by Sonya Lalli
“Wait. Why are you even bringing Ryan?” Jenny asked.
“I might as well. Neil’s not going to be there.” Jenny’s jaw dropped, and so Anu continued. “He’s been invited to speak at a prestigious conference in San Francisco the same weekend. He can’t miss it.”
“And we understand,” Monica said, squeezing Anu’s hand. Neil, one of Tom’s oldest friends from Calgary, had introduced him to Monica in the first place. “It’s a really big opportunity for Neil. Tom would kill him if he missed it.”
“No, I mean why bring Ryan? Just because Neil won’t be around doesn’t mean you need to bring some other guy.”
“Ryan’s not ‘some guy’—”
“Right, he’s a new boyfriend. You introduce your friends to a new boyfriend. You tell your parents that he exists, but bring him to your best friend’s wedding? That’s . . . serious.”
“We are serious.”
Jenny snorted. Anu reached for her drink and, finding it empty, twisted the glass hard in her hand. Having sex and spending almost every night together (that she wasn’t with Kanika, of course) didn’t count as serious to her best friends?
“You don’t like Ryan,” Anu said, refusing to meet Jenny’s eye, “do you?”
“Ask Monica if she likes him.”
“I like him just fine”—Monica slapped Jenny on the arm—“and I think what Ms. Diplomatic is trying to say is—”
“What I’m trying to say is that Anu claims she left Neil to find herself, yet here she is jumping into a so-called ‘serious’ relationship.”
“I was with the wrong guy before. Ryan is different. He’s—”
“This isn’t about Ryan!” Jenny cried. “You need to get to know yourself, let yourself make some mistakes along the way. Anu, if you’ve never been single for more than five seconds, how exactly are you supposed to know what kind of guy you even want? Or what you want out of life—”
“I—”
“How are you ever supposed to grow up?”
“Are you kidding me? I was the first of us to grow up,” Anu fumed. “I’m raising a daughter. I have a good job, a house, a boyfriend, a mortgage—”
“Except that’s stuff you have, not stuff you are.”
Anu threw a pleading look at Monica, but she was picking at the nachos. “Fine.” Anu sat up straighter in her chair. “I am financially responsible and live within my means. I put my family first. I’m a role model to my daughter. I chose a suitable life partner—”
“You mean Ryan?”
“Of course Ryan! And so what if I can’t handle my liquor well? I can control my urges. I do things in moderation. I’m responsible.”
“Responsible or. . . . scared?”
Anu looked up, meeting Jenny’s gaze. They were fighting and not fighting simultaneously. They were honest and brutal, but this was the way they always were.
Anu exhaled slowly. She could sense there was something else Jenny wanted to say, to push them even further, truly test the notion that they loved and fought as hard as sisters, but luckily Monica stepped in. She yanked them both by the ear.
“Ow!”
“Monica, that hurts!”
“Are you fools done yet?” Monica said. She sounded annoyed. “The nachos are getting cold.”
“I’m done,” Jenny said.
Anu smiled at the table, victorious. “I’m done, too.”
They returned to the food and their conversation about Ronny the personal trainer. Anu didn’t need to prove herself, to convince Jenny of something she was simply incapable of understanding.
Anu was a grown-up. After all, she had everything a woman was supposed to want in life. Could ever want in life.
Even if for the first time in her life, things weren’t going according to what she’d always planned.
chapter four
LAKSHMI: I am trying to call. There is no answer. Have you dropped your phone into the toilet again?
(two hours later)
LAKSHMI: YOO-hooo! ALL OK?? Your father cooked tonight. It is a British dish called a sheep herder’s pie. I will e-mail you the photo.
ANUSHA: Busy, Mom. Talk later. Enjoy the pie!
