Lost In Pacific Time

I’m sitting on Amber’s bed with the purple pillows proofreading her latest article for Maxim. I’m not really of any help but at least now I know that no girl will ever want to have sex with me if my bed sheets are a peachy orange. Although her advice is a little harsh at least it’s helpful and more important than that it’s funny.

“What do you think of this one?” Amber asks walking out of her closet, I don’t even have to look up, I know she looks great but she’s going to say that the dress either makes her armpits look weird or something else along those lines.

“Looks great,” I say glancing up from the article in my hands. The dress is gold and has all these layers. Her legs look extra-long but that might just be the nude heels.

“Thanks Milan,” Amber replies twirling around in the full sized mirror “I like this one”

“You’re putting so much thought and care into impressing a group of people who could care less about” I reply putting down the article on her nightstand. Her nightstand is full of all these knickknacks like an hourglass and a little silver box.

“Maybe I just want to look good.” Amber replies sticking a pair of long dangly earrings into her ears.

“You always look good,” I reply as Amber grabs a train case and dumps about twenty lipsticks on the other side of the bed.

“Greg?” Amber calls and I realize that the webcam from her iMac is on.

“What color lipstick were you thinking of?” asks Greg. He looks like he does on TV, only more tired.

The two of them spent twenty minutes debating whether Amber should wear “scarlet lipstick with the warm orange undertones or fuchsia lipstick with cool blue undertone” while I turn on the TV in the room to baseball and put it to mute.

“Okay I’m ready,” Amber says putting product into her hands and running them through her hair so that it looks like she just got up from bed.

“Finally,” I say as we walk into the elevator.

“Nothing better than being fashionably late.” Amber replies fluffing up her hair and giving a million dollar smile to the mirrored elevator doors.
_______

“So now I’m a mechanic,” says Steven Hannigan as I take a sip of bottled water, Scott Kalvin spiked the punch bowl with vodka earlier. He’s dressed in a suit, looking hotter than everyone else as always and talking to a group of his lacrosse buddies from high school. Milan and his one-time girlfriend, Heather Ullman, are laughing about something… probably something stupid. You know what they say: the more things change the more they stay the same.

“A mechanic…wow,” I say unsure of what else to add, I totally saw it coming. Ever since that day in preschool when Steven used his remote controlled car to chase me around the playground. Or in eleventh grade when he spent the entire summer restoring a vintage Mustang and had the coolest car in the parking lot for senior year.

“You know Amber I’ve always thought you were pretty cute.” Steven says slightly blushing, god I hope the punch makes people say stupid things and he doesn’t actually feel that way.

“I like you too,” I reply trying my best at being stupid. Figures, the one time I want to sound stupid I can’t. But let me loose on a talk show and I’ll start talking about how I almost got into a car crash because I was too busy applying mascara.

“No, I mean I like you” Steven says with a wink. Oh my god… the only people who should be winking these days are the ones in movies produced from the sixties and eighties.

“Oh… I’m sorry… I” My stupidity seems to have decided to choose now for me to be unable to form complete sentences.

“You have a boyfriend,” Steven says looking defeated.

“No…I mean yeah, I have a boyfriend” I don’t think I’ve ever used those words together: I have a boyfriend.

“Is it still Milan? Because he looks pretty cozy with Heather.” I look behind me and see Milan playing with Heather’s sandy brown hair while whispering in her ear, I feel sick.

“No, it’s not Milan. I’m dating…” time to do some name dropping, hopefully by the end of the night the word would’ve spread like wildfire. I mean I name drop all the time, that’s part of the business.

“Steven Stamkos” I reply off the top of my head. That seems pretty likely right? I mean he plays on the other side of the country in Tampa Bay and I work in Los Angeles. Dammit, I should’ve chose like Drew Doughty … maybe not, umm how about Jack Johnson that probably would’ve been the best answer even if he does have a Mike Smith name. Wait didn’t Stamkos break his face during the playoffs? Ugh I really know how to pick them. Even in fictional relationships I seem to have no luck.

“Isn’t that kind of awkward?” Steven…Hannigan asks.

“What do you mean?” I mean I know he’s a couple years younger than me but its not like I’d get arrested for statutory rape in the States, would I?

“Well he lost to the Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Finals,” Of course he did and of course I didn’t know that for obvious reasons. I really should research my lies before I tell them.

“Milan was the one who introduced us. Right Milan?” I say as Milan makes his way over.

