Sequel: "You Can't Stay a Saint in This City" ›
Status: Complete ... For Now
Lost In Pacific Time
I Do Recall Now, The Smell of the Rain
Amber spent an hour on my laptop screen on the trip from Boston to Vancouver. It wasn’t because I was some crazy stalker who wasn’t over his ex-girlfriend, it was because something was off about this mass marketed Amber. Sure she still had the same sparkle in her dark brown eyes when she got excited about something, even really geeky things like the perfect set of curtains. She just seemed different. Then it hit me, this Amber had a sort of cockiness about her, like she was so sure about everything she was doing. The Amber I knew was I guess you could say less than confident. As we touched down at YVR, the same thing happens to me every time I’m in this airport, that’s why at the end of the season I’d rather drive my Range Rover from Boston to Vancouver than to fly.
_____
“So what? You’re just leaving,” I asked her eyes looked particularly dark and the moonlight made the tears filing her eyes silver.
“Yeah, I am” Amber replied as she continued to stare out the window on the passenger side of the car. The only reason I agreed to drive her was because I thought I could convince her to stay on the way there. Vancouver without Amber just didn’t work. It was like a zebra without stripes, it just felt wrong.
“You can’t just leave like this,” I say. All through our relationship I always thought she was the rational one but I guess just because she didn’t sit in the penalty box for drawing blood every other night didn’t make her rational. It just made her more rational than say… me.
“What about your parents?” I asked, knowing that surely Mr. and Mrs. Li had no idea their little girl was running away.
“They know,” she replied. I hate her two word answers I hate how calm she can just say things like that, like they don’t matter, like her decision tonight doesn’t change our life as we know it.
“You told them that you’re leaving to chase the idea of becoming an interior designer in LA and they let you go?” I asked. Her parents would never in a million years let this happen. They weren’t free thinkers like Amber, they both worked office jobs staring at computer screens all day.
“No, I told them I was no longer going to need their money and that I am going to UCLA to study engineering and pay for it myself.” She replied, she looks ashamed and other than her tears, that’s the first sign of emotion I’ve seen out of her since she got in my car.
“Why can’t you stay here?” It was really starting to sink in, when the sun rose tomorrow, Amber wouldn’t be here anymore.
“Because not only are the people in Hollywood open minded but they’re loaded” she said as we got on the highway “I can’t stay here because how am I supposed to convince a doctor that spending several thousand dollars for a bookshelf is reasonable”.
“Have you even thought this out? Where are you going to stay?” I asked her.
“Milan, I’ve been thinking about it the past month, and I’m sorry to say this but I think you were the last to know. Besides that guy I worked for this summer offered me a job.” She says.
“He offered you a job?” I’m sceptical sure Amber was nice and all but why would he offer her a job “what if he’s some sort of pervert who’s going to force you to sell your body?” I ask as we pull into the parking lot. Neither one of us gets out.
Amber rolls her eyes “He’s not, besides I’m going to become the main set designer for Sandalwood Heights, a paid job.” Sandalwood Heights was this TV show that just got picked up by MTV, it was about all these snooty rich kids and their problems that real teenagers never actually had. The pilot was filmed at our school and a bunch of girls from our school were cast as extras. One time when they were filming a scene afterschool where one of the characters was in interior design class some extras were there but Amber wasn’t an extra, she was spending extra time on her interior design project after school. They stopped the whole scene because the producer saw Amber working on her model home. Amber instantly got the job. Sandalwood Heights was getting picked up by the network and relocating to LA because of the high filming costs in Vancouver.
“Amber…” I begin but I don’t know what else to say.
Neither does she because the next thing I know we’re making out in my car. We finally stop and I help her carry her luggage into the airport. “I’ll miss you,” she says standing on her tippy toes so that she’s taller, but even then the top of her head comes to just below my eyes. Just like that she leaves me as the intercom announces that her flight is boarding.
_____
Sandalwood Heights was cancelled after three episodes. Ever since I heard the news I was waiting for her to come back but she never did. I watched the pilot episode of Amber’s show, she explained how after the show, one of the studio execs, was impressed and wanted her to decorate a nursery for his unborn child. The nursery was featured in an issue of People Magazine in a section called “Stars at Home” and that’s how Amber got her start. Before she had an entourage of seven people, she designed small projects all on her own.
