American Babe (9 page)

I took a long, weighted look at Donna, long enough to make her squirm just a little bit.

“I used to think it was cool that you were such a bitch but now I think it's sad. Not for me, I'm over that part of it. But for you.”

I flicked my cigarette over the side of the deck and turned back to the door.

“I'm gonna go wake Knox and Cara up, we're going shopping today. Have a wonderful shoot.”

Donna didn't respond, and we never said bye before she left.

“K
nox?” I whispered into the dark room at the top of the stairs. His room was kept neat. No signs of a ten-year-old boy, no posters on the wall, no fucking lava lamp or anything
basic like that. It looked more like an IKEA catalogue than a real room in the real world. Or at least what I'd imagine an IKEA catalogue to look like.

He was sleeping quietly, folded into a ball in the corner of his twin bed. Navy-and-white sheets. Down pillows. Better than the guest bed. Maybe I'd request to sleep in his bed for the rest of my stay. No. Too much.

Waking him felt like a crime. He was so precious there, probably right in the middle of a REM cycle, but he'd asked me to wake him up as soon as I got up, so wake him up I would.

“KNOX!” I screamed.

He literally jumped out of bed. He was wearing black leggings and an extralong T by Alexander Wang shirt/dress. I mean, I used to have the same shirt and I wore it as a dress. It really was a dress, not a shirt. He was wearing a dress. It was major.

“AAAAaarrrrggghhhhhh!!!” Knox screamed back at me like a wild gorilla defending her band. A group of gorillas
is
called a band. And FYI a group of cockroaches is called an intrusion and a group of dolphins is a pod. Google it.

“Ohmigod!! You scared the shit out of me.”

“Sorry, babes! Just wanted to get you up so we could start going through and doing that closet edit we'd talked
about. You know, before we shop. I need to know what type of canvas we're working with. Capiche?”

He looked slightly stunned. I think he was still half-sleeping.

“Okay,” I said, putting my hand on his shoulder and leading him to the bathroom in the hall. “Take a shower, get your shit together, and let me know when you're ready.”

“Okay.”

“In ten minutes.”

“OKAY.”

“Don't fuck around in there. We have a lot of ground to cover, and I'm only in town for one more day.”

Knox shut the door to the bathroom. With it closed, I noticed a framed needlepoint hanging from a small hook on the front of the bathroom door. It said, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness, so be Godly today!”

I took it down and threw it into a bush outside the house.

When Knox was ready I met him back in his room, and we started sorting through his wardrobe.

“So you walk all of your neighbors' dogs after school and use the money to buy clothes and cooking stuff online. That's one of the most beautiful stories I've ever heard,” I said to Knox as I folded an adorable robin's-egg Lacoste polo and placed it in the Yes pile.

“The mall here isn't the cutest. You'll see later. So yeah,
I have to find everything online. And Mom lets me do it on my own now so it's pretty much awesome.”

“I want to cry.”

“Why? Don't cry, please.”

“Ew, I'm not actually going to. I'm just super moved right now by your perseverance, dedication, and overall commitment to not be basic. Despite your surroundings, upbringing, and supposed fate. You're literally changing history by wearing those shorts to school.”

I pointed to a pair of girl's floral Marc by Marc Jacobs jeans that Knox had cut into a pair of shorts. He'd also clearly washed and treated them because their wear was meticulously and beautifully weathered.

“I had Cara drive over them a bunch of times in Mom's car.”

“Genius. I used to make Mabinty do that for me when I would get new white Converse Chucks. We had to wear them in PE at my elementary school and there's truly nothing more off-putting than a spotless pair of Converse Chucks. They can make you look like a sad wardrobe lady at the Disney Channel dressed you.”

Knox broke out in laughter. He was eating up everything I said. This made me feel wonderful, obviously. But it also made me feel sad for him because he hadn't realized yet that I was basically a bitch who lied most of the time. But being around him did soften me a little. It's not like I had a crush on
him because no, but it really was something similar. Minus the sex thoughts. He just made me feel excited to be alive. When we were hanging out, exchanging brilliances, it felt like the time actually meant something. Unlike being back in LA arguing with Genevieve about why she shouldn't eat sushi more than four times a week, or with Roman about why owning more than two Range Rovers made him look like he had a small dick. Which he doesn't AT ALL, making everything that much more frustrating. We literally had that argument and he still bought the third Range Rover, a navy one, claiming that it was for his live-in CrossFit trainer. Lies.

