Babe Walker Read online

  Dedicated to Michelle Obama

  one

  So, I met Jack not long ago when we were seated next to each other for a tiny dinner party at this art dealer guy’s house (who I met at another tiny dinner party in Park City two to five years ago, can’t remember). Jack isn’t the type of guy I normally want to get naked with. Meaning he has a shaved head and wears a lot of designer streetwear. He’s objectively super hot, but in a fuckboy kind a way. His aesthetic is Kanye on a spaceship, high on edibles, flashing through space giving zero fucks. As I say that, I realize how catastrophic and two-seasons-ago that sounds, not to mention problematic, but I’m telling you whatever he was selling that night, I was buying in bulk.

  He took me to lunch the next day. I ordered an iced tea. He had a glass of red wine. Neither of us ate food. We started dating and by dating I mean fucking. Big dick. A few days later we were on our way to a romantic getaway in Napa. I’d been whisked away. Chic or not? I wasn’t clear on it but I agreed to go anyway. I was bored as fuck in LA.

  “I don’t know if I’m just going through a majorly fucky phase right now, or if you’re actually attractive. What do you think?” I asked Jack after staring at him for two minutes straight from the passenger seat of his iridescent-bronze Porsche Cayenne. We were zipping down the 5 and his driving was making me feel unsafe, which I loved about him. California flew past him in the window.

  “I love how you think,” Jack said with a laugh. “You say what you mean. Even when it’s like, really mean.”

  “Thank you. That means a lot to me.”

  I continued to stare at him. My question hadn’t been answered but I decided that the answer was that he was hot. I knew he wasn’t fully hot, but I also knew he wasn’t fully unhot, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. We were already halfway to Napa and there was no turning back. Besides, the last time I jumped out of a moving Porsche, I fractured my wrist. No, thanks.

  “The hotel is nice. I think you’ll dig it,” he said with a confidence that was pretty typical for him. Everything Jack said was low-key bragging.

  “Well, of course you’re gonna say that. Your family owns it.”

  “Oh, that’s right! I totally forgot that,” he said. So annoying/so cute.

  I had a cigarette and did some breath-counting exercises until I fell asleep. I wasn’t about to sit there and talk to him about Game of Thrones or whatever the fuck he was gonna want to talk about for the hour and a half until we reached our final desty.

  The sky was a lavender color when I woke up. It was dusk and I felt renewed from my nap.

  “Can we please get a drink, like immediately?” Jack said as he put the car in park.

  “Oh my god, yes. I was going to suggest the same exact thing. I just need to change really quick and do a super quick yoga and FaceTime my therapist and steam in the shower, like super duper quick.”

  “Okay let’s go to the room so I can take a shit and then I’ll go to the bar downstairs. You can meet me there.”

  “Where do you want me to meet you? I blacked out after you talked about shitting.”

  He gave me a look of disappointment, like I should know better than to be appalled and offended by his childish, violent choice of words.

  I looked him directly in his eyes.

  “Jack?”

  “What?” he said looking away, grabbing his Vuitton duffel from the back seat.

  “I’m gonna tell you this one time. I came on this little trip because I needed to get out of LA. I was bored as motherfuck. All of my good friends are on work trips, whatever the fuck that means, my skin has been oily, my entire cleaning staff had the stomach flu last week. I fled. Okay? I’m here for me. So, when you give me looks and talk to me like I’m one of your top-knotted bros who you go to Burning Man in a helicopter with, it makes me think I’ve made a grave, disastrous mistake in coming with you. It makes me feel trapped.”

  “Okay. I didn’t—”

  “And when I feel trapped, it’s horrible. Oh, it’s so bad, Jack. You would fucking freak out if you saw how bad it gets when I feel trapped.”

  “Okay, dude.”

  I glared at him. His upper lip curled the slightest bit. I wasn’t clear if that’s because he was too dumb to understand the severity of my warning, or he completely understood what was happening and was smiling to usurp control over the power struggle situation I’d just initiated

  I rolled my window up and grabbed my bag. I had my Balenciaga straw bistro bag with me that day, which I thought was perfect for the event of “long car ride.”