It felt strange watching Amber on TV, especially when she talked about how much she missed Vancouver I was wondering if she meant me. Sometimes Amber would say things I already knew, like that her favourite color was fuchsia and how she’d never move anywhere that didn’t have a good red velvet cupcake. I learned other things about her though the show. I got to see the inside the place she now called home with the panorama shot of the Vancouver skyline from the Granville Bridge as the wallpaper in her closet. I felt like it was an inside joke, I knew that Amber shot the picture eleventh grade for photography class rather than just buying it, I also knew that we had our first kiss after the picture was taken. It could be purely coincidental but I was hoping it wasn’t.
_____
“So what? You’re just leaving,” I asked her eyes looked particularly dark and the moonlight made the tears filing her eyes silver.
“Yeah, I am” Amber replied as she continued to stare out the window on the passenger side of the car. The only reason I agreed to drive her was because I thought I could convince her to stay on the way there. Vancouver without Amber just didn’t work. It was like a zebra without stripes, it just felt wrong.
“You can’t just leave like this,” I say. All through our relationship I always thought she was the rational one but I guess just because she didn’t sit in the penalty box for drawing blood every other night didn’t make her rational. It just made her more rational than say… me.
“What about your parents?” I asked, knowing that surely Mr. and Mrs. Li had no idea their little girl was running away.
“They know,” she replied. I hate her two word answers I hate how calm she can just say things like that, like they don’t matter, like her decision tonight doesn’t change our life as we know it.
“You told them that you’re leaving to chase the idea of becoming an interior designer in LA and they let you go?” I asked. Her parents would never in a million years let this happen. They weren’t free thinkers like Amber, they both worked office jobs staring at computer screens all day.
“No, I told them I was no longer going to need their money and that I am going to UCLA to study engineering and pay for it myself.” She replied, she looks ashamed and other than her tears, that’s the first sign of emotion I’ve seen out of her since she got in my car.
“Why can’t you stay here?” It was really starting to sink in, when the sun rose tomorrow, Amber wouldn’t be here anymore.
“Because not only are the people in Hollywood open minded but they’re loaded” she said as we got on the highway “I can’t stay here because how am I supposed to convince a doctor that spending several thousand dollars for a bookshelf is reasonable”.
“Have you even thought this out? Where are you going to stay?” I asked her.
“Milan, I’ve been thinking about it the past month, and I’m sorry to say this but I think you were the last to know. Besides that guy I worked for this summer offered me a job.” She says.
“He offered you a job?” I’m sceptical sure Amber was nice and all but why would he offer her a job “what if he’s some sort of pervert who’s going to force you to sell your body?” I ask as we pull into the parking lot. Neither one of us gets out.
Amber rolls her eyes “He’s not, besides I’m going to become the main set designer for Sandalwood Heights, a paid job.” Sandalwood Heights was this TV show that just got picked up by MTV, it was about all these snooty rich kids and their problems that real teenagers never actually had. The pilot was filmed at our school and a bunch of girls from our school were cast as extras. One time when they were filming a scene afterschool where one of the characters was in interior design class some extras were there but Amber wasn’t an extra, she was spending extra time on her interior design project after school. They stopped the whole scene because the producer saw Amber working on her model home. Amber instantly got the job. Sandalwood Heights was getting picked up by the network and relocating to LA because of the high filming costs in Vancouver.
“Amber…” I begin but I don’t know what else to say.
Neither does she because the next thing I know we’re making out in my car. We finally stop and I help her carry her luggage into the airport. “I’ll miss you,” she says standing on her tippy toes so that she’s taller, but even then the top of her head comes to just below my eyes. Just like that she leaves me as the intercom announces that her flight is boarding.
_____
Sandalwood Heights was cancelled after three episodes. Ever since I heard the news I was waiting for her to come back but she never did. I watched the pilot episode of Amber’s show, she explained how after the show, one of the studio execs, was impressed and wanted her to decorate a nursery for his unborn child. The nursery was featured in an issue of People Magazine in a section called “Stars at Home” and that’s how Amber got her start. Before she had an entourage of seven people, she designed small projects all on her own.
It felt strange watching Amber on TV, especially when she talked about how much she missed Vancouver I was wondering if she meant me. Sometimes Amber would say things I already knew, like that her favourite color was fuchsia and how she’d never move anywhere that didn’t have a good red velvet cupcake. I learned other things about her though the show. I got to see the inside the place she now called home with the panorama shot of the Vancouver skyline from the Granville Bridge as the wallpaper in her closet. I felt like it was an inside joke, I knew that Amber shot the picture eleventh grade for photography class rather than just buying it, I also knew that we had our first kiss after the picture was taken. It could be purely coincidental but I was hoping it wasn’t.