“I haven't ever said this to anyone because I don't actually think I've ever felt this about someone, but I am fucking impressed by your whole approach to life.”

“K,” he said quietly after a few dull ticks from his bedroom wall clock. “That's weird.”

“Is it?”

“I think so.”

“Why?”

“Because I'm so much younger than you. And you live in LA, which is, like, a real place, unlike this dump.”

“Yeah, this place is a piece of shit.”

“I know. And you have a life and write books and have really nice and cool stuff and good taste and you're famous.”

“I'm not famous.”

“Yeah you are.”

“Okay, fine, a little bit. But don't tell people that. It's gauche as fuck to be famous.”

“Okay.”

“Thanks.”

“Uh, sure. And, like, you're just—”

“I can't take any more compliments,” I blurted, interrupting him. “It's making me feel weird. I haven't done anything with my life lately. My stepmother told me I need to get my act together and find a new mantra, so hearing nice things about myself is just creeping me out right now. I don't mean to take it out on you, sorry, let's just do this closet edit. Okay?”

Knox nodded his head and went back to pulling out shirts from the chest of drawers by his bed.

“Sorry, Knox. I think being around Donna has me in my feelings in all sorts of ways. I don't ever talk to her, let alone see her.”

“She's pretty nice, though.”

“Yeah. That's how she seems. And, like, at the end of the day, it doesn't even matter if she's nice or not because she's so hot and so thin and is still a working model, so it shouldn't matter how she treats me . . . us. But she is my mom.”

“I get it.”

“Yeah, you get it.”

But did he really get it? If Donna was, in fact, Knox's mom, then yes he really would get it. I didn't know what to say next so I just stopped talking. I leaned over to the stereo on Knox's floor and turned the music louder. It was an old Miley Cyrus song.

“I love this song,” Knox said a few moments later.

“I hate it.”

T
he mall was about a twenty-minute drive from their house and Veronica was kind enough to let me borrow her car to get us there. I left the headlights of my rental on all night and ran the battery out, so that was no longer an option. Another reason not to rent cars. Vee's was a large hybrid minivan-SUV type thing in an odd green/gray/horrible color so I wore huge sunnies and an Hermès scarf around my head, in case anyone noticed me driving it, because
hello
. We parked far from the entrance, and I smoked half of a joint that I found in my bag on the walk over. I knew I'd need to be a little sedated to deal with the inner truths of a real, American, noncoastal-town mall. I didn't know what type of looks, smells, and sensations I'd be encountering once inside. So yeah, I medicated. Sue me. It was mostly so Knox wouldn't have to see me have a panic attack.

For the first ten mall minutes, I didn't say anything. I don't even know if I was breathing. I just took it all in 'cause
I was, like, really fucking high. The first thing I noticed was that the place smelled like chicken. The food court (is that what it's called?) must've been nearby and its essence was pumped through the entire building. It was like I was being forced to eat with my nose. I also took note of the jarring white light and the remarkable amount of girls in Uggs. Knox had convinced me to walk through hell with him. But that's what you do for family.

After I bought him several fabulous complete looks at Nordstrom (I did my best), we went to this chef-supply store and I bought him a really chic chef-knife bag made of weathered Italian leather. It stores all of his super sharp knives in a roll. Then we decided we should see a movie. Or rather, he decided he wanted to see a movie. He chose something scary about the end of the world, which I'd normally never ever ever force myself to sit through, but Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was starring in it so I obliged. I wanna fuck him. So do you. Try to say you don't want to fuck him. Whatever.

“I'm surprised people allow themselves to eat popcorn with butter,” I said to lil' Knoxie as we took our seats in the biggest theater I'd ever seen. Everything in malls is so large, it's fascinating!

“I know. It's not good for me, but I hardly ever do it.”