Ryan hadn’t texted in more than an hour, and so Anu decided to go for a walk. She tried not to feel disappointed. Sure, he was MIA half the time, but he was an environmental lawyer, so at least the work that kept him so busy was legitimate. And besides, he was working late so he didn’t have to go into the office that weekened. Monica’s wedding was tomorrow. It had been stress overload for the both of them all week—all year, really. Anu had helped Monica plan the whole thing. Because Anu worked part-time, the weeks Kanika was with Neil, she’d found herself with whole days during which she was free to sample entrées and wedding cakes, drive from Indian store to Indian store to pick out the perfect bridal shoes, or brainstorm fusion-inspired centerpieces that represented both Monica’s Indian heritage and Tom’s Anglo roots.
Now, the night before, there was absolutely nothing left to do. All Anu had to do was show up.
The November wind was cold around her neck, and Anu tucked her collar up around her throat. She kept walking, taking random turns, and eventually found herself next to the shops on West Broadway. Although she’d spent a lot of time at Ryan’s house, she had never fully realized he lived so close to this neighborhood. They always seemed to order in or cooked at home—and when Ryan did take her out, it was always somewhere splashy, a bit too lavish, downtown by the waterfront.
She trudged west, along a cute villagelike block, staring into shop windows as she passed them. A sushi restaurant. Coffeehouse. Bookstore. Marijuana dispensary. Vegetarian restaurant. She used to ride down this road every single day to and from the university—usually on the express bus. She had been jealous of the students who got to live around here and then, later, her friends who could afford to buy property in the area. She and Neil had considered a town house not too far from here in Kitsilano, their dream neighborhood being close to downtown, the university parklands, the beach. But as her parents pointed out, the properties around here didn’t have many bedrooms (for children), and they could get a much larger house for the same price in the suburbs near them, near Priya. Staying close to their parents was the financially responsible decision. What a grown-up did, and so that was what they did.
Anu slowed down as she passed a yoga studio and stole a look inside. There was a girl with a mop of fiery red hair who looked a bit younger than Anu. The sign reading “Mags’ Yoga Studio” had paint chipping off, so it read “Ma s’ Y g S u io.” As Anu moved to walk on, she caught sight of the girl waving. Anu pointed at her chest, and when the girl nodded, Anu hesitantly pushed through the front door, stamping her boots off on the mat.
“Are you here for the six p.m. class?”
“Who, me?”
“Is there anyone else in here?”
Anu laughed nervously, glancing around the room. The foyer looked a lot like the sign outside: cute, bright, but rather worn down.
“I was just walking by.”
“If it’s your first class, I can give you a discount,” the girl said, standing up from her chair behind the front desk. She was wearing a hot pink top and black shorts, and her red hair was messily parted into French braids. “Usually it’s twenty bucks for a drop-in fee, but I can give you the first one for ten.”
“I don’t know,” Anu said, smiling. “I don’t have anything with me.”
“We provide the mats. And you’re dressed just fine.”
Anu glanced down and realized that she was indeed wearing yoga pants—one of the many pairs she wore grocery shopping or to the swimming pool and didn’t actually use for yoga.
“Have you practiced before?”
“Yeah,” Anu said, nodding. “I’ve been practicing for years, actually.”
“What studio? I bet
it’s not as good as Mags’.”
“Oh, I used to go to . . .” She trailed off, blanking on the name. “It closed a few years ago. Anyway, since my daughter was born, I only practice at home. YouTube videos in the basement. That sort of thing.”
The girl nodded. “Well, I think you should give us a go. You’ve got nothing to lose, except an hour.”
“I’m not sure. . . .”
“Come on. You’re the only one who has shown up, so I can give you a one-on-one lesson. That’s worth way more than ten dollars.”
“Is it usually this dead?”
“No,” the girl said, sounding rather offended. “So are you in? Come on. Please? Otherwise I won’t get paid.”
One last time, Anu checked her phone. Ryan still hadn’t texted, and feeling rather pathetic, she put away her phone. Offering the girl a smile, she said, “Sure. Let’s do it.”
