Trashley: Part Three
There's always money in the Nintendo Switch
The person who told me she loved me over the phone, sight unseen, was sitting in my car. She was real and coming to stay with me for the weekend. Ashley’s outfit was J. Crew chic. Her light blue shirt was tucked into her khaki pants, and her white leather shoes didn’t have a scuff on them. “I can’t believe you’re here; this is finally happening,” I said, trying to drive and talk at the same time.
“Yup, I’m a real boy,” she assured me.
As I drove, I struggled to keep the conversation alive. Ashley wasn’t as talkative or animated as she was on the phone. She seemed robotic and distant, as if I was just the Uber driver. The hour-long commute back to LA was just about as awkward as you could imagine, but I passed it off as nerves.
When we got to my place, I gave her the grand tour. I’d spent the previous week Ashley-proofing my home because she gave me a long list of things she was allergic to. I bought a new hypoallergenic comforter and new pillows because she was allergic to down. I gave away all of my hand soap, lotion, body wash, and any product that contained nuts. I bought an egg substitute because she couldn’t eat normal eggs. And I poured out the almond milk I used in my coffee and replaced it with oat milk. I tried my best not to kill her.
We spent the next three hours sitting on my couch as far apart as humanly possible. I practically needed binoculars to see her. I asked what she wanted to do, and she wanted to watch a movie called Into The Grizzly Maze. It was a beautiful sunny Saturday afternoon in April, and Ashley wanted to stay inside and watch a movie about a deranged bear who went on a killing spree in Alaska. Nice.
After the movie, I moved closer to her. It was up to me to make a move, so I did. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in my bed. We talked about important things. I asked her her thoughts on marriage because I believe marriage should be illegal until both people are older than thirty-five. She didn’t care for it, either. I asked if she wanted kids, and she replied, “I would never shatter my pelvic floor bringing a child into this world.” I would’ve accepted a simple no, but at least we agreed. She told me she’d never been in love, and I told her I thought I was in love once, but looking back, maybe I was just hungry or tired.
Ashley asked if I had any deal breakers, and I told her I only had one, and that was lying. I’d already dated a few liars and wouldn’t stand for it again. Her deal breaker was cheating. I confessed to her that I’d cheated on several men back when I used to date them but assured I’d never cheat on a woman. I respect them too much.
Ashley asked if I had deleted my Hinge account. I hadn’t yet, but I had put it on hold since we started talking. I opened Hinge one last time to screenshot Ashley’s account because I wanted to document how we met. That’s when I noticed she’d changed her location from downtown LA to Campanil, a neighborhood in Santa Barbara. I asked why she changed her location, and she said her friend was being catfished by someone on Hinge who lived there, and Ashley was trying to find the catfisher. How strange. We both deleted our accounts.
It was getting late, so I picked Perci, my one hundred-pound golden retriever, up from my neighbor. He did not like Ashley, and he likes everyone. He growled when she got close to me. I thought Perci was just being homophobic, but maybe he knew something I didn’t.
Ashley was only supposed to stay for the weekend, but we were having fun, and she stayed with me the entire week. She DoorDashed food with wreckless abandon. Sometimes from three different restaurants at once, a Shake Shack hotdog here, Silverlake Ramen there. She Insta-Carted Chai Lattes from Starbucks no less than four times a day. She was the strangest person I’d ever met.
Ashley insisted on paying for everything, and I let her since she had a job and I’d been out of work for a year due to Covid. One afternoon, we stopped at a gas station to fill up my car since I had to drive Ashley back up to Frazier Park the next day. We went inside, and Ashley pulled out a fat wad of cash and spent six hundred dollars on scratch-off lottery tickets. “What the hell are you doing? That’s way too much,” I said, trying to talk some sense into her.
“It’s my money, and I can spend it how I want.”
She had me there. Plus, I have a thing for scratch-off lotto tickets. And a thing for Blackjack. And I love Texas Hold ’Em. I think I have a bit of a gambling problem now that I’m writing this out loud.
Our first week together felt like a vacation, filled with wine, food, sex, and scratch-off tickets; I didn’t want it to end. But Ashley had to return to Bakersfield for her second vaccine shot. I dropped her off at the same Semi-Truck parking lot where I’d picked her up, and where her sister waited for her in the grey Tesla.
We talked non-stop over the next few days. We made lists of everything we wanted to do on her next visit. I wanted to take her to The Last Bookstore, where I’d had my first book launch. And Ashley wanted to give me a tour of her childhood haunts in Pasadena where she’d grown up. She hadn’t visited her elementary school in years but said her artwork was on display there all these decades later. And she wanted to show me her old house that overlooked The Rose Bowl, which is a subtle way of saying she grew up with money. I couldn’t understand why her parents would ever give up a house in Pasadena and move to Bakersfield, of all places.
