The sex was above average, and I was thrilled because I really liked this guy and knew it would only get better. Then the next morning he rolled over and asked, "So, does your dad actually own American Airlines?"
I looked at him, bewildered. It took me about thirty seconds to connect the dots. I turned over so that I wasn't facing him and cringed. I would never be able to see this guy again. Great, I thought. Another guy I'll never get to know.
"Yeah," I said hesitantly. "Why? Do you want to go somewhere?" It would be easier never to return his phone calls than to fess up to being completely certifiable. I had to end it right there and, in turn, teach myself a valuable lesson: No lying while drinking. A normal person would have decided to stop lying completely. I decided to restrict myself to lying only when I was sober.
Cut to a couple of months later when I met this guy whose name I can't remember for the life of me. Let's call him Mike. There were a bunch of Mikes, so he was probably one of them.
I had a lot of free time because Ivory and Lydia were both dating guys and spending every minute with them. Normally I wouldn't have had a problem with this, but a month earlier, for my twenty-fifth birthday, the two of them had told every person invited to get me a vibrator. Ivory and Lydia were acting like they had never been through a dry spell before. True, it had been a good four months since a real relationship or any sex, but I was trying not to focus on the time frame.
Getting one vibrator at your birthday party is kind of funny; getting twelve is not. First of all, everyone completely ignored the fact that I was registered at Tom's Liquor's. Second, how many vibrators does a girl really need? All it takes is one. What I am going to do, double-team myself?
I was working at a little breakfast place in Pacific Palisades at the time. Sometimes after work I would go to the Starbucks around the corner and read. I ran into him a couple times with his friend, and we did some heavy flirting. I was dying for it to lead to some heavy petting, but I was careful not to act desperate. This guy was right up my alley. He had dark hair and an adorable face, and was very well built.
He looked like a cross between Tom Cruise and the Hulk. He was doing construction part-time at someone's house while trying to make it as an actor. The acting thing bugged me but wasn't a deal breaker. To compensate, I conjured up images of him one day owning his own construction company, bossing people around in a hard hat. While clearly this wasn't going to be a serious relationship, I definitely wanted him to take advantage of me.
On our third meeting, he finally asked if I wanted to "grab some chow." That's construction lingo for dinner. I remember blushing uncontrollably, which does not go with my personality at all. He kept telling me I was blushing, which made me blush even more. Guys love when you blush. I've tried to blush on cue but can never do it when pressured.
We went for sushi somewhere in Los Feliz. He was staying with a friend of his who was out of town, he told me. She was letting him crash until he found a place.
We had a couple of hot sakes and split two large Sapporos. I picked up the tab because I felt bad for him being a struggling actor. I don't know what I was thinking since I was working under the table at a restaurant three mornings a week to supplement my $311 weekly unemployment check. In addition to my addiction to alcohol, it seems I suffer from delusions of grandeur.
I invited myself back to his place. He accepted. I followed behind his gold Ford Pinto in my Toyota Echo. Talk about two losers.
We kibitzed while looking at his friend's artwork and pictures. They must have been really close because his family pictures were all over the place. He said she had been gone awhile shooting a movie, so he kind of made the place his own. It never occurred to me to be suspicious, probably because I wasn't auditioning him for a recurring role in my vagina. I knew I might see him again, but we were not going to become an item. It also never occurred to me that anyone lied as much as I did. If I had been interested in anything more than penetration, the Pinto would have sent me reeling back to reality.
I left soon after the sex because the bed was uncomfortable and I prefer to do my walks of shame in the evening, when it's not so bright.
We went out again a couple more times and got along pretty well. I even ended up sleeping over once--because I had one gin and juice too many. You may have noticed by now that I enjoy a plethora of different libations. I'm an egalitarian that way. I don't play favorites.
