The Girlfriends S1/E2: Lobsters for Dinner

Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.

Speaker 1 This is Andrea Gunning from Betrayal. Are there two sides to every story?

Speaker 1 Academy Award nominee Robin Wright stars in The Girlfriend on Prime September 10th, a psychological thriller that will make you question everything.

Speaker 1 Laura has the perfect life and a son she'd die for, but when he brings home his new girlfriend Cherry, played by Olivia Cook, something feels off.

Speaker 1 Also starring Laurie Davidson, The Girlfriend is a twisted game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems. Don't miss The Girlfriend, streaming exclusively on Prime September 10th.

Speaker 1 Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

Speaker 4 Let's be real. Life happens.
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Speaker 4 Starting at just $699, our sofas are fully machine washable inside and out. So you can say goodbye to stains and hello to worry-free living.
Made with liquid and stain-resistant fabrics.

Speaker 4 They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life. Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.
Neat flexibility?

Speaker 4 Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Speaker 4 Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers. It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.
Visit washable sofas.com today and save. That's washable sofas.com.

Speaker 4 Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 6 There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

Speaker 7 How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Speaker 8 Variety has the solution.

Speaker 9 Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Speaker 13 Where do you see the business actually heading?

Speaker 14 Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

Speaker 16 The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Speaker 17 Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

Speaker 18 This is Matt Rogers from Lost Culture Resists with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang. Hey, so what if you could boost the Wi-Fi to one of your devices when you need it most? Because Xfiniti Wi-Fi can.

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Speaker 21 novel

Speaker 23 Hey listener, in this episode, there are mentions of violence against women, coercive control, and murder.

Speaker 22 There's also plenty of lighter stories about my life and friends.

Speaker 26 You even get to meet my mom, and believe it or not, she is a hoot.

Speaker 30 Now, I think I swear a few times too, and given my age, it's just too late to make a polite woman of me now.

Speaker 29 So consider yourself warned.

Speaker 23 If you do listen and are impacted by any of our themes, you can reach out to Know More, a domestic violence charity we've partnered with.

Speaker 25 They have lots of great resources to help you or your loved ones.

Speaker 23 You can find them at nomore.org.

Speaker 30 That's N-O-M-O-R-E dot org.

Speaker 23 There's nothing quite like flying in a small twin-engine plane.

Speaker 39 The turbulence, the way the engine roars at you.

Speaker 5 There's always a moment in liftoff when you feel like you're taking life into your own hands.

Speaker 28 And I guess that's where the thrill is.

Speaker 41 On one of my favorite trips with Bob, We flew out over the Valley of Fire and into California's Death Valley.

Speaker 40 The mountain ridges and grand expanses of sand were absolutely breathtaking.

Speaker 40 Eventually we touched down on a small unattended strip in the middle of the national park.

Speaker 19 Bob took my hand and helped me out of the private plane.

Speaker 44 I felt like I was in pretty woman.

Speaker 45 When I was a little girl, My mama used to lock me in the attic when I was bad, which was pretty often.

Speaker 45 And I would pretend I was a princess trapped in the tower by a wicked wicked queen.

Speaker 45 And then suddenly, this knight on a white horse with these colors flying would come charging up and draw his sword.

Speaker 14 And he would climb up the tower and rescue me.

Speaker 28 My life hadn't been easy lately, especially when it came to men.

Speaker 34 I'd been married twice already and both marriages had ended horribly.

Speaker 47 My first marriage, it ended in a plain old, sad divorce.

Speaker 34 And the second marriage, well, while I was separated from my husband, he took his own life.

Speaker 48 By the time I met Bob, I was juggling being a single parent to my nine-year-old daughter and trying to build a career.

Speaker 49 And then suddenly, here I was.

Speaker 35 hiking out to the Furnace Creek oasis with the picnic hamper full of cheese, hummus, grapes, and shrimp cocktail, all prepared by my Dr.

Speaker 50 Bob.

Speaker 26 It was one of the most romantic dates of my life.

Speaker 5 I'd gotten the fairy tale.

Speaker 12 So what happened after he climbed up the tower and rescued her?

Speaker 45 She rescues him right back.

Speaker 32 That's what I wanted.

Speaker 40 I wanted Bob to rescue me from my normal, private, jetless life, and I wanted to rescue him from his past in return.