“But, like—”

“So fuck it,” he said, sure of himself. I just turned and faced forward.

“Your body, your life,” I said as the lights dimmed and the trailers started.

The movie was boring—people screaming, buildings dying, helicopters, dogs, a Kylie Minogue cameo—but not as boring as it would have been if I was cold sober. Thank God for my little surprise friend that I found in my bag. I was kind of hoping that I'd fall asleep like I do normally when I see movies, but about thirty-five minutes into the film, something strange took place.

So I'd just taken a sip of my “seltzer” (they didn't carry extralarge bottles of San Pellegrino at the concessions counter), and Knox handed me his huge paper bag of popcorn as if we'd been sharing it the entire time. I took it from him, dipped my little hand into the pile of yellow, crunchy stuff, and retrieved a mouthful. Now, if I'd then thrown it at Knox's face and laughed hysterically or even secretly dumped it in the purse of the woman next to me, that would've made sense and fit naturally into the overall Babe Walker narrative, but that's not what happened.

I ate the full hand of popcorn. You heard me. I mouthed, tongued, chewed, and swallowed the mall theater popcorn that was literally still dripping with synthetic butter product. I actually did this. This is my confession to you.
Well, actually, the confession has more to do with how it tasted and what I felt while performing this truly daring and admittedly lowbrow stunt: it was delicious. It was fucking delicious as fucking fuck.

I'd never had movie popcorn, let alone popcorn with butter. I knew butter spray was a thing that existed but I'd never partaken because I don't want butter cancer. I like living too much. But today was not like every other day. My guard was down, I was under the influence of Knox and Maryland and basicness and weed, and I just let it happen.

Upon contact, my lips curled naturally around the heap of yellow kernels. They hungrily pulled the mouthful in toward the back of my throat with help of my tongue, leaving streaks of salt in their path of delicious destruction. My mouth was being terrorized by an army of taste, a murder of wrong, a tsunami of no. Yet, in that shining moment of living quite frankly on the edge of glory, I thrived.

“This is what this fucking tastes like?!” I said at full volume to Knox. Someone shooshed me. I giggled.

“I know. It's amazing, right?”

“AMAZING.”

W
hile on a pee break from the movie I checked my phone and ended up getting into an intense group convo with Roman and Genevieve. I sat on the toilet and texted for almost twenty minutes. Knox was rightfully confused when I returned. Hey, I was stoned out of my actual brain. Time didn't really exist at the time.

There were two missed texts from Roman.

Roman
Babe? Gen?

Roman
Hit me up when you get this. Emergency.

Babe
What's happening.

Babe
I'm peeing.

Babe
It feels amazing.

Babe
I ate butter.

Roman
Are you high?

Babe
No

Roman
But like?

Babe
Yes.

Roman
Okay it's fine. I need to vent.

Babe
Go off bitch

Gen
Hey I'm here. What's up losers

Babe
I ate butter, Roman was about to vent.

Gen
Got it.

Gen
Proceed.

Roman
So I was at Joan's on Third for breakfast today and I ran into Mikey Dutton

Gen
NO

Roman
Yes bitch. I was sitting outside ya know at one of the little tables, enjoying an americano with almond milk and a small bowl of egg salad with tabasco with my new friend Lukas who works at the front desk of my chiropractor's office, we're maybe fucking but that's another story, whatever he's super hot. I'm sitting there laughing at Lukas's boring stories about his trip to Kuwait or Egypt or something and I hear someone behind me go “Roman?????”

Gen
NO

Roman
Yes bitch. And you know I knew immediately who the voice belonged to. I contemplated not turning around and just ignoring it but Lukas was looking at me, waiting for me to turn around and say hi back. I didn't know what to do. My adrenaline was pumping through my pores. I could either get really sweaty and gross and awk in front of Lukas who I REALLY wanted to fuck after breakfast, or I could turn around and face this feces-breathing dragon from hell himself. So I turn around and there he is and he's smiling from ear to fucking ear and he's wearing a FULL look from the
Jeremy Scott Flintstones collection which you know is my least favorite JS collection