea,” my father repeated, “you cannot just make up lies.”

“You lie all the time,” I reminded him, and then ran behind my mother and wrapped my arms around her waist to shield me from any impending wrath. “You tell all the people who call about your cars that they run great, or that they have no leaks, or that they’re in mint condition. Half of them need to be jump-started on a daily basis.”

“Listen to me, you little mouthpiece. I am the father,” he said, heading over in our direction while I buried my face in my mother’s ass. “You are nine years old and you are going to have to do what I tell you for the next nine years, whether you like it or not. As long as you’re living under this roof. Do you understand me?”

I wanted to tell him that I had no problem looking in the want ads for an apartment to sublet, but knew the reality of me getting my own place was months away.

“Yes,” I said, in order to avoid getting bitch-slapped. “I understand.”

“That’s enough, Melvin,” my mother told him. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll make you some porridge.”

Even though porridge is a perfectly suitable meal for a bear, I couldn’t resist asking my mother if we were having Goldilocks over for dinner. My father was still in earshot as he headed over to the living room couch, where he normally took his three o’clock feeding. It took one look from him to send me airborne in the direction of the stairs, which I took two steps at a time.

Once safely inside my room, I weighed my options. I could either tell the truth to all the kids at school and endure that embarrassment, or go for the more palatable option—enroll myself in a performing-arts boarding school.

Instead, I got out some loose-leaf notebook paper and started a letter to Goldie Hawn:

Dear Goldie,

I am a third-grader from New Jersey and consider myself to be a huge fan of yours as well as a compulsive liar. I made the mistake of mentioning that I would be playing your daughter in the next installment of
Private Benjamin
. (A fine performance if I do say so myself. I have seen a lot of movies, and can pretty much, without a sliver of a doubt, tell you that your range far outweighs the likes of Robert De Niro or, my personal favorite, Don Johnson.)

Anyway, it would be of great help to me if you could either come to my school in New Jersey and pick me up for lunch, or send me a personalized autographed photo that reads:

My Dearest Chelsea,
Working together has been a dream come true.
Love Always,
Goldie (your second mom)

Once I sealed the envelope, I spent three hours trying to get her agent on the phone. The furthest I got was to an operator at William Morris who gave me the address for fan mail. I was convinced that not only would she get the letter, but that, in my estimation, it wouldn’t take more than a week for her to respond. I then walked downstairs into my father’s “office,” found a stamp and an envelope, and placed the letter in our mailbox.

The next morning when I got up, I found a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich in the fridge with a note attached from my mother saying, “You are not a dog.” My father, of course, was the only one up, and was sitting in the kitchen reading the paper. Without looking up, he said, “Don’t forget to tell everyone the truth today.”

I wanted to scream at him and explain the magnitude of the situation. I wanted to tell him that there was a better chance of me shaving my head and walking to school with a dog collar and a leash around my neck than there was of me admitting I had lied.

I walked out the door and it was a beautiful spring day. I had a feeling of hopefulness and excitement that I hadn’t had all year. For the first time, I was excited to go to school instead of dreading it the whole way there.

With that wave of confidence came the feeling that I was, in a way, impenetrable. I was the same exact person I had been the day before, but now I was being treated better and the older kids wanted to be friends with me. It didn’t matter if I was in a movie or not, I had made these people laugh when they asked me questions. I had found myself engaging, charismatic—even sublime at times. I had all the charm I believed a true movie star to have. Who cares if I had lied about starring in
Private Benjamin Returns
? In the midst of all the commotion, I truly believed something magical had happened. I had burst into womanhood, and never felt more alive. I decided right there and then that I was going to tell the truth.

As I descended the hill where we lived, I spotted Jason at the bottom, standing on the sidewalk in front of his house. There was a part of me that felt bad for him for allowing himself to fall in love with me so quickly, and another part of me that was annoyed that he had so little self-respect. Hadn’t he ever seen a Woody Allen movie and realized how to play it cool?

