Sequel: "You Can't Stay a Saint in This City" ›
Status: Complete ... For Now
Lost In Pacific Time
You Told Me You Loved Me So Why Did You Go?
Stanley Cup Finals, the phrase sounded foreign to me. The Boston Bruins were in the Stanley Cup Finals. I was going home. It felt weird, playing NHL hockey here considering in my career I had only walked down the hallways of Rogers Arena in my Bruins jersey twice. It was like I had a completely different life in Boston than I did in Vancouver, it was hard to imagine those two mixing.
“Hey, I have your stuff washed” my girlfriend Britney said handing me a laundry hamper filled with various pieces of clothing and hangers with two Armani suits on them fresh from the dry cleaners.
“Thanks,” I reply flipping through various channels on the plasma in our bedroom. “I’ll pack them up later”
“So whatcha watching,” she asks lying down in bed next to me.
“Um, I don’t know” I tell her, as I continue flipping through the channels. I don’t watch a lot of TV so Britney was in charge of all the channels we got, there were a lot of chick channels like TLC, Oxygen, and Bravo but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what number the NHL Network was on. As I continue to browse I see a flicker on Bravo and at first I think its my mind playing tricks but when I click back to the channel I see her, Amber.
“Oh, I love this show,” Britney says but I hardly hear her. My mind is racing, what the hell is Amber doing on TV, maybe I was right she did get killed and this was one of those America’s Most Wanted re-enactments. Then Amber is on the screen in a Real World style confession box, she opens her mouth and I want to change the channel. I don’t want to hear her talking about her roommate was a lousy lay but what comes out of her mouth is how she loves “a good green, purple, and white color scheme“ and then we the show switches to a shot of Amber buying paint from one of those fancy paint store. As she pulls paint chips off the display she takes out bottle of Essie nail polish from one of those fancy Chanel purses to compare with the paint chips. The rest of the show basically shows Amber eating lunch on an outdoor patio with a client who has to be at least fifty and keeps trying to hit on her.
“I hear she’s a season ticket holder to the LA Kings we should call and ask her if she’ll redecorate your apartment” Britney says snapping me out of my trance.
“Yeah,” I reply looking around my room. The hardwood floors were sewn with clothes, the king sized mattress and the TV mounted on the wall were my only real pieces of furniture. I couldn’t live in a home decorated like the ones in Amber’s show. I’d probably sit on one of those thousand dollar glass coffee tables by accident and break it.
“You’ve got a couple days off before leaving to Vancouver, do you have any plans” she asked inspecting her toenails.
“Not really,” I replied “Go to the gym, watch some movies”
Britney’s face lit up “Like the Notebook?” she asked.
I sighed “Sure, let’s watch it right now.” Britney hopped off and put the Blu-ray into my PS3 where we were greeted by the familiar title sequence.
_____
I walked into the office carrying three dozen cupcakes, it was my assistant, Ivy’s birthday with cameras following. The show had only one episode air and all of the sudden I was the next “big thing”. After Oprah had her last episode and left daytime TV I guess there was a void amongst middle aged housewives across America. I don’t even remember why I agreed to this, but my assistant Greg convinced me that I only got to be treated as a pseudo-celebrity for so long until the “next big thing” came around and people were sick of me. However I’m pretty sure Greg was just wanted to see himself on TV and be able to tell his parents in Oklahoma to watch for his hand in the scene where he got me a coffee. Milly loved it, she claimed it was like being able to see me whenever she wanted, which I found slightly creepy.
I’d come to know all the camera men who filmed me by name and sometimes when I was bored I’d talk to them. The network didn’t like that and rarely ever did my conversations with the camera men make it to air. Today I woke up bright and early to find a large white van drop Jeff off at my door. He filmed me as I went through my walk in closet to pick out my outfit and we left right before Milly came home from her run. I drove Jeff from my home in West Hollywood to Sprinkles Cupcakes in Beverly Hills proving the stereotype that Asian people couldn’t drive and almost hit a large black Escalade while I was parallel parking. Jeff and I maneuverer around awkwardly in the tiny store as I paid for three dozen Chai Latte cupcakes because they were Ivy’s favourite. Now we were at my design firm that was housed a couple blocks from Sprinkles in a vintage three story red bricked row house. I was about half an hour early so no one else was in the office. I dragged a folding IKEA table from the closet and into the middle of the room where I laid out the cupcakes. Slowly each of my staff began to trickle in, birthdays were a big thing at the Ambrosia Li Design Firm, so everyone brought their own thing to celebrate Ivy’s birthday. By the time Ivy’s Jetta showed up in the parking lot in the back we had balloons, a piñata, and various shiny foil wrapped packages.
