American Babe

by Babe Walker

  We all waited in silence for what felt like an eternity. I was frantic, but I had a good feeling about it. I hadn’t seen Mabinty look this unnerved since the time she got pulled over with an ounce of medical marijuana, which we had purchased for Coachella one year, in the backseat of her car. We weren’t arrested, but they did take the weed from us so we just drove back home. There was no point. Finally, with a huge smile on his face, Knox came strolling through the door.

  “I made it!”

  I gave him a big hug and tears started streaming down my face as we embraced.

  “I love you,” I blurted out. I had no control over what had come out of my mouth.

  “I love you too,” Knox replied. He said it like we’d been saying it to each other our whole lives.

  “We need to get to the airport. I have the Uber driver waiting outside for us. We are flying tonight. You can catch me up on everything on the way. K?”

  “K.”

  We dropped Mabinty back at her car and then took the Uber to LAX. It was the most expensive Uber ride of my life ($1,194). Perhaps of anyone’s life. I was proud.

  SIXTEEN

  Love Wins!

  “Can I ask you a question?” Knox said.

  We’d settled into our seats and reached cruising altitude or whatever the fuck that place in the air is where they start to let you drink. I was leafing through my crisp copy of the new CR Fashion Book, which had been waiting for me at my house in LA.

  “Of course. Anything,” I said, hoping it would be a yes-or-no and not something that involved opinion generating. I loved him but I was in magazine mode, not chat mode.

  “Have you ever really, really liked someone? Or, like, been in love? I know about Robert ’cause you put him in the book. Were you guys in love for real?”

  Even I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the fashion on my lap was going to have to wait. I gently closed the magazine and placed it in the seat-back pocket in front of me.

  “Fuck yes, I’ve been in love,” I started. “I’ve been in several different types of love.”

  “There are different types?”

  “Oh, one hundred percent. I’ve been in love so many times, I can barely remember all of them. I’ve hated way more than I’ve loved, but still. There’s been a lot of love.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I hate most things.”

  “Oh, no, I wanted clarification on the ‘different’ types of love.”

  “In my opinion, the most coveted love, the type of shit that makes you so happy that you’re actually just sad, is the love I have for shoes. It’s always been like this for me. Since I can remember, my devotion to good shoes has been so extreme, expensive, and all-consuming that it trumps my love for actual humans.”

  “I get it,” Knox said.

  “I know you do.”

  “You’ll probably think this is basic, but when I bought my first pair of Doc Martens, it meant the literal world to me. It was a long time ago—I was seven.”

  “Oh, so fifteen minutes ago?”

  “Relax. You know I’m ten.”

  “I know, I know. Go on,” I said through a laugh.

  “They were black but, like, brushed with a silver paint and instead of laces they just had one zipper going up the front. Before I wore them out even once, I slept with them in bed with me. It sounds so dumb. I’d hold them in my arms as I fell asleep, and when I woke up I’d just stare at them. I even brought them to school as my show-and-tell item for the week when our class’s unit was ‘Pets.’ Some fat kids made fun of me but my teacher said she understood why the shoes were like a pet to me. She, like, told the class that a pet is anything you love and want to take care of. I think she was just trying to make me feel better because of the bullying, but it didn’t matter. I wanted those shoes so bad. And I loved them. And I wanted the world for them. My mom drove me to Baltimore to get them at this punk-rock store that smelled like the inside of one of our babysitters’ car. She has a half-shaved head despite the fact that every time she babysits for us I tell her to shave the rest because it would be much better, much more editorial. She once asked me what ‘editorial’ meant. I told her to Google it, and she just laughed. It was sad, actually, ’cause I know she never Googled it. She keeps her hair that way. Anyway, when I tried the boots on at the store, a feeling I’d never felt came over me. In my seven years, I’d never felt so connected to something. It was like the shoes were listening to me. Like they had been looking for me for years and they found their way to me. It was more of a reunion—”

  “Than a meeting,” I said, on the verge of tears.