Speaker 44 Up in the sky, it felt like I could have it all.

Speaker 25 So even when things started to get weird on the ground, I kept my head in the clouds.

Speaker 25 I'm Carol Fisher, and from the teams at Novel and iHeartRadio, you are listening to the girlfriends, episode 2, Lobsters for Dinner.

Speaker 32 So this is the neighborhood my mom lives in, which is a little bit more affluent than

Speaker 37 with a real guard gate, not a fake one.

Speaker 50 But those kind of gates are really popular here with no guards.

Speaker 54 It's just Vegas. It's a false sense of security.

Speaker 37 Yeah, right, really.

Speaker 48 I'm driving over to my mom's house with a trunk full of snacks.

Speaker 35 I've told my producer Anna to brace herself.

Speaker 32 It's going to be full of Jewish ladies talking over one another, eating.

Speaker 55 Alright, I brought lunch. I went to Whole Foods.

Speaker 56 I got you vegan stuff.

Speaker 51 I even got some kombucha. Oh my gosh.
Of course, I drank kombucha. Look at me.
Kombucha.

Speaker 32 I know my guests.

Speaker 52 It's nice to meet you.

Speaker 2 Mindy's here too.

Speaker 48 Her and my mom are very close.

Speaker 51 We're so excited.

Speaker 57 We didn't want to give you this weather.

Speaker 51 Well, it's just like London, so I feel like it's a little bit of a moment.

Speaker 57 I know, I just was thinking, why would we give you London weather?

Speaker 2 Mom provided Anna with a warm welcome of flavored fruit waters, three full-body deodorants that she was told in great detail she could use anywhere, and a vegan magazine she had picked up at the grocery store.

Speaker 42 Equipped with her new offerings, Anna was eventually invited to sit down for lunch.

Speaker 32 Do you know what vegan, what's vegan about?

Speaker 59 Yes, no? Yes.

Speaker 57 This is vegan. Vegan.

Speaker 1 Amazing.

Speaker 57 And this is vegan.

Speaker 51 This is vegan tuna. It's really good.

Speaker 51 And this is. Oh, amazing.

Speaker 27 If you ever wondered what it was like to be mothered by three Jewish ladies at the same time, well,

Speaker 25 this is it.

Speaker 51 So what are we talking about after you? We're talking about the site.

Speaker 50 I first introduced Bob to my mom and my stepdad, Stan, after we'd been dating for about a month and I was so excited.

Speaker 31 My mom wanted me to find a good Jewish doctor and I had, so I was really looking forward to seeing that warm, proud, you know, you did good, Carol, look on her face.

Speaker 60 But they both thought he was a little odd.

Speaker 57 No one ever made Stan feel uncomfortable, but there was something about him that Stan said, oh my goodness, this guy is really strange.

Speaker 57 He was an expert in everything. He could do everything.

Speaker 57 And when I'm talking about the kitchen, he didn't know a goddamn thing about the kitchen.

Speaker 22 Mom's feelings around Bob and the kitchen stemmed from a disastrous early meeting where Bob offered to come over and cook lobsters for dinner.

Speaker 50 But when he said lobsters, he meant live lobsters.

Speaker 26 And when he said live lobsters, he meant live lobsters that he expected expected my mom and stepdad to buy.

Speaker 4 We had to get lobster for him.

Speaker 19 Not a very good start.

Speaker 25 And dummies, we did that.

Speaker 57 And he should have for Carrick. He had a friggin' flown to Maine to get them.
I mean, seriously.

Speaker 23 When we arrived at the house, Bob didn't seem interested in stopping to talk to my mom at all.

Speaker 25 Instead, he rushed straight into the kitchen to start cooking the lobsters she had purchased.

Speaker 28 We watched on as he dramatically plunged the crustaceans into boiling salted water, leaving a trail of mess in his wake.

Speaker 57 Everything was upside down and it didn't bother him at all. It was disastrous.
I mean, I didn't need him to clean up. I needed a cleaning crew with about eight people.

Speaker 26 The thing is, even though my mom had concerns about him, she never mentioned them to me again.

Speaker 31 She knew he looked good on paper.

Speaker 49 I mean, not to belabor the point, but he was a flying Jewish doctor, for God's sake.