She followed the girl—Imogen—into the studio, which was bare, clean, and simple, just like the studio Anu had gone to in high school and university, before she got too busy to take formal classes. The tasteful birch panels on the wall were whitewashed and reminded Anu of the beach house she and Neil had once rented while she was pregnant with Kanika. Instantly, she felt at ease, unlike some of the studios she’d tried for one-off classes over the past few years. Yoga had become so on trend, so over-the-top, sometimes she didn’t even recognize it. Anu didn’t need an Ayurvedic juice bar or an in-house naturopath or for the Hindu Om to be spray-painted on the bathroom wall like some appropriated decoration and not the scared mantra that it was.
All Anu needed was a yoga mat and a quiet room. Something like this.
Anu’s doubts about Imogen’s young age (twenty-one, she said) vanished by their first downward dog, and the more Anu kept up, the swifter Imogen moved her from pose to pose—talasana to vriksasana to sirsasana.
But Anu wasn’t used to practicing for so long or holding her poses—as Imogen insisted—in perfect alignment, and so she was puffing and sweating hard by the time she collapsed out of the revolved triangle. Squinting, she looked up at Imogen and watched her lift up and into a crow pose, shins on elbows, her pointed toes hovering effortlessly into the air.
“I still can’t do crow pose,” Anu said, panting. “And I’ve been trying for years.”
“Give me a few weeks, and you’ll be able to,” Imogen said. She ejected her legs out and landed in plank, then pulled down and out with a graceful chaturanga.
“Damn. You’re good.”
“Yoga isn’t about being good.”
Anu blushed. “I know that.”
“Do you?” Imogen leaned back into downward dog, and Anu followed.
Stretching deeper into the pose, Anu lifted her left leg high and straight behind her until it was in perfect alignment with her back.
“It’s not about showing off, either.”
Anu set her left leg down, lifted her right. “I’m not showing off.”
“You are, too. You’re sucking in your stomach too much. I can tell.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.” Anu smiled, and then cringed. That was something she would have said to Jenny, sometimes to Monica, not to a total stranger. She caught Imogen’s eye, tried to gauge if she was offended.
Deadpan, Imogen said, “At least I’m not an old ass.”
It was a great workout, although they kept saying things that cracked each other up—or like what happened in wind-relieving pose, when Anu let out a fart. Anu was surprised by how good, how light she felt by the time Imogen told her the class was over. She couldn’t remember the last time she had felt this way.
Back in the studio foyer, a gray-haired woman was hovering in the doorway, fighting against the wind to push the door closed. Imogen rushed over to help.
“Thank you, dear,” the woman said after they shut it. She touched Imogen’s arm and then glanced in Anu’s direction.
“That’s Anusha. A new customer.”
“Anusha.” The woman smiled and offered her a warm hug. She looked to be about her mother’s age. “So lovely to meet you.”
“This is Mags. She runs the place.”
“It’s lovely to meet you, too.”
Mags surveyed the room, as if momentarily fixated on the texture of the walls, the worn-down grains of the hardwood. “Are we all done for the day, love?”
Imogen nodded, zipping up her hoodie.
“Right, then. Who needs a cuppa?”
* * *
• • •
Upstairs, Anu drifted in and out of the conversation that Imogen and Mags were having about the new hot-yoga studio down the road. The mug of tea was warm in her hands, and she’d given up thinking that Ryan would finally text and tell her he was on his way home, so she’d left her phone in her bag by the door. Mags’ apartment above the studio was crammed full of odds and ends, but for whatever reason, the space didn’t feel crowded or suffocating. Her limbs heavy in the chair, for the first time in several years, Anu felt calm.
“This building has a positive, affirming energy to it—don’t you reckon?” asked Mags, startling Anu. At that very moment, she’d been thinking the very same thing.
“It does, Mags. Thanks so much for having me over. I feel so relaxed right now.”
“You aren’t the first one to say that.” She patted Anu’s hand. “Relax away. Just be.”
