Trashley: Part Six
MIT/MTV/MIT/MTV
Ashley inspected the heavy manila envelope the Process Server had handed her while the rest of us watched her slowly walk to the guest room and close the door. No one made a sound. I looked at her parents, who were looking at each other, and then I looked at Ashley’s sisters, who were looking at their phones. Ashley began wailing. She sounded like a humpback that had been harpooned.
“Should someone go in there?” I asked.
Ashley’s Mom got up. “You stay right there Sweetie, I’m sure it’s more of her ex-wife’s bullshit. You know, Cecelia hired a private investigator and he’s been parked outside for months, just waiting for Ashley to meet someone new. Her ex is just a gold digger, and she’s trying to steal all the money Ashley got from selling her apartment. She’s truly deranged, sweetie. I’ll talk to Ashley. Go help yourself to some wine in the kitchen.”
I opened the biggest bottle I could find, it was clear we were not driving back to Los Angeles that night. I asked Ashley’s sisters if they knew what was going on and they both shrugged, “I dunno.”
The sobbing eventually died down, and Ashley cried herself to sleep.
The next morning, I woke up on the couch and journaled while I waited for Ashley to wake up and drive me home. She ignored me when she walked by.
“I’m ready to leave whenever.” I said.
Ashley didn’t respond. Her eyes were puffy; she was a wreck. After a few minutes, Ashley sat in the chair next to me in the living room.
“You don’t know how abusive she is,” Ashley started, about her ex Cecelia. “She’s accusing me of doing things I never did and things I would never do.” Ashley’s eye grew a tear in the corner. “You don’t understand how much she’s ruined my life; she’ll never stop. I’m so tired of it. I just want it all to go away.” Her lower jaw began to quiver, “And she’s fighting for full custody. I may never see my daughter again.” The tear grew to the size of a water-balloon. It finally burst, followed by a steady river and heavy sobs.
At that moment, I pictured Ashley as a child. A sad and scared little girl who had spent the first six years of her life in survival mode. I thought of all the stories she shared of her physically abusive Dad, the one who beat her so badly she was deaf in one ear. I pictured all of the things she had been through since I’d met her: Her Grandparents dying, one right after the other. Her unhinged Uncle harassing her non-stop. Titration, whatever the hell that meant. And now a custody battle with a money-hungry ex.
I put my journal down and joined Ashley on the chair. I wrapped her in my arms as she sobbed, “It’s going to be okay.” I whispered into her ear. “It’s all going to be okay.”
We stayed in Bakersfield. It was still Memorial Day weekend, after all. Ashley’s situation with her ex was messy and confusing, but I wanted to be there for her. And even though Ashley had lashed out at me the day before, I let it go. I told myself Ashley didn’t have the proper tools to cope with all of the heavy things she was dealing with.
After eating breakfast, and Insta-Carting some Chai Lattes, Ashley asked if I could write something about her for my Medium account. So I did, because it made her happy, and I will take any excuse to write.
Here’s an excerpt.
I’ve fallen madly in love with a Theoretical Physicist. I don’t even know how to say the word ‘Physicist’ without adding a few extra syllables. She works with Dark matter and particle accelerators, which means she’s the only person in this relationship who can be trusted with high-powered lasers.
She went to MIT, a school I can barely spell without a dictionary. She has her doctorate, which means she has to legally change her first name to Doctor.
Dr. Ashley graduated high school a semester early so she could start college sooner. When I was in High School, my Mom had a bumper sticker that said, “My child is an honor student. My other child, Lauren, stole a bagel from Safeway.”
I have this theory that we’re a perfect match because she uses her left brain while I only use the right side of mine. So together, we have one entire brain with both sides firing at all times. We’d be invincible at a party: I make them laugh and she hits them with straight-up knowledge.
I published my dumb little article and shared it on Twitter.
“Lauren wrote about me,” Ashley told her Mom. “She also has one of those little blue checks on her twitter,”she bragged. I sent the article to Ashley’s Mom, per Ashley’s request and we spent the rest of the afternoon in the pool.
Later that night, I would put my left brain/right brain theory to the test because Ashley’s Mom had invited us to her co-workers housewarming party.
Ashley, myself, and her parents loaded into Ashley’s Tesla. I was excited to see what a house party in Bakersfield looked like because the vision in my mind was a group of drunk clowns and a bearded lady sitting on the edge of a dunk tank.
It wasn’t too far off. A line of people wrapped around a pop-up tiki bar. The pool was filled with neon floaties, a mariachi band stood next to a DIY taco stand, and there was a fenced-in area filled with puppies you could take home.
Ashley’s Mom, Stacey, knew everyone at the party, and she took Ashley and me on a little meet and greet to introduce us to her co-workers. “This is my daughter Ashley, and this is her girlfriend Lauren,” she started. “Ashley teaches at MIT, and Lauren writes a show on MTV… OH MY GOD,” she said, as if she had just solved a Rubik’s Cube, “That’s so funny. MIT and MTV.” Stacey pointed to Ashley and I, repeating her new revelation. “MIT, MTV, MIT, MTV!”