Speaker 23 So sure, he was a messy lobster cook, but you could barely make a move in Las Vegas without somebody telling you how accomplished Bob Bierenbaum was.

Speaker 65 The thing about Bobby is, he was at the top of his game on most everything.

Speaker 23 This is Ernie Sussman, a local urologist who Bob befriended after he gave him flying lessons.

Speaker 65 I'm sure he was well respected by the medical community. He would fly his plane down to Mexico with other doctors and do cleft palates and do these free clinics.

Speaker 65 So he had a good heart and he was a pure plastic surgeon. It wasn't just about the money.

Speaker 24 It was all of those accomplishments that made me overlook some of his oddities, like how I heard he hated smokers so much that he refused to treat them, or how he would spend hours upon hours at his computer ignoring me, or the the way his temper could go from zero to 100 in less than three seconds.

Speaker 66 Were there other experiences where you felt like you saw his rage?

Speaker 31 So I hung out a lot at his house and he'd come to mine but he had the nicer home.

Speaker 59 So when I didn't have my daughter and we were in a shared custody and she was with her dad, I would go over and spend time at his house.

Speaker 59 So I was emptying the dishwasher one day and Bob was nearby and one of the glasses fell out of my hands as I'm putting it in the cabinet

Speaker 59 and you might have thought that I broke something that was a treasured antique. I've never quite seen anything like it.

Speaker 60 His voice was raised, he's flushed, he's pissed.

Speaker 59 He is really mad at me for breaking this glass.

Speaker 54 And I am perplexed, like, I broke a glass, Bob.

Speaker 28 What the hell? It's a glass.

Speaker 26 He's like, well, you don't understand.

Speaker 59 It's part of a set.

Speaker 60 Well, where'd you get it? Well, they have to be bought as a set.

Speaker 59 Well, how much were these glasses?

Speaker 25 Well, they're $8 a piece.

Speaker 59 And so now I'm pissed. He's not backing down.

Speaker 56 So I go to my wallet and get out $8

Speaker 47 and I hand it to him and said, here's for the glass.

Speaker 63 That was probably the first time that I ever really experienced him mad at me.

Speaker 23 I had witnessed him be frustrated with others, but now it's directed at me and it didn't feel good. It didn't feel normal, and my reaction was, fuck you.

Speaker 23 But then after something like that, we would do a flurry of fun stuff. Like, he flew us for a romantic weekend away to Sedona, Arizona, where we met up with his sister and her family.

Speaker 47 He once flew us across the country to Florida, just so I could take my daughter to visit my grandmother.

Speaker 35 In fact, at one point during our relationship, he took my daughter skiing for the day when I was busy at work.

Speaker 38 But actually one of our most memorable trips was a weekend away to a conference.

Speaker 23 During the flight there, I noticed that Bob started to get really quiet.

Speaker 35 And at first, I tried to ignore it.

Speaker 49 It's like a weekend away. I'm excited.

Speaker 19 I don't have my daughter with me.

Speaker 40 We're going to have so much fun.

Speaker 21 But Bob didn't let up.

Speaker 34 And by the time we got to the hotel, he was visibly angry.

Speaker 43 When I asked him what was wrong, he turned to me, not saying a word.

Speaker 26 And he just put his hands up in the air.

Speaker 50 And he goes, look at these dots, Carol. Look at these dots on my hand.

Speaker 29 Carol, you've given me syphilis.

Speaker 37 And I was like, what the hell?

Speaker 29 I've not given you syphilis.

Speaker 37 How could I have done that?

Speaker 49 But he wouldn't believe me me and started accusing me of being unfaithful.

Speaker 31 And just for the record, I need you to know that I did not give Bob syphilis.

Speaker 29 Like there is no way I gave Bob syphilis.

Speaker 19 Instead, what I did do is I snuck off to make a phone call to my mother and I told her I really needed to get home right away because I did not feel safe.

Speaker 17 But I had a problem.

Speaker 35 I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere and I didn't know how to to get back.

Speaker 57 I was just so worried about her and I thought this guy

Speaker 57 is up to something.

Speaker 32 So it turns out my mother then called Mindy.

Speaker 62 Nan called and said Carol's with Bob and she has to fly home from somewhere in the middle of the country.

