Tales from the Yoga Studio

by Rain Mitchell

  Miss Marquez appears from around the corner, looking even more harried and exhausted than she usually does. “I’m sorry, Lee,” she says, trying to catch her breath. “They were all supposed to be on the sidewalk. I don’t know how the boys got over here. Didn’t you boys hear the announcement? Didn’t you hear me calling for you?”

  They’re still clinging to Lee, not even bothering to respond. Miss Marquez has lost what little influence and control she had. “What happened?” Lee asks her.

  Miss Marquez can’t be more than twenty-five. Teachers use the school system here as a résumé builder. Two or three years and they’re out with a badge of honor, moving on to greener pastures. There’s sweat beading up on her forehead, like little blisters. She speaks quietly, so only Lee can hear. “A call about someone with a gun. This was just a precaution. They were pretty sure it was a prank right from the start.”

  It’s the third unnerving “prank” since January. And it’s only March. There was a bomb scare, rumors of a new superflu that caused a two-day closure, and now this. It’s just what happens these days, but what worries Lee most is that the overstressed faculty and administration don’t seem to be able to control the situation. For the past year, she’s been telling the principal that she’d love to come and give yoga classes for the staff, to help them deal with the stress, but there were objections from a couple of teachers that the practice conflicts with their “religious beliefs.” Breathing, she asked, conflicts with their religion? This just renews her conviction that she’s got to keep pressing the issue. Maybe she could offer one week of free classes at the studio for teachers. Alan would love that.

  Back on the sidewalk, Lorraine has Birdy’s hand. Birdy is a sweet little girl who seems to be living up to Lorraine’s odd choice of name. Pale, thin, and decidedly sparrowlike. Predictably, the twins call her “Turdy.” Lee’s had no success getting them to stop, but at least they no longer do it to her face. And let’s face it, the kid is . . . unusual?

  “Garth and I are calling in all our chits,” Lorraine tells Lee. She’s the only real California blonde Lee is friends with, and, with her Joni Mitchell coloring and cheekbones, Lorraine makes Lee hear strains of “Ladies of the Canyon” every time they meet. “His parents, mine, every relative we can think of. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t care how expensive it is or how I’m supposed to support public education. One of these times it’s not going to be a false alarm.”

  Birdy is staring at Lee with her preternatural gaze, her watery blue eyes too limpid and ethereal for an eight-year-old. She really doesn’t belong at this school. At least Michael is a tough kid. And even if Marcus isn’t, he has his twin around to (hopefully) help him out.

  “You look sad,” Birdy says.

  “No, no, honey,” Lee says. “I’m happy that everything’s okay here, that’s all.”

  Birdy gives Lee one of her eerie silent stares, and Lee knows she understands that she’s being lied to.

  Garth and Lorraine are both artists with a big studio behind their modern house by Shakespeare’s Bridge. They play an active role in the local gallery scene, and Lee’s lost count of the number of openings she’s gone to for them. They’re one of those couples who seem to spend all of their time together and to be constantly holding each other’s hands. She once heard Garth refer to Lorraine as “Mommy” in a way that made Lee a little uneasy.

  She finds Lorraine’s big, muddy canvases incomprehensible and unattractive, which makes them a lot more appealing than Garth’s embarrassingly homoerotic nude self-portraits. They claim to be struggling artists living hand-to-mouth, but it’s hand-to-mouth at a pretty high level. Lee guesses they call in their chits a few times a year.

  “Do you have another school in mind?” Lee asks.

  “We’ve got applications in at three,” Lorraine says. “They’re all interested, but we’re waiting to hear.”

  In other words, they’ve been planning this for months, long before any of the recent incidents at the school. This makes Lee resent Lorraine in some inexplicable way and, at the same time, feel like a bad mother for not having investigated the same options herself. But she’s always been one to try to fix a situation instead of running from it.

  She heads to the lot with the boys and searches for the car. As suspected, it isn’t there. She’s tempted to call Alan and start ranting, but it’s always best to just deal on your own, she’s found. Especially now. She’s afraid that showing Alan she needs him will only drive him farther away.

