“I like the way you describe the plot,” Sybille says.
“It’s an amazing novel, and the author is incredibly talented.”
“I read the book last week, as soon as we had the meeting arranged. I found it interesting and passionate but overwritten in places. A young writer using language like a new toy and a little too in love with the sound of his own voice.”
“There’s some of that,” Stephanie says. She’s always felt this way, but it was never discussed in any of the reviews, so she’s kept her reservations to herself. Stephanie is impressed that Sybille read the novel and that she’s put her finger on a stylistic weakness. She has a velvety voice, a little smoky, like Lauren Bacall’s, and one of those carefully trained and modulated ways of articulating every word.
“It sounds as if you read a lot,” Stephanie says.
“Yes, but don’t tell anyone. It makes you look out of touch these days. I studied literature at Vassar, another piece of information I don’t toss around since I look enough like a dilettante already. Your description of the book makes more sense to me structurally than the book itself,” Sybille goes on. “I like the way you emphasized the sister’s wedding. I think that could be a frame for the whole piece. Set it up as the place the story is going, right from the first scene.”
When Stephanie mentioned this very idea to the author, he was insulted and refused to talk with Stephanie for two weeks. “I’ve always thought that’s how it should be done, but the author didn’t agree with me.” Stephanie finishes the Diet Coke, and a waiter materializes at her side and asks if she’d like another. “Please,” she says.
Sybille observes this over the rim of her wineglass, and Stephanie has the feeling she’s attaching exactly the right significance to it. One of the worst things about not drinking is that everyone immediately assumes you’re a drunk. A few weeks ago, she would have been on her third glass of wine by now, and Sybille wouldn’t have batted an eye. But “I’ll have a Diet Coke” is treated as if it’s synonymous with “I’m an alcoholic.” Well, if the shoe fits. And after struggling with this escalating drinking problem for the past year, she’s willing to admit that it does fit. As bad as it all was, the worst for her was realizing afterward that she had Silver Linings playing on the TV with the sound turned off. Oops, not going there, either!
Sybille has that sleek, carefully tended rich-lady hair and the figure of a one-time trophy wife. Someone named Anderson, a much younger man with beautiful eyes, occasionally appears and hands her a message or discreetly asks a question. Stephanie is guessing he’s a gay assistant, but hasn’t entirely ruled out the possibility that his duties include more than arranging her calendar. Sybille gives off an air of intelligence and genuine compassion, but there’s also the aura of refined decadence that sometimes surrounds people with lots of money and equal amounts of free time. She’s wearing a subtle, intoxicating perfume that isn’t quite like anything Stephanie has ever smelled before. Probably made with the glands of an endangered animal and costs in the five-hundred-dollar-an-ounce range.
“Have you thought about writing the screenplay yourself? ” Sybille asks. “You have good ideas, and you’d have more control over the project. I think you have integrity.”
“The author wants to write it. Although I’m not sure that’s working out very well. Promising him he could is how I got the option, and it’s in his contract.”
“You could buy him out, I’m sure.”
No doubt she could, assuming she had the money. The Diet Coke arrives, and Stephanie can feel Sybille’s eyes on her as she sips.
“You don’t drink?” she asks.
“Not today,” she says. “I’ve been to a yoga class and might attend a second one later tonight.” Nothing untruthful in that.
“There’s lots of that here, I’m told. Yoga. New York as well.”
“Everywhere these days.”
Sybille shrugs. “Everywhere” is not of great interest to her. Her sleek, aging body indicates pretty clearly that she works with a private trainer, probably at home. Pilates, no doubt.
“You know a lot about it?” Sybille asks. “Yoga?”
“I’ve been doing it for a while,” Stephanie says.
“Well, that is perfect. I’m interested in putting a yoga element into the script.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Your expertise would undoubtedly be useful.”
“To be honest,” Stephanie says, “I’m not sure how much I know about anything these days.”
Sybille leans forward, puts down her wineglass, and pats Stephanie’s knee. “Sometimes you need to feel that way. I suspect you know more about a lot of things than you give yourself credit for.”
Stephanie is suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude and looks off into the sweet melancholy of the dusk, the fading sunlight, the twinkling buildings. What was it Dorothy Parker said? If you can make it through the twilight, you can make it through the night? Something like that. Well, she’s almost made it through the twilight of one more day. Three cheers.
“I like you,” Sybille says. “You have smarts and courage. Vulnerability, which always helps balance things out. I watched Silver Linings. Anderson told me you’re rumored to have done a lot of the writing on it.”
“The screenwriter had a breakdown during rewrites, and I took over.” It’s a relief to finally admit this to someone since, for years, she’s been protecting the writer’s interests.
“Let’s be blunt with each other, shall we? I want a project, and I like the sounds of this one. I like you. I feel I can push you a little bit, although I count on you to call me on it if I go overboard. Basically, I don’t know much about the business, but I’m ready to start writing checks.”
“All right.” The advantage of working with people who are new to this is that they haven’t yet figured out how much they can get away with and get for free, since everyone is so desperate to get something under way.
