Lost In Pacific Time

Milan basically showed up at my place, ate the rest of my box of Frosted Flakes and dragged me outside and to Stanley Park a couple blocks away from my apartment. My first tip was when he led me basically to the part of Stanley Park without the beaches and the Seawall. Before I knew it we were walking towards the giant orca whale fountain and the Vancouver Aquarium.

“You love toursisty shit.” Milan says catching my smile.

“I do love touristy shit,” I say as we walk through the entrance. There’s a group of little kids lined up in front of us.

“Are you Amber Li?” asks a little girl wearing a pink sundress, turning to look at me.

“Yeah I am sweetheart.” I tell her and we move further along the line.

“You don’t look like you do on TV.” She says turning back around and talking to the kids in the line leaving me speechless.

Milan laughs “You know she’s right. You look nothing like what people would expect you to.” He whispers in my ear.

Milan and I hold hands as we enter the aquarium, it smells kind of fishy but what else was I expecting. There are some other people who stop us to take pictures and stuff. It seems that Milan and I chose the wrong day to visit the aquarium and just hang out.

“Cheese,” I say as Milan poses with these two eleven year old girls.

“Can we have a picture with you too.” Asks one of them as I hand them back the camera,

“Sure,” I reply as she gives Milan the camera so he can capture this moment on film.

The two girls say their thank yous and Milan and I walk outside to where the larger aquatic creatures are.

“You must get asked for autographs all the time.” I tell Milan as I peer into the giant pond, it houses a trio of sea otters.

“Sometimes,” he replies stopping to watch the sea otters as well. They don’t seem to be doing much, just lying on their backs sunbathing. “You?”

“Me? Well I guess only once and that’s because I accidentally ate breakfast at a tourist trap.
You can only tell if someone is famous if you’re looking for it and everyone in Hollywood looks famous.in Vancouver we stand out like dandelions” I tell Milan as we leave the sea otters in favor of the tanks where you can reach in and feel the animals.

"Dandelions?"

"You know what I mean, anyway I don’t have your autograph” I put my hand into the water and pull out a dark purple sea urchin.

“I don’t have yours either.” Milan says. I’ve decided that I’ve had enough of the sea urchin and gently place it back into the tank next to a similarly sized brown sea urchin.

I ask the obvious question “What would I sign for you?”

Milan snickers “Your Maxim cover”
______

“Why do they sell teddy bears at the aquarium?” Amber asks, picking up a brown bear wearing a Vancouver Aquarium t-shirt.

“Because bears are awesome” I tell her as she gives me a signature eye roll and puts down the bear in favor of a mug the size of her head. “The same reason they sell statement jewelry here.” I say spotting a pin the size of my fist and I have a big fist.

“The only statement you’d be making with that is that you spent sixteen dollars on a brooch that weighs enough to drag your shirt down to your belly button.” Amber says as she stacks up the shot glasses to make a pyramid.

When Amber isn’t looking I head to the cashier at the gift shop to make a purchase when I come back she ready to leave.

The two of us walk through Stanley Park and all of the sudden Amber lets go of my hand, “Oh my fucking god!” Amber rarely swears, this ought to be good.

“What’s wrong?” I ask trying to hide my amusement.

“I totally forgot that I had to move out today. I haven’t even started packing” she says as she speed walks pass an elderly couple who are sitting on a bench.

“It’ll be fine Amber, I’ll help and then I’ll drive you home-I mean to my house and we can spent the rest of the evening watching a ‘Classic NHL’ game” the first part was meant to appeal to her, the last part was all me.

“Why is it called Classic if they air games from last year’s playoffs?” Amber asks as the walk into her building’s lobby. I of course have no answer.

When we reach Amber’s apartment she brings me to her closet where she drags out two giant Louis Vuitton boxes, they’re large enough to be bus benches. Amber’s closet in her home in LA is bigger than the one in her apartment but both are bigger than the entire kitchen/dining area in my North End apartment in Boston.

“What is this?” I ask holding the angry purple animal wearing a Detroit Red Wings jersey.

“That’s Al the Octopus.” She says snatching Al away from me “he’s the mascot for the Detroit Red Wings, if you recall.”

“He’s shaped more like a camel.” I reply as she puts him next to Dolce and Coco on her bed, we’ll decide what to do with him later.

“I don’t appreciate your Original Six snobbery.” Amber says rolling her eyes at me and going back inside her closet "They were the last team to win back to back Stanley Cups..." she trails off but I thing we both know what she is implying.

“Aren’t you done yet? How many clothes do you have?” I ask her as Amber folds another one of her dresses and packs it away.

“I’m a girl. I have lots of clothes. I thought that was a given.” Amber says trying to zip up one of the bus benches that clearly doesn’t want to be zipped. Amber does the whole the jumping on it shtick before giving up and deciding that she should just wear the gold reunion dress over her jeans and t-shirt. She would’ve pulled it off if it wasn’t showing how stupid she felt.

When we finish packing up the rest of Amber’s stuff she’s wearing half her jewelry collection and at least two cardigans on top of her gold reunion dress outfit and carrying Al the Octopus, it would appear that Amber has bought quite a few items while she’s been here.

“I think I need to buy a new suitcase” Amber says as I wedge her stuff into my car.

“You think?” I say getting into the driver’s seat. ”Well I have something for you to add to it.” I tell her reaching for the gift I bought her at the aquarium. It’s one of those generic Vancouver snow globes they sell anywhere that has tourists, neither one of us are tourist but it will probably mean more to us than a dinky trinket would to a Japanese tourist. Inside the snow globe is the Granville Street bridge and in the background is the entire Vancouver skyline at night, just like on the night we first kissed.

“Wow…thank you so much Milan.” Amber says putting Al on her lap so she can hold the snow globe instead.