Psychos: A White Girl Problems Book (16 page)

“I offer my sincerest apologies for this misunderstanding,” said the mustache man.

“What is your name?”

“Sergio, Miss Alexandrov.”

“I once had a boyfriend named Sergio. He was very athletic, loved to ski.”

“That’s nice, Miss Alexandrov.”

“Unfortunately he also loved to fuck whores.”

“Oh.”

“Shortly after I discovered Sergio’s habits, he suffered a terrible skiing accident and broke both his legs and a rib, and his beautiful face was forever mangled. It was quite the tragedy. But very karmic, if you ask me. Now”—she reached back into her purse and pulled out another wad of cash—“how about that room?”

“I’m sorry, Miss Alexandrov, but as I said before, the entire hotel is booked.”

Thalia kept telling Sergio about all the horrible things that
had befallen those who had wronged her and kept asking Sergio for a room, and Sergio kept saying that the hotel was full. I was kind of zoned out until I locked eyes with Magnus. “Help us, Babe. Help us,” he seemed to say. I love huge dogs. So much chicer than tiny dogs. Magnus’s aura reminded me of my dearly deceased rehab dog, Soda Water, so I got up and walked over to Thalia, who was in the middle of describing to Sergio how a waiter had once served her a dairy-based soup and his balls had mysteriously been cut off the next day. I crouched down next to Magnus.

“It’s okay now,” I whispered with a reassuring smile. “Babe’s here.”

“Namaste, my queen,” said Magnus with his eyes.

I rose to my feet.

“Sergio, please move the contents of my luggage room to the storage safe downstairs, and place Magnus’s belongings and his owner in there for however long they wish to stay.” I looked back down at Magnus. “I just can’t have you shedding on any of my chunky knits.”

“Certainly, Miss Walker,” said Sergio with a smile.

“Thanks, Serg.”

“I can’t thank you enough,” said Thalia, giving me a stiff hug. “I’m Thalia.”

“I know. You’ve been screaming your name for the past twenty minutes. Anyway, I’m going up to my room.”

“Is that dress Alaïa?”

“What does it look like?” I responded without turning back around.

And with that, I went up to my room and passed out.

I woke up to the doorbell ringing. It was about three o’clock the following afternoon. I pulled off my eye mask and stumbled over to see who was harassing me.

“What is it?” I muttered, opening the door.

“I am so sorry. I did not mean to wake you.” It was Thalia and Magnus. “We will come back later.”

“No, it’s okay. Come in.”

“I just wanted to bring you some champagne and marijuana to say thank you for letting us stay in your luggage room.”

“Oh, no problem. You’re welcome.”

“Would you care to get high with me?”

“Um . . . sure, why not?”

We sat down on one of the sofas and Thalia lit the joint, taking a long drag.

“Fuck this fucking place,” she said, exhaling. “I cannot believe they lost my reservation.” She passed the joint to me.

“Yeah, that totally sucks.” I took a hit. Notes of strawberry, mellow aftertaste.

“I usually stay in this suite.”

“Oh. Sorry?”

“It’s fine. I am over it.”

“I was originally going to be here for a couple days, but I extended my trip and paid extra to rent it out for the rest of the month, so that’s probably why your reservation got all fucked up.”

“Ha, yes, probably. Well, whatever. This trip has been doomed from the start. I was supposed to meet a lover of mine here, but his flight got canceled and he’s not coming anymore.”

“Oh. Your boyfriend?”

“No. My boyfriend’s back in Spain, attending a charity event. This man is an artist I see sometimes. We make love, and he paints me.”

“Cute.”

“What are you doing in Amsterdam?”

“Oh you know . . . just chilling out, drawing, doing a bunch of drugs, not eating, hiding out from a stalker. The usual.”

“A stalker?”

“Yeah, like someone who is obsessed with me and follows me around leaving notes—”

“I am familiar with the term ‘stalker.’ ”

“Okay. You seemed confused.”

“No. Do you know who your stalker is?”

“No.”

“Well, that is quite the accomplishment,” she said, smiling.

“Are you kidding? It’s terrifying.”

“Nooooooo, no no no. It is chic.”

“How is someone trying to murder me chic?”

“Because it means that there is someone out there who wants you, who cannot stop thinking about you,” Thalia said, opening the bottle of champagne and walking over to the bar to grab a couple of flutes. “For all you know, this ‘stalker’ you speak of could be your soul mate who just doesn’t know any other way of communicating his or her feelings.” She carefully poured two glasses and held hers up.
“Za vas,”
she said, nodding to me. We clinked. I took a sip.

