Shmelly and Shmirving brought their fourteen-year-old son, Shmameron. He’s another asshole, so I immediately took to him. Shmirving tried to convince me all weekend that it would be easier on the whole family if I would just de-virginize Shmameron over the vacation. He thought Shmameron having sex would help calm some of his teenage angst, and this way the deflowerer would be someone they approved of. Plus, it would make for a funny family story.
“First of all, he’s a minor, but that’s not my main issue,” I revealed to Shmirving, after much prodding. “He’s got braces, and the last time I hooked up with someone with braces, my vagina looked like a cleft palate.”
Shmameron hitting on me in the Bahamas.
The best part of this trip was that the resort where we were staying was managed by a forty-year-old, delusional Grateful Dead enthusiast named Sargeant, who presented himself in a pressed, pastel-colored golf shirt and khaki shorts, and drove around the property in a golf cart. When I asked him what his real name was, he told me the story of his family coming from a long line of Sargeants. That was his real name. He was Sargeant John Riley Black the Sixth.
“Speaking of black people,” I asked Sargeant, “where are they?”
“I’ve heard about you, my dear,” he said, with raised eyebrows and waving his index finger in my direction. “You are quite the little devil.”
“First of all, please don’t make faces like that while talking to me—or just skip talking to me altogether—and secondly, I’m serious. We’re in the Bahamas and I haven’t seen one black person. We just came from Africa and I’m not prepared to go cold turkey. What’s the story?”
He ignored my question and for the next fifteen minutes proceeded to tell me and everyone else within earshot that he was a single man looking for love, and he thought from what he had heard about me, I might be the woman for him.
“You’re wrong,” Shelly and Shmelly assured him.
“Not at all, but I’ve heard you are PRETT-y outgoing, and I’m PRETT-y outgoing… You’ve got a sense of humor, and I know how to make a woman laugh.”
“I doubt that,” I replied. “Not on purpose, anyway.” I told Sargeant to keep his distance from me, that I wasn’t in the mood, nor would I ever be remotely attracted to him.
Shmirving and Shmelly loved the idea of me being harassed by Sargeant and invited him to dinner that very night along with eighteen of their other closest friends on the island, all of whom arrived in “summer whore,” which is another term I use for “hot pink.”
Sargeant arrived having switched into his dinner wear, which meant changing out of his pastel-blue golf shirt into a pastel-pink golf shirt and keeping on his khaki shorts and leather belt.
He planted himself in the seat next to me. “I have a question for you, Sargeant. Do you golf?”
“I most certainly do, Chelsea. I may even be able to teach you a thing or two on the back nine,” he said and then winked at me.
Lesbian Shelly bore witness to this whole transaction in her never-ending desire to egg things on—I would refer to her as a pusher, or an enabler. She will enable whatever it is you are trying to avoid and wave it around right in front of your face until you take a hit.
“It’s kind of perfect timing if you think about it,” Shelly announced to us both. “Chelsea’s been single for a while, and Sargeant, it seems as if you’ve been single forever.”
Sargeant wasn’t bad-looking, but looks don’t matter when you’re dealing with someone who thinks they’re a mover and a shaker when in fact that person has never moved or shaken.
As I threw back one vodka after another, he regaled me and Lesbian Shelly with tales of his drinking days and claimed that he once knew how to party with the best of them. “I used to pull all-nighters three times a week, minimum. You wouldn’t have even recognized me back then.”
“That’s amazing, Sargeant. You sound so fascinating.”
“But eventually the cat caught up with the canary, and I wanted to live a fuller life.”
“Is that why you’re drinking apple juice?” Lesbian Shelly asked him.
“This is sparkling apple juice, Shelly,” he told her. “I like a little kick.”
“Are you a Republican, Sargeant?” I asked him.
“Well, Chelsea, I wouldn’t use that word, but I am definitely open to tax breaks for the heavily invested.” Then he lowered his head. “Do you mind if I call you Chels?”
“I would mind that very much.”
He threw his head back and chortled. “It’s times like these when I appreciate being sober. I can see the beauty in everything.”
“Well, therein lies your answer,” I declared. “I would never date a sober person. While I have sober friends who are very much fun, I can tell that you are not. You may think you are, but you’re wrong.”
“I love your personality,” he said with a laugh. “You’re a real tough cookie. Everything I heard about you is spot-on.”
“Where did you hear all these things about me?”
“I did my research. You won’t be an easy nut to crack, but every nut is crackable.”
“You sound like you really know your way around the ladies. Do you mind if I call you Sarg?” I asked.
“I wouldn’t mind in the slightest,” he said, holding up his sparkling apple cider to clink glasses with my fourth vodka and Lesbian Shelly’s whiskey.
“You should see her in a bathing suit,” Lesbian Shelly chimed in, raising her glass to meet his and winking at me. “You won’t be able to get enough of her curves. Cheers.”
A bathing suit wasn’t a bad idea to get this character off my tail. In the meantime, I reassured Sargeant that he and I had nothing in common, and even if he fell off the wagon, we never would.
The next morning I found myself wide awake at 6 a.m. I decided to get up and take a good look at my body in the mirror while everyone else in the house was still asleep.
It was a mess. By far the most radical shape I had ever been in. My stomach was in the worst state of its life with no sign of ribs or abs. Pockets of cellulite circled my belly button, looking like a sprinkled doughnut. My injured leg was significantly smaller than my uninjured leg. I liked the size of my smaller leg better, and romanticized about how much smaller I’d be if I had just torn both ACLs at the same time—giving way for my whole body to atrophy.
I needed to get some exercise and get my juices flowing. Early morning was the time of day when a beach is always the most tranquil, and I figured I could have some me time and reflect on what I expected out of life and, more important, what life expected out of me.
I had just read Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning in Africa, and I thought if a man could survive the Holocaust just by fantasizing about his wife and children being united, I could survive four days in the Bahamas looking like a potbellied pig.
The ACL injury and surgery had done a real number on my self-confidence, my body image, and my lack of being able to participate in any sport except drinking. I was finally at the one-month mark, which, per my doctor, meant I could start incorporating biking, swimming, and/or rhino poaching into my routine.
I decided to take a walk along the beach. The beaches had about as much personality as Sargeant. They were flat and straight; from what I could tell, there weren’t even waves or a tide. The setting was eerily reminiscent of the movie The Truman Show. A man-made island created for wealthy white people in the Bahamas with not a black person in sight. Due to the lack of terrain, I was able to walk about thirty minutes just past the main beach club before my leg started to hurt.