The Yoga Club

by Cooper Lawrence

  Ever since her products took off and she became a recognizable spokesperson and talking head, her privacy was scarce. So she sublimated her discomfort with fame and recognition into these private quirks. She knew she’d be judged if others became aware of her idiosyncratic concerns, so she never shared them. Instead, she embraced them, and other such foibles, as her very own special little humors. Granted, she was no Kate Winslet, but her media-wide omnipresence did screw with her anonymity.

  As Coco sat there obsessing over her quirks, her relationship, her trip to Walmart, whether she’d take coffee or Coke Zero, her phone rang—it was CJ.

  “Hey, what’s up?” Coco asked.

  “Where are you? I’m in a state,” CJ said.

  “What state?” Coco couldn’t resist. “Okay, sorry. I’m on the runway in an airplane that’s going nowhere, apparently. I think I see someone stealing the hubcaps off the plane. What’s going—” Coco was interrupted.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We apologize for the inconvenience and delay. We have just been given clearance for takeoff. We will begin taxiing shortly. We should be in the air in about five minutes. Once again, we apologize for the delay.”

  “Hello?” Coco said. “You still there?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Listen, this isn’t sitting right with me, I think we need to….” Coco strained to hear him over the drone of the P.A. system.

  “The captain has turned on the fasten seat belt sign. So that we may secure our place in the departure queue, please return your seats to their upright positions, stow all tray tables, and turn off all electronic devices.” The flight attendant’s voice calmly but firmly filtered through the P.A. system.

  “Sorry, CJ, I couldn’t hear you. Listen, we’re taking off. Can I call you when I land? It’ll be three or four hours, okay?”

  But before she could get a response, the flight attendant was all over her. “Miss, you’ll have to turn that off now, please,” she said.

  Not even waiting a beat, a woman sitting behind Coco—whose garish pink tracksuit and purple fur boots had horrified Coco during boarding—huffed in an accent that was pure hick, “Great. We finally get a chance to leave, then missy here can’t get off the gol’damn phone. Didn’t we sit here long enough already?”

  Brooklyn would stand for no such thing, and Coco immediately wheeled around and snapped, “Lady, I’ll turn off my phone just as soon as you turn off that excruciating outfit; it’s the loudest thing in here. Were you planning on working out on the plane?” The woman was silent for the remainder of the flight.

  On the floor of the baby’s nursery, Olivia was asleep. Her normally perfect eight-month-old baby, Simon, had had another terrible night. Feeding him didn’t calm him down, changing his diaper didn’t change his mood, and the purple elephant that usually made him smile just wasn’t doing it for him today. Olivia didn’t think it was possible, but maybe her baby was depressed; or perhaps she was projecting. She hadn’t slept much either and had been quite sad lately. Since her father’s death and her return to Greenwich, the choices she was making hadn’t felt like her own. Benjamin had become intolerable and moved to the South Pole, and the only good man in her life was constantly colicky and not allowing her to sleep nights. When Simon had finally fallen asleep, at 3:30 A.M., she’d leaned against the wall and sunk into a ball on the floor, and slept. She awoke, confused, as the sun seeped through cracks in the blinds, and wiped the drool from the corner of her mouth. These had been her first moments of real sleep since she’d received that envelope and realized that her crazy mother was back in her life, trying again to take it all away from her.

  Maybe the contents of the envelope were indeed a practical joke, but her mother’s lawsuit was not. Being a mom herself, she could not imagine in what universe a woman would go after her own child the way her mother did. True, Olivia preferred, by leaps and bounds, her father. But what choice was she given? During Olivia’s childhood, when Sunshine returned for “visits”—also known as ATM withdrawals—she was terrifyingly irrational and ill-tempered; quite frankly, Olivia had come to loathe her.

  She didn’t have the strength for much these days, but she knew that her father wanted her to have this house. So, in honor of his memory, coupled with the fact she had nowhere else to go, she decided the best defense was probably going to be a good offense. She was going to stay and fight. There was a lot to lose at this point, and she didn’t want to part with the only things she could give her son: a house and a loving mother. But how could she counter this hater mater?