“Happy Birthday Ivy!”
“Hey, I have your stuff washed” my girlfriend Britney said handing me a laundry hamper filled with various pieces of clothing and hangers with two Armani suits on them fresh from the dry cleaners.
“Thanks,” I reply flipping through various channels on the plasma in our bedroom. “I’ll pack them up later”
“So whatcha watching,” she asks lying down in bed next to me.
“Um, I don’t know” I tell her, as I continue flipping through the channels. I don’t watch a lot of TV so Britney was in charge of all the channels we got, there were a lot of chick channels like TLC, Oxygen, and Bravo but I couldn’t for the life of me remember what number the NHL Network was on. As I continue to browse I see a flicker on Bravo and at first I think its my mind playing tricks but when I click back to the channel I see her, Amber.
“Oh, I love this show,” Britney says but I hardly hear her. My mind is racing, what the hell is Amber doing on TV, maybe I was right she did get killed and this was one of those America’s Most Wanted re-enactments. Then Amber is on the screen in a Real World style confession box, she opens her mouth and I want to change the channel. I don’t want to hear her talking about her roommate was a lousy lay but what comes out of her mouth is how she loves “a good green, purple, and white color scheme“ and then we the show switches to a shot of Amber buying paint from one of those fancy paint store. As she pulls paint chips off the display she takes out bottle of Essie nail polish from one of those fancy Chanel purses to compare with the paint chips. The rest of the show basically shows Amber eating lunch on an outdoor patio with a client who has to be at least fifty and keeps trying to hit on her.
“I hear she’s a season ticket holder to the LA Kings we should call and ask her if she’ll redecorate your apartment” Britney says snapping me out of my trance.
“Yeah,” I reply looking around my room. The hardwood floors were sewn with clothes, the king sized mattress and the TV mounted on the wall were my only real pieces of furniture. I couldn’t live in a home decorated like the ones in Amber’s show. I’d probably sit on one of those thousand dollar glass coffee tables by accident and break it.
“You’ve got a couple days off before leaving to Vancouver, do you have any plans” she asked inspecting her toenails.
“Not really,” I replied “Go to the gym, watch some movies”
Britney’s face lit up “Like the Notebook?” she asked.
I sighed “Sure, let’s watch it right now.” Britney hopped off and put the Blu-ray into my PS3 where we were greeted by the familiar title sequence.
_____
I walked into the office carrying three dozen cupcakes, it was my assistant, Ivy’s birthday with cameras following. The show had only one episode air and all of the sudden I was the next “big thing”. After Oprah had her last episode and left daytime TV I guess there was a void amongst middle aged housewives across America. I don’t even remember why I agreed to this, but my assistant Greg convinced me that I only got to be treated as a pseudo-celebrity for so long until the “next big thing” came around and people were sick of me. However I’m pretty sure Greg was just wanted to see himself on TV and be able to tell his parents in Oklahoma to watch for his hand in the scene where he got me a coffee. Milly loved it, she claimed it was like being able to see me whenever she wanted, which I found slightly creepy.
I’d come to know all the camera men who filmed me by name and sometimes when I was bored I’d talk to them. The network didn’t like that and rarely ever did my conversations with the camera men make it to air. Today I woke up bright and early to find a large white van drop Jeff off at my door. He filmed me as I went through my walk in closet to pick out my outfit and we left right before Milly came home from her run. I drove Jeff from my home in West Hollywood to Sprinkles Cupcakes in Beverly Hills proving the stereotype that Asian people couldn’t drive and almost hit a large black Escalade while I was parallel parking. Jeff and I maneuverer around awkwardly in the tiny store as I paid for three dozen Chai Latte cupcakes because they were Ivy’s favourite. Now we were at my design firm that was housed a couple blocks from Sprinkles in a vintage three story red bricked row house. I was about half an hour early so no one else was in the office. I dragged a folding IKEA table from the closet and into the middle of the room where I laid out the cupcakes. Slowly each of my staff began to trickle in, birthdays were a big thing at the Ambrosia Li Design Firm, so everyone brought their own thing to celebrate Ivy’s birthday. By the time Ivy’s Jetta showed up in the parking lot in the back we had balloons, a piñata, and various shiny foil wrapped packages.
“Happy Birthday Ivy!”