I decided I was going to have to break the news to him first. “Hey,” I said, as I reached his house. I knew he’d be disappointed, and I wanted to let him down easy. I didn’t want people to ever look back at Chelsea Joy Handler and say she was a fibber.

“Did you hear anything about the movie?” he asked.

“Well, Jason, I have some bad news,” I told him. “Goldie broke her collarbone in a hang-gliding accident. It looks like it’s been postponed till summer.”

“Wow! What a bummer,” he said.

“Yeah, but the great news is, I’m in talks to be in one of Madonna’s new videos.”

“No way!”

“Yup,” I told him. “Which means I’m going to have to be on a grueling workout regimen.” I had very little control of the things that were flying out of my mouth. All I knew was that it felt better than confessing. Plus, the idea of getting imaginary rock-hard abs was intoxicating.

I knew then that Jason and I could never really build a solid partnership, mostly because our relationship had been based on inconsistencies.

I spent the rest of the week confirming one ridiculous tale after another, and by Friday I was exhausted. Although the benefits of my newfound fame outweighed the burden of coming up with one celebrity tale after another, I was so disgusted and bored with myself after a week, I was ready to throw myself out of my second-story window. I spent upward of an hour contemplating whether or not the fall would actually end my life or just severely injure an ankle. Then I thought of maybe jumping out of one of my father’s cars while in motion. This seemed the better option of the two, because not only would I be putting myself out of my misery, I’d also be making a political statement.

I knew if I ever came clean I would look like a complete jackass, so Jodi and I made a pact. She would confirm all my lies, and then after Christmas break the following week, we would slowly plant seeds that I was leaving the business. “I’ve had enough!” was the phrase we agreed I would use.

The teasing from the older girls had come to a screeching halt, and now when I walked down the halls, almost everyone said hello, and a couple of kids even curtsied. Surprisingly, Principal Hiller never called my house again. Jodi’s estimation was that he probably thought he had a psychopath on his hands and felt it was safer to take himself out of the equation.

The Friday afternoon before I was to return to school after Christmas break, Jodi and I were in my sister Sloane’s room trying on her training bras when my father yelled my name.

I ran downstairs wearing my sister’s bra and a pair of parachute pants when my father handed me a manila envelope without looking up. “You got something in the mail.”

I opened the envelope and nearly climaxed. I ran right up to Sloane’s room and jumped up and down. “Jodi! Jodi! Look at what I got!” It was a signed autograph from Goldie Hawn. She hadn’t inscribed it the way I had requested, and obviously I would hold that against her in any future negotiations, but it was made out to me, and it was signed by her.

Jodi and I were jumping up and down like a pair of newlyweds. We ran into my room and grabbed a Sharpie. Luckily Goldie’s handwriting wasn’t very legible, so I added “Mom” in parentheses at the end, and, after much discussion, since I didn’t want to continue with the lying but wasn’t willing to tell the truth either, Jodi and I agreed to leave the note open-ended. This is what I added: “My collarbone is on the mend. Can’t wait to start working with you, if the movie ever gets made. Aaargh! You’re a star!”

“Well,” she said, “it would sure take a lot of guts to come forward now.”

“You’re absolutely right,” I told her, putting the signed photo in my backpack. “Don’t let me forget to make copies of this to pass out at school.”

After the picture had made its way through school, things started to die down, and only once in awhile would someone mention my movie-star status. In those instances, I made sure not to overembellish the fantasies that played out in my head. I would downplay my role as a Hollywood starlet by telling people I was becoming more and more interested in behind-the-scenes work, and what I really had my eye on was directing.

The lesson I learned that year was a valuable one. If you’re going to make up an enormous untruth, make sure you tell it to people you are not spending the rest of the school year with. I can only imagine what Clay Aiken has to deal with on a daily basis.