Our last night together, Mike and I went bowling, and I had one of my accidents. I picked a ball that was too small for my fingers and upon trying to release the ball into the lane--for what I fantasized to be a strike--the ball stayed on my hand and took me down with it. I did a complete somersault, rolling across the slippery wooden lane, ending up in the gutter. Every employee was at my service within seconds, for fear of a lawsuit. Mike and I laughed about it, but I could tell there was a part of him that was scared for me.
After that night together, things started to get a little awkward between us. I felt like I was growing to like him, that we were starting to feel like a couple. I left and didn't speak to him for a couple of days. I wanted to call him but resisted the urge. I didn't want to fall in love with a construction person/actor/Pinto driver.
I finally gave in and called him a week later. He got off the phone quickly and didn't call me back until the next day. Forget it, I thought. I wasn't interested in tracking someone down. I'd seen my friends survive relationships like that, and it looked so unappealing and time-consuming. That was quality time they could have spent drinking.
I had never mentioned to Mike that I worked part-time as a waitress, so you can imagine my surprise when, a few days later, I saw him walk into my restaurant with a gorgeous brunette who could easily guarantee my elimination in a swimsuit contest. Shit.
It was eleven-thirty in the morning and I was the last waitress left before the lunch girls came in. I could not believe Mike was sitting at a table that I was going to have to wait on. The only other option was to walk out, drive home, and never speak to another person from that restaurant again. Unless I could devise some scheme that involved a relative dying.
My mind raced as I considered my options. Even if a relative had died, there was no reason I couldn't physically wait on a table until someone showed up to relieve me. It was all too complicated. Also, the owner of the place had done me a huge favor by paying me under the table, so I couldn't possibly bail on her. I thought maybe I could have the busboy wait on Mike, or maybe the cook, but they all laughed at me when I asked. I didn't know if they were laughing because it was the first time they had seen me in a frenzy, or because they didn't speak English and thought I was telling a joke.
I had to think of something. Going over and introducing myself was not an option. I had to find another way.
Then I got an idea. It was simple. I would not be me. He didn't know that I worked here. I would just be someone who looked a lot like me. I would be my own twin sister. Yes! I could do this. I could pull this off. Why not? He didn't know anything about me. I could have a twin sister.
I walked over with a bounce in my step.
"Hi, guys," I said sweetly. "Can I get you a couple of drinks?"
The color immediately ran out of his face. Probably into mine.
"Hi," he said with terrified recognition. I kept repeating the same thought in my head. I do not know this guy. I do not. I have never seen him before in my life.
"Hi," I answered. "Can I get you any drinks?"
Silence. He was just staring at me. And now she was staring at me too.
I will not give up on my plan, I thought.
"Drinks?" I asked again. Come on, nut bag, play along! I was helping him out of an uncomfortable situation too.
"Um, yeah. I'll take a coffee and, honey, what would you like?" he asked his little muffinhead.
"I'll take a coffee too please," she replied.
"Okeydoke, I'll be right back," I said with the gayest smile ever. I had become a cute, bubbly waitress with a
positive disposition. I had just used the word "okeydoke" in a sentence.
The rest of the meal went pretty much the same way--me acting insane but all the time reacting to Mike as if be was the insane one. Every time he looked at me, I just looked back at him with big, crazy eyes as if wondering why this weirdo kept staring at me. Judging by the pallid, green color of his face, he was starting to feel sick. It was nice taking on the role of a friendly do-gooder waitress. I had never been so pleasant to customers before. It almost felt gratifying. I would have to look into that more later.
And so it continued. When the bill finally came, Mike ended up leaving me a 25 percent tip. I wondered if that was a result of his guilt or because of my sunny disposition. He left with his girlfriend, who smiled and waved good-bye. She was nice. I felt bad that she was dating someone who was a complete liar.
About twenty minutes later I was counting my money, getting ready to close out, and thinking about the irony of having paid for this guy's dinner a couple weeks earlier. What an idiot I was. Then, suddenly, I heard his voice.
