I WAS ON the phone with my doctor's office trying to get my hands on some Vicodin.
"What do you need it for?" the nurse who answered asked.
"I'm in a lot of pain," I lied. "I had a bit of bad luck over the weekend."
"I'm sorry to hear that, but you'll need to be more specific, Ms. Handler."
"Fine," I said. "If you must know, I was skydiving and my chute didn't open."
"Oh dear god, are you all right?" she asked me.
"Yes, I'm okay, I'm just in a lot of pain," I told her.
"What… where… how did you land?" the nurse asked me.
"In a tree," I said.
"Have you been to the hospital? Is anything broken or bruised?" she asked me.
"No, it's mostly internal injuries, nothing you'd be able to spot externally. I also feel like I'm suffering from posttraumatic syndrome, so I may need some sleeping pills."
My call waiting beeped and I told the nurse to hold the wire.
It was my sister Sloane, whose wedding was two months away.
"You can bring a guest to the wedding if you want," she said.
"Hold on," I said and clicked back over to find that the nurse had hung up on me.
I clicked back to Sloane. "Fine. Who?" I asked her.
"I don't know. One of your girlfriends or if you meet a guy you want to bring."
The thought of bringing a love interest to my sister's wedding had about as much allure as joining the Navy SEALs. Every time I brought someone home to meet my parents, whether it was just a friend or an actual boyfriend, my family felt compelled to remind me that I had terrible taste in people, and that they liked me better when flying solo. They all agreed that my friends in California were shallow and brain-dead and we were all much better off when I left them behind.
My Mormon sister was engaged to a normal human, and it seemed he was helping her to slowly snap out of the spell the Mormons had put her under. Sloane's wedding was being held at our summerhouse in Martha's Vineyard. Though I had recently been out a couple times with a guy I liked, I didn't want to embarrass myself on our third date by asking him to fly across the country for my sister's wedding.
Since my gay friend Nathan had included me in many of his family events and vacations, it seemed like time for a little reciprocity. My father had never met a gay man in person before and I thought that this could be a time of great revelation. Once again, I was sorely mistaken.
For the record, Nathan is not your typical gay man. He's not as blatant a homosexual as Harvey Fierstein, but if you have any gaydar at all-which I don't-then it wouldn't take you more than a couple of nights out with Nathan to catch on.
I didn't realize he was gay for a long time, attributing most of his effeminacy and idiosyncratic ways to the fact that he was Jewish. He is tall and handsome, a sports fanatic, and a man's man in many ways-except when having a verbal disagreement, in which case he turns into an eight-year-old girl.
Nathan and I have been friends for many years. I met Nathan when I was nineteen years old and landed my first job waiting tables at Morton's, a restaurant in Los Angeles. He trained me on my first day, and when I spilled a glass of red wine on some woman who had more eye liner on than Liza Minnelli, he assured me that big things were in the cards for me.
Bringing Nathan home, however, was not quite the stroke of genius I had anticipated. Minutes after introducing Nathan to my mother, he sat down at our kitchen table and told my mom how famished he was from the trip. "What can I make you, sweetheart?" she asked. "We've got cold cuts, potato salad, I can heat up some chili…"
"I'll take four eggs over medium, absolutely no oil or butter. I'll also take a turkey sandwich on multigrain with some mustard- Dijon if you have it."
I wasn't sure what to make of Nathan's behavior but felt that I needed to defend my mother.
"Is that all, or would you also like her to whip you up a brisket with some gravy?" I said.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he said. "I'm so hungry I can't even think."
" Chelsea," my mother said in a disapproving tone. "Don't be silly, it's my pleasure," she lied.
My brother Greg walked into the living area still in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, yawning and scratching the back of his neck. That's when our dog Whitefoot and my father, who was wearing a Sean John track suit and Uggs, came in through the sliding glass door that leads to the back deck. That's also when Nathan began to squeal like a pig.
"Oh, my goodness, look at this beautiful creature," he said, running over toward Whitefoot. He dropped to both knees and began petting him uncontrollably. "Yes, yes, you like that, you big beast of a doggie dog dog, don't you? Do you like it? Yes you do, you do do do do do! I love you already, yes I do, yes I do. Do you love me? I think you do!" Whitefoot's tail was wagging and he was maniacally licking Nathan, whose mouth was also open. It didn't take much to get Whitefoot aroused and I knew that his miniature ding-a-ling was at full throttle.