  Olivia was always a person who asked permission before forgiveness, always followed rules and laws, never made an unconsidered move. Heck, she’d never even tried drugs—not because of what they could do to her brain cells, or the fact that she might not like being out of control (though all of that was true); mainly, she’d never tried drugs because the law said she couldn’t. That was enough for her. That was Olivia, through and through: a law-abiding, echolalia-afflicted, gifted-but-absentminded scientist who never wanted anyone to be angry with her. And yet, here was this mother.

  Though Olivia always did everything correctly, somehow she had little to show for her do-good nature. Her opening profile quote on Chemistry.com might as well have read: “Educated, single mom with nothing to show for it.” She had put her prolific career on hold for a man who didn’t love her as he’d sworn to, didn’t honor the commitments they’d made, and then disappeared to the farthest reaches of the planet, leaving her with her precious yet impossible-to-raise-alone son, Simon. And now here was her mother, out of nowhere, messing up her life even more. The wrong parent died, she thought, hating herself for the wrongness of the thought. But as she continued mulling over her seemingly endless troubles, something clicked inside. Maybe it was the lack of sleep, maybe it was the light coming through the window of the baby’s room, making her feel the warmth of a brand-new day, or maybe it was spotting those papers on the table again, reviving her rage, but Olivia’s palpable frustration grew into a seething, churning monster. Her soul responded with an almost audible pop. She was going to fight that bitch, and she was going to do it head-on. No lawyers, no courtrooms, just mother and daughter mano a mano. Olivia, propelled by her newfound rage, darted straight to the phone to call the woman out; and if she had to punch her out, she was prepared to do that too, decorum be damned. Olivia held the receiver to her ear with no idea what she would say and no care for consequences—

  “Crap, do I even have her phone number?”

  Olivia went to her phone book, the old Filofax with people’s numbers written in ink; they were probably out of service by now, since they were the ones that didn’t get moved into her cell phone.

  “Damn!” The number wasn’t there.

  Racing to the kitchen, she reached into the back of a drawer and retrieved an envelope full of slips of paper with numbers scrawled all over them.

  “Shit!”

  Olivia was beginning to lose steam. This was not her plan. She meant to call and blast through the receiver with Listen here! or Over my dead body. But now she was already beginning to second-guess herself.

  “This is my problem—I have no backbone and I’m too cautious. Okay, I’m calling Jake,” she exhaled.

  Jake Sachs was her attorney. Surely he’d have that wretch’s number. But he’d also try to talk her out of calling.

  “He works for me, he is giving me that number!” she insisted, planning the fight she would have with Jake since she needed practice asserting herself.

  Jake’s number she knew, no problem; it was in her iPhone. He was current.

  He answered on the first ring. “Hello,” he said kindly.

  “Jake, it’s Olivia. I need Sunshine’s number, can I have it please?”

  “I’m not giving you Sunshine’s number,” he said flatly.

  “I’m not asking, I’m telling you. As your client, I demand it,” she snapped back.

  “Well, Miss Client, as your lawyer I am ad
vising you that phoning her is not in your best interest, and I won’t let you screw this up. Trust me, don’t call her.” He was getting angry now. “And incidentally, good morning. What the heck has gotten into you?”

  “I’m sick of being taken advantage of. This is my house, and I will burn it down before I let her take it from me!” Olivia surprised even herself with her forceful language.

  “Liv, I know this is hard on you. I thought you were handling it all much too well, so I’m glad to see you fired up, but you are not an impulsive person. You don’t do things like this, so you’re just no good at it. Sunshine will eat you alive, and you may accidentally say something to her that she can use in court against you. I can’t let that happen,” Jake cautioned.

  “It will be my word against hers,” Olivia said smugly.

  “No, darling. Sunshine tapes every conversation.” Jake was the smug one now.

  “Damn. Shit!” Olivia responded.

  “Olivia, please, just chill out. Know that I’m handling this and that I know what I’m doing. Now why don’t you go do what every other stressed-out mother in Greenwich does and take a little yellow pill, or a big glass of wine?” he suggested.