"Chelsea." Oh, shit. It was Mike. Alone. I spun around to answer before it hit me that I was no longer Chelsea. Panicking, I squinted my eyes to intimate confusion. "Are you speaking to me?" I said.
"I'm really sorry," he said.
"About what?" I asked, acting puzzled.
"About what just happened," he said. "I mean, yes, we're living together, but it's not--"
This is where it gets good.
"Okay," I said. "I need to stop you. I am not Chelsea. I know you've been looking at me very funny, but I'm not her. She's my twin sister. I don't know how you know her or what, but I have no idea who you are." Then I said ever so sweetly, "I'm really sorry."
Silence.
He stared for a bit. "Okay, this is really strange," he said. "You look exactly like her. I mean, exactly."
"Well, we're twins. That can happen with twins."
"So, what is your name?" he asked.
I hadn't prepared for that. What shall I name myself? I thought. All the names of people I'd been involved with started flooding my head. Unfortunately, none of them were girls.
"Kelsea," I blurted out.
"Chelsea and Kelsea?" he asked.
"You should meet our parents." I laughed. I quickly wondered if Chelsea had ever told him about our real parents. Then I reminded myself that I was Chelsea.
"This is unbelievable, you guys are identical!"
I nodded.
"But seriously, you look exactly alike."
Now he was getting on my nerves. Hadn't he ever seen twins before?
"Wait, why didn't she ever tell me she had a twin sister?" he said.
"I don't know, how do you know her?"
"We kind of um . . . well, we . . ."
I interjected. "Let me guess, you slept with her?"
"Oh." He felt stupid.
"Yeah, well, Chelsea pretty much sleeps with everyone."
"What?" He was appalled.
"Yeah, she's a real hoo-ha. This happens to me all the time. Men think I'm her."
"Does she do this all the time?"
I sighed. Hadn't I just said that? "Pretty much."
"You mean, she just sleeps with different guys all the time?"
"Afraid so. You should probably get tested."
Silence.
About five seconds passed before Mike sprinted out the door. He didn't even say good-bye, which I thought a bit rude.
"Should I tell her you stopped by?" I yelled after him.
"No."
He was gone.
About two years later I walked into my branch of Bank of America and saw his face plastered on their latest billboard for small business loans. It took me about ten good minutes to figure out how I knew this guy. I wondered if Bank of America would give me a small personal loan for having slept with their poster boy. I wondered if they would give me a small personal loan for sleeping with one of their tellers. I really needed a loan.
THE COOKIE MONSTER
I USED TO live with a twenty-eight-year old virgin. That's right. Not a Mormon, not a religious thing, just plain stupid. You would've thought someone had sewn her vagina shut. Who in her right mind would willingly abstain from something that could give so much pleasure and pain at the same time? I asked myself again and again. I just wasn't getting it. And neither was she.
Dumb Dumb and I were like the odd couple. Dumb Dumb was tall with tight curly red hair and looked like a full-grown Annie. I would sashay around the living room in my brand-new thong and bra combo, while she'd lie on the sofa in a pair of her favorite Winnie-the-Pooh jammies buttoned to the top, slurping down a pint of Ben & Jerry's. She would bake cookies, watch nothing but reality TV, and talk on the phone for hours with her parents in New Jersey. I would come home sloshed three or four nights a week, and the others I wouldn't come home at all. Since I was also two years her junior, Dumb Dumb took this to mean that she was in charge. If we ever went anywhere together, she would drive, and every apartment bill was put in her name so she could oversee all payments. She also had a severe case of ? CD, so after I went to bed she would come out of her room, make sure all the appliances were turned off, and rewash any dishes I had washed. You would have thought I was living with Rain Man.
