Psychos: A White Girl Problems Book (5 page)

I ran my hand over last season’s dresses, thinking about what look I was going for. Robert would smell desperation from a mile away (he’s really observant, for a straight person), so I didn’t want to come across like I was trying too hard. I needed an ensemble that embodied a willingness to accept and understand my past
and its foibles, yet represented an even greater willingness to move forward and renew. It had to remind Robert of all of the amazing, wonderful, and magical things about our time together, without triggering any reminders that I had become a maniacal chupacabra at the end. This would be our first post-restraining-order encounter and it was going to set the tone for our new life together. I settled on an Erdem dress, a BLK DNM leather jacket, Tom Ford pumps, a blowout that said “I’m relaxed and free but could still be your wife,” and a huge fucking scarf.

Robert and I were meeting at Café Gratitude, a restaurant that serves only vegan and raw food, juices, elixirs, etc. Instead of ordering things on the menu by their names, each item is listed as an affirmation, like “I am glowing” or “I am refreshed.” I liked this because it made me feel like I wasn’t really ordering food.

I arrived at Café Gratitude fifteen minutes early, which was a first for me. I was greeted by a female server who had the face of Blake Lively, the hair of Adam Duritz from Counting Crows, and the voice of John Leguizamo. She was the cutest ugly person on the planet. I’d seen her there before but never learned her name because I generally don’t do names, and also because I’d always just referred to her as “Purple” on account of the two-foot-long purple rat-tail dreadlock that hung down her back. Purple immediately escorted me to my favorite table and within minutes served me my favorite juice, “I Am Energized,” which is a perfect mixture of baby kale, lemon zest, and turmeric. So fucking yummy . . . oh my God. I sipped it very slowly and waited.

I was sitting alone, letting my mind be still and active at the same time, when something that Jackson said popped into my head. He’d been teaching a master class on Instinctive Well-Being, and I had fallen asleep during the seminar because it was boring as fuck. As I slept, Jackson knelt down right next to me and whispered, “It is very possible to be clear of your soul’s beliefs that you are limited, and to be clear of your physical ailments and misalignments, if you can engage with your own sagacity. Unlimited awareness is within you. You are a beam of light that is part of God and a part of the universe.” Those
words of wisdom seeped into my subconscious and had gotten me through some tough times in rehab, because it made me realize that Jackson may be a fucking hippie crackpot, but he knew me a lot better than I thought he did.

The sight of Robert walking into the restaurant snapped me out of my meditative trance. I’d forgotten how tall 6'4" actually was. Plus, he was wearing a suede Bottega bomber jacket and perfectly tailored Prada pants. I stood up as Robert walked toward my table, and when he was right in front of me, he stopped and just stood there, staring at me, communicating with his eyes everything good and bad that stood between us. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Then he threw his arms around me and picked me right up off of the ground. I felt so small in his huge arms, which I obviously loved. He smelled like he’d just stepped out of the shower after spending two long hours on a treadmill. Our bodies were totally recognizing each other. We took our respective seats.

“You look amazing.” Robert smiled.

“So do you,” I blurted out a bit too loudly. I started sweating. Keep it together, Babe.

“Are you nervous? ’Cause I gotta admit I’m a little nervous, and I’d just feel better if we were both nervous.” He was so cute when he said it.

“You weren’t the one who lay on your boyfriend’s stoop for a week in a puffy North Face jacket begging him to ‘give our unborn baby a second chance.’ You have no reason to be nervous . . . Or maybe you do.”

Robert laughed. “True, but then again, I did dump my fake-pregnant girlfriend, so maybe we’re both dickheads.”

“Maybe.”

“So, how is our baby?” he asked.

Is he flirting with me? Am I going to flirt back? “Oh, he’s fine. I named him Bruce and sent him to a toddler boarding school, so hopefully we’ll never have to see him again . . . Seriously, though, I’m great. Never been better.”

“You look like you. Like the real you.”

“Thanks. So what brings you to LA?”

“One of the Lakers needed knee surgery, so I flew out for that. He kind of needs someone to hold his hand through everything. I’m here for a few weeks while he recovers.”

“Did it go well? Is he going to be able to play again?” Even I was impressed with my thoughtful line of questioning.

“That’s sweet of you to ask. Yeah, Reggie’s gonna be fine. I just came from Cedars. I actually introduced you to him a couple years ago in New York, and when I told him I’d be seeing you today, he told me that life is all about second chances.”

“I happen to agree with Reginald.”

“Yeah, and then he shit himself. He’s on a lot of painkillers.”

“Ew. Well, he’s lucky to have such a good guy rooting for him.” This made Robert smile, and feeling emboldened, I said, “Can I be honest with you? I’ve thought about you a lot. Like, a lot a lot. I’m sorry I turned into such a fucking psycho at the end—”

“Babe. You don’t need to explain. I get what happened in New York. I totally understand.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I forgive you.”

I wasn’t expecting to hear those words come out of his
mouth. Obviously I’d hoped we could put the past behind us, but I never thought the day would come that Robert would forgive me for being such a nightmare. Was this some kind of pity thing? God, I hoped not. I’d rather be hated than pitied. My heart was sinking.

“I don’t understand,” I said, staring into my juice.

“Mabinty. She sent me your book. Or at least an advance copy or whatever it’s called. I got it in the mail randomly one day about a couple months ago with a note that just said, ‘Read dis, boy. Trust me. Love, Mabs.’ ”

I was shocked that Robert had read my book, then I was horrified, then I was angry, then I was embarrassed, then I made a mental note to fire Mabinty, then I deleted that mental note, because Mabinty’s like my mom and what she’d done might have been a good thing, then I got anxious because I realized that meant Robert had read all about my labiaplasty, and I said: “What the fuck are you talking about? You read my book? You know about my old vagina?”

