Undiscovered Gyrl: The novel that inspired the movie ASK ME ANYTHING (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Allison Burnett

  “What?”

  “Make love with you. One last time. No strings attached.”

  There was silence.

  He can’t resist me.

  I’m his heroine.

  I whispered “Just call me whenever you want me.”

  Then I hung up.

  Hahahaha!

  I know it was whorelike behavior but I felt happy for the first time since he dumped me. Too bad it didn’t last. All I want to do right now is crawl back under the covers and not come out till Monday morning.

  • • •

  I haven’t showered since yesterday morning. I smell French! Aaaaggghhh!

  Don’t read my life. Go live your own!

  I don’t really want to make love with Dan one last time. I want to marry him. Have his babies. Crazy, I know, but crazy is very now. Being out of your mind is totally in. Rage is all the rage.

  I read an Us magazine today. I am not sure how old it was but it was all about Britney Spears going insane. With police in her house she locked herself in the bathroom with her baby for three hours. When she came out she was only wearing underpants. Can you imagine a world famous celebrity walking around with her boobs hanging out? Lucky cops! She went completely berserk on them. She kept screaming for her vitamins which is her nickname for her illegal meds. On comment boards everybody was laughing about the incident, trying to predict how long it will be before she kills herself, but as a person who has gone insane I know how tragic this story really is. A true heartbreak. Like the astronaut who drove across the country to get her man back and wore a diaper so she wouldn’t have to stop to pee and poo. People mocked her too. I guess the thought of insanity is so scary for some people that they have to laugh it off. But it’s not funny at all when you’re the person. I would give anything to take back both my drive to Dan’s house and my offer to have sex with him again. Where is my pride? Who is there to teach a girl pride?

  Sunday, January 20, 2008

  I just rocked Joel Seidler’s little Jewish world by calling him. Even though when we had dinner I promised him we would be friends again, I knew he didn’t believe me, which was smart because I was blatantly lying. But now that I am a crampy pitiful, lonely half-orphan, I can’t be too choosy. We’re meeting at a bar with a heated patio where we can smoke ourselves to oblivion. Last one to cough up a tumor is a rotten egg!

  LATER: 11:03 p.m.

  Having drinks with Joel was either a really healthy thing to do or a really terrible mistake. I can’t decide which. I just know I’m in pain. You decide, okay?

  As soon as we sat down I told him about my dad’s death so I could get all the sympathy out of the way, then I brought up what I really wanted to talk about. I gave him every single detail of my visit to Dan’s house and of the phone conversation when I offered him more sex. Joel kept shaking his head like I was a real piece of work.

  When I was done he said “I told you to stay away from him but you didn’t listen.”

  When he saw my totally blank face he smiled and said “You didn’t just ignore my advice, you forgot it!”

  We both laughed and I apologized for being so lame. He asked me if I had called a psychiatrist yet. I told him I definitely would.

  Then I said “In the meantime you be my shrink, okay? Tell me what’s wrong with me.”

  I was semi-joking but he didn’t notice.

  “You won’t get defensive?” he asked.

  His face was so serious I almost started laughing. I just shook my head. Joel talked for like the next half hour straight. I don’t remember all of what he said but the bottom line was that he thinks I am a self-centered borderline-insane nympho. Oh and an incipient alcoholic too. (I didn’t know what the word meant either. I just looked it up. It means I am not a drunk yet but soon.) He said the reason I drink so much and have so much stupid sex is to numb my pain. He said I have a lot of sadness inside me but also tons of anger against men. He said that if I don’t deal with it I’m going to end up hurting myself or others. He also said I am way too skinny and have major food issues. (What hot gyrl doesn’t?) He also said thank god I deferred college because it would have been an unmediated disaster for me to be there right now, especially with my father dying. He thinks I might have ended up jumping off my dorm like he almost did.

  The whole time he was listing everything wrong with me I kept arguing with him in my head, thinking of how I was going to defend myself when he stopped. But deep down I knew he was right. I am much more screwed up than I admit. When he was finished I thanked him for being so honest and I promised him I would think about everything he said. He was really impressed with my maturity. Inside I couldn’t wait to escape. It all felt so urgent. I just wanted to be alone. Now I am and I wish I weren’t. I might even go down the hall and see if my mom is still up.

  Monday, January 21, 2008

  Martin Luther King’s federal birthday was celebrated today but I still had to go to work.

  Tuesday, January 22, 2008

  I was about to go home for the day when Paul sat me down and told me that there were going to be some changes in the household. Starting Friday, Margaret is going back to work part-time. I pretended to be totally surprised. He said it was a small job redoing some rich dude’s media room. She will be working from 10:00 until 2:00 for about a month. This means we will all have to adjust to meet Cole’s needs. Margaret will start pumping and freezing her milk, which will make it possible for me to feed Cole when she’s away. Paul said he will make sure to come home for lunch every single day so Cole will only be without both of them from about 9:30 to 12:00. I think this is really intelligent planning. It’s going to be hard for Cole to have his mommy gone. He’s had boob on demand since the second he was born.