I'm convinced that Dumb Dumb's parents were the reason for her social ineptitude. She relied on her father for guidance on everything from what deodorant to use to what brands of electronics to buy. Not only did she not have any sexual contact in the two years we lived together, she rarely went out at night. She preferred to stay in and watch The Bachelor on the seventy-two-inch television her father bought her for our two-bedroom apartment. The resolution was so intense you couldn't even make out what was on the screen while sitting on the sofa in front of it. We'd have to stand in the dining room close to the front door to get a clear image. More important, she didn't like alcohol. There are two kinds of people I don't trust: people who don't drink and people who collect stickers.
I always dreamed of Dumb Dumb going on Howard Stern and playing stripper Jeopardy. She thought the Senate was a type of cookie. I asked her once during an election if she could name the two presidential candidates. She said, "Duh, Gore and Bush."
I said, "Okay, and who's Gore's vice president?"
She said, "I'm not that stupid . . . Bush."
Her room was covered in roses and 'N Sync posters. You would've thought she hadn't gotten her period yet. She took a bath every night and never took showers. She cried the first time she was pulled over by a cop. I explained to her that there is no reason to cry when getting pulled over--unless you're coming directly from a crime scene.
We were living together on 9/11 and she was convinced it wasn't a big deal because her father had told her everything would be all right.
"My dad said it's gonna be okay, and they may have already caught the guys who did it."
It was as if the whole event had been an episode of Charlie's Angels.
About a week later I was driving her to the dealership where she had just bought a new car. The country had been on many different levels of "high alert" and no one knew when we would be invading Afghanistan. I was saying how it was so scary to know that at any minute we could go to war.
She panicked and said, "Oh, my God, is that today?"
Dumb Dumb worked at a flower shop, which was the perfect job for her. She supported her insanity by placing herself in an environment where everything really was coming up roses. It was the ideal environment, allowing her to be completely and happily oblivious of the world around her. Every Monday through Friday she would wake up at the crack of dawn to sell flowers. I never quite understood why people needed to get flowers at seven A.M. on a Tuesday and found it curious that somebody could get excited by anything other than a pancake that early in the morning.
Dumb Dumb had a major crush on some reality television show host who used to eat breakfast next door to the flower shop every morning. She spent most of her
time standing in front of the flower shop in order to see when he sat down at the cafe. Then she would act surprised when he appeared and go over to say a "casual" hello. There are many forms of stalking and, combined with driving by his house several nights a week, this was one of them. I urged her to stop wasting expensive petroleum on trips to his house and instead put that effort into breaking his cell phone code and checking his messages.
Every afternoon she would come home and go on and on about this guy. How today he told her she looked pretty and smiled before ordering his eggs. She would ask me if I thought it was a sign that they both loved hard-boiled eggs. "Only if you're on an Easter egg hunt," I told her. Then she would get on the phone with her parents and replay every minute of their conversation. What a disaster. If I ever called up my father talking about a guy, he'd pretend he wasn't getting any reception. On a landline.
Despite the fact that all they'd done was talk about eggs and their deep respect for the Easter bunny, Dumb Dumb was convinced that this guy was going to come bursting out of her television screen and propose to her. She had the emotional maturity of a seven-year-old. Put us together, and we were fifteen.
Her crush had been raging for close to a year, and finally I couldn't bear it anymore. If she wasn't gonna stop talking about it, I was going to help her get him. First, though, she needed to get penetrated.
It was time to hire a male prostitute. I had used him once before, to "rough up" my friend Lily right after a breakup. She was pleased with him, a little too pleased. She got attached to him, and he had to start pseudo dating her, which cost me a fortune. He finally had to let her down easy because my unemployment ran out. But at least she got over her ex.
Ed was great. Hot face, hot body. He was sweet natured, which kind of got on my nerves, but I knew Dumb Dumb would love it. And while I wouldn't call him stupid, he definitely wasn't home separating ions in his spare time. I had met him at a bachelorette party, thrilled to encounter my first male hooker. I had strolled the Hollywood strip many a weekend night looking for a soul mate but never found anyone who actually resembled a man.