"What a gorgeous creature!" Nathan cooed, in a voice that a mother would use to talk to an infant. Whitefoot's your basic mutt, with the ability to sit when commanded-a sweet dog but nothing to go crazy over. Nathan was not a flamboyant guy and I had never seen him act like this before.
My father eyed this exchange with disgust. Then he loudly cleared his throat. We were not off to a good start. Greg, meanwhile, looked on with a huge smile on his face. He loved watching our dad's reaction to anyone left of center. After allowing Whitefoot to face-rape him for another ten seconds, Nathan stood up and approached my father with open arms. My father took a step back and put out his hand instead.
Greg had met Nathan before on a visit to Los Angeles and gave him a bear hug.
"This is gonna be fantastic," Greg said to me on his way into the kitchen.
Once Nathan had finished eating the small feast my mother had prepared for him, he asked which room was his and then promptly changed into his running clothes. It was early afternoon and everyone was at the beach, so our normally chaotic house filled with my five siblings, their significant others, and their half a dozen kids was empty and unusually quiet.
I gave Nathan directions on where to go on his run, opting to stay home to do some damage control.
As the front door shut and Nathan took off on his run, my father looked up from reading the newspaper. He glared at me, his reading glasses resting low on his nose.
"Well, looks like Chelsea brought home another loose cannon," he said to my mother.
I needed to change the subject quickly for fear my father's already tenuous good mood would get worse, so I asked him if the gardener was done preparing the lawn for the wedding.
"Yeah, he's done," my father said, disinterested. "I told him to take one of those linden trees as his payment."
"What?" my mother asked.
"Those linden trees. We've got two of them and they're normally found in Germany. Very rare."
"Melvin," my mother said, "how is he supposed to take one of our trees?"
"Simple," my father said. "All he has to do is cut it down and load it into a truck. It's not a big deal."
Greg's face lit up. He took major delight in all of my father's business maneuvers. He is of the thought that my father is wildly insane and operates on a completely different plane of existence.
"Why would the gardener want one of our trees?" Greg asked innocently.
"Those trees are very valuable, Greg. They're worth about fifteen hundred dollars. Who wouldn't want one is my question."
"Right," Greg said, "but is our gardener in the tree-selling business? A tree's not something you just take out into the marketplace and sell."
"Not sure," my father said and then went back to his newspaper.
"Well, when is he going to cut down the tree?" my mother asked.
"I don't know, he's gotta get some guys and rent a truck," he said.
"Well, not before the wedding, I hope," she said.
"Maybe if we're lucky he'll saw it down right in the middle of the wedding," Greg said.
"Nah, he wouldn't do that," my dad replied, as if my brother were serious.
"I wonder if there'll be a bidding war on eBay," Greg said.
"If he wants to sell it on eBay, let him sell it on eBay, what do I care? All I know is this guy's making out like a bandit!" my father said.
I went to my room, changed, and came downstairs to find my sister and her fiance. They had been visiting some friends who were in town for the wedding.
"Look at that figure," my father said, upon seeing me in a bathing suit. "Hot stuff tonight!"
Then he nudged my sister and said, "Look at that hourglass figure. She's a heartbreaker, this one."
Sloane reacted with disgust, as she always did. "That's your daughter, Dad. You're not supposed to be complimenting her figure."
I disagreed. I like compliments and don't care who they come from. Besides, my dad was always singing our praises to the point of embarrassment, only to turn around the next minute and say something like, "Some women don't get married until they're in their forties."
"Dad's got a crush on you, and I think it's disgusting," Sloane said.
"I love all my daughters equally," he announced. "Each one is more beautiful than the next!"
"Yeah? Where am I in that lineup?" Sloane asked.
"At the beginning," I told her.
My dad turned to me. "You got a lot of chutzpah, love. Men aren't always going to respond to that. You're one of those girls who could do it all by yourself. Make a fortune, have a couple kids… build a house."
"Who is she supposed to have kids with, Dad?" Sloane asked.
"Whomever! That's what women are doing these days. She's one hell of a smart-ass, that sister of yours," he said to Sloane, then looked at me. "But you got a good head on your shoulders and a lot of men find that intimidating. That's why you tend to hang out with such basket cases like your friend Nathan there."