Anu smiled in return, resisting the urge to say something snarky—her usual reply whenever her own mother told her to be, or chant om, or something that could sound like a line from a Star Wars movie about becoming one with the universe. Instead, she changed the subject.
“So is that a British accent I detect, Mags? How did you end up in Vancouver?”
“It’s a great story,” Imogen said.
“I followed my partner here more than thirty years ago. Then she went ahead and died, but such is life.” She gestured to her tea set on the table between them. “Sugar?”
“Mags, that’s not the story.” Imogen leaned forward, spooned sugar into her cup. “Mags’ wife was in the Canadian foreign service. She was stationed in England and just happened to be passing through her town of Hambridge—”
“Henstridge—”
“Henstridge,” Imogen repeated. “And they fell in love that very day.”
“It took at least a week, dear. And passing through?” She laughed, the corners of her mouth tightening into crisp folds. “More like she was the only girl on the drink in my father’s pub.”
“What was the pub called again?”
“The Dog and Du—”
“The Dog and Duck,” Imogen finished, laughing. “You English people, you have such weird names.”
Imogen pointed across the room. There was an urn on the fireplace mantle, a small bronze Ganesha—just like one Lakshmi had in her bedroom—and right next to it was a framed black-and-white photo of a thirtysomething-year-old woman in a denim jacket. Red hair and kind eyes. Eyes, Anu thought, like Neil’s.
“Anyhow, Anusha, I followed her to London, and then to New Delhi when she was stationed in India. That’s when I fell in love with yoga.” Mags laughed, as if this was a private joke just for her. “It was quite the experience. We had a one-bedroom flat, and everyone still believed we were cousins.” Mags glanced back at the photo. “When we settled here, I opened up the studio.”
“It was a great class,” Anu said, nodding toward Imogen. “I’ll be sure to try one of yours, too.”
“I haven’t taught since Tara passed away—it’s been months now.” Mags shook her head, brushed a stray hair out of her eye. “Actually, I’ve been trying to find someone to take over for me. My sister lost her husband last year, and well, I thought I’d move back home so we can be alone together. Thought we’d start some sort of club.”
“If only I had a bit of money,” Imogen said, “I would, Mags.”
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br /> “I have three years left on the lease, and these hipsters keep offering on it. They say it’s prime real estate for another coffee bar.”
Anu laughed.
“I’m really trying to find someone who will keep the studio alive. Our regulars are few and far between, but they are as loyal as anything.”
“The teachers, too.” Imogen snapped a biscuit in half, setting the bigger chunk back on the tray. “We’re loyal, too.”
“What about you, Anusha? Are you in the market?”
“For a yoga studio?”
“Sure. Why not? It’s surprising the sense of purpose building something like this can give you.”
The words startled Anu, but they didn’t seem ridiculous. At least, ten years ago they wouldn’t have.
Anu had started yoga when she was fifteen years old, and she had been hooked within months. She had spent each day leading up to her high school graduation saving every penny from her part-time jobs serving pizza or washing cars to pay for the pricy monthly membership. Secretly, she had also been saving up toward yoga teacher training. There were courses in Vancouver, but she wanted to enroll in one far away—Costa Rica, Los Angeles, maybe even Europe. That had been the plan, the dream, the journey. She’d graduate high school one day, and the next she’d be on an international flight toward an adventure.
But then she’d told her parents.
“So what do you say?” Mags said. “Shall I draw up the paperwork?”
“Sorry,” Anu said, snapping back to reality. “I don’t know the first thing about running a yoga studio.”
“But I do. I’ve been working for Mags for a while. . . . Anusha, I could be your manager!” Imogen said.
Anu laughed, but stopped when she caught Mags’ eye. There was something about her that made the idea seem not so ridiculous. Like she could see through Anu’s thin veneer and see point-blank that Anu was searching—for what, she didn’t know. A university education, a career, marriage, and motherhood were supposed to have given her sufficient direction—yet here Anu was, and living with purpose was something she couldn’t claim to have felt.
