White Girl Problems

by Babe Walker

  I also made a huge mistake by showing up to the first day of classes sporting a really floral D&G dress/cardigan look. I must have looked like the kind of girl who wanted to braid other girls’ hair and lend them tampons and make signs written in bubble letters for their birthdays, because I had never been approached by so many sorority girls in my life. Let me assure you—I’m nothing like that: (a) I don’t touch strangers; (b) I don’t want to hear about your period; and (c) I hate sorority girls and their fucking problems. After that fashion misstep, I changed my whole aesthetic to resemble Stevie Nicks meets Go Fuck Yourself by wearing layer upon layer of black. I also took up smoking Marlboro Reds and model-scowling at everyone to ensure that I would have no unwanted interactions. It worked, thank God.

  Another annoying thing about USC is that it’s full of dorky film guys. I thought this would be good, considering I needed to build some sort of acting reel, and who better to employ than nerdy, wannabe-Scorsese types who jizz their jeans when a girl gives them the time of day? Well, it turns out all these guys wanted to do was drench me in blood or make me the centerpiece of their horror fantasies. At the end of the semester my reel was more Babe Walker: Saw Victim, and less Babe Walker: The Next Julia Roberts. Not cute.

  After one semester at USC, I was so over skipping class to practice monologues in the library bathroom, and so over smoking two packs of cigarettes a day, and so over being over it, that I dropped out of school altogether. Actually I didn’t so much drop out as get suspended, for consistently parking wherever I wanted at all times. I didn’t tell my dad or Tai Tai though. They would have flipped. Instead of going to school, I’d go over to Roman’s condo in West Hollywood, lie out by the pool, and work on my tan. I also visited Gen every other weekend in Palo Alto (not that chic, but tons of smart Jewish guys). Then I started dating this annoying but muscly gorilla bro-man, Carter, so he took up a lot of my time as well, and when he cheated on me after a few months, getting revenge on him became a full-time job.

  My dad was furious when he found out I wasn’t in school anymore. When I tried to explain to him that the pressures of being a struggling actress, coupled with my boy troubles, were too overwhelming for me to handle, he was a little more understanding. However, he forced me to take general education community college courses over the summer so that I would at least have one semester of credits under my belt. I was so afraid of being seen on a community college campus that I went to all my classes in head-to-toe disguise. I’m talking oversized sunglasses, floppy hat, red wig. I even gave them a fake name, which it turns out you can’t do, because then your credits don’t get recorded. Oops. Dad’s fault.

  I’m too pretty to be crying right now.

  It was Saturday night, the summer after my first year of college. I had a birthday party to go to, and the guest list consisted of rappers, rappers’ sons, rappers’ sons’ girlfriends and friends, video vixens, and old Jewish managers. It was going to be a huge party, and I was totally in the mood to grind like a snake and dance to some real hip-hop music. I had given some serious thought to how I could reconfigure my entire look for this party, because it wasn’t in the right place to be going to this type of event. I was inhabiting the world of Chanel-at-the-turn-of-the-decade, when I needed to be on a private jet to Roberto Cavalli–land. It would not be okay for me to just roll up to Snoop Dogg’s birthday party in my black Mercedes E350 Coupe wearing a blazer and skinny jeans. I needed to amp it up with a backless dress and an event-appropriate hairstyle, driving an enormous car. I had my concept for the night’s look and I was married to it. The End.

  I texted Carter, my boyfriend at the time, to see if I could take his car because it was this monstrous Cadillac SUV thing that was so fucking big, oh my God you would die if you saw this car. So rude.

  Babe 4:59PM

  Don’t plan on using your car tonight. I need it for a meeting.

  Babe 5:00PM

  It’s really important, and I’m like, crazy busy organizing everything right now, so I’ll explain later. Love you.

  Carter 5:10PM

  No can do beautiful. boys nite 2nite

  Babe 5:11PM

  a) don’t ever call me beautiful again, it’s offensive and b) what do you mean by boys night? like what is that supposed to mean to me? I don’t want to start a fight, just wondering

  Babe 5:23PM

  Fine. you go on boys night, but let me take the car

  Carter 5:25PM

  Sweet, I’ll just drink more if I don’t have to drive. Will u give me a beej on the way?