"Sloane, did you hear the news?" Greg asked.
"Yes," I chimed in, ignoring my father. "You don't have to pay the caterer tomorrow, you can just give her one of our trees. They're very rare."
The door swung open and Nathan walked back inside, dripping sweat from his run.
"This place is beautiful, God, Melvin, just beautiful," he said to my father. Then he spotted Sloane. "You must be Sloaney Baloney! Yippee!" he shrieked and ran over to embrace her.
My future brother-in-law slid out the back door as soon as he saw that a hug might be headed his way. My father lowered his paper an inch below his eyes, watching Nathan like a detective on a stakeout.
"Sylvia," Nathan said to my mother, "I'd love a smoothie."
"Hey, asshole," I whispered, "this isn't Jamba Juice."
" Chelsea, I heard that," my mother said. "I'd love to make a smoothie for Nathan."
"Well, then, you better make one for Whitefoot too," my father said and muttered something under his breath.
After taking a forty-minute shower, then dumping his running clothes on top of our laundry machine and asking my mother not to wash his shorts and shirt together, Nathan picked up our phone and went into the bedroom where all the little kids sleep.
I quickly slipped outside to the deck to avoid further discussion with my father. Half an hour later, when I came back inside, Nathan was having a loud argument with his bookie/lover, which my father was listening to through my sister's baby monitor that he held inches away from his ear. My father got up, grabbed me by my elbow, and dragged me into the kitchen.
"Do you know what a sbnorrer is?" he asked me.
"Dad, what is your problem?" I said.
"It's Yiddish for mooch. That faygeleb friend of yours is the classic definition of a mooch, and I don't like it one bit. When is he gonna get off the goddamn phone? We've got a wedding to arrange for that Mormon sister of yours and there's no goddamm cell-phone reception. What kind of misbigas is this?" Misbigas is another Yiddish word, for bullshit. "Do you know he has a bookie? Where did this guy grow up, in the woods?"
"Let go of my elbow, Dad."
"I don't like it one bit. Now tell me the truth, is he delirious?" my father asked in all seriousness. That was my father's way of asking if Nathan was on drugs.
The truth of the matter was that Nathan did all kinds of drugs, but I couldn't imagine he would've gotten on a plane to my sister's wedding with an eight ball smuggled inside his rectum. And as far as I knew, he hadn't been doing anything but drinking prior to the wedding. Nathan's MO is to go on binges for weeks at a time but then clean up his act for a couple of months. When he is on a binge, Nathan has a habit of staying up all night, coked to the gills, and then calling me or one of our other friends at seven in the morning, where he will bring up subjects like why in the game of Monopoly, Baltic Avenue is cheaper than Ventnor, when really it is in a better location. There are also long gaps of silence-if you don't count the times when he's grinding his teeth, or the sound of his vertical blinds hitting each other as he stands by the window, looking for the cops. I always want to hang up but get scared he might swallow his tongue.
"Dad!" I protested innocently. "Nathan is not on drugs. Stop being like this. Be nice to him!" When my father doesn't like someone, you don't have to have esp to figure it out. He has the subtlety of a sling blade; all it takes is one moment of direct eye contact. And while it might once have been fun to watch him get riled up, I had long surpassed the golden years of experiencing sheer and utter elation in disappointing my father. At around twenty-four I realized I was just chasing that initial high you get the first time you tell your father at the age of sixteen that you're pregnant and thinking about keeping it.
"Just keep him away from your mother and keep him away from Whitefoot," my father ordered. Greg entered the kitchen just as my father said this.
"Yes, Chelsea, I think that's a good idea. Unless, of course, Whitefoot brought condoms," Greg said. My father hates my brother's sense of humor even more than he hates mine. He looked at us both with disgust and headed for some bushes. "Oh look, Dad's going to relieve himself. That's charming," Greg said as we looked over and saw my father unzip his fly.
After Nathan got off the phone, I suggested we go to the beach. He said he'd rather sit on the deck and enjoy the view.
More of my family soon started funneling in, and I hoped that at least would take some of the attention off of Nathan. Luckily, my sister Sloane took a shine to him. He was giving her a ridiculous amount of compliments and Sloane was eating it up. If he wasn't complimenting her on her "piercing blue eyes," it was the way all her toes were the same length. This opened the door for her to ask him one question after another about being a member of GLAAD.
