Psychos: A White Girl Problems Book (9 page)

Babette 5:45PM
I’ll just become a hooker

Babette 5:52PM
At rehab, Jeremy Piven offered me 20k to fuck him

Babette 5:53PM
I obvs said no

Babette 6:00PM
But now I’m going to text him and see if he wants to cum over

Babette 6:08PM
See ya

Babette’s texting was interrupted by hotel security, who’d come to ask her to kindly go back to her own (my) room. Once she was back in the penthouse, she decided the only thing that would make her feel better was a movie marathon, so she made the concierge get her a DVD of every Nicholas Sparks movie. She kicked off her night with
A Walk to Remember.
All the crying made her hungry, so she called room service and placed a dinner order.

“Hi, let me get two orders of nachos with extra beef and extra jalapeños, two orders of your fish and chips with extra of that white sauce, I fucking love that sauce. Actually, can you put some of that sauce on the nachos too? Thanksies. And fifty fried oysters. Can you also go out and grab me a La Scala chopped salad, add cucumber, and include extra dressing and two seeded lemons on the side? You’re the best.”

Babette had finished
Message in a Bottle
and had made it
through
The Last Song
and most of
Nights in Rodanthe
when she decided she needed a midnight snack. So she had the concierge send someone to pick her up a double double In-N-Out Burger, and also stop by Bella Pita in Westwood and get her a black bean wowshi with cheese and extra onions, and bread. She also ordered a pepperoni pizza and hit on the seventeen-year-old delivery boy by telling him he looked “stupid and dangerous.”

B
y the time I woke up the next morning, I felt like myself again, except for the fact that I was wearing a terrycloth robe and clutching a pizza crust, and the DVD menu of
Dear John
was playing on a never-ending loop. I was also the most bloated I’d ever been in my life, not to mention I’d driven away the only man I’d ever loved, and consumed more than ten thousand calories in twenty-four hours. I was devastated. But worse, Robert was horrified. Even though he said he’d call me, I knew deep down that he was scared out of his mind. And rightly so. We’d had a fucked-up relationship up until this point, but I was starting to believe that I could actually be the one for him. Robert and Babe forever. But Robert and Babe could never be, it would only ever be Robert and Babette. My heart shriveled to the size of a soybean and my life was basically over. What had I become?

W
hen I emerged from my hibernation I felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. My life was destroyed. I had no one to love, no place to live, nowhere to be, no place to go, and no one to cry to. Once again I had lost the battle against my psychotic alter ego. Babette had ruined my chances at a happy ending, but I was Babette and Babette was me. Would there ever be a way to separate Jekyll from Hyde?

I grabbed my iPad to check the
Daily Mail
site and came face-to-face with this:

Nice binge, fatso. I’m gonna have to give you lipo with a knife and a vacuum cleaner.

TTYL

It was written in black lipstick across the screen.

“Noooooooooooo!” I screamed and threw the iPad away from me with such force that it shattered against the wall. A single sob escaped my lips, followed by a much larger one, and before I knew it I’d dissolved into the kind of crying that only comes from feeling completely violated or humiliated. I was alert enough to know that I had to get out of the Chateau as quickly as possible, but I couldn’t catch my breath and my body was trembling out of control. Looking around the suite, I could feel the presence of an intruder. Few sensations are as frightening as realizing you’re not alone when you thought you were. I got dressed, grabbed my purse, and got the fuck out of that hotel. The Chateau Marmont was not safe.

By sunset, all my belongings had been moved back into the guest house, a major security system had been installed, and I’d bought two guard dogs: a Doberman named Larry and a German shepherd named Tarzan. Even though the grounds were “secure,” I was still so shaken by the experience that I spent the next few days moping around like a ghost stuck in purgatory, trying to cross over into the light of the living.

If there was an upside to all of this, it was that it gave me time to try to figure out Babette’s reemergence. I guess I had a pretty serious personality disorder and needed professional help, but not, like, from an astrologer or facialist. There was only one person who’d be able to ease my woes, and that was my old therapist, Susan. The bad news is that Susan had terminated our doctor/patient relationship after a tiny incident (she fell asleep during one of our sessions and I drew a dick and balls on her forehead with a Sharpie in retaliation). One huge
gift basket from Joan’s on Third (her weakness) and an apology from me in person got me back where I needed to be: sitting across from Susan in her safari-chic, super Ralph Lauren-y, Santa Monica office.

“I’m a mess,” I sobbed to Susan. “I have no one. Like, I woke up today and checked my phone and didn’t have a single missed call or text.”

“And how did that make you feel?”

“Um, lonely? Obviously.”

“Mmm. Hmm.”

“This isn’t helping as much as I hoped it would.”

“What do you mean?”

“Paying someone to talk about myself. It’s kinda not as fun after so much rehab. Could I be over hearing my own voice? Oh my God, that’s so dark.”

Susan sighed. “I think it’s time you take action, Babe.”

“Action?”

“Create new relationships. Broaden your social circle. Los Angeles has so many different types of people to offer. Explore that.”

Susan had never been more right in her life. It was obvious that I’d simply outgrown my friendships with Gen and Roman in the process of finding myself at rehab. Yes, I would always love (and mostly hate) them, but I was lost, friendless, and in need of a complete reinvention, again. Also the dark fact of the matter was that Robert and I hadn’t spoken since our Babette/salad tossing/Chateau Marmont rendezvous. It had only been a few days, but he hadn’t gotten in touch with me, and I was far too embarrassed to reach out to him, so I figured he was probably over it. It was
time to do exactly what Susan suggested and go outside of my comfort zone. As much as I hated trying to make friends, it was time to be open to new relationships. Ugh . . . fine.