The next time I picked Ashley up in Frazier Park, her stepdad and two sisters took her to meet me. I got out and introduced myself while Ashley loaded my car with all her things. She brought a suitcase, a blue backpack from FjallRaven, her Nintendo Switch case, and tons of board games; fully perpetuating the stereotype of lesbians moving in together on the second date.
Her family seemed nice, though I’d only chatted with them for two minutes. Her step-dad had been married to her Mom for twenty years. He was exactly how you’d picture a stepdad from Bakersfield to look: brown hair, starting to gray around the edges, a scruffy beard, maybe six feet tall. Her sisters were short and curvy; one had long brown hair and a small mouth with even smaller teeth, and the other had long blonde hair and round fluffy cheeks. Based on first impressions, this was a close-knit family.
I knew this dynamic. I have two younger sisters, too, and they’re everything to me. I’d murder someone for them if they wanted, no questions asked.
We made it back to my place, where I had cleared out a section of my closet and given Ashley a handful of hangars so she didn’t have to live out of her suitcase. I stocked up on food, snacks, and wine. Ashley didn’t drink because she had an irrational fear of throwing up. I, on the other hand, drank enough for both of us.
We had a game day planned, which was why Ashley brought every game on the planet. Both of us had gotten into Animal Crossing during the Pandemic, and Ashley wanted to show me her island. She unzipped her Nintendo Switch case, and five one-hundred dollar bills fluttered out.
“This is just like me,” she said, throwing her hands up. “I put money in the weirdest places without even realizing it.” Girl, what is that like? She was just like her dead Grandfather. He stuffed money in his walls the same way she stuffed money in her Nintendo case.
It felt like birthday money, so we went to Best Buy to get a new loading dock since she had forgotten hers in Bakersfield. Ashley bought me a few Switch games, too. She barely even knew that five hundred dollars before it was all spent. On the way home, Ashley wanted to swing by 7–11 for more scratch-offs, so we did. She also wanted to go to Guitar Center, so we did, and she bought me a ukulele. I don’t even know how to play a Ukulele.
I’d heard of love-bombing but hadn’t ever experienced it. It was delightful.
When we returned to my place, Ashley ordered several hundred dollars worth of edibles from a weed app. They were delivered twenty minutes later. I’d never gotten into edibles, and Ashley said she only dabbled. They were incredible, and we started taking them every other night.
One morning, I was in my bedroom getting ready for the day when I heard Ashley in the living room loudly whispering to someone on the phone, “You’re the only person I’ve told this to,” she said, “You can’t let this get out.” Once she hung up, I asked if everything was okay. She said everything was perfectly fine.
It happened again two days later.
I walked into my living room to find Ashley crouched on the floor, whispering to someone on the phone. “Cecelia, no! Don’t do this!” She hung up, and again, I asked if everything was okay. “Yeah, it’s just my Uncle. I have to go to Missouri and sign my Grandparent’s estate over, or he’ll never stop harassing me.” I thought it was weird her Uncle’s name was Cecelia, but I didn`t say anything at the time.
Ashley bought a plane ticket and left early the next morning.
She’d only been gone a few days, and our calls were infrequent. I couldn’t stop thinking about the cryptic phone calls I had overheard. Ashley called me one afternoon, and I casually asked what her Uncle’s name was again. She told me, Melvin. But the person she had been talking to on the phone the other day was named Cecelia. I heard her say it. Who was Cecelia, I wondered. I didn’t ask her, though; I let the lie sit with me for a few hours while I figured out the best way to bring it up. Ashley was supposed to fly back to LA that weekend, but I needed clarity before letting her back in.
The next morning, I texted her, “I feel like you’re keeping a big secret from me, and you can talk to me about anything.” Her response crushed me. Children were involved.
Exqueeze me? Children? Tiny little humans? My heart sank through the floor. Children? Plural?! She’s a Mom?! We’d talked non-stop since mid-February, and it was already May, and not once did she mention kids. In fact, I distinctly remembered a comment about not shattering her pelvic floor. And for the love of god, who the fuck was Cecelia.
I needed a drink. So I went to my neighbor Kirsten’s house, where she always had a bottle or two of red wine waiting for me. Kirsten had a gut feeling things didn’t add up with Ashley. I brushed it off at first, but maybe Kirsten was right. Why was Ashley’s cell phone a Salt Lake City number? What happened to her apartment in Downtown LA? Or the apartment she bought and sold in San Francisco? Why didn’t she tell me about a possible wife, ex-wife, and kids? Where were they? LA? Chicago? Bakersfield? And why did Ashley really change her location on Hinge from LA to Santa Barbara? Why was her Tesla stored in Denver? When will her dog show up in California?
I stumbled the fifty feet home from Kirsten’s house later that night. I probably should’ve ubered. I had a lot to process.
ok i am SAT
I have so many questions.