The Heart in My Head

Los Angeles, November 2009. My meeting with Claudia took place at her house in Beverly Hills just one month after I returned home to Los Angeles from my trip to Iran. It was Sunday in November, a crisp Sunday afternoon. The sun was getting gold over the ocean. The city was peaceful; the streets were quiet and the sidewalks empty. I took the main thoroughfare, Wilshire Boulevard, as I left Ocean Avenue. I felt a sense of victory and elation for not being caught in the traffic and the noise of the world. There is nothing more pleasant than driving on Sundays in Los Angeles; the city takes on an entirely different air. On weekend getaways, I would say I find myself totally in a mental exercise of freedom. As I looked around, I saw the sun come up red, red and dull. I thought it just looked like the yolk of a hard-boiled egg. Since my relationship with Claudia was strictly professional, I must admit I felt a bit strange about meeting her outside the context of our work as she had suggested. She had called me and asked me to visit her—“Come have a drink with me”—something she had not done more than two or three times since the day that she had hired me. Even though we both had the art world in common, we only knew each other through our work. Who could suppose that this meeting would lead me to the first, and perhaps biggest, achievement of my life?