“I’m impatient, though. I don’t want to invest ten years in this. We can have my lawyer deal with the author. But I’d like you to start on the screenplay immediately.”
“I’m ready to do that.” The idea of having something concrete to do is hugely appealing to her.
“I have a request, however,” Sybille says.
“Of course.” Here it comes, Stephanie thinks.
“The father is divorced, correct?”
“He is.”
“I think it would be interesting if we could beef up that role a little. Give him more money and stature and make him more the villain of the piece. I’m all for subtlety, but everyone loves a villain. We can have him starting to do yoga, in a completely humiliating and age-inappropriate way. The tight little pants, the claptrap, the whole thing. I think we’d want to make him look especially foolish. The piece needs comic relief in moments, and he can supply that, too.”
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt.”
“We can show him trying to get in touch with his ‘spiritual side,’ which amounts to nothing more than accepting the fact, after forty years of deceit, that he’s attracted to men. We don’t need to hit it over the head or offend anyone, but perhaps he can show up at the wedding at the end with his new boyfriend, a frail thing in his twenties who teaches yoga, a complete embarrassment to the older man, although he doesn’t realize it and even seems proud of his little friend.”
“We might want to make the young boyfriend somewhat likable,” Stephanie says. “Give him a few redeeming qualities.”
Sybille thinks this over, sips her wine. “We’ll give him eyeglasses. It’s a walk-on role.”
This is not as bad as Stephanie feared. The father, she convinces herself, is an underdeveloped character anyway, and the whole thing could be a good treacle-cutter if done properly.
“I can work with that,” Stephanie says.
Graciela is woken up by the sunlight streaming in the windows of the loft in downtown L.A. she shares with Daryl. She keeps meaning to get blinds or curtains or
something to keep out the light, but the windows in the converted office building are huge, and from a practical and financial point of view, the whole process seems a little daunting. She buries her head under the covers and curls up against Daryl’s back. He was deejaying at a private party last night and didn’t get in until almost four this morning, only a few hours ago. He’s in a deep stage of sleep, his breath sonorous and his knees pulled up toward his chest like a child. If she saw that he was sucking his thumb, it wouldn’t be a complete shock. This, she is certain, is the true Daryl, sweet, childlike, innocent. Because he’s such a lean, handsome man—half African American, half Dominican, with perfect smooth brown skin—Graciela was surprised when they first made love at how inexperienced he seemed. Not suave and practiced, despite the many girlfriends he’d had and the way his looks might suggest, but eager and hungry, like a teenager. And almost in disbelief that he was in her bed and she was in his arms. Even after all this time, he looks at her when they’re fucking and he’s getting close to coming and says, “Oh, my God, you’re so beautiful. You’re so fucking beautiful!”
Despite everything, how can she resist that? Something in his intensity is so real, so genuine, it takes her to a place where there’s nothing but the two of them and the overpowering passion of the moment. There’s no modesty or shame between them, nothing that’s taboo, no need to hide anything.
She can feel the sun on the back of her neck. One day, one of them will have a big break, and they’ll hire someone to come in and deal with the windows.
That’s when it hits her. The big break. Today’s the day that could open a door to everything she’s been waiting for. Her audition for the Beyoncé video. She feels a kick of panic and excitement in her stomach and slithers out of bed without waking up Daryl.
Under Lee’s ministrations, her injury is about eighty-five percent healed. She was hoping she’d be even further along, but in most ways, she’s in much better shape than she feared she would be back when it happened. Not perfect, but she can work around that. She’s promised herself she’s going to give it everything, but without blowing out her injury again. She feels more acceptance of the fact that she’s genuinely good, and all she has to do is show her real self, without being crazy and desperate.
She’s worked up an audition piece with her friend Lindsay and has the choreography down pat. Lindsay spliced together clips from YouTube of Jody Watley in her Soul Train prime, and they studied them for hours and put together a routine that’s got elements of hip-hop and popping, mixed in with classic funk and even disco, so the routine should be surprising and different from whatever everyone else is doing. For music, she’s using Marilyn Monroe’s version of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” remixed with a deep funky groove prowling underneath that Daryl helped her put together. It’s a subtle nod to the fact that Beyoncé recorded a version of the song for a commercial—referencing her without using one of her tracks.
After she’s showered and dressed, she notices that her phone is blinking. She checks it out and sees it’s another text message from Conor. This is the third time he’s tried to get in touch with her in the past two weeks. She was grateful to him the day he showed up at Stephanie’s with Lee and Katherine. He confirmed Graciela’s opinion that Stephanie was severely dehydrated, in addition to everything else, and convinced her to go to the hospital. He and Katherine had gone to the hospital with Stephanie, and she’d called later in the day to make sure everything was okay. She didn’t expect he’d keep her phone number, and she certainly isn’t going to call back. Nice as he is, she’s not interested. That’s number one. Number two is that he’s Katherine’s boyfriend or possible boyfriend, depending on how far that’s gone. And number three, if Daryl ever got wind of it, he’d be furious, especially if she told him she’d returned the call, or the text message, even to tell him to stop getting in touch.
