Tales from the Yoga Studio

by Rain Mitchell

  Namaste

  Lee

  P.S. Barrett’s Saturday morning “Good Doggie” classes have really started to take off. Tell your friends. And don’t forget: It’s not just for girls! My twins are having a great time!

  Lee clicks the “post” button on her page and closes her laptop. Even though she’d hate to count up the number of hours she spends online—by necessity, for work, mostly—Lee has never been a big one for the computer. The “Pose of the Month” usually turns out to be the “Pose of Every Third Month if I’m Lucky.” It’s weird to think that as a yoga teacher she has to keep up an active online life, just to stay in touch with students and build her business. It seems counterintuitive. Still, there’s something kind of cozy about lying in bed and checking e-mail and ordering a delivery of groceries, as she’s started doing since Alan moved out. Adapting.

  In the past month, life has settled into a groove of some kind. Lee can’t say she doesn’t miss having Alan around the house, because she does. She wouldn’t admit that to many people because as humiliating as it is to have someone walk out on you (with only vague plans for reuniting in the future) it’s even worse to feel their absence as strongly as she does. The whole incident with him has made her question the validity of working so hard to not feel angry all the time. Maybe a little righteous anger would help. Maybe she really should visualize wringing his neck. Or, more to the point, maybe she should not feel so guilty when she does visualize wringing his neck.

  She always worries that she’s betraying her students in those moments. She feels like a hypocrite.

  Last week, she lay in bed and thought about punching him, really laying into him and screaming at him. But those were extenuating circumstances.

  He had come over to discuss the contract with YogaHappens and ask her if she’d come to a decision yet. Ever since the meeting with “the guys” at their house three weeks earlier, he’s been pressuring her into going ahead with it. There are still a few questions about the amount of money they’d actually be making, but one thing is certain: it will be a lot more than she’s making now, with Alan’s salary being a complete bonus.

  “I’m thinking it over,” she told him.

  “Yeah, I know. But they’re not going to give you forever to answer. It would be good for you, Lee, a real opportunity.”

  She doesn’t mind that Alan is so behind this plan, and it isn’t as if she is dead against it, but it bothers her that instead of coming right out and being honest about his motives, about the advantages to him, he’s spending all this energy trying to convince her it’s about the benefits to her and her career. Why can’t he just tell her the straight-out truth for once? Is it really that hard?

  “I’m thinking it over, Alan.”

  They were sitting at the table in the dining room at the time, and the kids were at Barrett’s “Good Doggie” class. Alan had looked across the table at her, a little sad, a little pleading. And then a familiar gleam had come into his eyes, and Lee knew exactly what he was thinking. For a minute, she forgot that everything was different in their lives. All of a sudden, she felt that direct line between the two of them that they’d always used to communicate nonverbally. His obvious desire for her started to heat up her body, without a word being exchanged. She realized how much she had missed his touch and how much she missed the release she always felt from having sex with him, and she looked over at his dark, full lips and just wanted him. When she talked about it with Katherine later—and Katherine was the only person she discussed it with—she told her she’d been horny, which was easier than getting into the longing and loneliness.

  She’d looked back at Alan that day and held his gaze for about one second too long, and next thing she knew, he had her backed up against the sofa in the living room and was running his hands all over her thighs. She hopped up and wrapped her legs around his waist and he carried her like that to their bedroom. Both of them seemed to be driven by so much more intensity and hunger than usual, and when their mouths came together, Lee heard herself sighing and felt her body melt in a way that she hadn’t felt in a long time. A little pulse somewhere in the back of her head kept repeating He’s back, he’s back, over and over, almost as if she needed to convince herself. Even her concerns that there could be someone else started to dissolve: he wouldn’t be like this with her if he was seeing another woman.

  But afterward, he popped up off the bed and started pulling on his clothes. “That was fun, babe,” he said.

  Fun? A sweaty ninety minutes of power yoga can be “fun” but that isn’t the word she would have used to describe what they’d just done.

  “Think about the contract, okay?”