  Driving home I heard on the radio Heath Ledger died. Drugs I’m sure. Such a waste. When I got home I crawled into bed and cried over it. Which is weird since I’ve hardly ever seen any of his movies. I just felt so sorry for his cute girlfriend and their little baby with no daddy. At one point my mom knocked and asked if I was all right. I said “Yes, go away!” I am sure she thought I was crying over my dad. Hey, maybe I was. Hahaha!

  Wednesday, January 23, 2008

  Long walk with Cole. Freezing but the sky was blue. Cole was so quiet I kept stopping and checking to make sure he wasn’t dead. Why is my mind so negative? He was fine, of course, just thinking. Is that possible? To think without words? How about to feel with only words? Possible? Get back to me on that. In the afternoon while Margaret was napping, I laid Cole on his floor mat. I sat next to him and watched TV Cole suddenly decided it was time to flip over onto his stomach for the very first time. He struggled and struggled and then did it. He plopped right over. He was so happy! Such a major achievement! I screamed with joy. Margaret came running down the stairs. She thought he was choking or something but when she saw her baby boy on his stomach, smiling with his hands out at his sides like he was flying, she put her hands on her cheeks and burst out crying. By the end of the day Cole was flipping back and forth, like he’d been doing it his whole life. Wouldn’t it be amazing if that happened to grown-ups too? One day, boom, everything turns upside down and you realize that there’s so much more to the world than you ever thought?

  Friday, January 25, 2008

  Margaret started her decorating job today. It was fun to have the house all to myself. It was even more fun knowing that Paul was coming home for lunch. I made sure Cole was fed and napping by the time Paul walked in, so we could eat in peace.

  Paul and Dan are brilliant in different ways. Dan mostly knows about film and literature. Paul knows about sports, politics and the stock market. Paul is also way more into current events. Especially the presidential election which we discussed during lunch. Usually I don’t like to admit my severe ignorance but since there was no way I could fake it, I told him the truth. I said that I know very little about politics but I want to learn because this is the first election where I actually get to vote. He explained that we are heading
toward a huge recession and that the environment is in serious trouble (this I know) and that the war in Iraq has cost us trillions of dollars and our national soul. He likes Obama because he believes nothing is more important than change right now.

  “Hillary’s not change enough?” I asked.

  “Not even close. She’s just the male version of her husband.”

  I thought that was pretty funny.

  Sometimes when I am alone with Paul, I can’t think of anything interesting to say, so last night, knowing that we were going to be having lunch together, I reread what I blogged about World War One (the stuff Glenn A. Warburg taught me), and today at lunch I regurgitated it. But I did it casually, like it was just one of many historical topics I am an expert on. It impressed the shit out of him.

  “I knew I was right to recommend you for admission,” he said.

  “Even though my transcript sucked.” “No, it didn’t. It was just undistinguished.” “Because I didn’t apply myself. I hated high school.” “Yeah, you mentioned that during your interview. More than once. I liked your candor.”

  I gave him the hugest smile. “Well, I knew I was right to defer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If I hadn’t deferred I wouldn’t be sitting here right now with you.”

  This was the first time I have ever intentionally flirted with him. I couldn’t help it. Anyway, he liked it.

  When Cole woke up, Paul played with him for a while then helped me change his poopy diaper. Instead of going back to the office, he went upstairs and worked on his computer till Margaret got home. Later at the door Paul handed me my pay envelope. It seemed thicker than usual so when I got to my car I peeked inside. Was there extra cash enclosed? Nope. Something even better. A piece of paper folded around the money. It said:

  Dear Miss Kampenfelt:

  Since you once expressed a desire to learn some of the bitter truths of human existence that young people in their blind arrogance refuse to consider, here are a few for your reading pleasure. There are many more, but I don’t want to scare you so badly that you panic and attempt a return to the womb.

  10 Bitter Truths

  Complete honesty is a complete lie.

  Money is essential to long-term happiness: romantic love is not.

  Every human being is a paradox. Some hide it better than others.

  All sex has consequences, most of them dire.

  Marriage is sacred only to those who have never been married.

  Never underestimate the tendency of human beings to act contrary to their own best interests.

  Were it not for the fear of getting caught, most of us would behave like savages.

  The older you get the faster time moves until months pass like days.

  There is no such thing as living happily ever after.

  The world only gets worse.

  I have nothing to do tonight (as usual) so I am going to buy some beer and curl up with this shocking list. I will reflect on it and then Monday I will talk it over with Paul. It was so cool of him to take the time to write it for me. My father never did anything this generous and thoughtful. Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone else has either. Paul is truly special.

  Saturday, January 26, 2008

  I was bored this cold winter afternoon so I called Joel Seidler. I was hoping he would have some insightful opinions about the list of bitter truths that I could use for when I talk to Paul. When I was done reading them out loud, Joel asked me where they came from. I told him and he said “Oh, shit. He wants to have sex with you.” I told him he was soooooo wrooong! Then he asked me if I had found a good therapist yet and I replied “Oops, call waiting! It’s my mom! Talk soon! Bye!”

