by Edward Vilga
Standing, bring your left leg across your right thigh. Bow forward at the waist, trying to touch the floor. Walk the hands a little forward, so the palms are on the ground. Press down and lift your chest forward as you try to bring the right leg off the ground. You’re balancing entirely on your hands, one leg bent on top of your arms and the other floating in the sky. You’re literally soaring, rising above the ground through your own strength, balance, and focus.
There’s only one catch: for the first six- or ten-thousand times you try to take flight, you’ll fall flat on your face.
Shane and I move from friends to something more in pretty predictable fashion. Endless time spent together working on Haven (the name we’ve decided for our first bistro) with the requisite late-night hours and ever-blurring boundaries.
One particularly late night, after one too many glasses of a good bordeaux, exhausted, we’re slouching on the half-installed banquette after a lavish tasting menu for two. Shane wants to keep working a bit longer, but half-feigning exhaustion, I recline along the banquette and rest my head on her lap in mock protest. It’s a blurry, loaded moment until I reach up to kiss her and she leans in to kiss me. Soon, I’m upright again, one thing leading to another, struck by the newness and the rightness of the moment, both shockingly fresh and completely comfortable all at once. This is so much more than just a lack of impulse control; on this night, surrounded by the beginnings of everything we’re creating, the entire universe feels perfect and inevitable.
Chapter 12
If not with actual whips and chains, somehow, with her intense investigation of core strength, Brooke and I have entered into an S&M relationship. The trouble is I can’t tell who’s the sadist and who’s the masochist.
Indeed, if someone were to hear only the moans and grunts coming from Brooke, it would seem that I am the master and she is the slave. Appearances can be deceiving. Approaching Brooke’s apartment for our usual session, I hope, once again, that perhaps today is the day she’ll allow me to modify our lesson to steer a few degrees away from Ab-mania. Yet when I open the door and it’s Brooke herself, and not Gerard, who greets me, I know that something truly out of the ordinary must be in store.
“I have wonderful news,” she beams.
“There’s been an Invisible Fat Breakthrough?” I’m tempted to inquire. “Under the right ultraviolet light, those cells can now be seen through the Hubble Telescope?” Instead, I merely smile and wait. Brooke will reveal all in her own good time.
“Last night I had dinner with Nan Bongiorno who, of course, is the Editor-in-Chief of Grand Central Magazine.” It comes as absolutely no surprise that Brooke hangs with the founder of New York’s glossiest, most gossipy name-dropping magazine. “When Nan told me she was frantic over their annual ‘Stars of the City’ issue, I made several recommendations to her, and, well, I’m quite pleased to say that she’s going to feature you.”
“I’m sorry … what?”
“You’re going to be a Grand Central Star.”
I almost reply with “star of what?” and then I realize she means as a yoga teacher.
“Really? That’s quite amazing.” It’s all I can think of to say.
“Yes, I thought you’d be pleased.” (Actually, I’m more shocked than pleased, but let Brooke interpret my reaction as she will.) “It’s all rather rushed to meet their publishing deadline,” she continues, “so I took the liberty of saying you’d be available for a photo shoot this afternoon at 2 p.m. I’m assuming that’s not a problem.” Brooke knows full well that there’s very little that I might be doing that would be more compelling. Of course, I’m available.
“I’ve written down all the specifics, and I can give you that after our lesson. I’m quite eager to work on the core lift in those arm balances from last week. God knows, I need to tone there as well.”
She’s no bodybuilder, but of course Brooke’s arms have not an ounce of flab on them. I say nothing. My compliance is assured. My mistress has spoken. And once again, although she’s the one who grunts and groans, we both know as I submit to her will once again, in our little masochism tango, it is absolutely Brooke who brandishes the whip.
There’s a sense of barely restrained chaos at the photographer’s Meatpacking District loft. The photographer, Dario Something-Exotic-That’s-Hyphenated greets me in a barely perfunctory way and then returns to the more important task of ordering his assistants about as they rearrange lights and gels. He’s polite enough, but he’s pissed, and whether it’s with me or his assistants or life in general, I can’t tell. It may be his usual mien with everyone; Brooke has made clear that he’s “a very important young photographer” and that “we’re” very fortunate to have him doing the shoot.
