Meandering along the newly opened section of The Tracks at Brea, you’ll likely spot golfers teeing off and might even share the trail that winds through Birch Hills Golf Course with a duck or two.

Pedestrians and cyclists will also come across a built-to-scale façade of a Red Line rail car, paying homage to the Pacific Electric Railroad Red Line, which made twice daily trips between Los Angeles and Yorba Linda from 1929 to 1966.

Panels are positioned on the backside of the car, providing a history lesson to rail travel in Brea.

“That’s a fun little feature,” said Brea Economic Development Manager Kathie DeRobbio, who has been closely involved with The Tracks at Brea project since the first community meetings were held in 2009. “It’s kind of a nice little pause area.”

A cage tunnel protects pedestrians and cyclists from wayward golf balls.

The stretch of the Tracks at Brea, Segment 5, is the third of the trail’s six segments to be completed. When finished, the trail will be 4 miles cutting east and west through the city.

Segment 1, the first completed, winds through Arovista Park, crosses Imperial Highway, heads north and travels through the flood control channel west of downtown.

Segment 2, which could be finished by early fall, DeRobbio said, travels east to Brea Boulevard.

Segment 3, which opened a year ago, extends to State College Boulevard.

Nine fitness stations, a bike rack, restrooms, drinking fountain and a seating area are being added to Segment 3, and construction of Segment 4 could begin in the fall.

The segment will fill in from State College under the 57 freeway and southeast to the golf course entrance and the start of Segment 5.

Segment 6, which is under construction, starts at Kraemer Boulevard, goes along the Loftus Flood Control Channel and is close to Suzuki Motor Corporation, Beckman Coulter and other businesses.

“We’re trying to make it convenient for the business community,” DeRobbio said.

There are 19 entry points along the trail.

Grants totaling $17.5 million are funding most of the $25 million cost of The Tracks project.

The remainder has come from former Redevelopment Agency funds and park funds.

LOS ANGELES — Spring is a time for progress, not final decisions. For Matt Lynch and Devon Modster, it’s a time for competition.

The redshirt freshmen are vying for the backup quarterback job, which Coach Jim Mora said remains open after almost three weeks of practice.

“There’s not going to be a day where we don’t stop competing,” Lynch said.

During the first 10 practices, it was typically Modster first off the bench to lead the second offense in team periods. The former four-star prospect out of Tesoro High was elevated to the backup position in November after Josh Rosen was ruled out for the year. UCLA avoided the disaster of having to burn Modster’s redshirt during its lost season as Mike Fafaul stayed healthy.

Although he was powerless to help UCLA’s sputtering offense last year, Modster said he was glad to have retained his extra year of eligibility.

“It was just a learning experience, kind of getting used to the system and how the game is going,” he said.

Lynch was a three-star recruit from Broomfield, Colo., and enrolled early last season. He spent the offseason ironing out his throwing motion with quarterback coach Warren McCarty, trying to shorten the motion while fighting the desire to drop his shoulder. Going through his second spring practice, Lynch said his knowledge of the game has increased the most in the past year with the help of Rosen.

“(I’m) always learning from Josh because there’s always something new that comes up in practice or different plays, so just trying to pick his brain a little bit,” Lynch said.

Instead of rushing to identify a backup quarterback, Mora is content watching the redshirt freshmen progress while learning UCLA’s new scheme this spring.

“What I see is two guys who are getting better every practice,” Mora said. “So I’m just encouraged by the way both of those guys are coming along.”

SPRING SCRIMMAGE PLANNED

UCLA’s spring game will indeed be a real game. Probably. Knock on wood.

Barring significant injuries in the final week of spring practice, the Bruins will punctuate their monthlong spring camp with an official scrimmage in Drake Stadium, Mora said.

UCLA has been fortunate to avoid major injuries this spring with only DeChaun Holiday being the major loss. The safety/linebacker suffered a right shoulder injury last week and hasn’t returned to the field, but was seen Thursday without his sling for the first time since the injury occurred. Tight end Austin Roberts was sidelined with an undisclosed injury, but returned to the field Thursday.

“I see them understanding how to practice with a level of physicality without cheap shots,” Mora said of weathering injury concerns this spring. “The defensive backs understand that they’re not going to blow a receiver up just to blow him up. They know how to practice.”

The last time the Bruins capped off a spring practice slate with an official spring game was 2014 at StubHub Center. The previous two years, the team just held a structured practice, citing a growing list of injuries that cut the team’s already thin roster. Instead of having a draft to determine the two teams, Mora and the coaching staff will likely divide the roster into blue and white squads next week, taking into account minor injuries.

“I don’t want it to be a bloodbath,” Mora said. “I want it to be competitive.”

Tickets are $5 in advance and $10 at the door, with a team autograph session and Adidas surplus sale to take place after the scrimmage.

Debenhams is to review ten stores and a warehouse for closure as part of a new turnaround strategy unveiled by the department store retailer aimed at making it more digitally-driven and more of a “destination” shop.

