Tales from the Yoga Studio

by Rain Mitchell

  Lee has arranged a date for a tour of the YogaHappens Experience Center in Beverly Hills and to give a class. They told her they would promote the class on their website and promised she would have a large group of students. After class, she logs on to the YogaHappens website in her office at the studio. It’s an elaborate site with music and animated images and, underneath it all, the sound of soft rain. On the Upcoming Events page, there’s a picture of her taken by a photographer they sent out to Edendale last week. It’s probably the most flattering picture of herself Lee has ever seen. There’s some kind of perfection to her complexion and teeth that probably means the picture’s been retouched. It would be nice to believe it didn’t require a seriously heavy hand, but she suspects otherwise. In the last year or so, she’s begun to notice lines and dark shadows and maybe a little bit of hardness that’s been etched into her face by trying to manage everything all at once. Aging, she keeps reminding herself, is not a disease. She knows that the key is finding something to love in the new creases and to view the circles under her eyes as signs of character, but as she stares at the soft, smooth face on the YogaHappens web page, she can’t help but want to see that when she looks into the mirror each morning.

  Deep Flow Meditasana is described as “a unique blend of poses and yogic traditions that defy conventions and expectations and take you on a strange and beautiful journey far from the stresses and pressures of your daily life. Like a soft breeze that caresses your face and brings with it the scent of something exotic yet strangely familiar. Allow yourself to take the trip, to be carried away, to be transported to the heart of your yoga practice and, very possibly, to the depths your soul.”

  Purple, that’s for sure, and not very specific, but it does sound appealing, and oddly enough it does capture something true about the way Lee thinks of her classes as journeys, with a beginning and a destination.

  Lee herself is described as “one of the hidden gems of the L.A. yoga scene, a teacher of unparalleled talent and uncompromising integrity, with a background in medicine and credentials as a one-time fashion model.” At least it doesn’t claim that she was a brain surgeon. And she did pose for some photographs for a designer friend one time, making the model claim technically accurate, she supposes. Still, it’s a little worrisome they feel they need to promote her with hype. The description she provided emphasized her experience as a mother and founder of a studio.

  Alan is mentioned briefly in a corner of the page as Lee’s husband and described as “a rising star on the L.A. folk scene and one of the emerging voices in the spiritual music movement, which he partly founded.” It continues, “Alan will be playing live at select classes to create an aural ambience that will open up new doors of perception and feeling in those lucky enough to reserve a space. Extra fees will apply.”

  Lee sees Katherine talking to a client and ushering him out to the sidewalk. In many ways, she thinks of Katherine as one of her best friends. She stands in the doorway to her office and waits for Katherine to come back into the building.

  “Busy day?” she asks.

  Katherine smiles. “I can’t complain. Tomorrow’s a little slow, so it balances out.”

  Lee follows her back to her massage room and watches as Katherine strips the sheet off the massage table.

  “Can I help you with that?”

  “I’m fine,” Katherine says.

  Lee wants to believe this, but she finds herself saying, “If that’s true, why do I feel as if you’re dodging me or trying to get away from me? I’m sorry Alan talked to you about the books. He just flies off the handle sometimes.”

  “I’d rather not get into it. I know I don’t have the cleanest record in the world, so when something comes up, it doesn’t surprise me if someone like Alan questions me.”

  “It has nothing to do with your ‘record,’ Kat.”

  “Really? It never crossed Alan’s mind that I might have started using again and dipped into his pocket to pay for my habit?”

  “You’ve never liked Alan.”

  “I’m not sure how my opinion matters one way or the other. Besides, that really isn’t the point. We were talking about how he feels about me.”

  “He likes you, you know that. He’s been spending more time at the house lately.”

  Katherine nods and turns away, begins to line up her bottles of oils and creams. “By ‘lately,’ you mean since you agreed to the YogaHappens thing?”

  Lee is stung by the comment, especially since it’s true. But she understands that Katherine is threatened by the possible changes. She decides to let it pass. Their friendship is strong enough to withstand a few bumps.

  “Today is Graciela’s big day,” Lee says. “I told her to call me after her audition, but I haven’t heard anything yet.”

  “Let me know when you do,” Katherine says. “Sorry, Lee, but I have a client in five minutes.”

  What Lee really wants to ask her is how things are going with Conor. Katherine hasn’t mentioned him in days, and he hasn’t been at the studio. With her history of self-sabotage, Katherine’s track record for this sort of thing isn’t great. But that gets back to “records,” a topic best avoided. She goes back into the office and checks her phone for a message from Graciela. Nothing yet.

  I’ll admit,” Becky says, “that Taylor Kendall was a little extreme. I don’t remember him being so self-centered, but you can’t help him for having an ego with that kind of success.”

  “Honey, I met Barack and Michelle at one of the inaugural balls, and they have less ego. Plus all he talked about was how we were supposed to let go of ego.”

  “That’s true. ‘Stop thinking about yourself and spend more time thinking about me!’ ”

  The good thing about Becky is that she has a sense of humor about all this. It’s one of her many saving graces. It’s what got her through her divorce and the assorted ups and downs of her career. She keeps her head down and does her job, enjoys the perks, but doesn’t take herself too seriously. She once described herself as “a female Hugh Grant—not exactly great range, but appealing and unthreatening.” And she is completely fine with that. Versatility can make you a great actor, but Julia Roberts didn’t get where she is doing accents.