I saunter by the craft services table, flirt with a bagel, but decide it’s probably unwise to carbo-load before my first (and probably only) photo shoot. After about twenty minutes of adjusting the lights, Dario seems even more irritated than when he started. He gestures to the makeup/hair dude, who leads me to his table. Sebastian—somehow that’s his name, although he seems to be a sweet, totally Bronx-born, ultra-gay Puerto Rican—studies my hair with ferocious intensity, running his fingers through it again and again, lifting the strands vertically and then dropping them while looking at us both in the mirror looking back at him. After a moment, I feel compelled to address the situation.
“Um … can I ask what you’re doing?”
“Sorry, just judging your product needs.”
I’d assumed that, with a guy on a photo shoot, they’d just comb my hair, cover up any zits, and then we’d be good to go. Sebastian, however, has an entirely different game plan. Space shuttles are no doubt launched with a more cavalier attitude than his determination to even out my skin tone. Mind you, I’ve never noticed anything particularly blotchy or mismatched about my face, but Sebastian spends a full fifteen minutes blending and perfecting all manner of cosmetics. He veers close in and then away from me to judge his work, constantly dabbing my face. After he’s finally satisfied, he begins to artfully muss my hair, incorporating at least four different grooming products. When he’s finished thirty minutes later, I look exactly like myself, with my skin being imperceptibly smoother and my hair exactly as mussed up but no longer moving. Sebastian’s approach to my grooming is like Brooke’s toward her Invisible Fat: monumental effort toward an entirely unnoticeable end.
Frankly, I’m sure Sebastian would still be fine-tuning me to this very moment except that Dario proclaims that he is ready, and therefore Operation Natural-Look must be terminated midspritz. I approach the center of Dario’s set, assuming that’s what I should do.
“Why isn’t he dressed?” Dario shouts to no one in particular. Far from naked, I am entirely clothed, wearing simple yoga pants and a clean, black T-shirt from Banana Republic, my usual teaching getup. No one answers Dario. So, impatiently, he approaches me. “What are you going to wear?”
“This is what I was going to wear. It’s what I usually wear to teach.”
He looks at me, and then, after breathing in deeply, replies while restraining his desire to slap the class buffoon. “The background is black. We’re not doing a black-against-black thing here. I need you in something else.”
“Well, I brought a white T-shirt, too,” I offer.
Dario can barely conceal his condescension. “White is much too bright for this setup. Can someone, ANYONE, please go out and get him a decent T-shirt?”
There’s a tremendous bustle as the assistants scamper, grabbing their coats and bags. Several are dispatched simultaneously, as this is clearly a task requiring extensive manpower.
“All right, you can take ten,” Dario says to me, walking casually away in disgust at this unbelievably hideous turn of events. Sebastian appears and tweaks his work, dabbing at my face and fluffing my rigid hair.
“Is he always such an asshole?” I ask Sebastian, who giggles conspiratorially.
“No, he’s all r
ight really. It’s just …” Sebastian hesitates for a moment, then whispers, “Well, Dario hates when they pull stuff like this on him. Veronica something was supposed to do this shoot.”
The yoga world isn’t that large, so I actually know Veronica, a great young teacher who was another important influence on my early yoga life. Totally beautiful, with a sensational practice, she was perhaps my first yoga crush from afar.
“They did a pre-light with her yesterday, but this morning he was told they were using you instead. And confidentially … I think she and Dario might have been hooking up. I have a sixth sense about these things.”
It never occurred to me that Brooke’s securing this shoot for me involved getting rid of someone else last night, someone no doubt more deserving than me. Of course, I realize that Brooke has absolutely no qualms about rejecting and sending things back—witness the white rose episode—but I feel a twinge of guilt that I’ve replaced another, definitely worthier yogi at the last minute. But my reveries are interrupted by Sebastian’s long monologue about the plot intricacies of Gossip Girl, and shortly thereafter, the return of the first assistant with a bag full of T-shirts. Dario inspects them, handing one to me to try on.