  “Let’s have fun together. I’m for the most part in a really good place right now and my spirit is poised to shine. Just don’t be a loser or I’ll get sad and make this whole weekend really weird and hard for you.”

  Before I left LA that morning I’d made a promise to Mabinty, my house manager/friend/confidante/mother figure/lover/jk not lover/ew/sick, that I’d be a stronger woman when it came to taking other people’s shit. She said I’d softened over the last year or so, in good ways and in bad, and that my edge had been slightly smoothed over. This observation, especially coming from the woman who knows me better than I even know myself sometimes, was shocking and annoying, to say the absolute least. So I was testing out Old Babe’s approach for a change. I was honoring Mabinty and myself by being a cunt to Jack.

  “Okay, Babe. You’re insane and I love it. Meet me at the bar.”

  And it was working.

  My me-time went wonderfully, thank you. Got a great little thirty-minute set of sun salutations in, cleansed, and changed. It was hot that day, so I dressed really slutty. I wore a silk Zimmerman wrap dress, no bra, no underwear, and super high, fuck-you, color-blocked Loubs. I looked insane and by insane I mean literally gorgeous. You know when you put an outfit on and it simply gives you chills in the mirror. And you know deep inside that the function you’ve just dressed for isn’t actually worthy of the look’s inaugural presentation but you love it so much that you can’t take it off? That was happening. Jack, and greater Napa Valley to be honest, didn’t deserve the look but they all were gonna get it anyway because I was in a giving mood.

  I grabbed my bag, an embroidered Chloé crossbody, and skipped my ass down to the bar to meet Jack.

  I didn’t really skip, I just walked. I don’t skip.

  “You look cute,” he said when I sat down next to him at the little table in the back of the barely lit bar. It was chic. Morrocan-y vibes were happening. I knew as soon as I walked into that bar that at least two hundred couples had had sex in the bathroom there.

  “Thank you, Jack,” I said, “you look the same.”

  “Thanks,” he slurred. That’s when I realized he didn’t look the same at all. I was totally lying. He looked wasted. His eyes were glazed over and there was a stain on his shirt.

  I checked the time on my phone. It’d been three hours since he left me in the room.

  Great.

  “I had an idea that I wanna run by you,” he said loudly, no control over his volume.

  “Tell me,” I said, scrolling through old emails that I’d already read.

  “Okay! Okay, here’s what I’m thinking we do.” He took a gulp from the frosty copper mug in front of him. What was he drinking, Moscow mules? Jesus Christ.

  “I’m thinking we get a little drunkser, some drinks, some wine, I dunno, whatever you want, we are on vacaaaaaaation! And then we zober up for a few mints, take an Adderall or something so I can get in the groove et cetera et cetera et cetera, and then you me go back to that room and fuck fuck fuck whaddya think, little lady?”

  Fuuuuuuuuck.

  I didn’t exactly know what to s
ay so I just pursed my lips and looked at him for a while, watching his red face contort uncomfortably as he tried to not only maintain eye contact with me but also smile without looking drunk. If I wasn’t so deeply offended by his level of fuckery and shenanigans, then I would’ve died laughing.

  He continued before I could say anything.

  “So, you thinking about that, good, good. Hey!” Jack shouted at the cocktail waitress standing at the end of the bar. He lifted his glass above his head and shook it around. She looked at him like he was crazy.

  “Hear that?” He continued to shake his drink with such spirit that one rogue ice cube flew out and nearly landed on me. The waitress looked at me and silently asked me with her eyes if I had any idea what to do.

  “That’s the sound of an empty-ass draaaaaaank.”

  “Oh my god, Jack . . .”

  “Am I being loud?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, oh, oh, okaaayyyy. My bad, ladies, my bad.”

  Jack stumbled up to his feet and made his way toward the waitress.