Speaker 64 I don't know where they had landed. I don't remember.

Speaker 62 And we have to get her home.

Speaker 62 And I said, okay, is she okay?

Speaker 62 He said, yes, she's okay, but she can't continue the flight.

Speaker 26 I didn't.

Speaker 42 I told him to get lost.

Speaker 35 I booked a commercial flight and I headed back to Las Vegas alone.

Speaker 23 When Bob got back, we continued to date for a little while, but it was never the same.

Speaker 23 Bob did go to the doctor for his hands and was diagnosed with some kind of contact dermatitis, which is a pretty common ailment for surgeons, but he never apologized because apologizing, well, it really wasn't Bob's thing.

Speaker 26 And then after six months of dating, he broke up with me.

Speaker 42 I'd be lying if I said I wasn't devastated.

Speaker 43 And while I knew intellectually things weren't right, there was still this part of me that thought we could make it work.

Speaker 63 Perhaps I'd be able to change him, and in turn, I'd get to live that pretty woman ending I had always dreamt of.

Speaker 35 Turns out, if you're into your pretty woman trivia, in the original script, there was not a happy ending for Vivian, Julia Roberts' character either.

Speaker 47 She doesn't get her man or her fairy tale, her life just continues as if they never met.

Speaker 25 I can see why they changed it because the reality sucks.

Speaker 4 Let's be real. Life happens.
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Speaker 4 They're kid-proof, pet-friendly, and built for everyday life. Plus, changeable fabric covers let you refresh your sofa whenever you want.
Neat flexibility?

Speaker 4 Our modular design lets you rearrange your sofa anytime to fit your space, whether it's a growing family room or a cozy apartment.

Speaker 4 Plus, they're earth-friendly and trusted by over 200,000 happy customers. It's time to upgrade to a stress-free, mess-proof sofa.
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Speaker 4 Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply.

Speaker 6 There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

Speaker 7 How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Speaker 8 Variety has the solution.

Speaker 9 Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Speaker 13 Where do you see the business actually heading?

Speaker 14 Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

Speaker 16 The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Speaker 17 Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

Speaker 1 This is Andrea Gunning from Betrayal. Are there two sides to every story?

Speaker 1 Academy Award nominee Robin Wright stars in The Girlfriend on Prime September 10th, a spine-tingling psychological thriller that will make you question everything you think you know.

Speaker 1 Laura has the dream job, the perfect husband, and a son she'd die for. But when her beloved Daniel brings home his new girlfriend Cherry, played by Olivia Cook, something feels off.

Speaker 1 Is Cherry the sweet, innocent girl she appears to be? Or is there something more manipulative beneath the surface? And how far will a mother go to protect her son?

Speaker 1 Also starring Lori Davidson, the girlfriend is a twisted game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems and everyone has something to hide.

Speaker 1 Don't miss the girlfriend streaming exclusively on Prime September 10th. Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

Speaker 69 Hey guys, this is Erin Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa with your fuel up Back to School play-by-play. This time of year, healthy and simple foods are more important than ever.

Speaker 69 From everyday staples like milk, yogurt, and cottage cheese, dairy products made with real California milk are packed with nutrients like protein, calcium, and vitamin B12.

Speaker 69 Visit BacktoSchoolCalifornia.com for money-saving offers, delicious recipes, and more. Back to School Nutrition starts with BacktoSchoolCalifornia.com.

Speaker 23 A few weeks after Bob dumped me in the early summer of 1995, I met up with Mindy at our favorite strip mall restaurant, the Mayflower, on the corner of Sahara and Decatur.

Speaker 22 We loved it there.

Speaker 26 It was upscale, but not pretentious, and they had the best Chinese fusion food in the city.

Speaker 39 When we arrived, we sat down at our table, ordered our usual Mayflower shrimp and grilled lemongrass chicken salad, and started to gossip.

Speaker 32 Conversationally, there was really only one thing on the menu, Bob.

Speaker 48 How I couldn't believe he broken up with me, the syphilis allegation, and all the questions we still had about who this guy really was.

Speaker 43 Mindy felt like he never really reached his true potential.

Speaker 23 Probably because he was an asshole.

Speaker 62 I was always surprised that he didn't run for office, even, you know, like

Speaker 62 president of the Clark County Medical Association or some community board or something like that. And then I said, Oh, you obviously don't know about the skeletons in his closet.

