“I promise you’ll love it,” she’d said the night before on the phone. Our phone calls had become more and more regular. Light, casual exchanges that were occasionally flirty but never fully crossed the line. Safe for anyone listening in, but also maddening. “It’s not too narrow, too steep, too crowded. This is the perfect virgin-Angeleno hike.”
“Okay.” I laughed. “Be gentle with me.”
“Always.”
If I’d known better, I would have held her to those words.
The trail at Will Rogers is not quite what I expect. The view is grand: downtown and the San Gabriel Mountains to the east, Catalina andthe Pacific to the west. I had hoped to snap photos of vibrant flora: poppies and hyacinth and larkspur. But the land here is arid, wanting. The ground covered in chapparal and low-lying scrub, casting the hills in a drab silvery-moss hue. It’s a huge departure from the Hudson River Valley and New England and my hikes with Lorry, where everything was fecund, full of color and life. Here, there are no hemlocks, no abundance of blossoms, no embrace of green.
It saddens me. And I imagine Lorry would have had the same response. What was he doing here, so far from home? And didn’t he long for the smell of green things?
“So I looked up your old boyfriend,” Anouk says, as we crest the hill near Inspiration Point. As if she were reading my mind.
“Did you?”
“He opened a studio in Santa Monica. On Main Street. The Soul Center.”
“Thewhat?” I stop, panting. For all my Pilates and biking on the beach, I am short of breath. I consider myself in fairly good shape, but the lack of shade is brutal. Anouk has barely broken a sweat.
“The Sol Centre,” she repeats, and then proceeds to spell it for me.
I stand there looking at her, but not seeing. The glare of the sun and the heat playing tricks with my eyes. She’s a stick figure against a white horizon.
“Fuck,” I say eventually.
“Do you need water?”
“I need to sit down.”
“We’re almost at the top. Just a few meters more.”
I follow her around the bend, and up to a breathtaking overlook. We install ourselves on one of the handful of benches staring out toward the ocean. And it’s only after I’ve had some water and a few moments to breathe that I say what’s really on my mind.
“The Sol Centre?? You’re fucking kidding me.”
She laughs. “I promise I’m not. He holds meditation sessions and workshops there. They offer yoga classes, as well.”
I’m trying to picture it. Lorry, namaste-ing with a bunch of Westside housewives in pert ponytails and paper-thin exercise pants. The thought makes my stomach turn.
“It looks like a lovely space. Lots of bamboo and light. Very Zen.”
“I’m sure it is,” I say.
“If you feel up to it, we can take a class.”
She says it casually. Like,Hey, if you’re in the mood, let’s grab a milkshake. As if the very possibility did not send my heart racing.
And I did not know how to explain to her that it was not something I could do.
There was no casually seeing Lorry. There was the aftermath of a heartbreak, and a near suicide attempt, and months and months and months of crying myself sick. And two years of antidepressants. There was a transatlantic move, and therapists on two continents. And all of it because of him. All of it.
There was no casually seeing Lorry.
The Sol Centre, my ass.
“I think you’ll have to go without me,” I finally say.
A young couple with an infant arrive just then and install themselves a couple of benches over. We watch as the dad delicately disassembles the baby from his carrier, and hands him to his mom to be fed. Their movements—slow, precious, tentative—are universally identifiable as those of new parents. And I feel a pang of nostalgia. Memories of strolling through the Parc Monceau with François carrying Julien in a BabyBjörn. A picnic basket in one hand and a backpack stuffed with diapers and Mustela wipes. How eager Fran was then to make everything perfect. How enamored he was with us both. We were still newlyweds then.