  “I’m sorry,” I could hear him try to whisper to her, “I didn’t mean to yell. I wasn’t thinking.” He smiled and slapped the waitress’s ass. “I’m onna romannic geh-way with that girl over there.”

  Jack turned around and pointed to me at the table behind him. But I was gone. No. I had already gotten up and started to walk out but watched him for one last moment by the door. I was out before he could see me leave. I wasn’t gonna do all of this mess. Not on a trip that I’d taken for me. This was not a babysitting gig.

  I didn’t know where I was, where I was going, or how I was going to find my way back to LA, but I just kept walking.

  “Babe!”

  I turned around to see Jack standing outside of the hotel bar with a face on like a puppy. A sad, homeless, please-rescue-this-poor-sick-dog kind of puppy.

  “I’m not doing all of this childishness, Jack. Enjoy yourself, though.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” He walked toward me, one drunken, labored step at a time. “Babe. Baby. Baby Babe. Come to Jacky.”

  I couldn’t hold it in any longer and I started to laugh.

  “Whazzoooohh funny?” shouted the sad clown in front of me.

  “Look,” I started calmly, “I just needed a breath of fresh air, that little bar is cute but cave-y and I was starting to feel, well, trapped. And we went over me feeling trapped and its ramifications. The look wasn’t right for me. So just go back in there, apologize to that poor girl for touching her, leave her at least a three-hundred-dollar tip, and I’m gonna do quick lap of the grounds to clear my head.”

  “Soooo, we’re not gonna fucky fucky soon?”

  “I don’t know, Jack. Just give me a minute of me-time.”

  “Don’t you just, like, take me-time, like just now? I feels like I haven’t see you in a day. I miss my lady—”

  I walked up to him and kissed him on the cheek to shut him up. I couldn’t deal anymore.

  “You should eat some food. Go clean up whatever mess you made in the bar and meet me in the restaurant over there, I’ll be waiting.”

  “You don’t want to help me clean up and maybe we have one liiiitle baby more drink? One more?”

  “No.”

  And I started off away from him. I knew then and there that I would never lay actual eyes on Jack again.

  “See you soon, princess!” he shouted at my back. I just kept walking. Lolz.

  In what was one of my most efficient tears of pure “get-me-the-fuck-outta-here,” I ran up to the room, grabbed my shit, and hightailed it to the closest chic hotel. Once there, I finally needed/deserved a drink. Of course, their bar was booked for a rehearsal dinner that night. Don’t have your rehearsal dinner at a bar. So I walked down the road to a local bar with a neon sign that said STAN’S, so I guess it was called Stan’s.

  By this time I’d changed into something more casual, more appropriate for the function, more wine country—a yummy cream-colored Margiela shirtdress with a pair of Golden Goose sneakers, hair in a high pony. Refreshed, renewed, still lost as fuck, but at least I was away from Jack (who BTW had called and texted me thirty-three times by the time I sat down at Stan’s).

  The bar was filled with taxidermy and smelled like the floor was made out of old beer. But it was working for the mood of the evening. It was crowded enough that I didn’t feel suicidal sitting alone, and empty enough that I didn’t feel suicidal sitting alone.

  I found a stool and cozied up at the long, shiny wooden bar. By the way, don’t get used to me in bars alone. It’s not normally part of my repertoire but times called for measures, you know.

  “What can I get ya?” said the bartender standing in front of me. She was a small woman with huge tits.

  “Hi, um, I’ll just have a glass of rosé. But fill the entire glass, please. I’ll pay more, I just don’t want to have to flag you down for another glass in five minutes.”

  She smiled as if she knew what I’d been through earlier, she was totally a mom of, like, five kids, I could just feel it. Her kids’ names were: Bennett, Brooklyn, Barrett, Bonnie, and Boo. Or something like that. When she came back with the overflowing glass of wine, I received it with open arms and an open heart.

  “You have a wonderful aura. Just thought I should tell you,” I said.

  “Why thanks, honey. And you have beeeeeautiful hair. Just thought I should tell ya!”