  Olivia sighed loudly into the phone as a tear rolled down her cheek. She didn’t know what to do with her overflowing anger. She knew Jake was right, and all of a sudden she was at a loss for words. Not good when you are about to tell someone off.

  “Damn” was all she could muster.

  “I’m seeing you on Tuesday, right? We can talk then. I promise everything will be fine. But listen to me, Liv, do not call her. Don’t look her number up, don’t ask your brother for it, don’t—”

  “Finn has her number? Why?” Olivia was shocked and pissed.

  “Oh, god, Olivia, let’s talk about this on Tuesday, please? Just don’t call her, okay? I gotta run, cupcake. Bye.”

  Olivia clicked off the phone and sank back down the wall. She figured the day might as well end where it began. She sat on the floor, grabbed a bottle of trendy Basque wine, and pouted. She wasn’t taking just some of Jake’s advice, she was taking all of it.

  Bailey wasn’t going to let a little rain stop her from a much-needed shopping spree. She had the month from hell with junkets in L.A. and London, and then a premiere in Paris, since everyone was desperately trying to get their films out there before the December deadline for the Oscars. She was exhausted, but never too tired for a bit of retail therapy. Finally back at her pied-à-terre in New York City, she had lined up her personal shoppers at both Bergdorf Goodman and Manolo Blahnik on Fifty-fourth. With a few minutes before her first appointment, she decided to make a mad dash into Christian Dior since she’d spotted a peplum jacket at Dior in Paris that she was convinced had been designed for her alone.

  Outside Dior the paparazzi were buzzing. Bailey was used to this ordeal since she was in the business and regularly worked events alongside some of them. She wondered who was inside, and if she knew them. As she approached Dior, she recognized a familiar face amid the photographic barnacles, someone with an impeccable reputation. His good humor about his profession endeared him to even A-list celebs, and as a result he got the money shots every time. If he was there, there was obviously a big name nearby.

  “Victor, what’s the good word, buddy?” Bailey said, as friendly as she could.

  “Oh, Miss Warfield. Nice to see you again. Did you enjoy our friend’s performance at the Paris premiere?” he joked.

  He was referring to Brendan Fraser and his film Inkheart. He’d shown up on the red carpet on a Vespa; dipped Dame Helen Mirren, indulging her in a deep, long, passionate movie kiss; and behaved like a rascal the entire way down the red carpet. Victor had been in love with Brendan Fraser ever since Gods and Monsters, and he talked about the actor constantly. For some reason, he had the idea that he and Bailey were partners in their Brendan Fraser obsession. Bailey liked Brendan just fine and had had some terrific interviews with him over the years, but she was more of a Johnny Depp girl.

  “So who’s in there?” Bailey asked even though she was about to walk in; she wanted to be prepared. Her grandfather had taught her that.

  “Sienna Miller.”

  The hair on the back of Bailey’s neck stood straight up at the mention of that name. Bailey had nothing against the actress; it was more what she might have against Bailey. It seemed that during one of Jude and Sienna’s many breakups, Bailey may have had a small dalliance with the male star. It was just one night—okay, and again the next morning—but that was all. The fact that he got back together with Sienna two days later should have suggested how minor a thing it truly was; but there was the chance that Miss Miller had found out since Bailey was photographed leaving Jude’s hotel room the next morning. The camera phone that took the picture was so antiquated you could barely make out her face in the photo. As far as Bailey knew, the investigation had gone no further; and why would it? She was being paranoid. After all, Sienna Miller was a world-famous actress with a busy schedule—today, a busy shopping schedule—and Bailey was just a single gal trying to make it in an overwhelming business. Sienna probably had no idea who she was, what had happened, or even cared at this point.