CHAPTER TWO

Chelsea in Charge

I
was twelve years old when I got my boobs. I was over the moon, knowing they were the last piece of the puzzle I needed to start my own business. After sitting my parents down a year earlier and demanding to know the exact status of their financial situation, it had become clear to me that in order for me to have the lifestyle and fulfilling travel experiences that I desired, I would have no choice but to branch out on my own.

“Listen,” I said to my mother and father as I began my inquisition, “how much money do you have saved for my bat mitzvah, if, in fact, I do decide to go through with it? Is there any money for sleepaway camp and/or a European teen tour? And last but not least,
do
I have a dowry?” My parents were sitting on the sofa in our summer house in Martha’s Vineyard, staring back at me for a good couple of minutes before responding. My father took off his glasses and continued to stare as I stood in front of them holding the deeds to both of our houses.

The fact that we owned a summer house in Martha’s Vineyard led most people to believe that we were wealthy when that wasn’t the case at all. In the single most savvy business move of my father’s lifetime, he purchased ten acres on the Vineyard in the early seventies for a mere $28,000. While Vineyard real-estate prices had since skyrocketed, my father’s finances headed in precisely the opposite direction. Even though he owned a valuable piece of real estate, his liquid assets were on par with those of a homeless person—with no hands.

So, even with a decent house in the suburbs and a vacation house on Martha’s Vineyard, we had no money. My five older siblings had all decided that college was a necessary evil, leaving my father with even less money for me. I would lie awake night after night, praying that none of them would enter into a serious enough relationship that could lead to an expensive wedding, resulting in a zero balance in my father’s savings account—if he even had a savings account.

The afternoon I heard my older brother Greg mention the words “graduate school,” I nearly flipped my bicycle. My oldest sister, Sidney, kept reminding me to work hard in school so that I could get a scholarship to my college of choice. This may have been sound advice for an average adolescent, but college directly conflicted with my future plans of becoming a housewife.

“A dowry?” my father asked, as he looked over at my mother. “No, you don’t have a dowry.”

“Well, what exactly is the plan?” I asked them.

“What plan are you referring to?” my father asked.

“We are going to need to sell one of the houses,” I told them. “In my estimation, we could get over a million dollars for this house. I’ve already contacted a realtor.”

“Why would we sell the house, Chelsea?” my mother asked.

“Because things are just not working out,” I told them. “First of all, this house is a money pit, and we’re not getting any return on our investment. Second, I would like to go to Europe in the fall, not to mention Aruba, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. Third, if I am going to have a bat mitzvah, you can be sure as shit the party’s not going to be at a Ramada Inn! And finally, we really need to discuss my wardrobe.”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” my father said as he got up and walked out of the room.

“Chelsea, please don’t use that kind of language,” my mother said, referring to my use of the
s
word. “It’s very unbecoming. You have to focus on the important things in life, and one day you will realize that it’s not all about money.”

I had always been suspicious, but from that moment on, I knew without a doubt that my parents and I were not on the same page. We weren’t even in the same book. They had no idea how humiliating it was for me, living in a half-Jewish/half-Italian neighborhood where everyone else’s families planned big, expensive bar and bat mitzvahs at places like the Four Seasons, the Hyatt Regency, and The Manor. When I asked my parents where we could have mine, “backyard” was the last word I heard before I covered my ears and started making Indian noises. They also had no idea what it was like to watch all my friends prance around in their new designer clothes while I was left wearing hand-me-down Lee jeans from my sister Sloane, who was five years older and twice my size. “Relaxed fit” was an understatement.

My boobs came one May, and luckily for me—and all the men who’ve felt me up since then—they were full C-cups. I knew then that it was time to start thinking about how they could help me make ends meet. I would be spending the summer on Martha’s Vineyard with my parents and my sisters. My brothers were out of college at this point and had real jobs, so they weren’t able to take the entire summer off anymore. My father would commute back and forth from New Jersey to the Vineyard for his “business.” No one was ever really sure what “business” he was referring to, since he generated roughly the same income as a giraffe.