  “Thank you so, so, so much. I’ve had the world’s shittiest day, my boyfriend died today,” I lied, “and I now I’m just out here in a bar alone. I don’t even live here. I feel fuckin’ crazy, to be honest,” I lied again. I didn’t feel crazy at all. In fact I felt wonderful. I had my wine. I was away from Jack. I was a lone wolf in the chicest way possible.

  “You poor thing, oh my gosh.”

  “Don’t pity me, please. I’m totally fine; I just need to center myself a little bit, you know. And this rosé will definitely help the cause!”

  “Good, good. Well drink up, sweetie. It’ll all be okay after a few glasses of wine.”

  “So fucking true,” I said with a smile. We were basically mother and daughter at this point.

  She was called over to the other side of the bar by an obese man in a faded crewneck sweatshirt that said, “LIFE IS LIKE A FART. IT STINKS, IT’S AWKWARD, AND THEN IT’S GONE.”

  Wow, I thought to myself. Just wow.

  But next to the fart guy I noticed this kind of pretty, youngish girl, also sitting alone. She immediately reminded me of someone I used to know when I was a kid. She had one of those huge iPads out in front of her. She was holding a glass of wine in one hand and typing furiously with one finger on the other. I couldn’t fully make out her facial structure, but I also couldn’t stop staring at her.

  I took a few sips from my glass. Fuck, the house rosé at this piece-of-shit bar was actually delicious. Then I looked back at the woman down at the other end of the bar. Then a few more sips, then back to her. I was obsessed with figuring out how I knew her. Was she the girl who used to come by dad’s house selling Girl Scout Cookies? No. Maybe she was on that field-hockey team I tried to be on until they kicked me off for spitting on people. No.

  Ugh. I couldn’t bear it anymore. I needed to know.

  “DO I KNOW YOU?!” I shouted at her from across the room, loud enough to beat the music coming from the jukebox. She looked up, trying to find the owner of the voice that just screamed at her, confused.

  “Hi!” I yelled.

  She found me and squinted to make sure it was me who was talking to her. She examined my face, my energy, my vibes. I smiled to offer her my full, vulnerable self. I could feel that together we would figure this out. Was she a sister I never knew I had? That type of shit happens to me, I’m serious. My family is insane.

  The look on her face went from confusion to sheer fright. She
looked at me for one more sec and then quickly gathered her shit and bolted for the door. She was running from me. WTF.

  As she made her way out of the bar I noticed that she was one of those people who walks on their toes, making their step buoyant and nerdy.

  I knew then who she was.

  two

  Christina Reynolds.

  That name obviously isn’t going to mean much to you, but trust and believe that when I realized who she was, my heart sank out of my chest, then fell out of my ass and hit the edge of the stool, spiraling toward the ground like that one body in Titanic that hits the huge propeller on the way down to its icy death. Christina was, unfortunately for her, the brunt of some of my worst (best?) bullying throughout high school.

  I know. You’re not only shocked that I used to be a bully, but you’re disappointed. And it’s the disappointment that is killing me right now. I was awful. I mean, I was brilliant at my craft, but my intentions were abysmally dark. We all had that one girl in school who you simply couldn’t stand, whose presence made your world stop, whose voice was threatening to your physical health, and whose existence was an assault on your entire life. Whether you loved her or hated her, she just had a certain power over you.

  I was that girl for Christina Reynolds.

  She wasn’t just running out of Stan’s because I was an old school chum with whom a reunion would be awkward and pointless, she was running for her actual life.

  Sitting at that bar, still unable to get up and run after her, a scene flashed vividly through my brain.

  It was 2002, late spring.

  Winona Ryder at Saks was a thing that had just happened, shaking the world to its core. Tom Green was famous enough to star in movies. The R. Kelly sex tape. President George W. Bush. It was a weird time. We were all lost.

  School was a few weeks out from breaking for summer. People were generally in good spirits. That semester, I had bio with Christina. We were actually partners for our final project, which was something to do with frogs, I think? I really don’t have the brain capacity to retain “science.”