  Babe 7:45PM

  Unclear. Pick me up at 9.

  Carter 7:46PMk

  He picked me up at my house, and I dropped him off at drinks or whatever he was doing with his buffoon friends. Carter’s friends were the worst type of trustafarians. So loud. So smelly. I told him I would text him later, and that was that.

  Rewind, backspace, flashback for one second: the thing about Carter is he was kind of a douche bag. He wore Christian Audigier hoodies, with wifebeaters and Air Force Ones. He’d make me eat at places like Ashton Kutcher’s restaurant, and he’d force me to go to horrible, LA-based magazine parties and sit at corner tables with him and his friends, where there was always a reality TV camera crew around. You may be wondering why I would put up with all this nonsense—it was because Carter was amazing in bed. We would have sex for hours and hours, and he did this thing with his tongue that I will never tell you about because I’m a lady. On the surface, he left a lot to be desired, but there was something so appealing about his lack of interest in all things that I might find interesting. You know, when a guy is just dumb enough to make you feel smart, but not so dumb that he makes you feel dumb for dating him? That was Carter.

  As soon as I pulled away from the joke of a bar where Carter was meeting his friends, I parked his SUV and did what any devoted girlfriend would do: I searched every inch of his car for evidence that Carter might be cheating on me. I thought he had passed the test until, just as I was about to accept that Carter was a trustworthy non-idiot, I noticed an unfamiliar lip gloss in one of the cup holders. It had been sitting there the whole time. Staring at me. Some kind of sick, strawberry, Bath & Body Works BULLSHIT LIP GLOSS WITH SHIMMER. I. Would. Never. Under. Any. Circumstance. Ever. Do. Anything. With. Shimmer. Ever. I was coming to the edge.

  Babe 9:47PM

  Are you having fun?

  Carter 9:51PM

  You just dropped me off. Jeff brought coke. Ima get hiiiiiiiigh! Gonna miss you.

  Babe 9:51PM

  Awesome! I’m coming to pick you up. Emergency.

  Babe 10:00PM

  Carter

  Babe 10:01PM

  Carter.

  Babe 10:04PM

  Carter. Carter.

  Babe 10:05PM

  Carter.

  Carter 10:15PM

  are u ok??

  Babe 10:16PM

  I’m outside.

  I pulled up to the bar, where Carter was outside with two of his friends having a cigarette. He looked surprised to see me.

  “Carter, come here. I need to ask you something,” I said flatly.

  I heard his fat friends making fun of him, which I loved.

  “I’m with the boys, beautiful. I’ll text you later.”

  “Nope. Later doesn’t work for me. Get in the car.”

  He was embarrassed, and started walking up the street with his friends, in an attempt to ignore me. Infuriating. I crept along next to them, continuing to yell, so pleased at how humiliating this was for him.

  “Carter, I’m giving you ten seconds to get in the car.”

  “Dude.”

  “Get in the car, Car.”

  “No.”

  “GET IN THE CAR!”

  People on the street were starting to stare.

  “Why you acting so weird?!”

  “GET IN THE FUCKING CAR!”

  “No! Leave me alone.”

  “GET IN THE CAR!”

  At this point,
strangers were laughing, and yelling at Carter to get in the car. His face was bright red. It was amazing.

  “FUCKING GET IN THE FUCKING CAR, CARTER!”

  He hurriedly walked over and got in the car. People were clapping. He looked miserable. I was ecstatic, until I remembered why I had him get in the car in the first place. Then I was furious.

  I hit the gas, speeding off in the direction of his house. I grabbed the lip gloss and screamed, “What is this?”

  “Yo, Babe, you’re acting crazy right now.”

  “WHO IS SHE?! WHO IS SHE! WHO IS SHE, CARTER? TELL ME. WHO IS SHE? DO YOU LOVE HER? BECAUSE I FUCKING HATE YOU. WHO IS SHE?”

  Carter was terrified and admitted that the lip gloss belonged to some girl he’d met at a club the weekend before, when I was “out of town” (chemical peel). Apparently, they’d fucked, but “she meant nothing to him,” and he was “sorry.” Bullshit.