Speaker 62 And I go, What skeletons in the closet?

Speaker 49 So here I am, realizing at that moment that I might be the only person in Las Vegas to know about Bob's missing wife.

Speaker 26 Mindy clearly doesn't know anything.

Speaker 24 She didn't even know he was married before.

Speaker 35 So I start breaking it down.

Speaker 34 Before Bob moved to Las Vegas, he was married to a woman named Gail Katz.

Speaker 24 Now Gail mysteriously went missing.

Speaker 29 And at one point, Bob was accused of murdering her.

Speaker 28 Apparently he was fully investigated and deemed innocent.

Speaker 60 But his wife Gail, well she had never been found.

Speaker 62 Oh my God, this was like, yeah, unsolved mysteries.

Speaker 23 There's something you need to know about Mindy.

Speaker 35 Growing up, she read Harriet the Spy, The Hardy Boys, and Sherlock Holmes.

Speaker 23 As an adult, she would pass her time trying to solve mysteries faster than Mulder and Scully. Last year, her favorite TV show was Only Murders in the Building.

Speaker 49 She's a true crime nut, and I had essentially just handed her a real-life case to solve.

Speaker 62 I was intrigued to the point of like, let's nail him.

Speaker 23 That evening, Mindy hurried home to share her discovery with her fiancé, Jeff.

Speaker 62 Jeff said, I knew it. I knew it from the minute I touched his hand.

Speaker 62 An electric spark went through my body, like when you have one of those gag things that you put in your palm and it causes you to vibrate, you know. It felt like that.
I knew it.

Speaker 62 And I'm going, yeah, right.

Speaker 26 As Jeff and Mindy were riling each other up, I was getting on with my life, bouncing back from the breakup, taking my daughter to school.

Speaker 35 I guess the difference is that Bob's story wasn't new to me.

Speaker 31 He had told it to me on our first date, and despite our ups and downs, I still believed him.

Speaker 30 But Mindy, oh my gosh, she was like a dog with a bone.

Speaker 50 She had to investigate further.

Speaker 23 This was 1995 and we couldn't just type into Google like you can today.

Speaker 23 But Mindy, she had seen enough detective shows to know that all the big libraries will have some sort of newspaper archive.

Speaker 35 So off she heads to Clark County Public Library on Flamingo and Maryland Parkway, a huge red bricked campus-style building complex.

Speaker 26 It was Mindy's first real-life Watson and Holmes moment.

Speaker 43 She started searching what little she could on the library computers.

Speaker 23 Then she headed to the Microfish machines to flick through newspapers, New Yorker, New York Times, The Post.

Speaker 62 I was searching his name and her name and coming up with very little

Speaker 62 except for this one little snippet.

Speaker 71 The parents of a surgeon's wife who disappeared after walking out of her Eastside apartment 11 days ago said yesterday that they fear their daughter is dead.

Speaker 71 Bierenbaum said he and his wife had marital problems and he had argued with her just before she had walked out of their East 85th Street apartment at 1115 on July 7th.

Speaker 71 Bierenbaum said his wife said she was going for a walk in Central Park as she did frequently to cool out. Police said that Cass Berenbaum was never seen leaving the building.

Speaker 62 It was like saucer eyes. Oh,

Speaker 67 God.

Speaker 67 If you had been so incompetent, you've been so fucking stupid. Helenga, at least least you're alive!

Speaker 23 A few nights later, Mindy and Jeff are sitting on the sofa watching the movie Boxing Helena.

Speaker 41 It's a notoriously terrible movie about a murderous plastic surgeon who falls in love with a woman and kidnaps her.

Speaker 23 In order to keep her imprisoned in his house, he starts amputating parts of her body until finally she's just a torso.

Speaker 42 Not really my kind of movie.

Speaker 62 And Jeff said, it's Bob.

Speaker 70 It's Bob.

Speaker 20 It's Bob.

Speaker 34 So now they have a working hypothesis based on a few old New York articles and a movie with a score of 17% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Speaker 62 And

Speaker 62 this becomes

Speaker 62 sort of this hobby of Jeff and mine because he's like convinced Bob off this woman. I like the research.
I like the games. It's like a scavenger hunt to us.
It's some

Speaker 70 stupid

Speaker 62 thing to occupy us.

