Lost In Pacific Time

I never thought that it mattered where the arena was or how vicious the fans were but something was definitely off about Rogers Arena. It was like a goaltender who totally had it in for your team basically it was like the opposition when they were facing Thomas. It seems like nothing is going to work no matter how hard you try. I watched Amber’s show on the flight back. The opening shot showed Amber driving down Sunset Boulevard and blasting ABBA from her amazing black Bentley. All of these years I had always imagined her living in a crappy apartment while she worked for a midlevel design firm in the day. Maybe I should’ve had more faith in her than that. She never complained about how little time we got to spend with each other when we were in high school. Amber found other ways to spend the day, she was happy being alone and would gladly have dinner with me when I found the time.

“Whatcha doing?” asked Patrice taking the seat Nate had vacated to play poker.

“Just a show” I replied.

“Does this show have a name?” he asked clearly bored out of his mind.

“Decking Out Tinseltown with Ambrosia Li” I say not even trying to pretend I forgot.

“Is that Ambrosia?” Patrice asks as Amber walked into her office she was wearing one of those floor length dresses in a bright tangerine with a pair of silver gladiator sandals “she’s cute,”

I don’t respond, I want to tell him Amber looks like a hot mess but TV Amber never showed up less than immaculate. Her hair was always so dark and shiny you could probably see your reflection in it. Her hair was always perfect even after a two hour hike she decided to take with me as I was preparing for the NHL Combine. “Yeah that’s Ambrosia, like the apple.”

“An apple?” he asks furrowing his eyebrows.

“Yeah, you know: Fuji, Pink Lady, Granny Smith, Ambrosia” I explain. I remember Amber telling me this when I asked her about her name during one of our first Physics classes together in Eleventh Grade.

“Is she sleeping with him?” Patrice asks as her assistant Greg walks into her office to tell her about today’s itinerary.
I roll my eyes “It’s not that kind of show, he’s her assistant”. Amber twirls her bejewelled pen around her long painted fingers before scribbling something onto a sticky note.

“Then what kind of show is this?” he asks. I have to admit at first glance you would never guess that this show was about interior design, it seemed more like a giant tourism commercial for the city of Los Angeles. Very rarely does this show film Amber dealing with difficult clients who think they want one thing when they really want another. I guess this show is only supposed to be about the glamorous side of interior design where Amber attends parties and has dinners with potential clients at fancy restaurants.

“Its an interior design show, she decorates peoples houses” I tell him.

“Like Extreme Makeover?” he asks still perplexed by the show.
Amber is inside some sort of furniture store and whipping out her tape measure like a professional to measure the height of a chair before passing on it. “Yeah only with rich people”

“Oh,” he says but continues to watch, like he actually cares whether or not she’ll find “the perfect chair for the Vasquez living room”.

“Britney wants us to redecorate,” I try to explain.

“I don’t see how watching this show is going to help you,” Patrice says “unless you want your home to look like the inside of the Juicy Couture store”

“Well than why are you still here watching this with me on my laptop?” I ask him, grabbing my bottle of water from the cup holder.

“Because Ambrosia seems really complicated, she really draws you in”

“What do you mean complicated?” I ask him in-between gulps of water.

“Like in that scene, she’s just staring at that wall, thinking. She seems like one big mystery like she there are things she’d just like to keep to herself and not share with the world.”

“I guess, what do you think she’s thinking of?” I say as we touch down on the tarmac.

“Life,” he replies as the credits start rolling on Amber’s show.
_____

I sat on my couch removing my nail polish. The remover left a chemical smell in the air, my black and white minature poodles; Coco and Dolce had run into the other room because the smell was so bad. I guess both of them looked really ridiculous, they looked like the kind of dogs that competed in dog shows or came in a box set with a Barbie doll. I hope I hadn't humiliated them too badly but I'm sure they're just grateful I adopted them from the Los Angeles Humane Society a year ago.

I painted my nails whenever I needed to clear my mind. It gave me one thing to really focus on and didn’t let my mind wander off too far. The Boston Bruins and Vancouver Canucks were playing Game 3 today and my TV was turned off in the TV room. It felt ridiculous; I was ridiculous for not being able to watch the game I loved because I couldn’t get over myself. It made me uneasy thinking about what would happen if I saw him for the first time since I left, especially on my TV screen. If I saw the face I’d spent years trying to forget, his smile that turned me into a giggly teenager.

It wasn’t really that hard to purposely avoid Milan, ESPN didn’t really focus too much on hockey and the people of California were all about basketball. I remember a client gave me my whole design firm courtside tickets to a Lakers Game as a Christmas present. Our seats were right beside the bench, close that I could smell the sweat radiating off the seven foot tall basket player beside me. I was pretty sure I could’ve gotten fallen on by a two hundred pound man or had the ball thrown at me which just screamed lawsuit. Greg, Jasmine, and Ivy basically spent the whole time acting like they were on a Star Tour. My secretary, Ruby got to sit next to Beyoncé but was too star struck to say anything. I was probably just acting like a hockey snob, but I had no idea why these seats cost almost three grand each.

I walked over to my wall that had shelves upon shelves of Essie nail polishes that could probably put any nail salon to shame. I picked up a cotton candy pink called Real Simple, I probably had over a hundred bottles so there were about ten pinks were pretty close in color with Real Simple. I couldn't hear the click-clack of their nails anywhere and figured that they had let themselves out into the yard. Sure enough I was right: Coco was watching the sunset refelct onto the pool and Dolce was chasing birds on the lawn. I slid open the glass doors and called them back in.

"Bedtime," I told them as I led them into the spare bedroom. I guess that’s what happens when you live in five bedroom house, you have about four too many and are forced to find random things to do with the spare rooms. So far I had an office, a spare closet I used for my winter clothes, a bedroom for my dogs, and a guest bedroom which no one has been in yet.