I
met my first new friend, Téo, one night when I was having dinner with my dad at the Sunset Tower Hotel. I was applying eyeliner in the bathroom when a super famous (but horrible) actress stormed in. I noticed her truly heinous Louboutins before I noticed who she actually was. When we made eye contact, she screamed “Leave!” in my general direction, covered her face, ran straight into a stall, and started snorting lines of blow. I did leave, but only because coked-out famous people scare the shit out of me. They’re like the cheetahs you see while on safari—beautiful, but deadly if you pull out a camera.

As I walked out of the bathroom, I noticed a cherubic manboy leaning up against the wall, chewing gum and texting. His outfit (leather jacket, baggy-ish jeans, Jordans, baseball cap) said “straight,” but his vibe said “gay.” He shot me an intriguing smile. This was my chance to branch out.

“Isn’t she so rude?” he asked. “She’s like my best friend, but she gets so bossy when she’s high, which is, like, all the time these days.”

“Um, yeah, you might want to go check on her,” I suggested as I walked past.

“Oh my God, you’re Babe Walker.”

“Yeah. I am. How do you know that?”

“What do you mean? You’re huge. I’ve read your book, like, twice.”

“Okay, I’m gonna pretend that you didn’t just call me huge because if you did in fact just call me huge then I’d have to turn around, go back into the bathroom, and vom away my sadness.”

“Oh please, you know what I mean.”

“Kind of . . . Anyway, thanks for reading my book, I guess. Cute hat.”

“You’re funny,” he replied. “We should hang out. Is that hot guy your dad?”

“Um . . . yeah?”

“Cool. I’m Téo.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “I’m gonna check on homegirl and make sure she isn’t choking on her own puke in there. We’re staying in the townhouse suite. Come party with us after dinner?”

“I’ll think about it,” I said as I walked back to the table.

Normally I wouldn’t deign to hang out with some weirdo celeb hanger-on, but I was in an especially vulnerable place, given my recent friend divorces, and in this case I was kind of the celeb who was being hung on to and that made me feel better about myself. So I finished dinner with my dad and up I went.

Téo answered the door with a full glass of whiskey in his hand. The suite reeked of Marc Jacobs Daisy and cigarettes. He dragged me into one of the bedrooms, past a few random crowds of random people smoking and not really talking to each other. No sign of the actress, but I had a feeling she was lurking in one of the bathrooms. Téo smoked a joint, I secondhand smoked a joint, and we had a totally deep conversation about how scary wealth can be. I confided in him about my stalker, he told me it was probably just an obsessed fan of my book, which I highly
doubted. We even kissed for like five seconds, but he didn’t get a boner.

Téo paraded me around the room, introducing me to all of his friends. “This is Babe Walker, creator of White Girl Problems. She basically changed the landscape of social media,” he told everyone. Téo knew everyone so well, or at least he made it seem that way. If you know the first thing about me, you know that I have a strong distaste for small talk, especially when it’s about myself and my career, but I was being open. So the night called for a lot of very quick mind-centering mantra reps and about six hundred Marlboro Lights.

Later, my new bestie told me that he and another guy also had a bonerless make-out encounter in the bathroom, so I accepted Téo as a chic asexual bisexual and proclaimed him my new Genevieve and Roman combined. I don’t know what exactly Téo did for a living or where he came from, but everyone greeted him with a smile. I’d never seen anything like it.

By six a.m., everyone besides me was beyond fucked up. The actress had emerged from the bathroom (I was right) and was naked except for a thong, a fur coat, and a HUGE Rolex (which turned out to be stolen). She writhed around on the floor while Téo played a Lou Reed record and took pictures of her with his vintage Leica. He even got a shot of her throwing up into a Birkin filled with cash. It was kind of the most artistic thing she’s ever done, besides
Machete.
I mean, I would totally buy that photo to put in my pool house or something. When the actress started going around the room pointing at all the guests one by one and calling them “fucking retarded,” the party was officially over.

The next morning, I woke up to this text:

Téo 7:48AM
Baby muffin, wake the fuck up and come to the pool. We’re relaxing. Wear something vintage. T

It was at this point that I realized Téo must not sleep, ever. I obviously had nothing to do all day, so I obliged.

When I got to the pool at Sunset Tower and located my new friends lying out next to a table of booze and untouched food, I texted Téo.

Babe 11:40AM
I’m here. Where are you?

Sometimes, when you arrive somewhere, it’s a good idea to pretend you can’t find the person you’re meeting, even if you’re looking right at them. I can’t really explain why, but it sets up a good power dynamic between you and your friends. Also, approaching large groups of people alone is not cute.

Téo 11:41AM
I’ll come get you.

He came and swooped me up, leading me to his group of friends, which included the actress and several other girls who were dressed eerily like the actress. Everyone was sporting vintage, but in an acceptable way, not a Coachella way. No one was talking. They all were sitting calmly flipping through crisp issues of
V
magazine,
Vogue,
and British
Vogue.
I wasn’t entirely turned off by the vibe, which was a huge relief. Thoughts of my stalker occasionally popped into my head, especially when someone mentioned anything to do with lipstick (there were a lot of heavy lipstick scenarios going on with these girls), but I was able to keep my anxiety to a minimum.

“Everyone meet Babe Walker, creator of White Girl
Problems. She basically changed the landscape of social media all from her phone. And she wrote a book,” announced Téo.

“Hi,” I said to the bevy of bikinied zombies.

“We have,” said the actress, not looking up from her magazine.

“Excuse me?” I had no idea what she meant by that.

“We have met. In the bathroom . . . and in the room . . . and now. We know each other. I know about your book—it’s funny. And if you’re friends with Téo, then you’re safe.”

“Um . . .”

“Sit.”

It was like she had this weird command over everyone—including me. I sat down at the foot of an empty chaise. The whole thing was very shameful for me. My power play had gone to shit.