  Two minutes later, he was gone. Not back after all, but gone again. That’s when she started thinking about slugging the guy.

  Her cell phone on the table beside the bed rings, and she sees that it’s her mother. This is a call she isn’t ready for at this hour of the morning on a Saturday. But out of a sense of obligation, she reaches for it anyway. Except it isn’t only obligation. Lee feels a complicated combination of love and pity for her mother and is always hoping, with an explosive mix of optimism and magical thinking, that during one of their conversations, her mother will stop projecting her own doubts about herself onto Lee, and they’ll get to the love they feel for each other somewhere under the surface resentments.

  In her youth, Ellen had aspired to be a writer. She’d taken an entry-level job in publishing right out of college and lived with a roommate on Bank Street in the West Village in one of those cheap sublets that were easy to find in the late sixties. If you believed Ellen’s version of her own story, it was one of the happiest times of her life. She liked her job, wrote on the kitchen table at night, and was receiving “promising rejections” from the New Yorker, McCall’s, and every other publication she sent her stories to. She’d felt with certainty that something was about to happen and her life was about to open up for her.

  What happened was that she met Lee’s dad. He was twenty years older than Ellen and a legendary editor at Random House. Tall, handsome, intelligent—how could she say no when he asked her to marry him? She’d have that much more time to write once she quit her job and moved up to his place in Darien.

  Except that isn’t how it had worked out. Probably that isn’t how it ever works out for anyone. Ellen just got lost in her husband’s life. Compared with all the famous writers her husband worked with, many of whom visited them and spent the weekend, her ambitions seemed ridiculous and all those “promising rejections” just reminders of what she lacked in terms of talent. She became a mom, a housewife.

  “Oh, Lee-lee, I’m sorry, it sounds like I woke you up, honey. I’m never sure what your teaching schedule is.”

  “It’s okay, Mom. I’ve been awake for a while now. How’s everything going?”

  “It’s going great, honey. It really is, I haven’t been this happy in years.”

  “I’m so glad, Mom.”

  This is true. When her mother is depressed, she tends to be self-pitying and angry, lashing out at Lee and anyone else within earshot, excoriating them for not understanding her problems, not appreciating the sacrifices she made for her family, and sounding personally affronted by every piece of good news, even about her own grandsons. When she’s happy, there’s less lashing out, or at least it’s all done in a cheerier tone.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me why, honey?”

  I was hoping you’d ask about the twins, Lee doesn’t say. “I was just about to, Mom.”

  “Oh, Lee. You are going to love this news so much. It makes sense on so many levels. It really pulls together so many of my interests.”

  Her mother’s voice has that tone she uses when she’s imagining criticism and is trying to head it off at the pass. “I can’t wait to hear it, Mom.”

  “I know you’re going to think it’s a little crazy, but really, I think this is going to make us even closer, honey. You know that’s what I’ve always wanted.”<
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  “I know, Mom.” It’s what I’ve always wanted, too, Lee knows better than to say. If she did, her mother would interpret it as criticism of her, and there would go another half hour of her life.

  “Well, you know that based on your inspiration, I’ve started taking yoga classes at the Y.”

  “You told me. I think it’s great, Mom.” Last she heard, her mother had attended two classes and then decided that it was a waste of money. Maybe she started going again. A little wave of uneasiness is beginning to wash over Lee, and she really wishes she hadn’t taken the call.

  “I’m sure you don’t believe me, but I’m really quite good. I’m able to do almost all those things where you bend over and whatever else it is.”

  “You always were flexible.”

  “You’re just saying that, but it’s true. Anyway, I made friends with the yoga teacher there, Laurence, this lovely young man who always smells so nice. And don’t call him Larry! Anyway, I invited him out here for dinner one night, because I wanted him to see the house. He showed up with his ‘friend’—Corey or something like that—very nice. And Bob didn’t mind at all about it being two men. I know you think Bob’s a big Republican, but he’s a supporter of Lieberman.”