  As I pulled up to his driveway, I reached over Carter’s lap, opened his door, shoved him out of the car, and threw that nasty lip gloss at his face.

  “SEE YOU NEVER, BEAUTIFUL!!!” I screamed.

  As I drove off, I could hear him yelling and asking stupid rhetorical questions like, “What the fuck?!” and, “Are you serious right now?” What a fool. I was so humiliated and angry. I parked his car in front of the nearest fire hydrant I could find, threw his keys in the bushes, and called Mabinty to come pick me up.

  Sitting alone, on the curb, I broke down. How could a capital “S” Shithead like Carter think he could get away with this type of charade? Not only did he betray my trust, but he destroyed my chances of having an amazing evening at Snoop’s party. I’d worn Cavalli for nothing. It was all so sad.

  Of course, I spent the next twenty-four hours locked in my bathroom crying, moaning, and pushing things off the counter. I wouldn’t even let Mabinty come in to console me. She was only allowed to pass kale smoothies through a crack in the door without looking at my face, which was a swollen mess of mascara and dried tears, as she tried to talk me down.

  “Babe, yuh don’t need to worry. Dat pretty boy jokestah won’t be nuttin to yuh ina di long run. Be dun wit him. He nah mattah.”

  When I ran out of tissues, toilet paper, and tears, I pulled myself together, washed my face, and emerged from the bathroom with one purpose: to make Carter’s life a living hell. It wasn’t that I had any feelings for him, beyond having good sex and driving his massive car. It was that there was no way I could allow him to think that he’d gotten away with cheating on me. It was time for me to exact retribution. My revenge would need to be calculated and meticulous. Much like throwing a party, I was shooting for a harmonious cohesion between agenda and location, and all members involved had to be accounted for.

  I decided to stage an intervention for Carter’s obvious “sex addiction” at his parents’ house. The guest list included: Carter’s parents, his grandmother, his siblings, the priest that baptized him, and his ex-girlfriend. I had Mabinty pose as a professional interventionist and organize the whole thing for me. She’s obsessed with the movie Desperado, so as you can imagine, she was on board with my total revenge story and wanted to be in on it. Plus, she owed me for a gram of pot I had spotted her from the week before.

  Everyone Mabinty invited to the Cartervention agreed to attend. You’d have to be a real dick to blow off an invite to an intervention, but I won’t say I’ve never done it. I mean, my cousin was addicted to gum. Not my issue.

  I showed up to the intervention in a creamy, blousy, collared agnès b. top, black J Brand skinnies, and spiky Louboutin heels, with a big gray YSL Muse bag. The top of my body was reminding the world that my emotional state was fragile, even lost, while my bottom half was all about a strong sense of purpose. I named that look: The Dichotomy of Babe’s Power.

  You could have cut the tension in Carter’s family’s living room with a dull knife. He looked pretty mad at me, but also kind of high and confused. His mom was sitting next to him, holding hands with his dad. Beneath her new face, you could see that her old face was sad, but you had to look deeply into her creases. I was happy to see that Father Andrews had been able to make it. He added that necessary faith-based realness that all good interventions must have.

  Mabinty was a total pro at leading the intervention. She’s always full of fun surprises like that. She greeted everybody by their first name and informed an increasingly frazzled Carter that we were all there to support him and wanted to help him find his way through his painful addiction.

  “We all know what we gwaan do here. Carter havin’ a prablem in his pants yuh know. We all cum today to tel’im we dun. We dun wit di lying, we dun wit di cheatin’ and stealin’. Carter, yuh bahdah mi Babe, den yuh bahdah-rin mi. We came here to try to save yuh life.”

  After Mabinty’s meaningful opening words, Carter tried to interrupt the intervention, but I handled that by telling him things like “It’s fine, Car. We’re here for you. The truth is out now. You’re going to be free soon.”

  Then Carter’s grandmother, Lillian, took a moment to tell a touching story about Carter masturbating in her powder room as an eleven-year-old. Sicko. I remember having a moment where I actually asked myself if Carter did have an addiction. Had my prank gone too far? Or become too real? Whatever. He deserved every minute of it. No one cheats on me. Not even John Mayer.