  Bailey waved good-bye to Victor and entered the store. Sienna Miller was in the fitting room. Bailey began to look around. The coast seemed clear. So she chatted with the salesgirl with the Dita Von Teese haircut, whom she’d seen there many times before. She asked after the coveted beaded-sleeve peplum jacket she had seen in Paris. Dita knew the jacket and went to retrieve it in Bailey’s tiny size, asking her to have a seat. As Bailey turned toward the chairs, she found herself face-to-face with the glamorous, pocket-size actress. Sienna Miller.

  “Someone get this skanky bitch out of my sight,” the British star said.

  For some reason, Bailey’s heart sank. Normally she was unfazed by divas’ catty behavior, but today it got to her. She was tired of women hating her, tired of worrying about the next scandal. The blackmail video may have been the last straw—she didn’t want to think about what other women, or the public at large, would say about her. She wished she could have camaraderie like she’d had with the Palins. Just to be with a group of girls who seemed to care…. at least a little.

  For the moment, however, at least Bailey no longer wondered if Sienna Miller had ever found out about her and Jude.

  CJ couldn’t deal with his Nelly anymore, and nobody seemed to be around to tend to his neediness. He liked being paid attention to, so if he couldn’t get attention at home, there was only one place that made him feel special: the gay bathhouse on Twentieth Street in Manhattan. And what admirers they were. With a name, West Side Club, that didn’t give a hint of its primary function, it was CJ’s place to get his ego—among other things—stroked. Great-looking men walked in carrying gym bags, allowing passersby to assume it was another Chelsea gym. Women who tried to enter never made it past the elderly, slightly dotty Indian man at the security desk in the lobby. “Trust me, miss, this is not the club for you,” he would say as kindly and as firmly as possible. Even he had no inclination to visit the place, but he had a pretty good idea what went on inside.

  CJ had a great body, which, ironically, he didn’t like to show off, given how loud he was about everything else in his life. He liked to say that it was “an unexpected snack once you’ve taken off the wrapper.” Only in the comfort of the bathhouse did he show off his stuff and freely “get his gay on.”

  In the beautifully appointed, multilevel wood sauna, CJ sat wrapped in an absurdly thin white towel, sipping ice-chilled vodka, sweating, and feeling ambitious when he noticed three men to his left who were quite loud for a group of gay men in a sauna. He looked closer and realized that he recognized one from Greenwich. A shortish, compact, yet muscular guy who was beautifully endowed. CJ had trouble taking his eyes away from the ridge in the guy’s towel. It protruded along his leg, looking like an extra muscle lying on his quadriceps. CJ was not shocked to see someone from Greenwich
at this club. Aside from the fact that it was upscale and advertised like crazy in the Connecticut gay publication, CJ remembered a study they’d done on an episode of Rachael Ray. The study said that you are the audience for everything you do, so everyone around you who does what you do is probably just like you. So, if you are a misplaced Californian living in Long Island with your banker husband and three children, you are more likely to run into other married misplaced California mothers in your everyday life than if you went back to California and sought out those people. CJ remembered how true this had been when he went to Rome too. He was in an out-of-the-way restaurant on a small side street in a hip new area called Trastevere. The eatery had all of ten tables, yet at four of them sat gay American men from the New York metropolitan area.

  CJ thought he’d seen this man before at one of the bars in Greenwich, though he’d never spoken to him. As he held court with his cronies, the man looked directly at CJ, but with no sign of recognition. So the group continued to talk, presumably not caring if CJ listened in. From what CJ could glean, the compact man worked for a government official or had something to do with local politics, since he was discussing an incident that had happened at the local beach over the summer. When the conversation got juicy, CJ discerned that this man was, of all things, the mayor’s aide! This sparked not just CJ’s curiosity but his Nelly. Nanny had said she recognized the man with the envelope as someone she often saw with the mayor. Could this be the man? CJ moved closer as his mind raced. How could he get in on the conversation? How could he find out what the aide knew about the four of them? Did this man know about the envelopes and the police chief? None of this was helping address CJ’s Nelly, making it the first time the bathhouse had denied him the comfort he sought; but still, he couldn’t walk out. He had to hear the whole story from the other side, and he realized he might be able get it out of the sexy, hard-bodied little mayor’s aide. But how to approach him?