  “Yeah. It was like that. Ya know?”

  “I know, Knoxie. I know,” I said, full-blown crying.

  “Stop crying, Babe. What the fuck?”

  “It’s just fucking emotional, okay?? You have been in love before. Love has no age limit. Love has no bounds! Love is love!” I shouted.

  “Oh my God,” Knox said, putting his hand over his face. I was embarrassing him.

  “Sorry,” I whispered. “I’m fine. I swear. No more shouting. No more crying.”

  I wiped my tears and got my shit together as fast as I could. Honestly, if it was possible to literally eat Knox in that moment, I would have. That’s how much I loved him.

  “Okay. So . . .” I said, composure basically regained.

  “Besides your love for shoes and clothes, what about with, like, your boyfriends?”

  “I was in love with Robert, of course I was. But it turned me into a monster. You know all about Babette. She’s a succubus, a demon, a gargoyle with no God whatsoever. So I have to ask myself: Was that real love? Or was that something else? I think it’s possession. I was possessed by the spirit my feelings for Robert elicited.”

  “You think if someone makes you crazy then you don’t really like them?” Knox asked.

  “No. I definitely liked Robert. But it was an unhealthy love for me. Even though I buried Babette a long time ago, there were still remnants of her bullshit antics living in me, and I knew they would until I broke up with Robert . . . again.”

  “I guess I get it.”

  “I have a question.”

  “All right.”

  “My question is: Why do you want to know?”

  Knox took a gulp of the cranberry juice and seltzer mocktail that he’d mixed himself on his little pullout tray. He was literally always cooking. Then he looked at me, then away.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I was just wondering, I guess.”

  “Don’t bullshit me.”

  “I’m not!”

  “But, like, you are.”

  “I hate you,” he said, smiling enough to let me know that he didn’t actually.

  “But, like, you love me.”

  “Ugh.”

  “What’s wrong, muffin?”

  I hated that I called him “muffin,” but it came out and there was nothing I could do about it. Knox was not a muffin. If anything, Knox was a hemp seed and wheat berry biscuit from Cafe Clover on Downing Street in the West Village, but he knew that.

  “Babe, this is hard.”

  “Are you gonna throw up? You kinda look like you’re gonna throw up.”

  “No.”

  “You must have so many nerves from the day. The whole trip, actually. This is a lot for a child. You’re still a child, Knox. Okay? It’s okay if you need to throw up. Kids are allowed to throw up. I think. That’s, like, a thing that can happen in public, and people are fine with it. Until they go through puberty. I mean, I’ll hate you for doing it for a couple of seconds, but it’s fine if you have to.”

  “I don’t need to vomit!” he said with a mix of anger and frustration. It was like watching a mini-man aka a child actor.

  “Okay. You don’t need to vomit, that’s good.”

  “There’s something . . .”

  “That you want to tell me?”

  “Right. Yeah. There’s something I want to, like, talk to you about but it�
��s weird, I think.”

  His gaze was now fixed aggressively to his feet, to the floor. There was no way he was going to make eye contact with me. I gave him a few seconds, but he wasn’t saying anything. This was super weird behavior for him, and I didn’t exactly know how to respond to it.

  “Knox,” I said in a kind whisper. “When I was at rehab, a girl told me that her greatest fantasy in life was to transform herself with plastic surgery into an actual dolphin and then have sex with Rob Lowe. As in, she’d be a dolphin in dolphin form and Rob Lowe would be Rob Lowe in human form and they’re banging and that’s her fantasy. And to be totally honest, I wasn’t fazed by it. I respected her candor. That’s what she wanted and she had every right to be open about it. She’s a free bitch just like you’re a free bitch. You can talk to me, babes.”

  Please note: What actually happened when Jordana Connor confided in me about her Rob Lowe dolphin thing was this: I laughed extremely loud in her face, lit a cigarette, looked at her for a long time, shook my head, laughed more, and told literally everyone I talked to for the rest of my stay in Utah at that rehab facility.