I yank off my shirt, and as I do, he starts flashing Polaroids. I put it on—it’s way, way too small. “Perfect!” Dario exclaims.
“I think it’s a little too tight, actually.”
“No, the Polaroid.” His staff swarms to study the image that has pleased the Master. “We’ll do the photos without the shirt.”
“What?”
“Shirtless … why—do you have a problem with that?”
I pause for a second as the photography assistants wait nervously. Sharing the Polaroid, Dario exclaims, “See how great your skin tone looks here against the shadow.”
His artistic creativity ignited, Dario has undergone a complete Jekyll and Hyde switch to become caring and concerned rather than an arty Euro-bitch. “Trust me,” he says, “these photos are going to be hot.” Like any good pimp, he’s got the switch from total asshole to warmhearted business buddy down pat.
It seems more prudish to protest and refuse to do the shoot without covering up my pecs than it does to just get it over with and comply. After all, I’m no starlet being tricked into nudies that’ll destroy my chances of winning Miss America. “If you say so. Let’s do it,” I agree.
I watch Dario’s smile broaden as I start busting out my most athletic poses. Inversions (going upside down) and arm balances are clearly his favorites. They’re dynamic, graceful, and impressive all at once. When I bust into Flying Crow, he practically orgasms.
Fortunately, it’s a pose I can really do well, although hanging out in it very long is difficult, even for the real pros. I do the pose again from the other side, and he snaps that passionately as well. Then Sebastian comes in and fluffs, spritzes, and powders me, and we do it all again. And then one more time.
Dario embraces me at the end as though we are war buddies reunited. And as we part company and Dario talks about getting together and hanging out sometime soon, I almost believe him.
Grand Central Magazine hits the newsstands every other Wednesday, and when it does, I’m more than a little surprised to find that I’ve made the cover—part of a collage of six or seven trainers, aestheticians, and a massage therapist—of their “Best of Health and Beauty” feature. Excited, I open to the article inside, seeing that Epitome has made a full quarter page as “Hottest New Spa.” But my mind is totally blown when I turn the page and see myself, shirtless and levitating in Flying Crow, occupying one full page of ink.
“Damn!” is all I can say. I have nailed the pose, and man, it is just a really good photo. The light and composition against the dark background make the image very striking. The pose looks impressive, and somehow under those lights, and shirtless, I look particularly buff.
There is a tiny moment of cringe factor, however. When I confirmed the spelling of my name with the reporter for the article, fresh from a Rumi-soaked lesson with Phoebe, when she asked me where I was from, I quoted—more like quipped—from his poem “Only Breath.” “My place is placeless, a trace of the traceless.” It’s a poem about transcendence, but honestly, I just didn’t feel like getting into anything personal, preferring to gloss over anything that would link me to Page Six flashbacks. Anyway, the quote is pretty small and inset, and I hope the picture will tell the real story about impressive yoga poses.
I want to show the article to someone immediately, and the only person present is the newsstand attendant, who seems completely not interested in the latest installment of my newfound career.
First I call my mom but get her machine. Then I call Hutch, but it rolls over to voicemail. I leave him a message, telling him to check out Grand Central, page 28. I’ll have to mail my sisters and folks copies, as they’re not exactly the types to subscribe to this glossy report on what’s ridiculously expensive and hip in NYC. (I wonder, though, if this will confuse and further frustrate my dad, another indication of how much I have squandered my education and opportunities for a bit of bizarre contortionist fame.) I shrug this off, though, and pleased with myself, and a little elated, I grab another three copies, stuff them in my pocket, and walk home. The only remaining dampener to my enthusiasm is that, besides Hutch, there’s nobody else I can think of calling to share the good news.
“Dog, this is totally awesome,” Hutch tells me.
“I have to admit: it is kinda cool.”
“Kinda? Are you totally whacked? Do you know what celebrities would do to get a full-page photo in Grand Central? Gwyneth would probably give up Apple for this much ink. And it’s a very swank photo, too. You look good. Impressive, but not in a yoga freak-show way.”
