As a general rule I do not remember my childhood. When brought into conversation I convey some vague story that includes a school and some Tupperware but I'm convinced even this is some convoluted history my subconscious cooked up to fill in some blanks. Unfortunately in the coarse of human events there are smells, warm faces, and some hits from back in the day that can take the reality right out of a situation morphing the smell into a fifth birthday cake, the warm face into the hot high school teacher and the oldie into a rockin' concert with some buddies. The furthest back these triggers can force me is to those awkward loneliest days of my last move. I remember having many childhoods that played out in many different houses. That final dwelling was the prison of my freshmen year. Each time I snap back from the bad haircut and gum at my desk to my present hair style and the woman at my side I feel uncharacteristically disheveled...dizzy and whichever warm face I am with has a fading smile that says something akin to, "What am I doing with him?"
Thankfully the flashbacks are about as rare as most of my stakes. Once I reached my adulthood I began to disregard anything my mother ever told me, allowing me to live up to my potential. I became popular, rich, successful and most importantly devilishly handsome. Feeding my own vanity is not a practice that I am proud of, unless of coarse I am good at it.
When I graduated college I started the Ace Event Planning Community. I owned several independent event planners and regulated them to my satisfaction. Together, and independently, we planned anything, bring us your tired, your bored, your hungry and we'll make them poor so they can have a happy wedding day! The high cost is easily justifiable to the customer when the details are presented. Planning has always been a sort of gift of mine, as well as getting that plan to pull through. I attribute my success directly to the passion I have for a good party. Now those independent planners have their own underlings, and those underlings have their own. Most of them discovered that Independence is an expensive venture especially when they saw that they would eventually have to be competing with my independence.
I maintain a state of needing nothing. I have friends, whom I like to refer to as connections, all across the country, a mansion in Upstate New York and my "permanent" residence in Arizona. I'm not sure why I chose Arizona but I now claim it was a tribute to Charles Mingus. That cat deserves some real spotlight; I most certainly can help with that.
Everyone knows me, at least everyone knows my name. You may have seen "Ace" plastered on every tent, ice-sculpture and sushi bite in celebrity photos. My name is actually Aviran but somewhere along the line I was blessed with the nickname that reveals both my sensitive side and my risky nature to the the beautiful women who meet me.
I've got to be honest, because I am an honest person, I only look filthy stinking rich as an investment. I only have one sports car at each office and afew different colored tux. I eat Rice-aroni on weekdays just like everybody else. But who is going to entrust their cash to Rice-aroni? So I act the part just to help my necessary business to grow.
Once, in California, as a testimony to my average qualities, I just needed a burrito to wash down the fillet minion I provided at an area conference. I sat dining El Fresco and just as I was tackling a bite a baby blue blouse and bracelets sat down across from me, sending me to a familiar mahogany bed. I was remembering a fever, and the smell of the washcloth that was resting pointless on my forehead. The covers had been tucked up tight under my chin and several comforting items had been piled up all around me: an empty bowl of soup, a VHS of Karate Kid, bottled water and pictures of something brightly colored, it seemed to be spinning. Beside my bed a girl sat on a stool reading Huck Finn aloud with great vigor, her gypsy toes playing more fervently with the rose pedals on the floor depending on the intensity of the passage. Her flowing skirt and gentle blond curls fell across her and seemed to make my fever get worse, rather than better.
I stayed here afew moments, trying to reason why rose pedals had ever covered my bedroom floor. But when I glanced up at the woman in the blouse her smile had not faded, in fact I believe it was growing. I tried to ask who she was but I'm such a man that I forgot about the bite of burrito. The girl laughed and rested her bracelet jingling hand on mine. "You my friend, have not changed." She then smiled right into my face.
"Ah, but I plan on it, some smiles could make any man change." That day had not been my most gentlemanly, but weakness is a desirably quality sometimes. Any girl this forward was a friend of mine. I squeezed her hang and then let it slip off. "But for now I am going to finish my burrito the way Heaven intended."
"Yes, please eat! Ace I can't even believe I ran into you here I heard you had moved to Texas or some other forsaken corner of desert!" Expression is a science, I've learned that well for my kind of business, but the way her hands banged the table, softly, had convinced me that this woman had mastered expression down to an art form.
"Arizona is not forsaken, the culture is actually quite rich and I don't know how you would have recieved that infor..."
She interrupted me.
"You told your dad! Goodness Ace the things you forget." She did seem to actually know me, but I had begun to notice why I would have forgotten who she was. If she interrupted me one more ti.... "Ace, just ask me what I am doing here. I mean, you do remember me?"
I waved to the waiter for the check, the famous Cali two finger wave, and set my napkin on the plate. "Miss, would you please stop referring to me as if you know me. No, I will not discount a party slash event for you if you claim to be from my hometown, even if you did know my father you would know he would hate for me to give up a penny for anyone, let alone a friend I hardly know."
"I forgot, 'Father'. Goodness Ace. And I wasn't expecting a discount, my wedding will be remembered, if only remembered for how much dept it put Greg and me into." His name produced the silly love stricken expression that usually meant the wedding day would most deffinently put them in a dept that the prenump would never cover. I would defiantly remember how much their wedding would cost.
I began to leave, she couldn't know I was seeing dollar signs all the way to my next vacation. "I'm sorry for being so rude, I hadn't realized you just wanted your special day to be the best it could be. I agree, luck did help bring us together today. I'll leave you with my card and you tell my receptionist Clara that the..."
"Ace is in the hole." She took the card and examined both sides with the flick of a wrist.
This no-body knew my password! No Ace Events fanatic could have found out a password he had changed yesterday! I sat back down and stared. I looked into her eyes, I studied her nose and tried to see if her roots were showing.
"I'm Sarah, Ace, I'm Sarah."
"Sarah got married."
"Sarah got engaged."
"Sarah moved."
"To California."
The waiter came back and asked if the "young lady" wanted anything. "Sarah the Cella?"
"A hole beneath the place."
"A hole that has an Ace." I had been shocked, and I humbly admit I had been wrong. Getting old really is a burden. The Waiter looked highly confused as he stared blankly at the space between Sarah and I.
"That rhyme was always dumb Ace." That childhood friend of mine began to stand. All great teachers had had a teacher of their own once, this woman had been mine. There was no way I was letting her leave.
"This old lady will have three taquitoes a chicken quasadilla and two sides of guacamole. Sarah, sit your fat toosh down, you and I have a wedding to plan."
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