Speaker 23 From then on, it became their bit. When Mindy was at work or at an event, Jeff would send her little messages.

Speaker 62 At that point, there was no instant messaging. We still carried beepers and Jeff would use the numbers like eight, six, seven,

Speaker 62 six.

Speaker 70 And I'd be like staring at my phone writing the letters down like it was a crossword puzzle. And it would be, oh, torso.

Speaker 25 By this point, Mindy had gone deep enough into the morbid curiosity rabbit hole that there was no way out.

Speaker 23 And before too long, she dragged me in too.

Speaker 43 So we started meeting up at the Mayflower more regularly to talk about Mindy's findings.

Speaker 22 She even came up with a code name inspired by her favorite children's book, The Harriet the Spy Club.

Speaker 36 And that's when our investigation really began.

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Speaker 4 to your life offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply

Speaker 6 There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

Speaker 7 How are you supposed to stay on top of it all?

Speaker 8 Variety has the solution.

Speaker 9 Take 20 minutes out of your day and listen to the new Daily Variety podcast for breaking entertainment news and expert perspectives.

Speaker 13 Where do you see the business actually heading?

Speaker 14 Featuring the iconic journalists of Variety and hosted by co-editor-in-chief Cynthia Littleton.

Speaker 16 The only constant in Hollywood is change.

Speaker 17 Open your free iHeartRadio app, search Daily Variety, and listen now.

Speaker 1 This is Andrea Gunning from Betrayal. Are there two sides to every story?

Speaker 1 Academy Award nominee Robin Wright Wright stars in The Girlfriend on Prime September 10th, a spine-tingling psychological thriller that will make you question everything you think you know.

Speaker 1 Laura has the dream job, the perfect husband, and a son she'd die for. But when her beloved Daniel brings home his new girlfriend, Cherry, played by Olivia Cook, something feels off.

Speaker 1 Is Cherry the sweet, innocent girl she appears to be? Or is there something more manipulative beneath the surface? And how far will a mother go to protect her son?

Speaker 1 Also starring Lori Davidson, The Girlfriend is a twisted game of cat and mouse where nothing is what it seems and everyone has something to hide.

Speaker 1 Don't miss the girlfriend streaming exclusively on Prime September 10th. Sometimes the truth is just a matter of perspective.

Speaker 69 Hey guys, this is Erin Andrews from Calm Down with Erin and Carissa with your fuel up back to school play-by-play.

Speaker 69 Whatever's on that school supplies list, make sure you add protein, iron, zinc, vitamin B12, and the rest of the 10 essential nutrients found in beef. Sounds like homework.

Speaker 69 Tastes like the best school lunch ever. Visit BacktoSchoolCalifornia.com for money-saving offers on beef, delicious recipes, and more.
Back to School Nutrition starts with BacktoSchool California.com.

Speaker 34 After Mindy and I had met up at the Mayflower a few times, my mom got a bit envious, so we started inviting her along.

Speaker 35 At first, it looked a lot like the lunch with Anna the Vegan.

Speaker 24 We would talk about Bob and laugh over a plate of spring rolls.

Speaker 32 Mom would bitch about his lobster cooking skills, and you know, Mindy would bring up the time Bob made me sit on his lap at a medical mixer.

Speaker 62 That gave me reflux.

Speaker 62 Do you have a stain on your pants that she needs to cover up or what's the deal here?

Speaker 39 And I would talk about his totally irrational anger.

Speaker 25 Do you remember when Bob wanted to kill your dog?

Speaker 20 Because it bit Brooke?

Speaker 58 Oh, no.

Speaker 49 The fact is, I didn't think I had actually dated a murderer.

Speaker 35 It was just nice to trash on a guy who had treated me so badly, to share some laughter and a glass of wine with my girlfriends.

Speaker 23 But then we started getting other women in Bob's life life involved.

Speaker 53 I paid a visit to Bob's old receptionist and office manager who had plenty of stories about Bob's anger.

Speaker 53 After a few meetings, I called up Stephanie Youngblood, Bob's first fiancé in Las Vegas, and asked her to join us.

Speaker 29 And with her, we began to formulate theories about Gail's disappearance.