  Everyone besides senile Lillian was pretty shocked. Carter’s mother was sobbing, his father was shaking his head and had the most disappointed look on his face, his brothers looked terrified, and his ex looked like she was going to puke. The time had come for me to read the letter that I had written to Carter. I can’t remember the whole thing, but it went a little something like this:

  “Dear Carter—”

  Carter’s head was in his hands, and he was staring down at the floor.

  “Dude, seriously. This is so fucking stup—”

  “DEAR CARTER. I loved you. I can’t go on living any longer knowing what I know and not doing anything about it. You mean too much to me, and frankly, I’m scared that your addiction will only get worse. Your addiction has affected me negatively in the following ways: Since we started dating last month, I feel like you’ve objectified me, and treated me like I’m just a hole. When you talk about other women, including your own mother, there’s violence in your voice. Even when you look at other women, which is very often, I get scared that you’re going to jump on them. You’re addicted to sex, and you’re addicted to your dick.”

  At this point I pulled up a slideshow containing every sext message and picture of Carter’s dick/balls that he had sent me over the past month. I continued. “You’re constantly masturbating. Your computer is full of porn. You need help. It’s really sad.”

  Then I capped the moment by pulling out a folder of porn and a bag of dildos and pocket pussies that I accused him of making me hide in my car. Ta-dah!

  I had the room in tears by the end of my monologue. Easily one of my best performances. Carter was slumped on the couch. He had learned his lesson, and honestly, his punishment thus far had been sufficient. I thought it was over, and we could all go home and take our respective showers, but I was wrong. Carter’s parents took the intervention so seriously, and had clearly watched so many episodes of that TV show, that they decided their only choice was to send their son to true-blue rehab. So, just like that, he was whisked off to an exclusive rehabilitation facility in Malibu. Suck my dick, Carter.

  I may have lit the match, but it was karma that kept the fire blazing. Sure, I went to extreme measures to get revenge, but my father always taught me to stand up for myself. There is nothing prettier than a woman with confidence. If you’ve ever been cheated on by someone who really should have been cheated on by you, then you know exactly what I went through, and you would totally agree that I did the right thing. So thank you for understanding.

  My first trip to jail was not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. Supercute mug shot though.

  I thought th
at my dad had relinquished the idea of me attending college, since I clearly hadn’t taken to it, but he was insistent that I try again, this time suggesting that I attempt a more serious education at a more serious school. At the end of the summer, he called in a favor with one of his old college buddies from his Cambridge days and got me into some stupid school I’d never even heard of.

  Brown University

  The great thing about Brown is that tons of celebs’ kids go there, and the awful thing about Brown is that tons of celebs’ kids go there. What people don’t get about most Ivy League schools is that at least 15 percent of the student body is there because someone called in a favor. I guess I should have felt bad to have taken a more deserving student’s place, but I was actually glad to be leaving LA. My dreams of being the next Cate Blanchett weren’t panning out, and my dad was dating a psycho gold-digger that I just couldn’t deal with. I also wasn’t going to be missing out on much socially. Gen was wrapped up in some sick relationship with one of the guys who invented Facebook, and Roman had left LA to do a study abroad program in Croatia. It was time for me to spread my wings and leave the nest. Providence, Rhode Island, was not really my East Coast destination of choice (I prefer NYC), but I felt like I could get behind a New England Colonial house moment. I mean, they’re gorgeous. What’s not to love?

  I was entering as a freshman at age nineteen. This was only mildly embarrassing, because I arrived at Brown looking fifteen, thanks to having three microdermabrasion treatments and a tri-enzyme resurfacing facial the month before I left. I arrived in a collegiate ensemble of Louis Vuitton monogram everything, but had packed mostly Prada, Chanel, a couple Hermès pieces, and several furs in preparation for the cold weather and preppy student body. The campus was gorgeous and old, but I was expecting to be staying in my own place. I’d gotten a letter saying I’d be living in “Plantations House,” which I interpreted as being a charming, Civil War–era estate, and I had already mapped out my decorating scheme. It wasn’t until I arrived at registration that I discovered that “Plantations House” was in fact a “dorm” building, and that I was going to be living in a “dorm room” with a “roommate” named “Christine.” Never. Upon hearing this information, I immediately turned and walked in the opposite direction until I arrived at a chic little art school that was practically across the street.