As she’s deleting the message, Daryl silently comes up behind her and wraps his arms around her. “Who’s that from?” he asks sleepily.
“Lindsay. She’s coming in an hour to pick me up for the audition.”
“I’m gonna drive you,” he says, his face buried in her wet hair.
“No, you’re not. You’ll make me too nervous. I have to get completely focused.”
He accepts this, probably because he’s still exhausted and wants to go back to sleep. “Use some of your yoga. I’ll come pick you up afterwards.”
She isn’t going to refuse this. It’s one way to satisfy him, and if she screws up in the audition, he’ll be there to scrape her back together.
“You’d better not come before four,” she says. “These always take longer than they’re supposed to.”
“You’ll be amazing,” he says. He spins her around, and it looks as if he has tears in eyes although it might just be sleepiness. “I want you to be great,” he says.
“Thanks,” she says. “I’ll do my best.”
He gazes into her eyes. “Look at me, baby. I want you to get this!”
This isn’t exactly an apology for what happened, but at least it’s an acknowledgment that for a moment there was some doubt about how completely he was supporting her success.
“I know that,” she says. “And you know what?”
“What? ”
“If I do get it, I’m going to buy us some blinds!”
As Lee is about to go into the studio to start teaching, one of the assistants calls her over to the desk. Lee has a pretty good idea of what’s coming. Standing in front of the desk is Evelyn, a woman in her thirties who comes somewhat erratically. She has a fairly advanced practice, although she tends to treat classes more like endurance workouts and goes into certain postures with thrusting moves, almost as if she’s bench-pressing a barbell when she’s reaching up into warrior 1 or a crescent lunge.
What Lee finds annoying is that Evelyn always has an issue with paying for class. Either she’s forgotten her credit card or lost her wallet or has an elaborate story about having walked out of a class halfway and therefore is eligible (she believes) for a freebie.
Today, according to the studio assistant, the problem is a ten-class card that expired back in January. It still has three unused classes on it, and Evelyn feels she should be allowed to continue to use it. Lee is willing to go the distance for anyone who can’t afford classes or is in a temporary financial fix, but in Evelyn’s case it feels more like a game. Evelyn is a lawyer and is wearing a pair of designer yoga pants that Lee knows for a fact cost close to two hundred dollars.
After the assistant has explained the matter, Lee says, “Okay, Evelyn. I see what you mean, but I remember talking about the terms and expiration date of the pass when you bought it. You said the expiration would help motivate you to come to class more often.”
“It’s possible we said that, but that’s not how it worked out. So I really think the responsible thing to do is to let me use it up, Lee. There are three classes left on it. I mean, I hate that yoga is now all about money.”
It’s so unappealingly manipulative to try to guilt-trip Lee with this line, especially given the expensive pants. A surprising number of students insist that yoga should not be about money, which usually boils down to yoga not being about them spending money on classes. Although the whole thing feels like a game, there’s a little pleading in Evelyn’s voice that makes Lee think she partly just wants to be taken care of. It’s probably why she started coming to yoga in the first place, and while it isn’t exactly appealing, it’s a lot more forgivable than anything else.
“How about we compromise,” Lee says. “Use it today, and then we start fresh next time you come.”
“You’re a champ,” Evelyn says. “I knew you’d do the right thing. I’ll just hang on to the card as a souvenir.”
Certainly the card will reappear at the studio sometime in the near future.
There are about twenty-five people in class today, a good group, although Shane is at the front of the room. He’s a tall, hippieish guy
with a bit of a paunch who seems to be allergic to deodorant. Other students have complained about him, but Lee hasn’t figured out how to address the issue without being insulting. It’s probably best to just come out and say something, but the thought of it fills her with embarrassment and dread. An anonymous letter would be convenient. Of course, Lee does wonder if there’d be so much objection to his hygiene issues if he were twenty years younger and had a six-pack.
Money and body odor—it would undoubtedly be nice to have someone else deal with things like this.
No Katherine in class today. Again. She hasn’t been practicing at the studio since Alan confronted her and suggested she’d been tampering with the books. Lee can understand why she’s upset, but the truth is, she misses her presence in class, and Katherine is an anchor for Lee, someone she knows is into the deeper connections of mind and body than a lot of the students. It’s because Katherine is completely immersed in the breathing.
There’s a great split Lee has noticed among students in any given class. There are the ones who actually make an effort at breathing and understand that it’s the center of yoga and others who ignore it completely and complain that they find the discussion of breath “irritating.” I know how to breathe! students will sometimes complain. But of course, they don’t really.
“Let’s make it all about breathing today,” she says. “The harmonizing music of your body, the element that can balance out your emotions in a matter of minutes, no matter where you are or what you’re doing. So let’s all sit comfortably and begin there. A long, slow, steady breath in through your nose.”
At this suggestion, she sees the woman sitting beside Shane move her mat a few feet back.
Tales from the Yoga Studio Page 13