  Lee is having a familiar feeling, the one where she feels as if her mother just walked into her house with a huge trunk and told her she’s staying for six months. Oh, Mom, she wants to say, don’t tell me what I think you’re going to tell me.

  When Lee was a kid and her flute teacher told Ellen that Lee had “promise,” Ellen went out and bought herself a tenor recorder and took two lessons. That was before the divorce, back when Ellen and Lee’s father had money. Ellen had never been supportive of Lee’s premed ambitions, but once she got into medical school, Ellen began researching nursing programs. When Lee’s sister got into Juilliard, Ellen began taking piano lessons. You could say it was all a flattering way for her mother to be closer to her kids and to find some common ground, but what it always boiled down to was her mother being disappointed in her own abilities and then willfully making everyone feel guilty about their own talents. It all comes so easy for you. You think you’re all so much better than me. You’re all laughing at me and don’t try to pretend you’re not.

  So now it was happening again.

  “Laurence thinks I would make an excellent teacher. Not on your level, honey. Don’t worry about me trying to compete. And anyway, since I’m back east, it’s not like we’d be going after the same students. Laurence says there’s a huge market for what he calls ‘old-lady yoga,’ which is apparently a much more affectionate and positive term than it sounds.”

  It’s true that there is a need for more compassionate teachers to instruct older students who have different physical requirements. Her mother isn’t especially athletic, but she is fit. She’d benefit from a good mentor.

  “Does Laurence offer teacher training?” Lee asks.

  “In other words, you think he’s just flattering me to get some money out of me for the training. Reeling in some foolish old woman. Next thing I know, you’ll be accusing me of having a crush on him. As if I don’t know that he’s gay and, even if he weren’t, it’s highly unlikely he’d be attracted to me. Have a little more faith in me than that, Lee!”

  “I didn’t say that, Mom. I was just wondering . . .”

  “Anyway, that’s not the main thing. The main thing is, he fell in love with the house. He’s been looking for a place to use as a yoga retreat center, and he thinks this would be perfect. Can’t you imagine it, honey?”

  “I guess I hadn’t thought about it much, to be honest.”

  “Oh, now you’re trying to discourage me, but I think he’s right. We could have people put those mats out on the side porch in summer. And he thinks the barn could be converted into a big yoga studio or whatever for under a hundred thousand. We’ll have to get another mortgage to put in extra bathrooms, anyway.”

  “I thought Bob was feeling pinched during the recession.” Bob was an ineffectual man who retired from the insurance business at exactly the wrong moment. Lee had been hoping that he had invested at least some of his portfolio wisely and had a good portion of it locked away.

  “When you decided to go into this yoga business, Lee, I didn’t discourage you.”

  True, assuming you don’t consider “Yoga is a freak thing. You’d be better off joining the circus” discouraging.

  “Honestly, Mom, if you’ve thought it through and you really think it would be a good idea, then I’m behind you, one hundred percent.”

  “That’s all I wanted to hear, honey. All I want is your support. I don’t want or need or expect anything else but that. Oh, one more thing: Laurence wants to do a little benefit weekend here to get things off the ground and help raise some money for the blocks and belts or straps or whatever it is. And he asked me if you and Alan could help him launch it. It would be such a huge, huge boost to us if you did—a big yoga instructor and her rock star husband from Hollywood. We could use the names of some of the celebrities you teach. Who’s going to know if it isn’t true? It would be incredible. He tried to get that Asian one with the long hair? I forget his name, but he wanted to be paid! Can you believe it? The whole point is it’s a benefit. And he wanted us to pay for his plane ticket! Even after I told his ‘agent’ he could have our bedroom and we’d sleep in the guest room. I told him I’d make him breakfast, too.”

  “I’ll think it over, Mom, but to be honest, now isn’t the best time.”

  “I know I’m completely insignificant in your lives, honey, but I helped you out when you needed money. You’ll be coming east to visit us anyway, no?”

  “I’ve been meaning to talk with you about that.” She had hoped Alan would be back home before it ever became necessary to discuss any of this with her mother.