  Michael is poking his brother, and as she walks back to Lorraine, she separates them a few times before they settle down. Lorraine has on a casual, slightly shredded, gauzy skirt and a crisp blue shirt. Lorraine has a look. Maybe Lee needs to acquire one, too.

  “I forgot that Alan has the car today,” she says. “It’s been so busy at the studio, I’m more scattered than usual, which is saying something.”

  “Do you need a ride?”

  “If it’s not too inconvenient.”

  Lorraine looks at the boys. “We’ll put Birdy up front,” she says. “If you don’t mind riding in back.”

  “I insist.”

  They get the kids arranged and strapped in, and Lee sits between the boys to keep them apart. Michael immediately starts swatting at Marcus and she gives him a look.

  “So I’ve been meaning to invite you to an opening Garth’s having in a couple of weeks.” Lorraine names a date as she pulls out of the lot. Lorraine is one of the overly cautious drivers whose hesitation at every turn is meant to be safe but is actually a hazard. “He’s just finished some new work and the gallery is so excited about it, they shifted their schedule around to give him a show. We’d love it if you and Alan could come, if that’s possible?”

  “I’m pretty sure that week is open.” Something about the way she asked the question makes Lee a little paranoid that she’s heard rumors about Alan’s move. They’ve told the kids he’s just staying with Benjamin so they can get some work done and they don’t need to talk with anyone about it, but you never know what’s going through their heads. As for the opening, the idea of standing around Garth’s paintings with a group of people talking about his technique while pretending not to see the garish depictions of his dick that are always front and center on his canvases is pretty excruciating. But there are a lot of things Lee likes and admires about the couple, and it might do her and Alan good to appear together in public.

  “I’ll send you an e-mail,” Lorraine says. “It’ll have to wait until Thursday. Garth and I have Wednesdays as a techno-free day. No cell phones, no computers, no TV. You guys should really try it. It always ends up being our most romantic day of the week, if you see what I mean.”

  “Sounds good,” Lee says. She starts playing with her hair nervously, thinking about Alan and the fire drill and the last time she and her husband had a romantic day of the week. (And “most” implies there’s more than one day a week that’s passionate!) She’s always telling her students not to compete and to let go of ego, but sometimes Lorraine makes her feel as if her own life is going off the rails.

  “Are you okay, Mom?” Marcus asks. He’s her worrier.

  “Oh, sweetie,” she says. “Of course I am. I just got a little nervous when I didn’t see you on the sidewalk.”

  Michael starts kicking the back of Birdy’s seat and chanting, “Ice cream, ice cream, ice cream, ice cream.”

  She reaches over and puts a hand on his thigh. Does Alan take them out for ice cream when he picks them up? She thought they had an agreement about the kids’ diet, but she thought a lot of things that aren’t turning out to be what she imagined.

  “We’ve got some tofu pops in the freezer at home,” she says.

  Even Marcus screams in protest at that suggestion and joins in with his brother’s chanting.

  To hell with it, she thinks. She could use a little indulgence herself. “What do you think, Lorraine? My treat?”

  “Let’s go to the new gelato place,” she say
s. “Birdy’s lactose intolerant and they have sorbet.”

  Michael makes farting noises on the back of his hand, but hopefully not loudly enough for Lorraine to hear.

  The thing that Katherine likes best about the new Dutch bike she bought online is that it’s pink. It’s true, she paid too much for it—and extra for the designer color—but her massage practice at the studio has really caught on in the past few months, and she figures she owes herself a little pampering, a treat. She ordered it on the second-year anniversary of her sobriety. Why not?

  It’s sturdy, it’s solid, and she feels cool riding it around Silver Lake. Complete strangers sometimes wave at her. It has a great classic design, and she gets off on dressing to match the bike’s style, if not its color—a little more girly and retro-chic, a little Zooey Deschanel. She’s been getting back into sewing and has taken apart and restitched a couple of vintage dresses she had stored away in a closet. It’s true the bike is a target for thieves, but in her mind, that only confirms its value. She’s got a very good lock.

