American Babe
Authors: Babe Walker
“THE EPITOME OF THE URBAN SOCIALITE YOU LOVE TO HATE.”
âTIME
GLOWING PRAISE FOR BABE WALKER'S
Psychos
“Her laugh-out-loud antics will leave you wanting even more.”
â
People
“Babe Walker just gets me, which is really embarrassing. For me.”
âAshley Benson
“Babe Walker makes me want to be a better person.”
âElizabeth Banks
“A book so full of toxicity that I needed to see a healer when I was finished.”
âJake Shears
“Refreshingly egotistical . . . pithy, entertaining.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
“Babe's wildly popular Twitter persona, blog, and books are the creation of three actor-writer friends who use their creation's ludicrous observations and exploits to skewer the shallow ultrarich.”
â
Booklist
White Girl Problems
“Made me laugh a lot and cry a little. It's about time someone drew our attention to the devastating reality: white girl problems are all around us . . . absolutely hysterical.”
âSusan Sarandon
“A snarky, satirical diary/memoir of how the poor-little-rich-girl goes from the lap of luxury to rehab after a $246,893.50 shopping spree meltdown at Barneys. . . . A confessed train wreck, [Babe] giddily invites you to stare. And just when you think you might finally need to look away, there's the impossibly startlingâand hilariousâfaux insight that keeps you hooked.”
â
Publishers Weekly
“A pop-culture send-up with a troubled material girl antiheroine . . . wickedly funny.”
â
Kirkus Reviews
“Amusing and laugh-out-loud funny.”
âNewNowNext
“Do you ever go to the mall, buy one too many shirts, and then realize you're $11 million in debt? . . . If you love Hollywood and love to laugh,
White Girl Problems
is the page-turner for you.”
â
Examiner.com
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Dedicated to vaginas. Just, in general.
People are so codifiedâit's sad.
âJEAN PAUL GAULTIER
Stop Being So Nice. It's Rude.
Why Would I Be Your Babysitter?
Getting Over the Death of Lauren Bacall.
Hushed, Aggressive, Chic, Threatening, and Scared.
Still Thinking About the Popcorn I Ate in Chapter Eight.
A Mountain of Basicness to Climb.
Alex Trebek's Dick (and Also His Balls).
The Most Expensive Uber Ride of My Life.
Seared Chicken with Fennel Salad
Roasted Scallops with Pine Nuts
and Brown Butter
Not Today.
“A
re you okay?” A woman asked from roughly ten feet away, downhill from where I stood at the tip of the highest peak in Griffith Park. It completely took me away from my moment, which I resented. The sun had just begun to peer its glowing globe of majesty over LA's eastern skyline.
“Yes,” I responded. “Nosy.” I didn't look at her. I'd seen plenty already when I side-eyed her stomping up the hill toward me a few seconds earlier. She was hiking, she was blond, she was thin, she was worried that I might be getting ready to jump off the edge where I stood and end it all. I got it.
“Honey, can I ask, what are you doing?” she said with hesitation, putting a hand on my shoulder. She stood right behind me now. Awesome. Getting rid of her was not gonna be easy. I was dealing with an out-of-work, B-list fitness model who was for sure on her daily 5 a.m. hike and was probably super concerned about the beautiful, young girl she just found standing at the edge of a steep fucking cliff, about to jump.
“I'm fine. You can go about your hike. Really.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, lady,” I said.
“You don't need to do this.”
“Okay, relax, you don't even knowâ”
“You're a beautiful girl.”
“Thank you for seeing that beneath this neoprene face mask. You obviously have a great eye for eyes,” I genuinely offered.
“I have a daughter and, you know, she's going through a rough patch right now, too. And I've been there before. Trust me. I used to live in Vegas.”
“Whoa. Ew. Okay. Stop. I'll explain.”
“Yes, talk to me, mama. Let's talk this out.”
“Well, first off, don't call me or other people âmama.' It's insulting.”
“I just think it's a cute thing to call my girlfriends.”
“Am I your girlfriend?” I said, trying to sound as nice as possible.
“I . . . guess . . . not.”
She looked genuinely hurt. Not my problem. I mean, I was the one offering her helpful advice.
