Divorce, Drinking and Dating

by Danielle Prahl

  I responded, “Listen. If I have a baby with someone, I am pretty sure I would want them involved. I would want a partner. I would want the help. Not a paycheck.” His response killed me.

  “Well, what if I bought you a house on Balboa Island, got you two nannies, and made sure you had more money than you would ever need to live? Would you consider it then?” I had no response to this. It was so beyond my realm of normal that I just didn’t respond.

  “Why have you come up with this?” I asked, honestly wanting to know the answer. He said he had to use the restroom. I ordered an Uber, walked out, got in the car, and headed home. He texted and called me. I shut my phone off and went to sleep. The next day, I woke up to a text: “I am sorry if I was too forward. It was such a pleasure getting to know you, and I hope I didn’t ruin my chance to get to know you more in the future.”

  ???????

  And then I realized he had pulled a leave-behind-sunglasses-in-purse move. When did men start doing the leave-behind? I looked at the sunglasses and figured if he could afford to pay 200 grand for a woman to birth his child, he clearly could afford another pair. I chucked them in the trash and went for a run to clear my head.

  Chapter 17:

  Birthday Boy

  I met a new guy. I know, exhausting keeping up with me at this point. However, I didn’t do it on purpose. And between the whirlwind of my life after marrying a sociopath conman, handling our bills by myself, and dealing with a divorce on my own, who can keep up anyway? My neighbor D invited me out with him and his girlfriend to our mutual friend’s birthday party. Being that I had nothing to do that day, I decided to go. I had taken some time off from going out, not because I didn’t like to, but because I literally felt like life was too exhausting to keep up with. I couldn’t cope. I didn’t feel like myself, and I’d had a few odd nights. I was starting to view humanity in a dark and dingy manner, and I realized it was probably a good idea to be late to the party for a while or to just not show up at all.

  However, Hesh, our friend whose birthday we were celebrating, was super cool, and I knew I’d have fun. They also invited me to the pre-party at D’s, and we were all going to take a limo together. I obliged, because it was easy, and I wore the easiest dress I could find that took the least amount of work. It happened to be a red halter dress I’d bought years before. I wouldn’t say I felt sexy in it, but it was the best case scenario with what I was working with. Zero effort involved. It was go time.

  We all got in the limo and went out to Aqua, a local nightclub that was the weirdest fucking place on the planet. It was like Miami circa 1989 with a lot of cougars who’d had bad plastic surgery, as well as bottle rats just trying to find a free drink. No offense, I mean, believe me, I chased free drinks when I was 19 to about 22. But, past that age, you should be more selective about what you are drinking, not to mention at least be able to afford two drinks and get yourself drunk enough to find a nice, lonely man to buy you a third and fourth of your own selection. Just my observation. Anyhow, the crowd that night was super awkward. I looked around at a place I used to go to with my husband and used to find non-threatening and fun. Now, all I could see literally was a sea of sharks and chewed up minnows. I was fresh bait. Not as fun on the other side of things.

  I decided to leave our bottle service tables (all three of them) behind the DJ booth and wander around, because I was bored. Life must have more to offer than this. I ran into a few friends and ended up going outside to get some fresh air before I had a full-blown depression panic attack. These two men sauntered up to me and keep commenting on how amazing my red dress was, and; “What made me wear the red dress tonight?” They interrupted my mid-midlife crisis and got me laughing. Okay. I didn’t have the heart to tell them it was the only thing I easily found to put on and really didn’t put any effort into it, but they seemed impressed, so I let it go. One of them was very good-looking and the other was his hysterical friend. They talked me up. We talked shit. They offered to buy me a drink, and I said sure! The hot one, who we will call “Sir,” told the bartender, “She wore the red dress, get her whatever she wants.”

