Trashley: Thirty-Four

Sweet Bobby, part one

After nearly a year of dating, I finally called Ashley out for lying about her Grandparents’ dying. At first, she hung up on me and refused to answer my calls, as if not talking about it would make the accusations go away. But eventually, she confessed that she made it up because she was manic, which I did not buy. Ashley had relayed such a convincing and detailed story, perfectly setting up their deaths. She had told me they were the most important people in her life, and that she had an alarm go off every morning to Facetime them.

It was all fake. 

Pouring one out for the homies.

Ashley killed her Grandparents off in the beginning of our relationship, we hadn’t even met in person yet. We talked on the phone all the time though, her in Bakersfield and me in Los Angeles. Late one night she said, “I have to go, I hear someone crying in the hallway,” and the next morning she had told me her Grandfather died, and she was worried her Grandmother would be next since her Grandparents never spent a day apart in their sixty-year marriage. Then Grandma had a stroke and died the next day, confirming what Ashley feared would happen. 

Why would she lie about that? 

I had just met her fake-dead Grandma in person, and unless Ashley pulled a Weekend at Bernie's, Grandma was very much alive and well and probably a Sephora Beauty Insider. I used to think her Grandparents’ fake death was beautiful: They had loved each other so fiercely that they couldn’t live without one another for even a day. But I also considered the flip side: maybe her Grandpa died to escape his wife. Sixty years is a long time to be stuck with the same person. And after he died, Grandma was like, “I’ll find you in hell, bitch,” and plunged in after him. 

Ugh, I even sent Ashley socks from Etsy as a nice little sorry you’re going through this gift. 

Then there was the Estate. Ashley had claimed her Grandparents made her the executor because she was the only person in her family who wasn’t a money-hungry little pig. So, they left her with forty-thousand acres of farmland, which I believed, even though I don’t know if there are forty-thousand acres in America. They left behind chalets in Missouri, Montana, and Wisconsin, and a bunch of rental properties in Los Angeles. Her Grandpa buried cash in the ground and in the walls because he didn’t believe in banks, the same way I don’t believe in the Post Office. Seriously, how do they do that? Because in my mind it’s a bunch of elves sorting envelopes on a conveyor belt. 

Ashley claimed her Uncle called no less than forty times a day, demanding she hand over control of the estate. Lie. She was getting calls, but they were from Cecelia. 

Ashley told me she went to Missouri with her Mom and her sister in May to settle the estate—another lie. They had flown somewhere; I just wasn’t sure where or why.

That feeling when you're in charge of an estate.

I remembered going to Bakersfield to meet her family for the first time. Right before she opened the front door, she turned to me and said, “Don’t talk about my Grandparents, it’s a really touchy subject. My Mom’s not close to her real parents; the ones that died were the ones who actually raised her.” Now it all made sense: she didn’t want me to say anything about their deaths because they weren’t dead.

I didn’t know why Ashley felt the need to lie to me about her grandparents’ deaths and estate. To sound cool? To be interesting? To make me feel sorry for her? For free socks? 

My brain burned extra calories trying to process everything. I decided to forgive Ashley, but the whole thing was too bizarre and I couldn’t date someone who would make an elaborate story like this up for fun, and not for profit, like a book or movie deal.

Ashley could sense the break-up was on the horizon, and she rented a cabin in Big Bear as a last-ditch effort to save our relationship. I knew this trip would be the end of us as a couple, and I hoped we could enjoy some time in the woods together, where we were always at our best. 

Big Bear was a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Los Angeles. We loaded Perci in the back of my new Tesla and hit the road.

“What do you want to listen to?” Ashley asked. Ninety percent of the time my answer was Hamilton, but my friend Kerry had recently recommended a podcast she thought I’d like called Sweet Bobby.

I need more podcasts like this in my life.

“Sweet Bobby,” I said. “No idea what it’s about but if it sucks we can turn it off.” Within the first five minutes, we were hooked. The podcast was so good, it felt like taking heroin. I wanted to inject it into my veins and my soul.  It was about a woman named Kirat Assi who was catfished for an entire decade by a man named Bobby.