“I highly doubt my stalker is a hot guy who’s dying to meet me,” I said.

“You never know,” she said. She finished off her drink and
poured herself another glass. “My father is, like, this kind of important person in Russia, so I had a stalker when I was seventeen. His name was Yosef, and he’d write me notes every day and wait for me outside of my school. One night my bodyguard caught Yosef in my room, watching me sleep, and he went to prison. But I’d seen a picture of Yosef in the papers, and he was a beautiful twenty-one-year-old man. Not so scary. I wrote him letters for a couple of years while he was incarcerated. Then we were lovers for three months when he got out. Best sex of my life.”

“Why did you guys break up?”

“I got bored and slept with another man and Yosef tried to kill us both. He’s back in prison now. Probably forever.”

“You’re insane,” I said.

“I know.” She giggled.

We both started laughing hysterically. It was really nice meeting someone who was crazier and slightly less pretty than me.

“I have a wonderful idea,” declared Thalia. “Let’s fly to my dad’s chalet in Gstaad. The ski season just started and all my friends will be there. We need to get out of this awful hotel.”

“I don’t know. I really can’t deal with flying commercial right now.”

“You are in luck. I have my pilot’s license and my plane is sitting in a hangar at AMS.”

“You flew yourself here?”

“Some girls are into horses. I am into planes.”

“Chic.”

“Yes, I know. Will you join me?”

“Don’t you want to get back to your boyfriend in Spain?”

“Absolutely not. Everyone thinks princes are the most glamorous boyfriends, but they smell and they’re all racist.”

“Right?! I’ve been saying that for years.”

“Except for Prince Harry. He has a magnificent penis.”

“Tell me about it. I’d fuck him.”

“As would I. So what is your decision, Babe Walker? Stay here and hide out from this stalker person, or come away with me to Gstaad?”

Gstaad it was.

T
he flight to Switzerland was only mildly frightening (six-seat private planes are glorified death traps, in my opinion) and we made it to Gstaad in one piece. Thalia’s dad’s chalet was kind of everything. A quaint ten-bedroom, thirteen-bathroom A-frame home, with a beautiful pine exterior and intricately carved white wood balconies outside every room. What I loved about it most is that it was super rustic on the inside, with plush couches and sheepskin rugs and tons of pillows, but it also had some of the most modern amenities I’d ever experienced. I’m talking electronic toilets with facial recognition, an espresso machine built into the wall, and a water spigot near the sink that spouted ice-cold Pellegrino. Obsessed. I had my own suite (of course), but I mostly stayed in Thalia’s room because we’d stay up all night talking and laughing.

Thalia was incredibly cool. I liked her because she was like me, but Russian. This meant that she drank vodka like it was water, and was always impeccably dressed. I’m kind of nymph-y and can pull off the whole chicly disheveled LA
thing when I want to, but Thalia would never deign to step out in public without perfectly blown out hair, heels, and a dress. She never wore pants. It was kind of major. We also had the exact same sense of humor and could practically finish each other’s sentences. I’d always been an only child, but I like to think that Thalia and I were like long-lost astral sisters. I also liked her friends, which is rare for me. She ran with a very international crowd who seemed to have nothing to do but travel and party. I don’t know what they did for work, but then again, I didn’t know what I did for work either, so it was all good.

One night when we were out I met a French guy named Guillaume. He was maybe 5 feet 11, kind of skinny, and had a big nose (sexy big, not gross big) and shaggy blond hair. He kept saying he wanted to marry me and I kept saying no. It was the best. I was about to head back to his hotel with him for a midnight romp when an extremely drunk Thalia stormed up to us, freaking out because she thought I’d left without her. She was yelling at me, which I thought was hilarious, but then her antics devolved into whimper-crying and it became clear that I’d have to abandon Guillaume and take her home. It was annoying. I mean, who hasn’t been wasted off their face at a nightclub in the Swiss Alps? Why was it my problem? Call your driver. I was clearly busy with Guillaume.

The next morning things were back to normal, and I attributed her freak-out to a mild case of altitude sickness/too much coke. It could happen to anyone. But then a couple weeks later we were both enjoying a dry sauna in the nude and I noticed that she’d copied my nipple piercings.