“So,” I started, “this story begins on the day I auditioned to be Tom Cruise's new wife, which was weird as fuck, but it was also a major big-deal day that in a strange way affected the rest of my life. Tom does that to people, I guess. It was post all the Kidman divorce drama, and Tom and his team were screening several young actresses and non-actress-but-still-attractive peopleâlike meâfor the role of his âwife.'â
“I'd been a fan of his since the first time I saw
Rain Man
at age four, and I even thought he always seemed kind of cool and amazing and weird and rich, but I didn't exactly see it working between Tom and me. However, I wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to meet him for dinner at a castle in Portugal, where he was filming something or whatever. I'm not much of a European castle girl because normally the water in the showers is soft water, which is bad for my skin and hair, but this one was so breathtaking that I didn't even mind the water. It sat on the gorgeous Atlantic coast, and we ate in a room with window-lined walls looking out at the bluest, most endless ocean I'd seen maybe ever. I don't remember what we ate because I just don't, but
it was delicious. Tom looked handsome in the face, wore a simple white tee and jeans, brown scuffed Prada boots, and smelled like heaven took a shit all over his body. I asked him what cologne he was wearing and he said he wasn't wearing any. So mysterious. So Tom.”
“So Tom,” said the exâfitness model, whose name I decided was Mel.
“My lawyers have strongly advised me not to repeat exact content from the conversation Tom and I had that night. I can say, though, that it never went past just talking between us. But I think I can tell you about one of the things we talked about that night. I mean, I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement, but we all know those aren't real, don't we?
“On that blustery night, tucked away in a villa on the majestic Portuguese coast, Tom shared with me one of his âpassions in life': squirrel diving. Most people have never heard of it, let alone tried it because it's so dangerous and chic. Squirrel diving is an extreme sport that requires the diver to don a highly technical suit made of fiberglass, neoprene, and stingray skin. Built into the armpits is a sheet of webbing, like a flying squirrel, giving it its name. Duh. How
Mission: Impossible
is that? He said never to try it because I would âprobably die.' His concern was sweet but only made me want to do it immediately. If you don't want me to try
something, especially a drug, don't entice me with the threat of death, Babe rule number one.
“Well, a few years passed by, Tom married Katie Holmes, Katie Holmes divorced Tom, I lived my life, shopped a lot, went to rehab, kept being a mess, traveled, wrote two books, fell in and out of love with my soul mate, Robert, and ended up back in LA.”
The woman's expression hadn't changed since I started my story.
“So, so, so cool,” she said.
I looked at her for a long time and thought about the daughter she probably has, sitting at home thumbing through Tinder, alone.
“So I'm gonna go now,” I said, turning toward the vast view of Los Angeles, mentally preparing to jump. She still stood like a statue, lifeless, roots a mess.
“So why did meeting Tom change your life?” she asked.
“Oh, because now I'm conquering one of my fears slash completing a goal of mine that I've had for years. I've always wanted to jump off a cliff and now that I've spoken with Tom about it in Portugal and watched a few chic yet informative YouTube tutorials filmed in the Swiss Alps and bought the suit and shit, I'm ready. So I'm gonna need you to back away a little bit because I need some room for my running start.”
I walked backward five or six steps until I had given myself enough runway before the edge of the canyon, pulled my goggles around my head tight with a snap against the back of my hair, and stretched my arms wide to check for tangles or folds in the underarm webbing of my suit. I was good. I was ready. I'd kind of done this before, I could do it again.
“You're fucking Babe Walker,” I whispered to myself inside the tight and echo-y cavern of my fiberglass helmet. “You can fly.”
I took a sprinter's position, felt the sand push against the pads of my fingers, looked out over the city one last time, and shot myself forward with every bit of strength I had in my well-toned core, butt, and thighs. After a few aggressive yet graceful steps, I was off the edge. Luckily, it was windy as fuck that morning, and I was immediately lifted skyward by a gust of generous breeze. God clearly wanted this to work for me, too. I could hear the hiker lady screaming behind me. She obviously couldn't understand what was happening. She didn't know that this was my thing. I had this.
The trick to squirreling is keeping your entire body stiff as a board and light as a feather, Ã la
The Craft
. With a slight bend at my elbow and a cupped swimmer's hand, the air supply was able to tuck itself right under my cute, almost
weightless body. I'd call it an extreme sport, but I don't do “sport.” I will say, however, it's extremely body-affirming. I mean, you literally have to be able to float. This is chic, no?
I may be under the assumption that most people's lives are more boring than not boring, but I doubt you've ever done anything as exhilarating as this, besides maybe cocaine. So I can't expect you to understand the mind-splitting thrill of literally soaring above Los Angeles. It's EVERYTHING. From about 1,100 feet above the ground I could see the In-N-Out Burger where I threw a Sprite in a blind date's face for ordering me a Sprite, and the movie theater on Hollywood Boulevard, where I gave the one with a ponytail from One Direction a hand job. The Scientology Centre was the size of a Fendi Baguette from up there, and I even saw the acting studio where I'd taken an improv class for fifteen minutes before getting frustrated, screaming “Clowns!” and walking out. A very
This Is Your Life
moment for me.