The first episode explained how Kirat’s cousin’s ex-boyfriend JJ reached out to Kirat, asking for advice on how to win her cousin back. After five months of talking, JJ died and his older brother, Bobby, reached out to Kirat to tell her the news. They formed a bond and seemed to heal from JJ’s death together. The two fell in love, and Kirat spoke with Bobby’s relatives and friends frequently on the phone, without knowing they were all played by the same person. Whenever Kirat was close to meeting Bobby in the flesh, something horrific would happen. The relationship took a turn for the worst when Bobby started to control and manipulate Kirat, to the point she contemplated suicide.

“God, this poor woman,” I said after the first episode. “I can’t imagine going through such a mind-fuck.”

By the third episode, Bobby’s identity was revealed, and I had guessed correctly who it was by the second episode because I’m smart and can definitely spot a catfish when I see one. Without spoiling the podcast, it turns out Bobby was a female. And please don’t comment “SPOILER!” because Bobby’s gender is important for the story I’m sharing now. 

I’m done breaking the fourth wall, and now back to Trashley.

“Do you think Bobby used a voice-changer?” Ashley asked.

“Oh, I’m sure.” I said, “Whenever I try to sound like a man, I end up speaking like Darth Vader, and it doesn’t sound believable.”

In the next episode, Bobby died, but then mysteriously came back to life. He had a good explanation, he told Kirat he was a double agent, and she believed him. After several more years of fuckery, Kirat hired a private investigator to track Sweet Bobby down.

“God, this reminds me of something that happened when I lived in New York,” I told Ashley, “but much more elaborate.”

In 2012, I was the target of a Twitter troll. Someone who tweeted at me incessantly, claiming I stole jokes and bought followers, neither of which were true. The account existed solely to harass me. It had Ozzy Osbourn as the profile picture, and the account handle included the last four digits of my phone number, which made it clear that it was operated by someone I knew, and they wanted me to know that. They tweeted to Nat Geo and CBS, trying to get me fired. Some poor social media intern was probably so confused. Why is fake Ozzy Osbourn tweeting at us again? This is above my pay grade. 

Instead of blocking the account, I monitored it every day for nearly two years. I’ve always been patient. My nickname as a baby was “The Periscope” because when I woke up from a nap, instead of crying, I’d lift my head up and wait for someone to notice that I was ready to roll. My patience for Ozzy Osbourne finally paid off when the account got bored of harassing me, assuming that I’d blocked it a while ago, and started retweeting one of my closest friends and commenting, “You are hilarious, great joke! Best Twitter comedian on the planet!”

And that’s when I put it together. It was someone I hung out with all the time, someone I had taken kayaking in the Hudson River just a few days before. She was an extra on Saturday Night Live and wanted to get into comedy, so I introduced her to big comedians, writers, and mentors. I had brought her as my guest to the Tribeca Film Festival, SNL parties, and after-parties, and I probably would’ve taken her to the Met Gala, if Anna Wintour ever got her shit together and invited me. This woman had keys to my fucking apartment.

Kayaking with the enemy.

When I realized my friend Shaffaire was the person behind fake Ozzy Osbourne, I felt like the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. Like, what just happened? 

I had a hard time understanding how she could do something so cruel, and I ended the friendship immediately and told my closest friends to block her. She sent me a text the next day saying, “I don’t know why you and your little friends decided to block me, but I want to know what I’m being accused of,” And I didn’t respond. I took the high road like the goddamn Virgo I am.

I didn’t get revenge, or try to get her fired, or even give what she did to me much air time. I blocked her, shook it off, and moved on with my life. If I learned anything from that experience, it’s that with time, all the dots will eventually connect. And that the catfish is usually from the inner circle.

By the time we arrived at the cabin in Big Bear, we had made it through four episodes of Sweet Bobby, and I needed more. It had everything I loved in a story: deception. Betrayal. Catfishing. That night, Ashley and I  got high and stayed up until two in the morning to finish it. 

When it ended, I tried to give it a standing ovation, but the edibles must’ve made a deal with gravity because I wasn’t standing anytime soon. 

Well done, bravo! I clapped from the bed.

Spreading the gospel to my friends and sisters.

When I woke up the next day, my first thought was, “I love Sweet Bobby,” and I needed everyone else to love it, too. I sent it to my friends and my sisters, and then I tweeted about how great the podcast was.

Ashley joined me in the kitchen as I made my infamous blueberry pancakes. She was smiling, in a good mood, and wearing her gray MIT shirt.  She caught me off guard by being nice, and I lived for those moments, even though they only lasted the length of a TikTok video. 

“I tweeted about Sweet Bobby,” I said, as I tossed a pancake seven feet in the air.