  Knox finally looked up at me.

  “Who’s Rob Lowe?”

  “He’s a friend of my dad’s and played the plastic surgeon in Behind The Candelabra. You’ll learn about him in your studies. Whatever. It doesn’t matter who he is, that’s not the point.”

  “I’m confused,” Knox admitted. He looked it. I took a sip of my wine. I could obviously tell where this was going, and I was doing my best to lead him gracefully into the inevitable but I was only fucking him up. Was I gonna be a bad first person to come out to? A wave of literal terror shot from my toes upward. At the same moment the plane dipped for a second and the combo of it all caused me to scream, “OW!” which was embarrassing but just for a minute. Sometimes I say “ow” when I think I might get hurt but haven’t been yet. I came back to Knox. This was his moment, not mine.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, this plane. Okay. You know what, hold on,” I said, throwing one finger in the air as uncuntily as possible. “Sorry, babes. I’ll be right back.”

  I unclipped my seat belt, put my glass of wine on Knox’s tray table, told him not to drink any of it, and walked over to the bathroom.

  With the door locked behind me I took my hair out of the high pony, shook it out, and gave myself a long, focused look at my, um, self. I simply needed to take a breather to reflect and collect. Maybe that’s my mantra?

  Reflect . . . collect . . . reflect . . . collect . . .

  No, that’s fucking annoying. Anyway. I was in the middle of a crazy important moment in this boy’s life, and it was just now hitting me like a ton of emotional bricks. If he was about to come out to me, which he obviously was, I mean, hello, then I would have to know the right thing to respond with. I didn’t feel ready before, so I excused myself. Was that, like, so incredibly rude and insensitive of me? Will he even tell me now? Of course he will, Babe, just make him feel fierce, remind him who he is! Oh my God, I was losing it. Why? I couldn’t tell you. It wasn’t like I was coming out. But I legit needed this to be perfect for him. Clearly it was a HUGE deal for him to get the words out. He was so shockingly cool and comfortable with himself otherwise, but hadn’t been able to share this part of himself with anyone UNTIL NOW WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFF SO MUCH PRESSURE ON ME. Okay. No. Relax.

  I quietly sang a few lines of Lady Gaga’s “Til It Happens to You,” which is about rape, I think, but it worked. I boosted myself up. I was going to be there for him in any way he needed me. I just had to be myself so that he could too.

  “Knoxie,” I said, sitting back down next to him, “it’s really unlike you to hide something from me. Or to hide something from the world, for that matter. It’s not on brand for you. I’m just saying. As your manager/mentor, you know?”

  “I’ve just never told anyone this thing I’ve been thinking about.”

  “What’s the thing?”

  “I like someone.”

  “Fabulous.”

  “I mean, like, like someone.”

  “Fabulous.”

  “And it’s another boy.”

  “Fabulous.”

  Knox looked at me as if it was my turn again to say something, like he was preparing to be scolded or told he was wrong. I wasn’t about to do anything of the sort, obvs. We were basically having a staring contest. He finally looked away, and we sat in silence for a few minutes.

  “You wanna talk about it?” I asked.

  “Not really. I just needed to say that. Don’t tell my mom and Cara. I’ll do it later.”

  “Whatever you want, babes.”

  “Thanks.”

  I took a sip of my wine, grabbed my magazine, and found the page I’d left off on.

  “It’s nice you won’t have to date girls, actually,” I told him. “We can be a shit-show. Especially when we’re teenagers.”

  “Oh . . . okay. Yeah, I guess that’s good.” Knox agreed, uncomfortably. I think he was in shock. We didn’t talk about it any more. He just flipped on a movie and that was that. We just enjoyed our flight as much as we possibly could, knowing that as soon as we landed we were going to face the wrath of a mother scorned. Honestly, I didn’t care. I knew I’d done something good for him.

  SEVENTEEN

  Guess Who Fucked Scott?