  Well, I ordered myself a vodka soda, and he ordered a Corona. I saw a random guy friend across the way and waved at him. He ended up paying for the drinks, and awkwardly asked me out again (he had proposed at a bar once kind of jokingly in the past). I declined. I’m not sure Sir noticed. The bartender gave us our drinks, and he went back to his group of friends. I handed Sir his Corona and proceeded to go back to chatting with him and his friend Matt. Sir went on about how he wanted them to play his favorite song and how I would never know what it was. I wouldn’t guess it in a million years.

  I said, “Well what could it be?”

  He said, “It’s by e-40.”

  I said, “You mean ‘Choices’? Yep. Nope,” reciting part of the lyrics.

  He seemed impressed. I found it nostalgic, because I had been listening to it on repeat for three weeks straight. He was slightly aloof but incredibly sexy. My friends kept walking by and trying to lure me back to the table, but these guys seemed super fun and different from the rest of the crowd, so I stuck around. We talked about the Wolf of Wall Street, which I had watched the last three nights in a row, and they started calling me “The Duchess.” They then tried to inform me I was the hottest girl there, at which point I just assumed that either they were shit-canned or thought that I was inept enough to believe such smooth-talking nonsense. Unfortunately, I was divorcing the smoothest talking liar on the planet. At this point, I understood all the games.

  Matt disappeared at some point with some girl he ran into from high school. Sir and I started dancing, and suddenly, the lights awkwardly turned out. The party was over. Matt returned and tried to order a shot, but they weren’t serving anymore, so he disappeared again with the high school girl. Sir turned to me and said, with mouth-chewing action, “I need food. Want to get some?” and we went outside to try to get an Uber to go find food, which meant I was ditching my party and their limo service, but hey, I figured they were all couples, what did they care?

  The only after-hours spot for food nearby was IHOP. So, there I was at 2 AM, sitting in a booth at the International House of Pancakes, wearing Louboutins, chatting with Sir. He was very different from anyone I had met before. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. He seemed slightly moody and kind of unassuming, which I found attractive. We both ordered ham and cheese egg something sandwiches. He asked if it was okay if he sat next to me, which was cute. Most guys these days just try to invite themselves into your vagina without so much as a shared gesture, so I thought it was cheeky. He paid the check and said, “Well, where can we go? My car and all my stuff is at my buddy’s house and I don’t have any way to get into my place.”

  Um. Was this a line? He seemed like he knew how to play the game better than that. I played along. It was well past 2 AM, so it wasn’t as if we were going to another club. My neighbor D and all my friends went to an after-hours spot, and I suggested we meet up with everyone there. He declined. I said, “Well, I live down the street, so I guess we can go there? You are welcome to stay, but if you are a weird serial killer, be warned, I have no problem murdering you.” Plus, I thought if this was one of those, “Let’s go to my house and watch a ‘movie’ type of plays,” then, my friend, you got a new thing coming to you.

  Now, I had never really brought a guy to my home like this, especially since I had roommates now. But his friend had left him behind and all of his stuff was at his friend’s house, so I figured, what the hell. He seemed genuine and kind, and in a hard spot. Plus, I was experimenting. He offered to sleep on the couch, which was kind, but I said it was okay if he wanted to sleep in the bed. He asked if he could take his pants off and assured me he would be a proper gentleman, which I slightly didn’t believe, but conceded, to see where he thought he was going with this.

  I had a dream that night that I dropped him off at his house, and that he called me later and I could hear him with a la
dy in the background and a crying baby. In my dream, he had a wife and a child. I woke up in a cold sweat. I didn’t sleep well because one, I was sleeping in my own guest room, and two, there was a strange man in my bed. Yet, he was indeed a perfect gentleman.