“What?” Milan asks in one hand he has a beer and on the other side of his body Heather is tucked under his arm. My shoulders are feeling all too drafty now especially since hat used to be my spot.

“You set me up with Steven Stamkos” I say giving him the cover-for-me look. He owes me for all those late nights in eleventh grade when I lied to his mother and said that he was at my house studying when really he was hooking up with someone somewhere. Isn’t lying what everyone does at high school reunions?

“Oh yeah, they really hit it off. You should’ve seen it. They were all over each other. Like it got to be too much for all the children in the restaurant and these parents told them to get a room they both took a trip to the ladies room and left the restaurant with the guiltiest looks ever.” Milan says with a straight face and the two of us nod like idiots even though there were definitely parts of the story he could’ve left out. Actually he could’ve just left it at “oh yeah”.

“Oh my gosh, Amber. When he comes to Vancouver you, him, Milan, and I should all go on a double date. When’s your day with the cup again, Milan?”

“August 14th” Milan replies and from the small smile on his face I can tell he totally knows where this train wreck is headed.

“What about you bring him to Vancouver on the 14th?” Heather asks in a cheery tone. Heather isn’t trying to be mean or challenging me she’s just… kind of oblivious. I feel bad for her brains that don’t extent beyond the books but…

Honestly Heather want to go on a double date with me, my ex-boyfriend, and this guy who might as well be a stranger? I wonder how this is going to go. “He’s…” I say trying to add details to make it more believable but none come to me.

“Training. He’s at the Biosteel camp with Gary Roberts the entire month.” Milan says sipping his beer.

“Yeah, definitely” I reply, I want to hug Milan but he doesn’t have the hands for it right now. Not with the beer… and Heather. Speaking of Heather where the hell is her son from eleventh grade?

“Impressive” Steven Hannigan says clearly understanding what Milan had just said.

“I’d better get going,” I say looking at the screen on my BlackBerry.

“I’m going to come with. She’s the designated driver.” Milan explains to Heather who bobs her head and already turning her attention to Scott Kalvin and his friends “I’ll call you.” He adds as we leave the ballroom of the Pan Pacific Hotel.
______

I probably laugh the entire way home as Amber drives her Mercedes down the dark streets.
At a red light Amber turns to me with the-look “Is the idea of me dating Steven Stamkos really that unlikely?”

“No, it’s just funny how close you came to blowing your cover.” I say leaning back in her leather seats, heated leather seats I might add “Besides, you’ve dated me. I’m sure you can do better than some kid with a broken nose.” Even if that kid brings home and scores twice as much as I do.

Amber rolls her pretty brown eyes “Isn’t your nose broken in seven places?”

“That’s not important,” I say its Saturday and I’d honestly wouldn’t want to be anywhere else than with Amber in this car.

“I hope it’s held together with more than paperclips and staples.” She teases.

“I should insure it eh?” I ask her.

Amber nods with a chuckle “I like it,” Amber says running her index finger down the slightly bumpy bridge of my nose “It’d suck if it just fell off one day during a fight.” Amber has a disturbed look on her face and I can tell she just simulated the situation in her head.

“Anyway, I was serious about the whole cup thing,” I say as we once again drive through the Downtown Eastside.

“Yeah? Bringing the Stanley Cup to Vancouver? I think you might be the first to do it.” Amber pulls into my driveway and I can hear teenagers getting into mischief at Hasting Park across the street “Never mind, I take it back the Vancouver Millionaires brought it here in 1916” before the NHL was established might I add.

“So recent.” I joke. I want to tell her that some of the Chicago Blackhawks bought it to Vancouver but that would just lead to Amber going off on a tangent and talking about how she still finds Patrick Kane adorable…even after all these years and all the stupid shit he’s done.

“Milan, we should make a club called that.”

“What?”

“The Vancouver Millionaires” Amber says nodding her head. She’d probably in Amberland thinking about what kind of wainscoting she wants in the meeting areas.

I clear my throat, “Anyway, fourteenth yah or nah?”

“I wish I could Milan, but I have to go back to work” she says and I’m dragged back into reality. I totally forgot that Amber had a career, a lucrative career. I had been accustomed to thinking of her as someone who spent all day with nothing better to do than helping me buy and arrange furniture.

“Oh, okay,” I reply “see you tomorrow,” I say as I get out of the car. Had it really been only six years ago that on this very day Amber and I had sex for the first time? It feel much longer.