  What she likes least about the bike is that it really doesn’t show off her ass.

  Under most circumstances, she’d consider this a plus. She’s had way more than her fair share of wanted and unwanted attention all her life, and there’s no use pretending that thirty percent of her massage clients at Edendale Yoga aren’t guys (and one or two girls) who think she’s hot. Almost a year ago, after she put an end to her relationship (to be generous about what was in fact more like an exercise in low self-esteem) with Phil the Impossible, she decided to take a break from men and dating and sex altogether. It’s been among the most relaxing stretches of time she’s had in years and the most centering, but lately, as she’s biked down Hillhurst Avenue to the studio and past the station house and spotted the redhead—two days ago she chatted up one of the other firemen, who told her his name is Conor—she’s had a sudden desire to be leaning over the handlebars, flaunting the results of all those utkatasanas she’s been doing over the past couple of years.

  The way she sees it, there’s a big fat connection between sex and yoga (well, sex and everything, but who’s counting?) that a lot of people don’t like to own up to. A lot of people she knows come for the body sculpting (sex appeal), combined with the flexibility (sexual enhancement), and the muscle control (duh!). The boyfriend before Phil also turned out to be a total shit (actor!), but after one month of Lee’s classes, his staying power increased dramatically.

  And if people aren’t using yoga classes to enhance their sex lives, they’re using them as an alternative to sex after a divorce or a bad breakup (Stephanie, she’s guessing) or a long dry spell. How else do you explain the popularity of Gianpaolo’s classes at the studio? His Italian accent is so thick, it’s hard to understand a lot of what he says. But man, does he give amazing adjustments, especially in paschimottanasana, when he more or less drapes himself over you backward so you can get your forehead closer to your knees.

  There are a few tragic types, like Brian/Boner, who come to class to show off their wares, but they usually end up the resident joke at Lee’s studio. The white stretch pants that scream I’m serious about yoga, ladies—and circumcised. She’s guessing he’ll either finally hook up and (mission accomplished) stop coming or realize no one’s buying and head off to a big commercial studio with a singles bar atmosphere. There is no shortage of those in this town.

  It’s another perfect morning, and since she’s got a few extra minutes before Lee’s 9:30 Intermediate Vinyasa class, she circles the block twice, hoping to spot or be spotted by Conor. Nothing. It’s a shame. She has on a yellow cotton dress and it looks great with her pale skin, and she’s finally learned how to ride while wearing a skirt. (Carefully, but not too.) She’s tempted to stop and adjust the basket she has on the front to see if Conor ventures outside, but that’s too obvious. She let one of the guys know she wouldn’t be disappointed if Conor contacted her, so maybe she’ll just leave it at that. And there’s always lunch break.

  As she’s locking the bike up behind the studio, she sees Lee through the window of her office, talking on the phone with her head down. Katherine always suspected that something was up in that marriage, never bought into the conventional wisdom that it was a perfect match. Like those exist? She’s been around the block a few too many times, had her heart broken too often, and seen the darker side of the way men really act to buy into fairy tales.

  The truth is, Lee’s marriage is none of Katherine’s business. She knows that. But if it wasn’t for Lee, Katherine would probably still be using. She’d still be working for the escort service. Assuming, that is, she was still around. For a while there, that wasn’t certain. How much Lee knows about the specifics of that tawdry chapter is not clear. Not that it’s such a shocker. Just another L.A. story: tough, clueless girl from Detroit heads west with totally half-baked ideas about acting, ends up “dancing,” leading to escorting, leading to self-loathing, leading to self-medicating, and culminating in one long slide into self-destruction. Where would she be if she hadn’t met Lee? Hadn’t been welcomed into the studio free of charge? If Lee hadn’t lent her the money for the massage school? More to the point, where would she be if Lee hadn’t shown her unconditional belief in Katherine’s talent as a healer and her ability to keep herself clean?