I was too young to work legally so I only had two realistic options: I could either start my own underground babysitting ring or become a prostitute.

Although I had developed a serious crush on our plumber that year, I wasn’t sure that I was ready for penetration. I had seen my very first penis on a porno tape I stole from my brother, and was completely flabbergasted. While I had heard a lot about the size and shape of the penis, no one had ever mentioned that there were going to be balls attached to it. Not to mention that there would be two of them, that they would be covered in hair, and that later in life, they would most likely end up smacking you in the face. I’m really glad I got the heads-up when I did, (a) because if I had found myself in bed with someone and seen his two little friends headed toward me with no prior warning, I probably would have lodged a formal complaint with Internal Affairs, and (b) because it gave me plenty of time to shop for the perfect-size chin guard.

After I took a good long look in the mirror at the two new accessories attached to my upper torso, I decided I could pass for twenty. Sloane said that I was being absurd and that the oldest I could pass for was fifteen. I stood cupping my new breasts, thinking it would probably be best to keep these robust treasures under wraps while I got to know them. So I opted for the babysitting ring and decided I would be sixteen.

Once the decision had been made, I took out the phone book and called every hotel and home rental agency on the island. I left my phone number and told them to direct any guests who needed childcare services my way. The next hurdle was a place to hide all the income I’d be bringing in. I hopped on my ten speed and rode to the hardware store, where I bought myself a safe.

“No one is going to call you back,” Sloane told me. “It’s a stupid idea and you’re not going to make any money. You’re certainly not going to need a safe.”

“Sloane,” I told her, “you either grab life by the balls or you can ride in the back of one of Dad’s cars for the rest of your life. With an attitude like that, you’re going to end up becoming the general manager of a bowling alley.”

Within the first week I received ten calls. By the end of my second week on the Vineyard, every night was booked for the next two weeks. I couldn’t believe what a genius I was. Every day and night was packed with a different client, and business was booming. This was a dream come true, and before long Sloane was begging to get in on the action. I would give her clients only if I was overbooked, and insisted she pay me a two-dollar commission per hour. She resisted, of course, but I maintained a level of professionalism through and through. I simply couldn’t cut her a break just because she was my sister. “What would my other employees think?” I asked Sloane.

“You don’t have any other employees,” she reminded me.

“Not the point,” I told her.

By mid-July, I had seven hundred dollars saved. Word was spreading like a forest fire, and I actually enjoyed the work. I had a couple of regular clients who were on the island all summer, but most of my clients were only in town for a couple of days or up to a week. Most of the kids were pretty good, and if they weren’t, I would just put them to bed as soon as their parents left. I preferred babies since they couldn’t talk and tell their parents that I’d spent half the night on the phone talking to my best friend, Jodi, in New Jersey, and the other half of the night going through their personal items.

If the children were annoying, I would play hide-and-seek with them. They would hide, and I would make myself a sandwich or an ice-cream sundae.

If the parents had unreasonable expectations, I’d have a sit-down with them and give it to them straight. “Listen, Melinda,” I told a mother who insisted I take her six-month-old daughter to swimming classes twice a week. “Are you trying to kill your baby? She can’t do that yet. She’s not a salmon.”

One day I got a phone call from a woman named Susan who was renting a house in town. She had two sons.

“My oldest is fourteen and my youngest is seventy-two months,” she informed me.

While I sat perplexed trying to figure out what seventy-two months added up to, I decided to focus on the bigger issue at hand.

“Fourteen?” I asked. Who hires a babysitter for a fourteen-year-old? I wondered if he was retarded. “Is he retarded?” I asked.

“No, he’s not retarded,” the woman replied, sounding a little shocked. “He’s just a little hyper, but he’s a good boy. It’s more to have someone else there who can be in charge of my youngest, Kyle.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, as I took a bite out of the apple I was holding and kicked my feet up on the sofa. “Well, I charge ten dollars an hour for two kids.”