  Barrack Obama kicked major ass in the South Carolina primary election tonight. I watched his whole acceptance speech so I could discuss it Monday with Paul. His main topics are basically hope and change. He makes the future seem amazing. He inspires young people to feel like anything’s possible! I so deeply want to believe he’s right. I hope nobody murders him before I get a chance to vote.

  Sunday, January 27, 2008

  I just wrote a fistrate blog about the ten bitter truths and then dleted it by acident. I am a insipid drunk gyrl. A reel non-starter. Not sublime at all. And no way a pardox. I hop no hangover tomorrow!

  Monday, January 28, 2008

  I’ve been home from work for ten seconds and I am already writing to you. There is no one else in the whole world I can talk to about this.

  Shit. Knock on door. Stand by.

  It was my mom, wondering why I ran up the stairs so fast. I told the nosy bitch my bladder was full.

  Okay, here goes. Everything was totally normal when I got to work this morning. Margaret was upstairs feeding Cole. Paul was reading his Wall Street Journal and sipping his coffee with two sugars and a splash of low-fat milk. At 8:30 I took Cole out for his morning walk. Two minutes later he made the biggest poo ever. I knew because I could smell it even outside in the wind. It’s terrible to let a baby sit in his dirty diaper for too long, especially one who has a butthole as sensitive as Cole’s, so I turned the stroller around and ran home. As soon as I walked in the back door with Cole, I knew something was wrong. I could just feel it. The silence was tense and massive. Like in a horror movie when the music suddenly stops and you know some seriously scary shit is about to go down. Then I heard yelling upstairs. It was Paul. This shocked me because he is the last person in the world I would expect to yell about anything.

  He was saying something like “What? No! I don’t expect you to be perfect! That’s all in your head! I just expect you to keep your word!”

  She yelled back “Jesus Christ! Stop being so dramatic! It’s only a couple more hours a day!”

  “That’s an eternity for a baby!”

  “Bullshit! Don’t tell me a few extra hours is going to destroy him! Kids are so much more resilient than you think! I am so sick of you telling me how to raise our child!”

  “He’s not a child! He’s an infant! You’re his whole universe! And now suddenly he’s only going to see you for a few hours in the morning and a few at night and you think that’s not going to be traumatic?”

  “Only for you. Get out of my way!”

  “Don’t walk away from me!”

  “I’ll do as I please! You’re not my god damn father!”

  “Yeah I know that. Do you?”

  “Fuck off!

  I heard Margaret walking down the stairs. I grabbed Cole’s diaper bag off the counter and ran back outside. I hurried into the garage and laid the diaper mat on the hood of Paul’s BMW. I laid Cole on the mat and performed the fastest diaper change in history. What was really lucky and amazing was that he didn’t cry at all. I threw away the dirty disgusting diaper then ran outside and strapped Cole back in his stroller. The front door slammed. I saw Margaret walking to her car which was parked out front. I think she was crying. As soon as she drove away I wheeled Cole down the driveway as fast as I could. The back door slammed. I turned my head around and saw Paul walking into the garage. I ran away before he pulled out.

  Finishing the walk, all I could think about was that the Spooners have a hidden world I know nothing about. Obviously a lot of the ways that Margaret raises Cole are not her idea at all. They are Paul’s. For all I know she hates RIE and hates sharing their bed with the baby. Maybe she doesn’t even want to breastfeed him. Maybe she hates being a perfect homemaker too. I have no idea. But it’s pretty obvious she is not happy and really misses her decorating work. I don’t blame Paul for being pissed. You think you married one person and then they turn out to be somebody else. What a painful shock.

  I am remembering Paul’s bitter truth #5: Marriage is sacred only to those who have never been married.

  At lunch Paul returned from work carrying two big salads. We ate them watching Sports Center while Cole bounced in his bouncy chair. I knew any minute Paul was going to bring up Margaret and I was right. He looked nervous and said tha
t for the next six weeks or so, instead of working from 10:00 until 2:00 Maggie would be working from 10:00 to 6:00. It turned out this job was a lot more involved than she thought. Paul said he would help out with Cole as much as possible but he would really appreciate it if I could give them an extra couple of hours a day.

  “No problem,” I replied. “As much as you need.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve got no life.”

  “Thanks so much. I owe you one.”

  “One what?” I asked all big-eyed and innocent but with a naughty smile.

  He wagged a finger at me like “You are so bad.”

  We both laughed then went back to crunching our salads. We didn’t talk much for a while. We just watched the sports highlights. We were both excited and embarrassed at the joke I made. A few minutes later I looked over at him and his beautiful brown eyes looked very sad. I don’t think he ever thought his gorgeous dream wife would disappoint him like this. He probably thinks that if she was really happy being a mother and a wife, she wouldn’t have agreed to such long hours.