“I need a new drink,” I said to Ashley, and we excused ourselves to the Tiki Bar, where I got another watered-down margarita.
The party dragged on like that for several more hours, and Stacey was hitting the rum pretty hard. She looped her arm through mine and introduced me to an equally intoxicated co-worker, “Lauren’s my girlfriend’s daughter. I mean, my daughter’s girlfriend. She writes for Saturday Night Live…” Stacey trailed off.
“Oh, no, I never wrote there, I wish.”
I excused myself and found Ashley sitting at a table and typing on her phone.
“Ashley, your Mom just told some guy I wrote for SNL. She knows I never wrote there, right? Like, you have to tell her not to say that to people.” My face burned, hot with embarrassment.
Ashley shrugged like it was no big deal. “Whatever,” she said.
When we left the party, Stacey brought some co-workers out to see Ashley’s Tesla, and Ashley turned on the Christmas light show for them. I had no idea her car could do that. It played Auld Lang Syne while the doors opened and closed, and the lights flickered on and off. This is what happens when you let a billionaire with a thirteen-year-old brain design a car.
After the long weekend, Ashley and I returned to LA. Ashley told me she had a job she took leave from during Titration, and she had to go back to work that week. She was an executive who did Data Science for a head-hunting company. Her job was based in Cleveland, but it was fully remote at the moment. She told me they used to fly her internationally for meetings at least eight times a year, but that had all stopped during Covid. And once the world opened back up again, she’d be able to bring me with her. Ashley’s mornings would now start at around five, and she’d be done with her last Zoom around noon.
A few days after we returned from Bakersfield, I invited Ashley on a night hike I was doing with my friends in Griffith Park. She declined saying she’d rather stay at our apartment and do a virtual game-night with some of her friends. I wanted to introduce her to everyone, but I could tell she had some sort of social anxiety, so I didn’t push it. Ashley said I could take her car to meet my friends, so I did.
It was a foggy night, which is my favorite hiking weather in LA. On the hike up I was inundated with questions about Ashley. I went on about how smart she was, but left out all the red flags because I didn’t want my friends to dislike her.
We got to the top of our hike and sat in a circle on the helipad. I’d opened my Instagram to check the “other” folder, where I had been talking with a producer from the MTV show Ridiculousness who wanted to buy the rights to a video I posted of my dog Perci watching two lizards having sex. That’s when I saw I had a barrage of messages from an account I’d never seen before. The profile photo was Princess Diana; it was probably spam, but I opened it.
“I think you know my wife, Ashley.” It started. “Ashley is not who she’s pretending to be. She’s an incredibly skilled liar. She did not go to MIT, she doesn’t teach at MIT, and she is definitely not a Physicist.”
Fuck.
“You are the second affair she’s had since January. Ashley will tell you I’m lying; she will try to make me look bad, but I encourage you to look at my photos. I am a loving and caring mother, and Ashley abandoned our family to move in with you. We live in Minnesota.” My stomach tied itself into a knot, and my hands started shaking. It was the same feeling I got when I found out Ashley had been married. When Ashley told me, “Children are involved.” And I had assumed she meant a child, singular, because she’d only mentioned her daughter.
“Her family might seem cool, but they will lie and cover for Ashley.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck…
“I am eight months pregnant. Our second child is coming at the end of the month.”
FUCK.
I read it again.
“I am eight months pregnant. Our second child is coming at the end of the month.”
Children. Plural. One was still cooking in the oven. I’m beside myself. I’m shaking and I feel sick. I showed my friend Kerry the messages, and she escorted me back down in the pitch-black fog to where I parked Ashley’s car.
“What’re you gonna do?” Kerry asked.
“I don’t know. I have to go confront her.”
I drove back to my place and flung the door open. Ashley was lazing on my couch, playing a video game on my TV.
“What?” she asked defensively.
“We’re going to talk,” I said. My hands shook as I filled Perci’s bowl with water.
“What are you so mad at me about? What the fuck did I do?!” she said, her voice elevating in pitch and growing in volume.
I poured ice in a glass and filled it to the top with tequila. I took a sip.
“We’re gonna talk about your pregnant wife,” I said in the calmest tone I could muster.
“I’m so SICK OF THIS!” Ashley screamed as she stood up, “YOU’RE TAKING HER SIDE, SHE’S A FUCKING LIAR!” Ashley stomped to my bedroom and yanked her suitcase out of the closet.
The screaming continued. I stood in the doorway, silently sipping tequila as I watched her pack. I walked to my bathroom, opened a lilac face mask I had bought from Sephora, and spread it over my face. I popped two Aleve because Ashley’s shrills were already giving me a headache.
Cecelia had entered the chat.
I’m so hooked on this that I’m actually checking my email app every time it pings!
I've been a bit slow to catch up on these but I finally have and MY GOD this is endlessly fascinating.