Lost In Pacific Time

I unloaded bag after bag of groceries from Whole Foods. I had forgotten to go yesterday after work and basically decided to have a dinner of granola bars and canned sardines. I learned my lesson and had written “GET FOOD AFTER WORK” in large letters that took up my whole left arm. I had to explain the whole story to the Saks Fifth Avenue rep during lunch at The Ivy, her treat, and instead of staring at me like I was crazy she laughed said that she would keep it in mind next time she needed to remember something. I knew it wasn’t because I was any less crazy than I had been a year ago. It was because the rep was now trying to suck up to me because I was famous. Instead of bitchy people who didn’t understand me I had to deal with fake people who pretended to understand me. I knew this because I was like these people. I too provided a service which required a convincing fake laugh when meeting clients for the first time but at my office with my staff I held nothing back.

The house across the street from mine was one of the first houses I did, back then I wondered what it felt like to live in a neighbourhood like this, surely everyone here was famous. When I bought this house two years ago, I felt like a success, here I was a non-famous person who could afford to live in a place like this. Living alone in a place with five bedrooms and seven bathrooms even though I didn’t even know four people who didn’t live in LA and wanted to visit me used to make me feel accomplished. Now I realized that I was just a lonely girl living in three thousand square feet of too much space. Maybe I could go back to the humane society and adopt champagne and chocolate colored poodles to mix it.

I tried to think of designer names for them to keep tradition. Bottega, Donatella, Gabbana,
Giorgio, Chloe, Zac, Vera. I would probably end up on Hoarders for hoarding miniature poodles. Maybe not. I didn’t have the energy for another couple of dogs that were small enough to fit into my purse. Taking care of another living thing was a lot of work that’s why I didn’t have kids/relationships I was a self-professed selfish person.

I began stocking the walk-in pantry with blue tortilla chips. I didn’t know if they tasted any different than regular tortilla chips but who wanted a white chair if you could have an indigo chair for thirty cents more. Besides I heard on the news that we should all be eating more color. I’m sure they meant things more on the lines of kale, pomegranates and blueberries rather than deep fried tortilla chips but where was the fun in that?

I took the interns with me to do a set up and they handled it pretty well. Better than I did at that age. I also had made them sign the standard confidentiality agreement which I now wished I had made Milly sign. Oh my god! I thought as I looked down at the large box in front of me. When I was in my pantry scourging for snacks I would move the box out. Having completely forgotten why it was in my pantry in the first place. I groaned and I found an orange Sharpie near the phone in the kitchen. I looked down at my left arm and realized that it was covered in the message that got me the groceries. Luckily I was ambidextrous and wrote “GIVE MILLY HER STUFF” on my entire right arm unfortunately I now had writing covering both of my arms, soon I’d be using my legs or be writing in front of the mirror on my back.

Wait, did she tell InTouch because I didn’t give her stuff back, all she had in there was a couple of black tank tops and some jeans. No, Milly was probably more upset because I didn’t protest when she said she wanted to move out since the contents of that box was mostly packing popcorn and had a total net worth of five hundred dollars. When I was seventeen that was all I needed to get to LA and put myself up in a motel for a couple of days. These days one of the caramel colored Manolo Blahnik lace-up sandals I am wearing costs about the same thing. As my accountant would say, it was a pretty good ROI, return on investment. Five hundred dollars wasn’t a lot to Milly either, she made 750 grand per an episode during the last season of Boundless so I was sure she could replace the contents of the box in a heartbeat.

When all my groceries were put in their place, I kicked off my heels and put them down in the wine cellar. I had it renovated to accommodate shoes because ironically the conditions used for wine was also beneficial to leather. I couldn’t really hold my liquor so it was no loss to me, and trust me I had no issue filling out a one hundred and fifty bottle wine cellar with shoes. It was a shoe collection Carrie Bradshaw herself would be proud of and at this point it seemed like the only thing we had in common.