  In the reception area, she can see from the number of shoes in the cubbies that it’s going to be a packed house. This is Lee’s most popular class, but it’s a crowd, even for her. Katherine goes into her massage room and peels off her dress, hangs it in the closet, and gets into her old tank top and the cotton drawstring pants she bought at a street fair at Venice Beach. She absolutely refuses to go the trendy-yoga-outfits route. Even if she secretly craves some of the practicality of those pricey outfits.

  At the reception desk, she bumps into Lee.

  “It looks like a big crowd in there, Miss Lee. You up for it?”

  “I can’t wait.”

  Katherine slips on a headband, not that she really needs one with her current hairdo. Six months ago, a client of hers gave her a gift certificate for an obscenely expensive haircut in Hollywood that came out looking as if she’d hacked her hair off herself. So now that’s what she does. Scissors, mirror, and voilà. Maybe a little punky, but it suits her, and it is kind of surprising with the retro clothes and the twirly skirts. Lee has dark circles, not the way she usually looks. Exhausted? Or has she been crying? As causally as she can, Katherine asks, “Everything okay?”

  Lee smiles. “A little distracted. Something at the kids’ school last week. The Alan stuff catching up with me.” She looks away from Katherine and says with enough sincerity to break Katherine’s heart, “You think I’m a good mother, don’t you, Kat?”

  “What’s this about? Why would you even ask me that? As for Alan, he’s going through some early-onset midlife thing that will pass.”

  “I’m just trying to keep my options open, that’s all.”

  This seems to refer to something specific, but Katherine has no idea what. She’d like to ask, but it’s 9:30, and Lee never starts class late.

  If Katherine were a painter, she’d do a series of portraits of people on their mats before class begins. It’s incredible how much you can tell about someone’s personality just from those first couple of minutes. If Bosch were around, she’s pretty certain this is what he’d be painting—a little microcosm of the world, with so many types crowded into one little space.

  There are five people lying flat on their backs, two of them using blocks as a pillow, and one with her hands folded on her stomach, actually (though lightly) snoring. Tina of the endless retail drama is sitting up in a tense lotus, twisting her head from side to side to see who else is in class and how much space she’s going to have to do her splits. There’s a couple she sees every once in a while, their mats close together, lying on their sides, heads propped up in hands, very quietly talking. They met here, he’s married, and if they’re not having an affair they will be
long before they can do headstands. It’s easy to see from the way they’re looking at each other that if Lee started the class half an hour late or just scrapped it altogether, they’d barely notice.

  Boner is at the front of the room, facing the class, loosening up his lower back by thrusting his hips (etc.) forward. A woman in a purple leotard who comes at least five times a week is “politely” asking someone if he’d mind moving his mat over “just a hair,” all with a smile that’s so hard and tense it could cut glass. And two guys Katherine has never seen before are executing a series of warm-up sun salutations in a “watch us, aren’t we amazing” fashion. One short and muscular, the other lean, so they look like a Mutt and Jeff team. Where’d they come from?

  Lee gets things going by asking, as she always does, if anyone has any injuries she should know about. Purple Leotard’s hand goes up, and before Lee can even acknowledge her, she’s off and running.

  “I’m not sure if you’d call it an injury, but I’ve been noticing this little crick in my neck when I wake up? It’s kind of annoying? I’m not sure if it’s related, but my boyfriend just moved in and we’re still using my double bed. His furniture is in storage back in New York? We’d been planning for him to move out here for years, and then finally, last month, he did it! Yay! It’s been so great having him here. At first I didn’t think I’d like sharing my place. . . .”

  “Congratulations,” Lee says, interrupting, but sweetly. “Go easy on the twists, and look down at your mat when I’m telling everyone else to look up. We’ll start there. Anything else?”

  “I went to Chloe’s class last Monday,” someone says—nasal voice, but Katherine can’t see the speaker. “And someone I’ve never seen before was teaching.”

  Katherine thinks of this portion of the class as optical-asana since she spends so much time rolling her eyes.