“I’m happy to read anything if you want feedback,” Sitka said.
But that was the problem—Angeni didn’t have much of anything for her to read.
“Thank you, I’ll keep that in mind,” Angeni said.
A brief silence followed, and Angeni felt compelled to fill it. “My editor wants me to include more personal information in it. I think that’s what’s tripping me up.”
“Oh,” Sitka said. “I can see how that would be new territory for you.”
“Notnew,” Angeni said, defensive. “I share so much about my life with my followers.”
Sitka shrugged like she didn’t agree.
“What?” Angeni asked.
Sitka shrugged again. “You share what you want people to see. You’ve said so yourself, right?”
Angeni had said something like that, but Sitka’s phrasing made her sound disingenuous.
“I don’t see how my personal story should matter as much as my teachings,” she said. “My personal story could be a distraction.”
“It would sell more books,” Sitka said. “I’m sure that’s what your agent is after.”
“I mean, it’s not like my personal story is that interesting.”
Though it was.
Sitka gave her a hard stare. “I wouldn’t know,” she said.
As Angeni was trying to understand her cold tone, her hidden meaning, Sitka’s face rearranged again. She smiled and said, “You said you and Erik are having a date tonight, right?”
Angeni had asked her to watch Freya after dinner so that she and Erik could have their time together. She’d called it a date because that sounded better, more romantic, than “sex appointment.”
“Yes, if that’s okay. Erik and I haven’t spent true quality time together in ages,” Angeni said. “If you can watch her, then bring her to me to eat at bedtime, that would be great.”
“Okay,” Sitka said.
Sitka continued feeding Freya, who was enjoying every bite, tapping her fingers together in the way they’d taught her to request “more.”
“Can I ask how you two met?” Sitka asked.
“Erik and me?”
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t a story Angeni and Erik shared publicly because it didn’t paint either of them in a great light. Erik had just gotten out of rehab and been told by his sponsor not to pursue any romantic relationships for at least a year. Angeni was in her own recovery program of sorts, a group of Indigenous natural healers who had taken her under their wing. It was this group that introduced her to shamanic rituals using a psychoactive brew called ayahuasca. And it was on one of her ayahuascajourneys that she committed to a year of celibacy as part of decentering men in her life and finding her way back to herself. Three weeks into that commitment, she met Erik.
It was at a spiritual retreat on Orcas Island. Erik was there with Matt and Jer, who he’d met in rehab and come to consider his brothers. Angeni was there alone. She had actually planned for it to be a silent retreat for herself, the ultimate exercise in going inward. The organizers of the retreat knew that was her intention and had said they would support her. On the first day, everyone was informed of her planned silence. Erik flashed her a smile, his white teeth gleaming, and she smiled back at him. A handful of hours later, they were already talking.
It was in the buffet line for dinner. Erik stepped behind Angeni and, as she dished out a helping of salad onto her plate, whispered, “I know you can’t talk to me, but I just have to say I feel so pulled to talk to you.”
Just those words sent a pulse of electricity through her body. She felt her cheeks redden, revealing to him wordlessly that she found him charming.
“If you want to talk to me, meet me behind the yoga studio after dinner,” he said. “It can be our secret. If not, no worries. If we’re meant to be, we’ll find each other another time.”
He stepped around her then, his arm grazing her side as he did, sending more of that electricity through her. She watched him at the end of the line as he placed a brownie on his plate. He didn’t look back at her, though she was sure he could feel her eyes on him. For a second, she wondered if she’d heard him correctly, if this movie scene of a moment had really happened.
She sat at a table alone to eat, glancing up every now and then to see him eating his meal. The idea of meeting him was tantalizing.Our secret.When he rose from his table and took his plate to the bin of dirty dishes, he looked over at her, flashed that smile again. As if under a spell, she stood and took her own plate to the bin. Then she followed him outside.