I was driving, I wasn’t sure why but then I looked down on my arm and saw the faint orange marks. I had taken a shower this morning and the Sharpie had begun to wash off. I had to deliver Milly her box back. It was the day of the Stanley Cup Game 7, I had agreed with the critics and everyone else. Even though I didn’t like them I thought the Canucks were going to take it especially after the first two games. But sometimes what you think is going to happen isn’t what you believe is going to happen. Every panel had the brave soul that spoke up and said the Bruins were going to take it in seven. I was indifferent at least I tried to be.

I sign as I pull into the parking lot of the Biltmore Hotel. I had a problem. I had a tad flare for the dramatics. I guess that’s why I was on a reality show. If you were to ask anyone what my most valuable trait was, they would say honesty. Ironically that wasn’t true, I had always been taught to tell the truth for every little thing. Later on I learned that telling the truth for little things that would only get you off with a warning was better than telling the truth for big thing that could get you in serious trouble. When I lied, it wasn’t something like telling a client that I loved her idea for blue floors, it was something more along the lines of I love you or I don’t anymore. These were the kind of lies that left a weight in your heart. I lied about things that were going to changed my life as I knew it, not when the truth is going to bruise your ego for a second.

So I guess that was how I got into his mess. I could barely see over the top as I walked over to the hotel lobby.

“Hi, can you tell me what room Remington Fox is in?” I ask remembering Milly’s alias.

“Sure,” the receptionist said typing something on her computer “I’m sorry, she just checked
out last week”

“Oh,” I say still holding the box “Did she call down here often to ask if a package had arrived.”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” I say carrying the box back to my car.

I made a pit stop on my way to the office. To the consignment shop with the box in my hands and left with a hundred and fifty dollars in my pocket.
_______

Back to Vancouver we went. I honestly could write a fucking seven hundred page autobiography about this series with all the stuff that’s gone down.

“What are you doing?” I ask Tuukka Rask as he seems to be the only other guy with his laptop out.

“I’m writing my blog,” he replies. Technically he isn’t really the one writing it, he writes the whole thing in Finnish, puts it into Google Translate, and sends it off to NHL.com where they have some guy edit it. It’s quite a process.

“Does anyone read it?” I ask having nothing better to do.

“I don’t know,” he says erasing a whole paragraph.

I sigh and remember how Amber had never left the province let alone flown anywhere in her life. Before her flight to LA.

I stare out the window and its madness outside. It’s like one of those Guinness World Record things where someone just emails everyone they know and they flash mob a place. Like at that hockey game when they had the largest gathering of people with mustaches. Outside it is a sea of blue, green, and white. I laugh remembering how Amber hated those three colors in that combination. She thought that it was one of the ugliest things she had ever seen when I took her to her first Canucks game. There’s also a group of people rocking the yellow and black, presumably from Boston, out there and getting harassed by the green and blue.

The rest of the team is scattered around the floor doing god knows what. Tuukka Rask and I are the only ones in the living room type of situation they’ve set up dangerously close to the elevators. He’s writing his blog and well I’m not really doing anything. I pull my phone out of my pocket and skim through my messages lots of them are from former teammates and I don’t know why but I’m expecting to see Amber’s name somewhere on this list. It isn’t, this could be the single most important day of my life and Amber isn’t here either in spirit or person. Maybe Nikola is right, she’s now become the kind of person who is too focused on the present to remember the past. I just wish I had her support right now even though I don’t deserve it. I never encouraged Amber the way she encouraged me. I didn’t tell her how amazing the color boards she made were even though that how she described my goals/fights after the game.

Being an interior designer was one of those things you couldn’t really judge. Her color boards were really pretty but how was I supposed to know what a good one looked like? It wasn’t like hockey where you’re a good player if you can score some goals and hold your own in a fight. That was what bothered me the most. I of all people was supposed to see how talented and amazing my girlfriend was. And I didn’t, all I could think about during my senior year was how I had finally made the Giants’ line up and the Entry Draft in June. How was I supposed to know that Amber would become the next Martha Stewart?