“Oh. Why?” Ashley said, with a sudden harshness in her voice.  Her smile vanished.

“Because I want everyone on planet Earth to listen to it,” I said, “and I think that’s my new mission in life: I’m gonna be a Sweet Bobby influencer.” 

I caught the pancake behind my back.

“Weird,” she said. “I thought you only tweeted jokes.”

“I tweet whatever the fuck I want to tweet, Ashley.”

We ate breakfast and Ashley’s entire demeanor changed. She hunched over her plate and was constantly typing on her phone. She felt distant and cold, and I didn’t know what had caused it. I tried not to let it affect me.

“Do you want to head into town soon and do some exploring?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said, sounding like a sad ogre.

On the drive to town, Ashley barely spoke. Something was clearly bothering her. 

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“I just don’t know why you would post about Sweet Bobby on your Twitter,” she said.

“Why do you care so much?” I asked.

“It’s just not you. People follow you for jokes, not podcast recommendations,” she said.

“Okay, well thank you for your valuable input, but I’m not deleting it.”

We got out of the car and I walked Perci from store to store, with Ashley moping along behind us. She barely looked up from her phone as we walked. I reminded myself that the end of our relationship was near. I just had to get through the weekend, and then dropkick her back to Bakersfield.

We sat down for sandwiches at a cute outdoor cafe. People came over from far and wide to pet Perci, who lives for that shit. Ashley was still in a foul mood, but at least she wasn’t yelling.

“What do you want to do next?” I asked.

“We have to get more firewood,” Ashley said. “And let’s go back to the cabin, I don’t really like it here.”

This little getaway was beginning to feel like a big mistake. A sty appeared in my eye out of nowhere. Whenever I get a sty, it’s my body’s way of warning me that something in my life is causing me a lot of stress. I wish my body warned me in a cooler way, like levitating off the ground.

The sty strikes again.

I started counting down the clock to when I would break up with Ashley. Seventy-five hours and thirty-two minutes away. It felt like an eternity.

On the way back to the cabin, Ashley ran into Vons to buy some more firewood while I waited in the car. I hadn’t looked at my phone since I tweeted earlier that morning, so I opened Twitter to see if I had influenced the entirety of humanity into listening to Sweet Bobby, or even just one person.

I got a reply that made my stomach drop faster than the elevator scene in Speed.

“Wow, do we need to talk.”

Fuck.

She was back.

It was the woman who had sent me LinkedIn messages in October. The one who had accused Ashley of being her abuser. The one Ashley lost her shit over, and denied knowing within a millimeter of her life despite murmuring, “People change.”

I let out a yelp and nearly shot through the glass roof of my Tesla when Ashley opened the trunk and loaded it with firewood. I put my phone down. Ashley got into the passenger seat and I did my best impression of a woman who was not deeply curious by this ominous tweet from a stranger who had previously accused her soon-to-be ex-girlfriend of abuse.

Now, we drove in silence.

My brain scanned through a list of options on how to proceed. I remembered how violent Ashley got the first time I told her this woman messaged me. I never wanted to see Ashley in a rage like that again. She had thrown things, broken things. She had pounded on the wall and the floor. Her eyes turned into blackholes, sucking me in with their gravitational pull. Her screams were so loud that NASA recorded a sonic boom on their radar. Ashley had sworn on her daughter’s life that she had never heard of this woman and assured me that it was one of Cecelia’s friends from college trying to ruin our relationship and make Ashley look bad. 

After Ashley’s tantrum, I had been so confused and concerned that I sent copies of the woman’s messages to Ashley’s mom, who had said it was probably Cecelia, who had some weird online shit going on. She had even deflected my messages by changing the subject and throwing her own son and daughter-in-law under the bus.

She has some weird online shit going on.

Telling Ashley that the woman had reached out again felt dangerous, and I didn’t want to be trapped in a cabin in the woods with a rage-filled psychopath.

The safest thing was to ignore this woman’s tweet, as I had before, and never mention it to Ashley. 

We were so close to breaking up, only sixty-nine hours and fourteen minutes left to go. 

Noice. 

I could always message this woman later, once I had gotten Ashley out of my life because I was extremely curious about what she had to say.

Or, I could secretly respond and hope Ashley didn’t find out even though she was right beside me. Big Bear was turning into a real choose-your-own-adventure. 

My favorite genre.

Big Bear, day one.