I was hoping my father would be charmed by Nathan, like most women were, but neither he nor any of my brothers wanted anything to do with him. I felt embarrassed for bringing him home and disappointing my family. The truth was, Nathan was behaving terribly. He was over the top about everything, and he was talking nonstop, barely letting anyone else get a word in edgewise. I kept trying to lure him outside, away from my father, but the more Nathan sensed he wasn't winning him over, the harder he put on a full-court press. When he wasn't praising my father about how lucky he was to have strong enough sperm to produce six healthy children, he was ordering food from my mother like he was in a twenty-four-hour diner. He had been there for only one day and had already eaten close to six different meals, all of which he requested be prepared with absolutely no oil or butter.
"Why don't we go into town for a drink?" I offered, steering Nathan, for the tenth time, toward the door. "Why would we leave this paradise?" he said, breaking free of my grip. "Everything we need is here."
"I don't know, Nathan, maybe because you're acting like an asshole, and my mother isn't your personal chef."
"What are you talking about?"
"Just tone it down a notch, okay."
"Sloane loves me and so does Whitey. How can you say that?"
"It's Whitefoot! And my parents don't give a shit who he likes."
"You're being so dramatic!" he said and left me outside by myself.
At around eight P.M., I had no other option but to dilute two Tylenol PMs into his margarita. An hour later he was in bed.
The next day was my sister's wedding, and Greg woke me up to tell me that Nathan had already been on the phone with his bookie for over an hour.
"Now he's out on one of the kayaks taking a joyride. And Dad's watching him with his binoculars. Dad could have a meltdown at any minute," Greg said excitedly.
I rushed downstairs to the kitchen, where my mother was making blueberry pancakes.
"Sweetie, I think you need to keep your friend Nathan out of Dad's eye line when he comes back," my mother said. "Your father is about to pass a kidney stone. I've made a list of last-minute items Nathan could pick up in town."
"Okay," I said. "Sorry, he's not usually like this."
My father walked in. "I'm not going to be able to hold my tongue for very much longer."
"Dad, please, I'm sorry. Do not say anything to him. He's had a rough life and his father used to hit him."
"For good reason!" my father said.
He popped a blueberry into his mouth. "Well, let's hope he'll kayak all the way back to California where he came from. Or if we're lucky, a heavy fog will roll in and he won't be able to find his way back. I need him out of my eye line. You picked a real winner there, Chelsea, a real one-two punch."
Obviously, my parents had had a conversation about my father's eye line.
"Why out of all your flaky friends in Los Angeles would you choose to bring a gay with you? Are you trying to tell us something?" he said as he playfully jabbed my side. "Our little Chelsea isn't a lesbian, is she?"
"No, Dad, I'm not a lesbian. I sleep with guys all the time," I replied and walked outside.
An hour later I was flat ironing my two-year-old niece's hair when Nathan entered the room, sweating profusely and reeking of tequila. "Sloane and I just rewrote her vows," he said.
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"They were good, but they weren't great," he said. "I helped spice them up a bit."
"Are you drunk already? You stink of tequila."
"No, no, I'm fine. I just had a little shot," he told me. "Your father asked me to help set up the chairs for the ceremony. I think he likes me!"
It was time for all the bridesmaids to help Sloane get ready. After we got her dressed, she requested to be alone with Nathan before her walk down the aisle. While I was glad that someone in my family was responding positively to him, I wasn't clear about what kind of quick alliance they had formed, one so profound that it resulted in me not sharing the most important moment of my sister's life with her.
I went around our property checking on this and that and trying to keep my boobs in the dress my mother had sewn for me. She made each one of the bridesmaids a dress of the same material. I, of course, ended up being the only one who looked like a prostitute.
Being Mormon, Sloane had never used drugs and rarely drank alcohol. So it was clear to anyone who knew her that as she staggered down the aisle, she was intoxicated. Her new vows included lines from three different Grateful Dead songs. After she said, "and you're so smart, you could've been a school book," my sister Sidney whispered in my ear, "What the hell is she talking about?"