  In the morning, I noticed he had a tattoo on his arm of a child. “Who is that?” He told me, “That’s me when I was younger.” I didn’t respond, but I could tell he was lying, plus he didn’t seem ridiculous enough to have his younger self emblazoned on his arm for life. I decided to let it go. He asked if I wanted to get breakfast, and I said sure, not knowing how good of an idea this was going to be, but at this point, he seemed pretty great. I think he was just pacifying me to burn time, but hey, we would see what happened. A girl’s gotta eat. We went to breakfast at some place in Newport, a little diner that Sir loved. Our waitress kept talking to me about her child. Sir seemed super interested in what age the kid was and how all of that was going. I found this endearing. He then asked if he should Uber to his friend’s house in Huntington Beach, which I know nothing about, but being kind, I offered to take him. He had me drop him off, and I assumed I would never hear from this guy again.

  He texted me the next day and asked if I would like to go see a movie. I was slightly amused, because nobody really invites people on movie dates anymore. He asked what I wanted to see, and my mom kept telling me I had to see Trainwreck with Amy Schumer, because I was basically Amy Schumer and the movie was pretty much written for me. I decided this was a good movie for us to go see. We went to R + D Kitchen, had dinner, and then went to the movie. He ordered a water at dinner, and then another one at the movie, which I thought was odd. During the movie, he kept touching something in his sock, and at one point, he poured his cup of water out, thinking he was being sneaky. He also kept putting something in his mouth, which I found odd. I even think I heard some sort of biting.

  Fuck. This guy was totally on some sort of prescription pills. He seemed distant, his eyes seemed slightly odd all night, and now he was sneaking some shit in the movie. He wasn’t drinking, although he didn’t claim to “not drink,” so at this point, yeah, I had pretty much narrowed down that he did some sort of pills. “Great,” I thought, “Here we go again.” The movie was slow and awkward. It was like watching paint dry. We left. I hated the movie. He said he didn’t like the movie either. We got back to my house (How did we end up here again? Most men like to go to their places.) I confronted him about the pill thing.

  “So, dude. What exactly were you doing in the movie? I know you were hiding something.”

  “Oh, well, I don’t want to tell you,” he responded.

  “Are you on pills or something? I know you were doing something.”

  “Okay. I chew tobacco.”

  “Oh, that’s all? Can I have some?” I responded. I was from Wyoming, for goodness sake. Where I grew up, everyone chewed tobacco.

  The next day, we went out for dinner and he seemed nervous. Not in a like “oh, a new girl! Let’s impress her” sort of way, but like an “announce the death of a family member” kind of way.

  He started the conversation point blank. “Do you like kids?”

  I wondered in what sort of way. Was I a child molester, did he mean? Or did I want to have kids, like tonight? Was I being offered money to have one (again)? Did I want them someday? Or, did I like them in general? Let’s just say it could have been taken a lot of ways.

  “Yeah, I like kids,” I said, while casually drinking a glass of wine.

  “I have a three-year-old.”

  Gulp. “Oh. Okay. What’s his name?”

  He explained to me about his son and how he was getting divorced because his ex-wife was cheating on him. He was wishy-washy about the timing, but it seemed it was only about five to six months ago, which was funny, because so was mine. His child tattoo made sense now, not that I didn’t have an inkling. I found out later his divorce was not final. So, technically, my dream was correct. Guy had a child and a “wife.”

  Now, all of this should have worried me, especially because he never asked me questions about myself, and most things we did discuss were about him, but I let it go because I was too out of energy in life to make a big deal out of it. The more we hung out, the more I liked him, but his soon-to-be ex-wife texted him about 100 times a day. Sure, I could believe that the texts were about the kid, if I were born in a barn and dumb as a pile of rocks. As a child of divorce, and being raised around lots of other people who have been divorced, and going through one (sorta) myself, I would have to say that their relationship was odd. They were obviously leaning on each other for emotional support in some way, and it was hard to lose that connection when you are co-parenting from afar and spawned a child together.

  This fact alone kept me from taking it too seriously. I realized that I would like to, but I’m pretty sure they were still tied up in something. Would they get back together? Could be drama. I was also probably not in the most positive state of mind, to be with a man who was newly divorced, since I was as well. Or, not even divorced, since I guess he was still legally married at this point. I couldn’t really judge him for it, as these things take time, but I didn’t want to do something out of ease and comfort rather than passion. And everyone deserves a little passion in life. We seemed to be in similar states of mind, which made it work between us, but I just didn’t want to be taken for granted or pay for someone else’s mistakes.

