"You Can't Stay a Saint in This City"

It was a beautiful Friday afternoon and I was lounging in my antique claw foot bathtub surrounded by warm bathwater and rose scented bubbles. In my opinion there was no such thing as a bad bath and a good bath was just what I needed after my week. I placed my elbows on the window sill and just stared, there was a reason I was here in the never used guest bathroom rather than my master bathroom.

While the window in my master bathroom overlooked the Sunset Strip, the window in here faced the east. The east being the former Henderson house, even though the window was still at least seven meters away or thirty five feet from the Tudor style mansion, it was about the closest I could get without leaving my own house. I sighed: there was still no car in the driveway.

No one was home. I had first noticed the SOLD sign in front of the home when I was being driven back from the airport but that was two weeks ago and in the two weeks I had never seen a flickering light in the living room and never heard the garage door open. My neighbour seemed like one big mystery. What kind of person bought a house and didn’t at least start moving in two weeks after. I loved my neighbourhood, it was so idyllic. During the autumn the trees lining the winding street would turn golden soon after that carved orange pumpkins would start appearing by the front doors. During the winter, the grounds keepers would string LED Christmas lights that sparkled like a sprinkling of colored sugar.

The thing I liked most about my neighbourhood was the neighbours. Some of them were in the show business but mostly behind the scenes stuff but the rest of them were working professionals: entertainment lawyers, plastic surgeons, and restaurateurs. I liked to think I bridged the gap between the two. You couldn’t blame me for being nosey, what if my neighbor was an unsavoury character who partook in seedy deals. I remember there was a couple running a grow-op down the block from me when I was growing up, they got arrested one day while I was at school and closed down the entire block.

I sighed and sunk deeper into the bathwater.
_____

“Honestly Jo what did they look like?” I ask over our morning coffees in the in the dining area. After interrogating the numerous staff members who house sat for me, Jo was the only one who fessed up and admitted that she had seen whoever it was that bought the Henderson’s house.

“Hey looked like guys,” Jo replies not being much help.

“Did they look shady? Like thugs?” I ask as Greg licks the foam from his cappuccino off his upper lip.

“Amber, you live in Sunset Hills not Skid row.” Greg says shaking his head at me.

“Well… I don’t know, describe them.” I ask Jo who honestly doesn’t seem to remember.

“They both looked like they belonged in the background of a Jersey Shore episode.” Jo replies with a shrug, Jo is in her late thirties I’m surprised she even knows that Jersey Shore is both a show and a place.

“Then it looks like they were just down your alley.” Greg says, over the last week the news of Milan and I had gone viral after someone posted a video of the two of us making out on the yacht during his Cup celebration. No one seemed to understand why him. Of all the guys and girls, according to those who still believed Milly, I chose Milan Lucic, for my first high profile relationship, seemingly out of the blue.

“Like the great Andy Warhol said ‘everybody should all fall in love with their eyes closed because that’s how the magic happens’ maybe you should try it sometime before you go for another one of those skinny stylist who break your heart.” I replied sipping my caramel macchiato.

“You love Andy Warhol,” Jasmine comments, she ditches the cappuccino machine in favor of the typical coffee pot. Jasmine, surprisingly, also takes her coffee black.

“Low blow!” Greg shouts as I walk back up the stairs to my office.
_______

“Have you heard the news?” Tyler asks as he sets up his camera to film me.

“What news?” I ask moving my furniture around in my office. My office has increased by about a hundred square feet so now I need another piece of furniture to keep the space from looking too sparse. I’d redo the whole office but I have a little too much on my plate right now. The reno more than doubled my offices but Bravo told me not to work on hiring anyone new yet. I assumed they had something up their sleeve.

“Work for Ambrosia Li,” Tyler reads from the classified section of the LA Times.

“Go on,”

“Bravo TV is casting for a reality show competition and looking for twenty contestants to duke it out for a spot on internationally renowned interior designer Ambrosia Li. No interior design experience required.” Tyler finishes as I rearrange the photographs on the wall.

“I hope they’re good.” That’s all I have to say. I’ve basically sold my soul to Bravo and all the other television networks under the NBC umbrella. At least until my contract is up and if I let them renew my show.

“Well Greg and Ivy are interviewing them later this month so maybe they can sneak you some dirt.”

I nod “Guess I’m going to have to plug ‘Ambrosia Li for Saks Fifth Avenue’ like crazy then aren’t I?”

“How’s that going for you?” Tyler asks as I unpack another box.

“Great. We have the final sketches done. I just have to approve the prototypes when they’re sent in next week” I say, life seems pretty peachy right now.
_________

I was in my bed in the middle of painting my big toe on my left foot when the doorbell rang. I groan hoping that it’s just Greg who’s going through another fling withdraw from that guy on The Rachel Zoe Project who got transferred to New York. Greg liked to pretend that he and Hudson or Wyatt or whatever were ‘the modern day Romeo and Juliet’ except no one was really trying to keep them apart. Except maybe the huge egos they both possess but it was better them than a fan crazy enough to jump my fence and ring my doorbell.

The door rings again. I groan and place my lavender Essie nail polish on my nightstand before walking down the stairs to the front door. I could see through the frosted glass door that the person on the other side. They were wearing some sort of black shirt and looked a little intimidating; they weren’t as tall as Milan but still seemed to tower over me. I was debating whether to open the door but I realized that it was a two-way door: if I could see them through the glass, they could also see me.

“Hello!” I say in my cheeriest voice. There’s paparazzi in front of my house and for once I don’t see them as a nuisance. If this person is insane and tries to kill me, they’ll have photographic proof. Proof they’ll try to sell to People Magazine but it’s still proof.

“Hi are you Ambrosia Li?” he asks, his voice isn’t nearly as deep as Milan’s. I realize that this person is wearing a King’s jersey which must suck because the jersey is black and its 75 degrees out.

“Yeah I am,” I reply still wondering why he’s at my door.

“I’m Mike Richards.” He says giving me a ‘but I bet you already knew that’ smile.

“Who?” I ask because I don’t have a clue who the fuck this is.