Where oh Where has Our Chelsea Girl Gone?

Chelsea Handler, whom I’ve never actually met, once shared a bed with me, albeit on separate occasions.

Here’s what happened: Her now-famous dad, Melvin Handler, a used car dealership owner from New Jersey and the beloved butt of Chelsea’s jokes, called me up at my real estate office in Edgartown – this was some time back in the 90s – and asked if I’d look at his summer home on Katama Bay for the purpose of renting it out from time to time.

The spot was spectacular, the house spacious but unpretentious, and I climbed the stairs to a loft that held a king-sized bed. The sight stirred in me a Goldilocks response: I longed to take a nap on it. I woke up an hour later, fully refreshed, returning to the office with a snap in my step as if I’d just listed a dozen new homes.

Years later when Chelsea became famous as a standup comic, a regular correspondent for Jay Leno, a star of TV shows such as Girls Behaving Badly, and the author of outrageous books about her flamboyant sex and drinking life, I realized I’d snoozed on a mattress upon which the blond comic had possibly enjoyed any number of erotic escapades.

A native of New Jersey and the baby in a family of six children, Chelsea felt she had to raise herself, and that gave her full range to say and do whatever she pleased. The family spent their summers on Martha’s Vineyard, so our Chelsea is clearly hooked in to this place, but who ever lays eyes her? I don’t, but my idea of a good time is to watch a Netflix episode of The Rockford Files, then climb into bed with my Boston Terrier and read Laurell K. Hamilton’s latest vampire book. Even though I’d once stretched out on Chelsea’s bed, there was little chance of her materializing on mine.

I called my young friend, Emilee, blond and pretty, who flies out to the clubs the way surfers go shootin’ the curl. She has never seen Chelsea Handler, not once, not anywhere, not ever.

Finally I phoned my son, Charlie, in LA to ask if he knew of any Chelsea sightings on the Vineyard. “No,” he said but he seemed to be stifling a guffaw. It turned out a producer he knew recently received a check from Ms. Handler to the tune of $5,000, along with a little note that read, “Thank you so much for the loan that helped me in my struggling waitress days. I’m so glad to be able to repay you now.”

The producer has no memory of ever meeting her. Could it have been someone with a similar name?

So here’s what I think about Chelsea’s visits to our island: She lies low. Her family house is already on a bluff over the beach, so she doesn’t need to sling on a bikini top with a matching thong to heigh herself elsewhere. She does admittedly love to drink (“That’s all I care about; good quality alcohol time”), but that too is easy enough to manage at home.

Which reminds me of another good Chelsea line: “This guy told me I didn’t need to drink to make myself more funny to be around. I told him, I’m drinking so that you’re more fun to be around.”

Her mother once warned her that if she slept with guys on the first date she could never expect a proposal of marriage. Chelsea replied that if she had sex with a guy on the first date that meant she probably had no interest in seeing him again.

Hmm . . . an intriguing and bold new twist for a woman, smashing to smithereens, once and for all, the pernicious double standard.

So since she rarely leaves home, here are some anecdotes from her Katama Bay base, all tales purloined from her first novel, My Horizontal Life:

One time Chelsea and her friend, Ivory decided they needed a rest from all their hard partying at community college. The Vineyard manse would be unoccupied until mid-July, so the two stout-livered students headed up there. “After a long conversation about money and responsibility,” wrote Chelsea, “we both agreed that a job would add too much pressure to our very hectic drinking schedule.”

They swam, they tanned using SPF 2, they drank, and they took pictures of every guy they brought back to the house. Their last duo of lovers were handsome Latinos who happened to be in the country illegally. After the Edgartown police called the house, Chelsea told Ivory it was time to skedaddle for the summer.

When Chelsea’s uptight sister, Sloan chose to marry on the Vineyard, Chelsea brought a gay friend from LA named Nathan. Perhaps because he was nervous or perhaps because he’d brought along plenty of pharmaceutical support, he was as raucous as all the Boys In The Band rolled into one extrovert. Most of Chelsea’s family, even the dog, Whitefoot, ran for cover when they saw him coming, but the bride, a-tingle with tension, turned to Nathan for succor who in turn propped her up with enough booze that, in the reception line, she spilled champagne on her dress. Nathan also punched up her vows with snappy lines such as: “And, baby, you’re so smart, you could’ve been a schoolbook!”

So with so much fun stuff happening at home, it’s no wonder Chelsea seldom ventures out. If you do see her, ignore her, as we do all celebrities. And you don’t want her liking you enough to invite you back to lunatic central.