In the saddest scene of “Our Short History,” a dying woman completely loses it when her 6-year-old son tells her that if he wakes up hungry in the middle of the night, his father’s wife will cook him something to eat. “She will never be your mother,“ Karen yells, and then over and over, her yelling turning into screaming: “She is NOT YOUR MOTHER. SHE IS NOT YOUR MOTHER. SHE IS NOT YOUR MOTHER).” She wonders if she would have assaulted him had her sister, Allie, not intervened.

Jake and Allie are horrified, and so are readers, who, by the time that scene takes place in Lauren Grodstein’s emotion-fraught new novel, are already feeling rattled by explicit descriptions of ovarian cancer. Karen’s desperate fears about her son’s future are making her say and do terrible things.

Most of us need not dig deep into our memories to recall a friend or loved one who died young from cancer. Our recollections evoke even more sorrow if the victim left behind small children. It’s why “Our Short History” provokes so much emotion. And Grodstein’s storytelling skills make Karen seem so real.

The novel takes the form of a memoir that Karen, a New York political consultant, is writing in the hope that Jake will remain connected to her. But Jake has another connection in mind. He wants to meet his father, who doesn’t even know Jake exists. Karen can’t think of a worse idea. When Dave walked out years earlier, he assumed she would have an abortion. Is Dave to blame for not knowing that he has a son? Is Karen?

When she tells Dave about Jake, he weeps with joy. The instant connection is a shock to Karen but probably no one else. Father and son look alike, geek out on Legos and, of course, want to see each other again. But their mutual devotion is killing Karen as much as the cancer. She has already planned the trajectory of Jake’s life after she dies, and there’s no room for Dave.

Grodstein’s descriptions of Karen’s treatment are textbook accurate and riveting. She captures the chilling reality of ovarian cancer. Survivors whom Karen knows “had escaped the relatively toothless ones, thyroid, early stage colon or breast. A handful of basal cells. Nobody with ovarian; almost nobody escaped that.” She knows she’s dying but wants to be the exception: “If someone got to be a miracle, why couldn’t it be me?” she wonders. “I don’t know what I did to deserve this. I don’t know why I have to try to sneak in the years that should be rightfully mine.”

Like “A Friend of the Family” and “The Explanation for Everything,” two earlier Grodstein novels, “Our Short History” honors the power of family ties. The ending may be predictable, but it carries an important lesson about letting go. In Karen’s case, it’s not so much accepting that she’ll die, leaving Jake behind, it’s the more subtle realization that she has a mother’s duty to help “the people you love most in the world leave you.”

‘Our Short History’

Author: Lauren Grodstein

Info: Algonquin, 342 pages

Legends Romona Keveza is the designer’s biggest seller at retail, and this season is inspired by “the peaceful and harmonious undercurrents that only a union can bring,” featuring a lineup of traditional gowns in newly introduced gardenia lace and French embroidered Chantilly lace. Perhaps the best example of classic style came through an A-line silk Shantung taffeta ballgown with delicately beaded illusion cap sleeves and Swarovski rhinestone buttons.

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Creative director Don O’Neill continued the inspiration of his fall ready-to-wear collection into his latest bridal offering: “The collection was inspired by pearls of wisdom. The beauty of the pearl is that it has so many magical qualities that it imbues, and strength of spirit is one, integrity is another, and they also have the wonderful ability to balance our karma, which I think is also a very wonderful attribute,” he said before the show. The opalescence of pearls dictated the color palette of ivory, white, blush, pale blue and pale gray, with plenty of pearl embroidery sheathing form-fitting gowns in an armorlike quality.

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Titled “Spring Awakening,” Sachin and Babi Ahluwalia’s latest bridal offering mixed traditional and contemporary silhouettes, decorating elegant coatdresses and gowns alike with plenty of floral embroidery and other textural elements. A playfully fresh standout included a strapless minidress with raised silk chiffon strips and ostrich feather and pearl embroidered hem, layered with a floor length tulle skirt.

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Romona is a new capsule collection of entry-level designer gowns by Romona Keveza, with a youthful and fresh spirit. The six styles are priced from $1,200 and $2,600 and reflect the same clean aesthetic as the designer’s luxury label. Silhouettes range from classic V-necks and boatneck A-lines to more dramatic ballgowns, all with accents of black in buttons, sashes and belts.

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Where Legends draws from Hollywood glamour, Romona Keveza Collection is a bit more daring and multifaceted, with detachable overskirts, ornate butterfly appliqué, laser cut lace and even color, like a glitzy mermaid gown in metallic gold thread linen and gold leaf-printed silk organza. The collection is meant for a bride with a bit of brass and confidence in her sartorial choices.

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TWO’S COMPANY: Coed show formats are gaining traction in London. The upcoming edition of London Fashion Week Men’s, which runs from June 9 to 12, has a host of designers showing men’s and women’s together for the first time.
Among the names set to show coed collections are Edward Crutchley, Bobby Abley, Nigel Cabourn, John Smedley, Blood Brother, Maharishi, Christopher Raeburn, Belstaff, Berthold, Private White V.C., John Lawrence Sullivan and Maison Mihara Yasuhiro.
Meanwhile, Dunhill, Bobby Abley, John Smedley and Maharishi will offer see-now-buy-now collections.
The British Fashion Council released the provisional schedule for June’s London Fashion Week Men’s on Thursday.

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