  “Is something wrong?” Ellen asks. “It’s not the twins, is it? I know you don’t believe me, but I have a sixth sense about these things.”

  “It’s not about the twins, Mom. They’re fine.”

  “Thank God. I knew it couldn’t be. I would have had an intuition.”

  But Lee still can’t bring herself to mention it, so she tells her mother that she’s been given a very nice offer to work at a big yoga studio, health benefits and all, and she probably shouldn’t leave L.A. for a while.

  “In other words, you’re saying my little retreat center is too rinky-dink for you now. Well, I never pretended it was a big deal like your life. Give me credit for something, Lee.”

  “Please don’t, Mom. It isn’t that. It’s just . . . Alan temporarily moved out, Mom.”

  There is a long moment of silence from the other end of the phone, and then, in a different tone of voice, one full of warmth and the kind of compassion that Lee knows—has always known—her mother to be capable of: “I’m so, so sorry, honey.” It’s almost as if the petulant, insecure child she was talking to a few minutes ago passed the phone to an adult. “What happened?”

  Lee tells her a version of the story that almost makes sense to her as she’s saying it. She emphasizes that no one’s planning any drastic moves for the moment, but everything’s a little complicated now. It’s not as if they’re breaking up, it’s just a little breather. Her mother sobs audibly. She mumbles something about the twins, and Lee is happy that she’s told her, and, in this moment of shared sadness, she feels closer to her mother than she’s felt in a long time.

  Ellen blows her nose. “I’m so happy you felt you could tell me, honey. It makes me feel so much closer to you. So . . . maybe Alan would come play at the benefit alone while you take care of the kids out there.”

  Stephanie is nursing her second Diet Coke and finishing her pitch of Above the Las Vegas Sands to Sybille Brent. Sybille appears to be listening in a vague, wine-soaked way, sprawled back into the cushions of a banquette in the Sky Bar at the Mondrian Hotel, her very thin legs wound together tightly. It’s nearly dusk, and from where she’s sitting, Stephanie can see miles
of Los Angeles down below, bathed in the faint golds and yellows of twilight, the sickly hues of the unhealthy air pretty, soft, and languid. Like something from a fever dream, which is how the sprawling, overstuffed city often looks to Stephanie at this aching in-between time of day. Stephanie can’t decide if Sybille’s little nods and eye-widening gestures in reaction to what she’s saying represent genuine interest or condescending detachment. The bar is one big outdoor room, and a cool but pleasant breeze blows through the bougainvillea and Sybille’s soft white hair moves slightly.

  Stephanie’s manager set up the meeting. Sybille, a woman of a certain age—although no one’s certain what age that is—recently made a vast fortune in a spectacularly ugly divorce from her husband, a high-profile real estate developer in New York. She’s spending a few months at the Mondrian to get away from New York, and she’s looking for projects to invest in. At one time, she apparently had acting ambitions, and this is a way to connect with the business later in life without looking ridiculous. It would give her something to do, a hand in movies, and a screen credit her friends can applaud at the premiere.

  It’s a fairly common way to raise money for a project, but it’s not the easiest way. In some respects, it cheapens the project—everyone knows this is no one’s first choice for funding—and usually these folks expect something in return—a role for a friend or a hand in the shooting. Over the past few weeks, Stephanie has had four such meetings with four such people, all pretty discouraging. No one has read the book; no one seems especially interested in the story. They all want to talk about casting (without really knowing the roles) and dropping the names of people they allegedly know or supposedly worked with or hope she knows. One guy even asked her if it could be shot in 3-D.

  “I hadn’t considered it,” she said.

  All the mutual pretending makes her feel a little crazy at times, although certainly less crazy than she was before the shameful intervention at her apartment. And since nothing else has worked out for Stephanie, it’s worth a shot. Claiming she’s raised a certain percentage of the budget will make it more likely for others to invest, and in any case, it beats lying around her apartment with a bunch of empty bottles and used kitty litter. But she’s not going to go there right now.