“When did you get your nipples pierced?” I asked.

“Oh, these?” she said, looking down at her chest. “I’ve had them pierced since I was fourteen, but I don’t wear jewelry. You are just now noticing?”

“I guess it’s just strange because your nipple rings are literally the exact same as mine, which is weird because I had these custom made in Amsterdam.” They were these super chic mini diamond hoops. I can’t remember where Thalia said she’d gotten her nipple rings, but I didn’t think twice about it. A couple nights later, when she Instagrammed a picture of me drinking beer out of a plastic cup, I had no choice but to get stern with her. I thought that would be the last of her weirdness, but I’d thought wrong.

We were trying on outfits one night, deciding what to wear to a dinner party she was throwing, when Thalia insisted that my white Helmut Lang dress (I’d switched from dressing in all black to dressing in all white) was “unflattering and a weird cut,” so I opted for a different, less concept-driven dress. I was downstairs having a drink and chatting up Guillaume and the other guests when Thalia waltzed down the stairs wearing the exact frock she’d criticized thirty minutes earlier. I was obviously not okay with her borrowing a dress I’d never worn before, and even less enthused when everyone started complimenting her on it.

“Thalia, that dress is amazing,” said some girl with weird man shoulders.

“Thank you! Babe gave it to me. Chic, no?” She winked at me.

“Um, no, I definitely didn’t, but it does look pretty great,” I said sarcastically.

“Babe, yes you did. You were going to wear it but took it off because you thought it was unflattering, and then you told me I could have it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I didn’t give you that dress.”

“This is making everyone uncomfortable. If you want it back, just say so and I’ll give it back to you later. Now, please, calm down.”

“Why would I want it back if I never lent it to you in the first place?”

“Babe, you are acting crazy. Do you want some champagne?”

“Thalia . . . forget it. I’m going outside to get some fresh air.”

I stepped out onto the balcony and lit a cigarette. I didn’t get the dress thing at all. Was Thalia mental? Had she had a mini break from reality? I guess it wasn’t that big of a deal. It was just some Helmut Lang dress. It’s not like she’d claimed some hard-to-find vintage item of mine. Plus, she was letting me stay at her dad’s place, so I decided to let the dress thing go and talk to her about it later.

I didn’t say much over dinner. I mostly stuck to drinking glass after glass of champagne while playing footsie with Guillaume’s dick. I guess I ended up getting pretty drunk, because I woke up on a sofa in the living room around 3 a.m. I stumbled upstairs to Thalia’s room and opened the door to find her and Guillaume sleeping together in her bed.

“What the fuck are you guys doing?” I said loudly.

“Oh . . . hi, Babe,” Thalia said casually. “We were just sleeping. If you need an Ambien, they’re in the pillbox on my vanity.”

“Can I talk to you for a sec?” I asked coldly.

She sighed and got out of bed. We walked into the hall.

“What are you doing? You knew I was into Guillaume, why would you sleep with him?”

“Babe, I would have never thought of touching him if I knew you were interested. I am so, so sorry.”

“Obviously I was interested, are you blind?”

Had I been too drunk to realize that Guillaume was flirting with both of us? I mean, he was French . . .

“Babe, it is too late to be fighting. What can I say? I’m sorry. Do you want me to make Guillaume leave?”

“No, it’s fine. Have fun. He smells like shit, P.S., but you know that.” I stormed off.

It wasn’t fine. I needed a safe space to cry, so I went to the closet and crumpled into a ball. What was I even doing in Europe, anyway? I missed LA, I missed the sun, I missed the smog, I missed my dad, and most of all I missed my Range Rover. I was so sick of being driven around everywhere by faceless drivers whose names I could never remember. The next morning I would tell Thalia that I needed to get the fuck away from that chalet. I grabbed the nearest long piece of fabric hanging next to me and wiped away my tears. I almost felt bad, because I got my mascara all over an almost-chic vintage Pucci dress. A Pucci dress that I’d seen before . . . Was it on eBay? No that wasn’t it. Wait a second. Wait two seconds. I suddenly knew exactly where I’d seen that Pucci dress before. I didn’t meet Thalia in Amsterdam. I met her at Gen and Roman’s horrid party that they threw in my honor when I got back from rehab. She was the random girl in Pucci who wouldn’t stop trying to calm me
down! Thalia had looked familiar to me, but I’d assumed it was because she was so average looking. But no. I knew this bitch.