  “I’m just praying that my mom is so happy for me that she forgets how mad she is.”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing. You are gonna be fine. I kidnapped you. You had literally no choice. I will deal with Veronica.”

  As the escalator headed down into the depths of the baggage claim area of BWI Airport, I could just make out the figures of Veronica and Cara in the distance. Shockingly, they looked incredibly happy to see us. Thank God Vee was not freaking out. I was completely ready to make my case and explain exactly why I took Knox, but I was thrilled that it seemed like I wouldn’t have to.

  Veronica and Cara started running toward us, and Knox was equally as excited to see them. They ran at each other and ended up in a group hug. The whole thing made me think of the opening sequence of Love Actually. I couldn’t tell if it made me hate them all for that moment or if it made me hate myself for being affected by it.

  “Mom! I made it. I was picked! They’re going to put me on the show! I did the mushrooms that you love and Gordon smiled at me like, a bunch of times and everyone was so nice and LA is weird but so cool!”

  “I’m just so relieved that you’re back in my arms, safe and sound. We can talk about that later, Knox.”

  “So pissed you got to go to LA without me,” Cara chimed in. She was wearing a jean skirt. No.

  “You would have loved it, Cara. I saw famous people. I met Chef Ramsay.”

  “Hate you.”

  No one had really looked at me during this whole lovefest so I thought I’d make my presence known.

  “He did great,” I said. “They really loved him for the show. Totally on brand for them. I think Knox has a real chance of winning it all this season. Based on what his competition looked like. Most of the other little people were in Gap Kids.”

  It was weird. Veronica was definitely looking at me, but it was more like she looked through me.

  “Babe. Don’t you dare.”

  Oh, okay. She was fucking livid. Boy, did I misread this situation.

  “Veronica. I’m sorry I took him. I should have talked to you first.”

  “You should have talked to me first? That’s what you think would have made this whole thing okay? Babe, you need to come back to reality. You stole my child from my house and took him three thousand miles away without a single word.”

  So much for not having to explain myself.

  “But he needed to be at this audition, Vee. He made the show. I stand by my decision to take him because it obvi paid off in the end. I get that you are upset or whatever that we just snuck away, but you were not even entertaining the idea of letting him go. He is super talented and he deserves a chanc
e to make something of himself. Honestly, it’s a miracle that I came into his life when I did and provided him the opportunity.”

  I knew as soon as the words left my mouth that I’d fucked up. I was tired. It was a fucking red-eye to BWI, give me a break.

  “I’m sorry? Are you now insulting the life I can provide for MY son?”

  “No. I’m sorry. That’s not at all what I meant.”

  “We’re going home. Thank you for not killing my son.”

  Then Veronica just grabbed Knox, who looked stunned, and they all headed toward the doors.

  “Don’t you want your luggage?” I yelled. But they didn’t turn around. They all kept walking out of the airport, leaving me alone.

  “I’m really SORRY!” I yelled in a last-ditch effort to make things right. But they didn’t look back. I could see that Knox was trying to stop and turn to say something but they were not letting him. I would’ve run to him but I don’t really run, ever.

  I mean . . . I actually kind of get it. Like, I almost see where Veronica is coming from in this situation. Even if she didn’t technically give birth to Knox, she still raised him and changed his diapers and all that other terrible stuff that you have to do when you have a baby in your house and there’s no Mabinty. I’m sure Mabinty would’ve cut a bitch for stealing me when I was ten years old. If I was Knox’s mom, I would have been totally fucking freaked out if someone took him on a plane trip without asking me first.

  Yeah, so actually I completely understand why Veronica just walked out of the airport. She was 1 million percent justified in doing so. I think she will realize, in time, that it was better for Knox that I did take him to the audition. But I’m gonna let her have her moment. I wonder if she thinks about how she is actually Knox’s aunt in these situations. Is it constantly on her mind or has she made peace with it? Donna really just creates havoc wherever she goes. What a slut.