  Sir invited me over to his place for the first time, and I took an Uber there. I told my Uber driver all about Sir, because Uber drivers were the new free therapists, just like hairdressers used to be. She told me I should just go for it. I arrived at Sir’s house, and he was on their patio having a glass of whiskey. I sat down, and he brought me some wine. I didn’t know exactly how comfortable I was supposed to be here. All of the sudden, I heard, “Daddy! Daddy! Where are you?” and he booked it inside to tend to the child. He was gone for about 10 minutes or so, and returned. We chatted for a bit.

  “Daddy?!” He went back inside. This cycle continued about three more times before I asked him if I should just go. Not that I minded he was tending to his child, it was pretty attractive actually, but I just felt in the way at this point. He explained that his kid’s birthday was the next morning and he was used to sleeping with Sir, so the kid was more amped up than usual, and thank you so much for coming over, but it was more or less time to Uber home.

  I heard once more, “Daddy, daddy!’ and off he went again. I didn’t know if I should leave this time or stay to say goodbye. It was an awkward, in-between moment. Then, he came out, holding his half-asleep son and introduced us. “This is Danielle.” I didn’t know what else to say. “Pound it.” And I offered a fist up. He obliged and off they went back upstairs. Had I just meet this guy’s kid? I didn’t know how to feel about it. He came back down and said goodbye so I could get my Uber home, and off I rode into the Orange County darkness.

  Chapter 18:

  How to Burn Your Old Life Down

  After several months surviving on my own, and selling everything of value just to get by, and my friends/bosses at my real estate work screwing me over financially, I started to panic. I had sold my wedding ring. I had been working nonstop. I was exhausted. I had had no time to process anything. I got letters from my soon-to-be ex-husband constantly. I would get barrages of emails, texts, letters. Our place reminded me of him. Everywhere I went there were memories, haunting me like a bad dream. I had to change my phone number more times than I would like to admit, because he somehow found it and repeatedly called. He owed me a lot of money, got some back from taxes, and sent it to his mother instead. Awesome.

  So, I was stressed. Like, beyond stressed. Like, so stressed I couldn’t even function. You know it’s bad when your phone ringing causes you to almost have a mental breakdown. The funny part is when you are stressed, and people yell at you for being stressed, because they think it’s about them. It’s like, um, no, not all of the world revolves around you. Believe me
, I wish it did, then I would have less responsibility.

  After a long talk with my cousin, and several sleepless nights, I realized that if I continued down this path around these people, I was never going to heal correctly. It was like a broken bone. If it didn’t get set right, it would never heal completely. So, I needed to get set right. Yes, I am referring to myself as a broken bone. I also had been so focused on just surviving that I hadn’t had a lot of time or perspective to think clearly. I spent all of my time worried about making money, making sure my friends weren’t mad at me, taking care of my divorce, putting out all of my ex’s fires, trying not to disappoint everyone, and just making it through the day in general.

  I realized that if I didn’t find out how to make a bunch of money quickly so I could relax a little, I probably needed to go home to the middle of nowhere and just take it easy for a bit. Like a sabbatical. This was the worst-case scenario for me. I started to brainstorm the best ways to make fast cash, you know, the legal way. Drug dealing and breaking into cars were out, my hands are too delicate for all that. Plus, I didn’t want to end up cellmates with my ex.

  I started by looking around at people who made a lot of money and cruising Craigslist. As a female, here are the plethora of awesome options I came across:

  A “high-class escort service,” where you “aren’t required to do anything you don’t want to do.” Yeah, right. They always say that. It basically means, “We can’t require you to bang people, but if you don’t, you won’t get clients, then you won’t get paid.” Not going to work for me.