Trashley: Part Twelve

The trash runneth over

After storming out of the house, turning off her location for five hours, and returning with a new iPad for me, I was aware that Ashley’s behavior wasn’t normal. I also realized I was always making excuses for her: she’s under a lot of stress. She doesn’t have a good support system. Or, maybe she’s normal, and I’m the insane one.

The Ashley that first attracted me felt like an optical illusion. I’m a big reader, and she said she was, too. But, the only time I ever saw her with a book was when I came home one afternoon to find her perfectly posed on my couch, engulfed in Tender Is The Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I swore it was staged because I heard Grand Theft Auto coming from my TV as I made my way up my stairs.

Couldn’t be.

A book about deception and wealth. When life imitates art.

She’d also told me that she always scribbled math equations on napkins, or in one of her many notebooks, and I’d yet to see that happen.

Also, where was her dog?

Ashley was going to Detroit for a week for work, and I was going to Idyllwild for Kirsten’s birthday, which is where we celebrate every summer. I knew Ashley would lose it when I broke the news to her that I’d be hanging out in the woods with her nemesis. And of course, she did. She screamed at me and slammed the car door in the PetCo parking lot, her soul nearly jumping out of her body and strangling me when she saw I’d purchased Kirsten a candle from Diptyque for her birthday present. I didn’t care if Ashley was mad. Her anger wasn’t my problem. Not snow, nor rain, nor sleet, nor rage, nor jealousy would keep me from going to Idyllwild.

Idyllwilding.

“Kirsten’s in love with Lauren. It’s so obvious, everyone knows it too,” Ashley said to my neighbor Randy one night, when we were having cocktails in his garden.

“Oh now that’s fascinating,” Randy said, while sipping his vodka martini. He loved neighborhood gossip, but this simply wasn’t true. Kirsten and I were pod partners during a global pandemic, and single female dog moms, and she was straight even though I always told her she should be gay because it’s way more fun.

Everyone adores Randy. He was one of the first openly gay leaders of the Episcopal church, he joined the Coast Guard at eighteen, and now he was seventy-eight and my gay spiritual advisor.

“It’s not true, Randy,” I said, “And Ashley you need to stop going around telling people she loves me, seriously. Stop, it’s not cute.”

“Randy knows, he sees it.” She said, speaking for Randy as if she was his court-appointed guardian.

“Leave me out of it,” Randy said, confused.

My friendship with Kirsten was eating away at Ashley. And to be fair, I always defended Kirsten because her feelings about Ashley were justified.

“Maybe you should’ve mentioned having a family when we first started dating. You lied to me.” I said.

“I never lied to you! I never cheated! I never did anything wrong! I didn’t even have to tell you.” Ashley shot back.

“It’s a lie by omission, which is still a lie,” I said.

Martini’s in Randy’s garden.

I continued dating Ashley despite the red flags, because I liked having her around when she wasn’t being mean. Which was getting less and less. I’d look past some of her behavior because I could tell there was probably some undiagnosed mental illness at play, and I tried to be as understanding as I could. But some of Ashley’s actions were part of her character, who she was deep down, and you can take all the pills in the world, but they won’t fix your character.

In Idylwilld, Kirsten tried to talk me into breaking up with Ashley, but I wasn’t ready. I was so engrossed in her drama that I almost felt like I needed to stay with her to see how the story would unfold. I’m the type of person who would do anything, repeat, anything for a good story. It’s my life’s purpose: I can’t go a day without telling some kind of story, written or verbal. I have to get my words in the same way people get their steps in. If I don’t tell my stories, I’ll die.

As much fun as it would be to burn down a Tesla, I refrained.

Every single person in my life, including my friends, neighbors, and therapist said Ashley was a liar and questioned her claims of being a Physicist. I felt like the blonde in any horror movie who always misstepped while the audience was screaming: don’t go inside! Run! Get out of there, you idiot! When Ashley went to Detroit, it was my first break from her since she’d moved in with me. I took her Tesla to Idyllwild because it had dog mode, a game changer. On the way to Idyllwild, I rounded a corner and ran over a dead skunk. The smell was so horrific I had to turn the biohazard on for days. The stench seeped into my bag, my clothes, Perci’s fur, it was everywhere. Ashley’s Tesla looked like a skunk. It was black outside and had a streak of white leather seating throughout the interior.