Once the ceremony had ended, we had a receiving line on the deck that faced the water. Sloane hoisted a glass of champagne, spilling some onto the ground. My father intercepted. He grabbed the glass, went inside, and poured it into Whitefoot's bowl. Then he ordered me to get some sparkling cider instead.
When the reception was under way, I found my table and sat next to Nathan.
Nathan winked and pointed between his legs. He had stolen a bottle of Cuervo from the bartender and hid it under our table where he could get to it quicker. Apparently the twenty-foot walk to the bar was too long a haul for him- and he didn't want to miss a beat hitting on my straight cousin sitting next to him. My cousin Neil, who was in from New York, politely excused himself and took his name-place with him.
Nathan was perspiring like a professional wrestler by the time he ordered his third lobster from the waitress. "What are you on?" I asked him. "You're dripping."
"Nothing, silly pickle! I'm just having a good time." I figured he'd be occupied with his bottle, so I got up to mingle. My father came over to me and asked if Nathan thought he was at Red Lobster.
"Listen, Dad, just ignore him. Have a good time. Look!" I pointed. "Sloane wants to dance with you."
Sloane and my dad hadn't been dancing for thirty seconds when Nathan shimmied onto the dance floor and cut in. I cleared three tables and the dance floor in just the amount of time needed to get Nathan out of my father's personal space.
"Cut the shit," I said through clenched teeth, while smiling for anyone watching. "Take a walk," I said. "A long one."
"I'd like to make a toast," were the next words out of Nathan's mouth.
He started clinking his glass of tequila with a knife. I shut my eyes in horror. "This is on behalf of me and Chelsea," he slurred.
My brother Greg yelled, "Let's hear it!" as the music and conversation came to a startling halt.
"I just want to say that I have never felt more welcome at somebody's house than I have at Mr. and Mrs. Handler's. This place is such a respite from my hectic and busy lifestyle in Hollywood where I produce music. I'm also interested in fitness. Anyway, there's nothing more beautiful than seeing a Mormon and a nonpracticing Christian come together at a Jewish gathering. All's fair in love and war."
Then he grabbed his bottle of tequila from under the table and stumbled away from the party.
About an hour later, mostly in fear of Whitefoot's safety, I walked around the property looking for Nathan to no avail. I did find Whitefoot. He was tied to a tree on the other side of the house, eating a lobster that my father, no doubt, had provided him with. Next to the lobster was a ramekin with melted butter for dipping.
At around eight P.M., when the party was winding down, I went into the basement to use the bathroom. That's where I found Nathan smoking pot with my thirteen-year-old cousin Kevin. He couldn't understand what was wrong with the situation and why I was being such a bitch.
I didn't understand how somebody could be so inappropriate at someone's parents' house. I had been Emily Post's alter ego when visiting Nathan's parents and never so much as swore in front of them, never mind consuming an entire bottle of tequila with no mixer. I proceeded to go off on him for close to five minutes, then grabbed my little cousin, took a hit of his joint, and started back up the stairs. I told Nathan he was not allowed out for the rest of the night, to which he inquired, "What about my lobster?" I went to our table, grabbed his plate with the lobster, and while descending the steps into the basement, took the lobster and threw it at him. He responded with a scream that sounded very similar to a cat getting gangbanged.
He woke up the next morning on the front lawn to my father spraying a hose on him.
"You're going to miss your flight," my father said. I was still so incensed at Nathan's behavior that I had Greg take him to the airport four hours early. When my brother returned, he announced to everyone in our living room with a huge grin on his face, "Well, have no fear, it looks like Robert Downey Junior got off without a hitch. We'll have to tune in to the local news later and see if his plane lands safely or if he ends up hijacking it."
"Shut up," I said. "He's not usually like that."
"I think we can all agree that Chelsea should not be allowed to bring anyone else back to any family gathering unless they are engaged to be married." My brother knew the chances of me getting engaged were about as probable as me releasing a hip-hop album.
My mother looked up from playing with my niece and said, "I think Greg is right, sweetheart. I think maybe when we have you all to ourselves it's more fun." My mother always put a spin on things to make it sound like every decision was based on how amazing you were to be around. I didn't want to bring anyone back there again, anyway. There was too much abuse from my siblings and father to endure another tandem vacation.
"You should really think about the company you keep," my father said. "You've got a real soft spot for lunatics. You're a beautiful girl, and I'd hate to see that figure go to waste."