“Yes, and I was really impressed by your bravery. It’s an excellent book. I’m serious. I had no idea that you were even a writer.”

I must have looked like I was going to faint or puke, because Robert put his hand on my shoulder.

“Babe, chill. It’s fine. I get it.”

“But you know everything now. You know how deeply I felt for you. You know that you’re the one person who made me realize I might want to say ‘Happy tenth anniversary’ to someone someday. I’m embarrassed.”

“Don’t be! You made me realize the same thing, but back
then, I had no sense of what had gone wrong. One moment things were amazing with us, and the next you were a different person. I told you I loved you, and you immediately changed. You’re the first person I’ve really been vulnerable with and your reaction scared the shit out of me. It was really tough to lose you like that. I lost faith in love for a while . . . Don’t get me wrong, I still think you’re a little bit insane, but at least now I have a frame of reference.”

Whoa. Hearing Robert’s relationship monologue was slightly overwhelming, but he was still sitting next to me, so I was still happy.

“I thought I was going to come here today, make amends for everything that I put you through, drink some juice, and leave,” I said. “My goal wasn’t to convince you of anything or change your mind about me, Robert—I just wanted you to hear my side of the story. But I guess you already know it, so . . .”

There was a long, pregnant pause, during which Robert and I just moved our respective glasses of water around the table. It was really weird, but I could feel our hearts healing. After that little moment, it seemed like he was about to tell me something else, but then Purple came over and asked Robert what he wanted to order.

“You should get the ‘I Am Opulent.’ It’s filtered water enlivened with essential oils of grapefruit, lemon, peppermint, ginger, and cinnamon to calm digestion and uplift your being. It’s a bit on the heavy side, but I usually get it after traveling.” I smiled.

“Sure. I’ll have that.” He smiled up at Purple, then looked back to me. “So, your childhood sounded ridiculous. Did Marilyn Manson really perform at your twelfth birthday party?”

“Totally. I thought he was going to bite the head off my kitten, Percy.”

Robert let out a huge laugh. “That’s insane. I love it. Listen, is it too soon for us to start hanging out again? Even just as friends? I don’t want to mess anything up for you.” He looked genuinely hopeful.

“It’s not too soon. I wouldn’t be here if it were,” I explained.

We spent the next hour just catching up. I mostly asked him questions about his work and he asked me about my life in Utah. I only thought about him naked once. Robert was very impressed that I had stuck it out in rehab for so long. He told me that my skin looked radiant (which it did) and that he still eats at the same sushi place where we had our first date. Actually, I thought about him naked four times. Honesty.

After lunch, he walked me to my car, gave me a sweet kiss on the cheek, and we made plans to meet the following morning for a hike at Runyon Canyon. Anyone who knows anything about love knows that going on a hike with a guy is basically code for spending the rest of your lives together. Yes, somewhere in between sipping juice and making amends, I had fallen madly in love with Robert. Again.

Of course, the next morning when I woke up it was pouring, but Robert texted that he was still up for a hike if I was, and we arranged for him to pick me up at ten a.m. When we got to Runyon it was still raining pretty hard, so we just sat in Robert’s rental car, which was a weird Ford midsize SUV scenario. I was unclear on the vehicle, but it was oddly romantic. We were just two normal people in a totally normal-people car having a real moment. I was wearing a really cute Stella McCartney for
Adidas top and pants that I’d purchased when we’d first started dating. Robert was the first person whom I’d ever allowed to see me sweat, besides my trainers and Mabinty.

He immediately recognized the Stella.

“I can’t believe you still have those gym clothes. I remember buying those with you in SoHo.”

“I know. It’s part of my recovery. I’m not really shopping right now,” I said proudly.

“Well, they look just as good on you now as they did back then. Maybe better.”

I laughed so loud that I kind of snorted.

“Did I say something funny?” asked Robert.

“No, I’m just happy,” I said. “I had forgotten what this was like. I feel like the end of us was so incredibly disappointing that I rarely think about how amazing things were in the beginning.”

“I know what you mean,” he agreed, exhaling harder than normal. “This just seems too good to be true.”

It
was
too good to be true. We were re-clicking on all the right levels. Robert’s sense of himself, his sense of humor, his belief that I had so much potential, left me feeling more confident than I had in years.

At this point we’d given up on the hike, and we just sat in the car chatting about books, ujjayi breathing, and the effect the Kardashian family has had on professional basketball and hip-hop culture. As Robert talked, he kept reaching across and putting his hand on my leg and my shoulder. At one point, while telling me a story about how tiny a certain NBA star’s penis was, I laughed so hard that a piece of my hair came out of my chic little topknot. Robert reached out to my forehead and used
his middle finger to tuck the rogue strand back behind my left ear before resting his soft, strong hand on my cheek. Then he looked right inside of me and said, “I’d forgotten just how beautiful you are when you let your guard down.”

Full. Body. Chills.

I normally hate when people touch my face. I don’t really even touch my own face, but that thought didn’t cross my mind. I leaned in to him, and we had the most incredible (second) first kiss in the history of kissing. It was simple and perfect and everything I had hoped it would be.

That is, until Robert turned his beautiful face away from mine and said, “I really shouldn’t have done that . . . I’m engaged.”