How appropriate.

Spending time in nature, away from Ashley, was exactly what I needed. When she came back from Detroit, she begged me to go to Universal Studios for her sister’s birthday, but I declined. I was too busy getting ready for my month and a half in Spain. I also couldn’t break up with Ashley because she was taking care of Perci while I was gone, and it was too late to figure out another arrangement.

We went to Bakersfield for the fourth of July, which would be our last weekend together before I left for Spain. The dead dog on the side of the road was still there, every time we passed it was in a different state of decay. Fresh, stiff, bloated, infested. That was our exit.

“I’m gonna soak up the sun.”- Sheryl Crow, my favorite bird.

We spent the holiday in the pool, the only acceptable place to be in the Bakersfield heat. Ashley wore a full bodysuit because she was allergic to the sun in addition to her nut allergy. Her family’s pantry was stuffed with food that had nuts in it. My cousin has a nut allergy, and her parents are hyper-aware of the possibility of contamination. It’s on their minds always. So either Ashley wasn’t allergic to nuts, or her family didn’t care whether she lived or died.

I started complaining to my therapist about how often I was going to Bakersfield, and especially about Ashley’s family. Her Mom would wake up at noon and plop herself down on the couch all weekend watching episode after episode of Grey’s Anatomy. And Ashley’s youngest sister had no drive. She sat inside all day watching her boyfriend play video games. To be fair, Bakersfield’s heat is too intense to do much outside. And here I was, watching these people waste their lives. I felt lazy by association. It was the opposite of how I was raised. My parents made us play instruments and sports, they kicked us out of the house when it was nice out and even when it wasn’t. And we weren’t allowed to watch TV during the day, which was fine since we only had two channels on the gold mine, and if we wanted a clear picture my little brother had to climb onto the roof and hold the antenna.

The first time I visited them in Bakersfield, they ate dinner together as a family in the dining room, but that never happened again. Now they only ate in front of the television, using bar stools as TV trays.

Every time I visited, the house got progressively worse, as if the image they wanted to present didn’t align with who they were. The dishes filled the double sinks and overflowed onto the kitchen counter. When they ran out of clean dishes, they switched to red solo cups, plastic forks, and styrofoam plates. Her family was single-handedly contributing to half the world’s pollution and, I’m sure, countless turtle deaths. Ashley was clearly embarrassed, she’d yell and stomp through the house cleaning up after them. The only way Ashley’s sisters would help was if she Venmoed them fifty bucks to load the dishwasher.

I’d never seen anything like it.

The bathroom Ashley’s sisters shared looked like a public restroom at a roadside truck stop. Tampon wrappers spilled on the floor near the trash bin, which was never emptied. I didn’t live there, yet I was the only one who changed the empty toilet paper rolls. The bath mat was so old and crusty that you could see the fungus growing around your feet when you stepped on it. I brought my spare bath mat up and threw theirs out without asking. Judging by appearances, I’d never think these people were living in that kind of filth.

The secret family meetings still happened in her parents’ bedroom. I was increasingly curious what went on in there.

I started to see Ashley’s entire family as unmotivated and lazy. At least they were the perfect speed for Perci while I was off filming in Spain.

Perci’s likes: Lazing around, eating food, sleeping. Perci’s dislikes: Everything else.

I wanted to do something nice and thoughtful for Ashley before I left, so I took her car to get detailed. Something she did once a week. I pulled into the shop in Burbank, but as I was getting my things, I noticed a stack of papers beneath the passenger seat. I picked them up and brought them with me just in case it was sensitive information.

As I sat in the lobby waiting, I piled the papers into a neat little stack, thinking they were junk mail or credit card offers. But no. One was about a defaulted Affirm loan. I was shocked because Ashley clearly made good money, why would she need to pay for a mattress through Affirm? Wasn’t that, in her words, some “poor person shit?” I’d used Affirm during the Pandemic when I bought my Peloton because payments were interest-free, and with my job suddenly gone, I didn’t want to throw twenty-seven hundred dollars at a Peloton for rock-solid legs when I could just pay sixty-three dollars a month. There were also papers detailing nearly half a year of missing mortgage payments and an approved application for mortgage relief for those affected by the Pandemic.

I felt guilty for seeing this, but also, what?

I kept my knowledge of these papers to myself. I didn’t even tell my sister or my therapist.

For now.