Speaker 48 One of them involved Bob's dad, Marvin's apparent access to a dog lab.

Speaker 62 She had information that he did cardiologic research at a dog lab,

Speaker 62 which fed into our dismemberment thing, that Marvin was somehow involved and he brought the body to the dog lab and,

Speaker 62 you know, dissect the body and put it in the duffel bag and then go off to Teterboro and throw him over

Speaker 64 the bridge.

Speaker 43 Between our meetings, Mindy tracked down evidence and brought in articles she had found in the library and from searching the early internet.

Speaker 35 She started coming up with some crazy theories.

Speaker 19 We created our own little game of clue, you know.

Speaker 64 Oh, there was blood on the rug. Oh, he wrapped her in the rug.

Speaker 62 He took the rug. It was a New York apartment.

Speaker 64 It couldn't be too big of a rug.

Speaker 62 It's like the amount of mental energy, I could have won the Nobel Prize.

Speaker 60 The more we met, the more I started to believe it was really possible that Bob had something to do with his wife's disappearance.

Speaker 36 It's not that any one piece of evidence gave us a gotcha moment.

Speaker 29 I just started to get a feeling that something wasn't right.

Speaker 34 It turned out that my clubmates all had stories like mine, a Bob flying off the handle, and so many questions about Gail.

Speaker 43 But the fact is, sitting in the Mayflower restaurant, sharing conspiracy theories and prawn toast, we barely knew anything about Bob and Gail's life in New York.

Speaker 34 We were miles away.

Speaker 72 At the time she was murdered, my sister was physically fit, mentally fit, in the middle of a PhD program at a prestigious university.

Speaker 72 She did not go somewhere without talking to me. We would fall asleep without hanging up the phone.

Speaker 72 There's a man named Robert Burenbaum,

Speaker 20 and he killed her for one very simple reason.

Speaker 72 And I wish that I knew then what I know now.

Speaker 72 Yes, Gail educated me and all that have come after her.

Speaker 22 Elaine Katz, if you're listening, I am sorry it took so long for us to realize your sister's disappearance was not a game.

Speaker 29 Next time we go to New York.

Speaker 72 I'm not saying that Gail was boy crazy. I was boy crazy.
Gail was love crazy.

Speaker 57 Gail had a way about her that she would attract a lot of attention.

Speaker 72 Gail was engaged like twice before she graduated high school.

Speaker 21 Insanity.

Speaker 57 She was a bit of a free spirit.

Speaker 15 We were hippies back then.

Speaker 44 So, you know, long-haired rock and rollers.

Speaker 57 Her mother promoted that having a man in your life made you complete. And without that, you weren't.

Speaker 72 And then

Speaker 72 she met Bob, whirlwind, relationship, everything seemed great.

Speaker 72 I do know now.

Speaker 18 It wasn't all so easy.

Speaker 35 The Girlfriends is produced by Novel for iHeartRadio.

Speaker 39 For more from Novel, visit novel.audio.

Speaker 25 The series is hosted by me, Carol Fisher, and produced by Anna Sinfield.

Speaker 27 Our assistant producer is Julian Manugera Patton, and our researcher is Madeline Parr.

Speaker 32 The editor is Veronica Simmons.

Speaker 5 Max O'Brien is our executive producer.

Speaker 44 Our fact-checker is Valeria Roca.

Speaker 23 Production management from Cherie Houston and Charlotte Wolf.

Speaker 26 Sound design, mixing, and scoring by Daniel Kempson and Nicholas Alexander.

Speaker 36 Music supervision by Anna Sinfield.

Speaker 25 Original music composed by Louisa Gerstein.

Speaker 22 Story development by Isaac Fisher.

Speaker 27 Willard Foxton is Creative Director of Development.

Speaker 23 Special thanks to Sean Glynn, David Waters, Mightily Rau, Katrina Norvell, David Wasserman, and Beth Ann McAluso.

Speaker 23 We did reach out to Bob and his legal team to ask if he'd like to comment on the podcast, but we never heard back.

Speaker 21 Novel.

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I'm still pretending the laundry on the chair is part of the decor.

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Speaker 1 Huh, a taste for taste.

Speaker 37 I like that. Smart water.

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Speaker 6 There's a lot going on in Hollywood.

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Speaker 1 This is an iHeart podcast.