Yesterday was Sunday. I work at the hotel on Sundays, the one with the office right there on the boardwalk, so I see all these people walking by, by the dozens, maybe hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. I always make sure to bring my camera on Sundays. It brings the day by faster I tell myself. In reality, it stems from an irrational fear of forgetting beautiful things. I used to shoot people through the office window, but that quickly got played out, same angle and all, short window. The shot's there just for a second, and it was rarely sharp. Now I take my camera outside onto the boardwalk and shoot down the length of the thing, both ways, with my zoom lens.
There's this girl I see a lot, not personally, but on my phone and my laptop. No, I don't follow her (seriously thought about it, but I'm not in the habit of torturing myself; that's a lie), but I do follow photographers, and this girl gets her picture taken for a living. In a word, she's breathtaking. In that Malibu girl skinny blonde sex idol sort of way. Her name's Bryana, I think.
Sometimes I just go out a couple feet from the front steps, right in the thick of the ebb and flow of people going up and down the boardwalk, and there she was. She walked right by me. I heard her say something to her friend, her voice, and I didn't even take a picture of her. I missed the moment. She made me catch my breath though behind my sunglasses. She had on a beige zip-down hoodie, like a beige cardigan (I do follow her), like skin tone. I smiled. A few months back I'd seen that girl from the Blurred Lines video and Arielle's rooftop party from inside at my chair through the office window. I missed that moment too.
Later last night me and Claire, fresh air darling Claire, were driving to Nobu. I was driving, and I saw Bryana on Wilshire by herself, same beige hoodie, beige cardigan, like skin tone. I smiled. I'd never seen her before in my life, and yesterday I saw her twice.
Queer.
The streetlight on the street with no lights flicked twice again as I passed it on the way to In-N-Out again, and went out and stayed out. I watched it, twisting to look back on my bike, all the way to Lincoln.
And the girls sat exactly where I told them to, right beside me, and I never said a word, not once to them, like they followed my eyes.
At Nobu,
the lighting was dim.
We had a table outside
looking out to the sea.
When I looked inside,
there was Kanye
and Kim.