She said that sounded reasonable, and we set a time for the next evening.

“Who was that?” Sloane asked as I hung up the phone.

“A client,” I told her. “I have to babysit for a fourteen-year-old tomorrow.”

“You can’t babysit for a fourteen-year-old,” Sloane told me.

“Why not?”

“Because you’re twelve, that’s why!”

“They don’t know how old I am,” I said, as I polished off my apple and penciled my new client into my Filofax.

“Chelsea, you can’t babysit for someone who is two years older than you,” Sloane said.

“Girls mature faster than boys,” I reminded her. “It’ll be fine.”

The next night my father dropped me off at Susan’s house. He was impressed with my work ethic and business sense. “You’ve really shown a strong sense of self, Chels. I’m proud of you,” my father told me.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said as I hopped out of the car. “If you need to borrow any cash, I’m sure we can work something out at a moderate interest rate.”

I walked up the steps and peered through the screen door. “Hello,” I said. Susan came running to the door, carrying her seventy-two-month-old son on her hip.

“Oh, Chelsea, it’s so lovely to meet you.” She was harried and it didn’t take long to figure out that she was completely unstable. “This is Kyle,” she said in baby talk as she introduced me to the kid she was holding like a baby kangaroo. “Can you say hello to Chelsea?” she asked him as she took the pacifier out of his six-year-old mouth.

“Hi,” he said shyly, and then nuzzled his head into Susan’s shoulder.

“Let’s go in and meet James.”

James was her fourteen-year-old and I half expected him to be in a crib, but instead he was sitting on the living room floor playing Nintendo. I sized him up and figured we were about the same size, although it looked like he had a bit more lean muscle mass than I did, which would give him the advantage if it came down to a tug-of-war.

“He loves those video games,” she said, shaking her head.

“Kids,” I said, shaking my head in unison. I wanted Susan to think we were totally in sync, even though it was becoming very obvious that Susan needed to be under psychiatric supervision. I followed her to the kitchen, where she had three pages of telephone numbers listed in case of an emergency. At the very top of the list in bold print was:
any sort of emergency: dial 911
.

Then it went on to list every family member still alive, including a few relatives she had in Russia. I tried to picture myself calling overseas to Moscow if and when Kyle hanged himself. I couldn’t believe someone like Susan would allow a complete stranger to babysit her children.

“I know this is a bit extensive but I just wanted to cover all bases.”

“Hello, I’m James Sr.,” her husband said meekly as he walked into the kitchen. He looked like a battered wife with his head hung low and his terrible posture. I immediately felt sorry for him.

Susan and I spent the next forty-five minutes going over the boys’ routines. “Their pajamas are already laid out. Kyle goes down at seven thirty and James can stay up till nine o’clock and watch a show. Both can have some frozen yogurt after dinner but only the sugar-free kind. There is a tub of vanilla-chocolate swirl ice cream in the freezer for James Sr. The children are not allowed to have that.” Then she leaned in and whispered, “James Jr. is a sugar addict.”

“Does he go to meetings?” I asked her.

“He can be very moody. We try and stabilize his blood sugar level, and if he’s on his best behavior, he can have one or two spoonfuls of regular ice cream, but anything more than that and he tends to get carried away.”

I wanted to tell Susan that the reason James Jr. probably got carried away was because he was living in the equivalent of a state penitentiary, and that she was doing far more damage than good to these children by treating them like they were both infants.

After weeks of childcare over the summer, it became obvious that the best contribution I could make to the world would be to open up my very own day-care/night-care center. Clearly I knew more about child-rearing than most of the parents I had encountered. Sugar addict? Who isn’t a sugar addict when they’re fourteen? I, of course, couldn’t speak for myself at the time, being only twelve.

Susan was the antithesis of my mother. There was more adult supervision at the Neverland Ranch than there was in my house growing up. When a week before my fourth birthday, my parents told me to plan my own birthday party—I knew I was pretty much on my own.