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

“You know… the Philadelphia Flyers, right?” He says looking slightly annoyed.

“Philadelphia?” I ask “like in the Eastern Conference.” Honestly, I didn’t know much about the Eastern Conference, all I knew was that Boston played each team at least four times. Therefore I was safer sticking to the Western Conference when my goal was to watch hockey while avoiding seeing Milan.

“Yeah, well Philadelphia is on the other side of the United States,” He said with a slight you-don’t-have-any-idea-how-stupid-you-sound-do-you smile.

I roll my eyes and try to remember everything I’ve learned about Philadelphia but it’s been more than five years since my last AP Human Geography class. “I fucking know where Philadelphia is. It’s the largest city in Pennsylvania and 130 kilometres southwest from New York City”

“Kilometres?” He asks, at least that stupid smile is off his face but now he look intrigued which only means more talking.

“A kilometre is 2.2 miles, it’s part of the metric system, it’s what we use in Canada. You’re a hockey player; I assume you know where Canada is.” I say, looking down I notice the package in his hands for the first time, maybe I shouldn’t have ruffled up his feathers like that.

“I was on the Canadian Olympic team so I know both the metric system and where Vancouver is located. I hope I impressed you.” He adds sarcastically.

“You have an Olympic Gold medal then?” I ask trying to steer us to a safer topic.

“Yeah it’s at my house, I live next door.” he says nonchalantly.

“Don’t you think you should’ve started with that? Not, ‘Hi, I’m Mike Richards a hockey player you’ve never heard of’” I ask.

“I assumed that if you had season tickets, you would know who I was with the off season and everything.” He says waiting for me to understand whatever he is hinting at which obviously I don’t.

“You’re in Hollywood now; you never assume people know you because it makes you look conceited” I tell him, secretly wondering if he knows who I am. More like where he knows me from my reality show or my work. Let’s be frank, he looks like someone who’d know me as the girl writes in Maxim.

“Well you look kind of familiar…” he says waiting for me to finish the sentence.

“I was on the cover of the August Edition of Maxim” I finish for him with a smile.

“Oh right, the girl in the pink bra” he looks at me a smirk which makes me slightly uncomfortable, like he’s picturing the cover right now as he’s talking to me.

“Yeah,” I cringe, is that how people knew me? As ‘the girl in the pink bra’ but whatever according to People I was now a “sex symbol” which Greg said was “exactly what we wanted to show them”.

“Is that what you do professionally? Like you’re a body model.” He lifts his gaze from my torso back up to my face.

“A body model?” I ask, sceptic. I hope he doesn’t mean those girls in skimpy bikinis who lie on sports cars and pose suggestively. If that was my actual job I’d feel like such a loser.

“You know, like those girls in the Victoria Secret Fashion show.” He says. I look for any hint of a smile but he’s completely serious which kind of makes me flush.

“Are you trying to flatter me?” I ask, because he’s doing a pretty awful job at it. As a general rule least choose something probable.

“Is it working?” he asks that smirk back on his face.

“I’ll tell you after you explain what’s in the box” crossing my arms over my chest.

“Oh right,” he says like he completely forgot. He hands me the classy looking package. It’s a fairly large black pleather box tied together with a silver ribbon. The box—sadly—is too shallow to be a box of chocolates truffles, fingers crossed that it’s a set of thin solid chocolate squares. I’m guessing it’s from the Los Angeles Kings, although it looks more like it could be an invitation to Kim Kardashian’s wedding that just came several months late.

“They’re your tickets for the preseason,” he explains “they’re under your name but I assume they’re for your boyfriend.”

I scoff at the idea of me having a boyfriend but then I remember that I actually do, not that he’d want tickets to the LA Kings’ preseason or anything but still. Then I realize that I’ve never had a boyfriend while in Los Angeles. “Just because I don’t know who you are doesn’t mean I don’t watch hockey.”

“Really?” he seems skeptical. He doesn’t need to know the reason I started was for Milan.

“I mean… I don’t want you to test my historical hockey knowledge but I know my way around the league.” I say looking down at my unfinished toes.

“Who else is in our division?”

“The Sharks, Ducks, Coyotes, Stars” I reply confidently and look into my hands “this is a really beautiful box, better than last year when I had to go to the Staples Center and stand in line for an hour” I say trying to make conversation.

He shrugs “We only deliver tickets to the celebrities, or whatever you are, so we can film it and put it on our website.”

I ignore his comment and poke my head outside the door, there’s a camera man standing in the middle of my driveway with his camera turned off and at his side. I guess they must’ve stopped filming when I uttered the word “who?” although some careful editing could’ve fixed that.

“Well would you like to come in?” I ask opening my door wider so he can get a better view of my foyer.

“Sure,” he replies waving the camera man in, I assume, to reshoot this whole thing.

“Let’s start over, right from the top,” The cameraman says confirming my suspicions.
I hand the box back to Mike and we position ourselves on my couch. The red light on the camera blinks and for the most awkward seven seconds no one makes a sound.

“Hi,” I say to Mike.

“Hi,” He says back, honestly the Kings should send these players out with a mediator of some sorts to keep it interesting.

All of the sudden I remember my interview with Maxim and try to remember what I would say if I was an actual hockey correspondent for the Minnesota Wild. Of course I’m also pretending Mike Richards is the Finnish Nicklas Backstrom. Now that I think of it I kind wish it was Brad Richards here instead but New York is pretty far for me to commute to and from for games. “What do you have there?”

“So… I’ve got this box,” He shows it to the camera like were on some sort of late night infomercial.

“I see that” I say looking at the box, it looks like this exchange is going the gimmicky awkward route.

“It’s for you” Mike says handing it to me.

“Well thank you very much.” I say as politely and genuine as possible. I untie the bow for the first time and see the pages and pages of tickets in their plastic slipcovers. I’m not sure what to do next.

“Well you’re welcome. Well I guess I’ll see you on September 21st when we play the Coyotes” He says feeding me some lines.

I frown “They lost Ilya Bryzgalov, he was the only thing that made the Coyotes worth watching.”

“Well I’m sure you aren’t the only one who would rather have Bryzgalov sign in Phoenix that move to Philadelphia.” I see the red light from the camera turn off and hear the cameraman’s sigh, I’m pretty sure Mike just made a reference to something he wasn’t supposed to.

“I don’t think you were supposed to say that,” I whisper to him.

“Whatever,” He replies with a smile and I realize that this is the first time for the five minutes I’ve known him that I’ve seen him smile. A real smile, not the plastered on fake ones on the pictures the NHL uses when they score a goal or when they end up in the penalty box. I like his smile.