Lost In Pacific Time

I helped my mother by cutting lettuce for the salad, the same job she used to give me when I was seven. My knife skills hadn’t exactly gotten any better since then. The doorbell rang and I wanted to throw the knife across the room and jump the kitchen table to get it. Instead I calmly put the knife down and walked towards the front door only to see that Nikola already had the door open and that Amber was inside.

“Hi, Amber” I say as she leaves her fancy shoes in the foyer those shoes probably cost more than the leather couch in our living room. After spending countless hours at boutiques
I’ve become quite good at guestimating these things.

“Hi, Milan” she says giving me a smile “What are we having today?”

“The moussaka is almost done,” I tell her as we walk into the kitchen.

“Milan helped cut the lettuce for the salad.” Nikola said mockingly, he never missed an opportunity to embarrass me.

“Aww” Amber says like it’s the cutest thing ever. “I’m sure the lettuce will be in nice uniform pieces. Right Milan?”

Not likely considering I got frustrated by the lettuce so I decided to just rip the pieces. But the cucumbers and tomatoes should be good. “Yeah,” I reply as Amber goes into the kitchen to wash her tiny hands in order to help me prep. I am so fucking nervous. How the hell did I do this almost every night for nine months? From the kitchen I can hear Amber and my mother laughing about something.

“So what can I do for you?” Amber asks taking off a particular large cocktail ring and slipping it in her purse.

She could do a lot of things for me “You can cut these olives.” I tell her handing her a jar.

I place a handful of cucumbers in the salad bowl and I can see that Amber’s still struggling opening her jar. For someone who works three years at a hardware store she really sucked at physical labour.

“Here you go,” I say taking the jar from her and soon hearing the pop from seal signalling that it’s been open.

I'm surprised when I see that Amber can fit her entire hand and almost half of her arm into the jar and pull it out with a handful of olives no problem. I watch Amber cut the olives so they look like what you’d expect on a pizza and throws them in the salad bowl. It was then that I realize that I’ve been staring at her the entire time that she’s been cutting yet she seems unfazed by it.

She’s probably used to people watching her now not like before when if I stared a little too long at her as she was pouring chemicals in our beaker and her cheeks would turn a faint pink. I missed seeing her blush. I missed everything about her. It seemed silly to miss someone who was sitting right next to you but I was missing her because I knew that she and I would eventually have to leave the cozy kitchen in my childhood home.
______

“So which hotel are you staying at?” asks Nikola’s dinner guest, Rachel. Ever since she arrived at the door she’s basically interrogated me about every aspect of my life.

“The Four Seasons,” I lie. There’s no reason that she needs to know where to find me at one in the morning.

Milan’s mother, Snezana clears her throat “So Amber, did Milan tell you about his project this summer?”

“No he hasn’t,” I say looking over at Milan, who is seated next to me at the table. I expect him to tell me about a new charity he’s raising money for or something of that nature.

“I bought a house,” he replies in between bites of moussaka—which was amazing by the way.

“I thought you still lived here?” Earlier, after we had finished prepping the salad, he had showed me his room which looked exactly like it had five years ago. The blue flannel sheets—incredibly ugly then and incredibly ugly now—were rumpled and slept in and the walls were still lined with trophies, although several more than the last time I’d been in there. Except there were also some empty picture frames which I assumed used to house pictures of his ex-girlfriend.

“I’ve kind of hit a road block with the project.” He admits as I chew on a bite of salad.
“What kind of road block?”

“I…don’t know how to decorate it” He finally admits.

“I could help you,” I offer, despite the fact that I did it for a living I would do it for free. That’s how much I loved it. I loved the whole process of putting things together. An empty room to me was a puzzle, I loved puzzles. Sudoku, Crosswords, Word Searches, Jigsaw.

“Honestly Amber’s work is so amazing,” Rachel says but Milan looks like he’s too deep in thought to hear her. I turn my gaze to Nikola who looks like he’s silently trying to communicate to Milan.

“I mean if you’re not busy or anything.” Milan final says “I wouldn’t want to ruin your vacation”

“Honestly it’s no problem at all.” I reply sipping my iced tea.

“So… is this going to be on TV?” asks Rachel from the across the table.

“What do you mean?”

“Like this dinner… is it going to be on TV?” Rachel clarifies.

“No,” I’m rather proud at myself for being civil to Rachel. The old Amber would’ve given her a cunning comeback but she’s no threat she’s just curious.

“Oh,” she replies disappointedly, considering there are no cameras and no one’s wearing any sort of recording devices, I assumed everyone knew.

“What’s it like being on TV?” Nikola asks me.

“Milan’s on TV too,” I reply with a laugh.

“That’s different, you have like a hundred times more people watching you. And they’re watching like sixty players. You’re the reason people watch.”

“Thanks Nick.” Milan says rolling his eyes.

“I don’t know, I guess it’s a little strange. The show’s only been on for like a month and a half and all of the sudden people are calling me offering me endorsement deals and some of them don’t even make sense. The other week I was asked to endorse a set of knives on a late night infomercial.”

“I would give my left arm for your life,” Rachel says honestly.

“Why?” I ask I’ve never exactly been envied when I started officially dating Milan I guess I was kind of envied but it was because all the girls knew that it was only a matter of time until he went pro. This was entirely different, Rachel wanted my life. A life where I sat around for hours in the comfy chairs at Barnes and Nobel at The Grove reading gossip magazines that I was too embarrassed to actually purchase on Saturdays.

“First off the dress you’re wearing is like costs seven thousand dollars. Your job is to basically meet all these celebrities and shop. It sounds pretty awesome.”

“Oh,” It never occurred to me, that this was what the viewers were seeing. Anything looked good when it was framed in an extravagant gold frame. I had received several book offers and I decided that if I were to ever write one I would include the previous piece of advice. A book, Design by Ambrosia Li did have a nice ring to it.
______

“I’ll walk you to your car,” I tell Amber as she puts her empty white plate into the sink.
I watch as Amber sits on the stairs slipping on her shoes which almost bring her to shoulder height with me when standing. As I open the door and look down the street it isn’t too hard to spot which car is hers. Most of the cars lining my street were Hondas and Toyotas in various shades of taupe and grey. The two nicest cars were my Porsche SUV which was parked in the driveway and a white top of the line Mercedes parked across the street from my house.

“I assume that one’s yours.” I joke closing the door behind her.

Amber bites her lip “it’s not too ostentatious is it?”

“Probably only here on East Forty Fifth Avenue.”

“It was really great seeing you Milan,” she says and when I look into her eyes I can tell see her honesty “I’m glad were friends like this again”

“Yeah,” I reply as we stand in front of her car.

“Are you busy tomorrow?” she asks me playing with her charm bracelet. I turn my attention to her wrist and her bracelet makes me smile. There are four charms on the bracelet: a black poodle, a white poodle, a rhinestone studded shoe, and a red velvet cupcake.

“No,”

Amber smiles “Great, I live at the Fairmount Pacific Rim so I was wondering if you wanted to come over so I can put your through the Ambrosia Li Design Personality test.”

“Sure, ten o’clock?”

“It’s a date,” Amber replies getting into her car and I watch her drive away.