I laugh. “That’s your idea of a compliment?”
“Just proud of you, Dog. You’re my main boy, after all. Anyway, drinks on me tonight. I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer.” Hutch hangs up before I can reply. I’ve curtailed my going out during the week with amazing restraint over the last two weeks. On the other hand, if a cover photo and a full page in Grand Central aren’t worth a clink of the glasses or two tonight, then what is?
Hutch and I arrive pretty much simultaneously at P.J. Clarke’s on Third and 55th. The saloon is convenient to Hutch’s midtown banking gig and suitable to me because: a) Hutch is paying, and b) they have the best burgers in the city. P.J. Clarke’s is over a hundred and twenty years old, and even though the new investors (George Steinbrenner and Timothy Hutton, and some other guys) just renovated it, thank God they did everything they could to make it look like nothing has changed since Sinatra “owned” Table 20, the spot where he ended up after every night of carousing.
After getting texted, emailed, and called in rapid succession, Hutch winces and shrugs, “Dude, I gotta swing by this gallery opening on 57th or Honey will kill me. You in?”
“Why not,” I figure, so after paying our tab we walk a few blocks over to your basic Thursday night art gallery wine and cheese opening at one of NYC’s most “important” galleries. Honey apparently has been good friends with Celeste, the gallery’s founder, since they studied slides from the late Renaissance together, back at Wellesley. The crowd looks sedately middle-aged and affluent although mixed with a few art fiends of a decidedly younger persuasion. As always, I do a quick “safety check” of who is passing the hors d’oeuvres to make sure Shane’s on-the-rise catering enterprise hasn’t been hired for this gig (which it hasn’t). After we take in the art, Hutch and I are calmly calculating how much longer we need to stay in order to honor his filial obligations. It’s then that I turn and see Andrea, Shane’s artist friend.
Andrea’s now a proud Williamsburg loft dweller, having rejected her Beverly Hills rich- kid roots (but not the money from her trust fund, paid for by papa’s game show empire). Nonetheless, even in Gotham City, Andrea’s expression remains exactly like that of someone who’s staring out vacantly at an infinite stret
ch of freeway.
“Making the scene?” I say, stating the obvious. Andrea remains silent, her features moving just a bit to indicate she’s not deaf. “I got the postcard for your show,” I continue. (I am not someone who does well with awkward silences.) “Congratulations.” This at least produces a begrudging nod and a muttered “Thanks” from her.
Hutch returns with our two plastic-glass refills of red wine. Unlike me, he actually finds Andrea’s gargoyle-like demeanor amusing and fun to provoke. “Andrea, baby, what’s shakin’? You nailed down your retrospective at the Whitney yet?”
She treats him to a sneer, one that evaporates instantly when Honey and Celeste, the owner of the gallery, appear and fawn over Hutch and me. Hutch makes the intros with almost too much graciousness.
“Honey, Celeste, this is Andrea Bernstein—an up-and-coming artist you should really keep your eye on. She’ll probably be on the cover of Art Forum by year’s end.”
“Are you showing anywhere?” Celeste politely asks Andrea. The Fastest Gun in the West, Andrea has a postcard at the ready. Celeste swiftly examines it, noting the other artists in the show and then studying Andrea’s image more carefully with her keen dealer’s eye. “Very interesting work.” Celeste pauses, then looks up at me and back to the card. “Isn’t this your friend, Shane?” Celeste asks me. (Shane and I stopped by an identical such event six months ago together.)
Wanting the spotlight back, Andrea answers for me. “It’s based on a found image,” Andrea counters, “but yes, it is of her.”
“I like it,” Celeste ventures. “There’s a lot of bite to the work. Nice and edgy. I’m eager to see more.” Heading off to mingle with some Prada- and Vuitton-obsessed Japanese, Celeste offers Andrea her card. For the first time in the decade I’ve known her, Andrea actually smiles. Frankly, it’s a little disturbing to realize that papa’s game show money paid for Andrea’s amazing set of gleaming white teeth, ones that like a comet, appear only on the most stellar, career-advancing occasions.