  They’re driving downtown in Becky’s Prius. Imani’s all for saving the planet, but the way the car goes silent without any warning gives her the creeps. It’s like being with a friend who all of a sudden stops breathing. Imani didn’t have any major back pain after the incident with Taylor Kendall—just a few days of a dull ache every time she moved a certain way. She played it up in front of Becky, but Becky didn’t seem to be impressed.

  “The truth is,” she said, “I’m a little addicted to a few aches and twinges somewhere in my body after a class. I figure if I don’t feel that, I haven’t worked hard enough.”

  Imani is tempted to tell her about the class she took up in Silver Lake. Maybe it’s just because it was the first class she ever took, but Imani still thinks she felt better afterward than after any of the classes she’s been taking with Becky. More centered, if that’s the word. But Becky would probably consider the class too “easy” or low-key, and she’d end up feeling like a lightweight and a wimp for suggesting it. Maybe one day she’ll head back up there solo and check it out again.

  Today they’re headed to a studio that Becky promises has been around forever (whatever that means) and offers a style of yoga people swear by to cure a variety of joint and muscle problems. Supposedly it’s another heated class. Imani’s not thrilled about that, but it can’t be any worse than that sweat lodge workshop with whatshisname, the Narcissus de Sade.

  As they’re about to get out of the car, Becky turns to Imani and says, with more seriousness than usual, “What are you doing about work?”

  It’s a sore subject, and one Imani has been avoiding for months now. Somewhere back in the middle of her X.C.I.A. days, Imani felt almost invincible. Everything was going so well, it was hard to believe sometimes. She had a great
role on a hit TV series; she was married to a guy who was kind, gorgeous, and completely supportive. Offers were coming in for other series and there was a buzz building about movie offers. Even if TV is definitely where all the energy is today, the prestige is still in movies. There’s still the feeling that you’re not a “real” actor unless you’re on the big screen. Getting pregnant was the final event in what felt to her like the world’s longest winning streak. She sometimes worried that she didn’t deserve to be this happy, but every day she woke up and did her best to enjoy it. Taking a break from the show was the right thing to have done, especially since the writers had figured out a way to explain her character’s absence and eventual return.

  And then it all began to come apart. She has only a vague memory of the morning she lost the baby, one that’s somehow connected to the scent of the geranium oil in the moisturizer she was using when it happened. Every time even a fragment of memory gets triggered, she hears a faint ringing in her ears and feels herself beginning to shut down. She remembers Glenn cradling her head in the hospital and trying to help her stop crying. She threw out the moisturizer a long time ago.

  In addition to the sadness of losing the baby, she felt a weird vulnerability she’d never known before. For a while she didn’t want to leave the house, couldn’t get behind the wheel of a car, was terrified of loud noises. If she could lose the baby, just like that, suddenly, without any warning, what else could happen? The thought of standing in front of a camera, something that had always felt so natural to her, something that made her feel most like herself, was intolerable, like being in front of a firing squad.

  Becky’s question about work is like a metal probe hitting the nerve in a tooth. A jolt runs through Imani’s body. But this is something she’s begun to worry about herself. She left the show almost ten months ago now, and in this business, that’s the equivalent of five years.

  “Some days I think I’m ready to get back to work,” Imani says. “But some days, it still terrifies me. I think I need more time, but I wonder if the longer I stay out of it, the more afraid I get.”

  “After the breakup,” Becky says, “I just wanted to run away. I didn’t care where I went or what I did, as long as no one knew me. What I really wanted was to be invisible. But we can’t ever have that again, honey. Anonymity’s like virginity—when it’s gone, it’s gone. This is what helped me the most.” She nods toward the yoga mat flung across the backseat. “I just kept coming, because I couldn’t think of anything else to do. And it helped.”

  “Why?” Imani asks. “How?”

  “I have no fucking idea,” Becky says. “And you know what? I don’t care. As long as it does. Let’s go. This place is notoriously harsh if you’re late.”

  The studio is on the second floor of a yellow brick building downtown, and Becky, who has a phobia about elevators, races Imani up the staircase. They’re laughing when they open the door to the studio and panting a little bit. That’s when the smell hits Imani.

  “Something’s not right,” she whispers to Becky. It smells as if someone is marinating dirty laundry in a vat of warm vinegar.

  “It’s just the carpet,” Becky tells her. “There’s a lot of sweat, and I guess it gets ground in. Someone told me to expect this.”

  “Oh, okay. Did they also tell you to expect me to run in the other direction?”

  “It’s not about the carpet, Miss Lang. Just focus on the benefits.”

  “If they supplied a gas mask, I might be able to. And we’re not even in the room yet.”

  The man behind the desk is so cheerful and welcoming, Imani feels a little relieved. He recognizes them—not virgins and not anonymous—but he’s being equally nice to everyone. Probably has to be to compensate for the stench.

  Imani nearly swoons as soon as she walks into the yoga room. It’s a big, open space with an industrial feel to it, and it’s crowded with people, pretty much all of them wearing what look like bathing suits. Surely the heat can’t be as bad as it seems. She must be imagining it. Or maybe there’s some system malfunction, because if it is as bad as it seems, it surely can’t be intentional. She and Glenn went to Egypt, and the temperature in Aswan was almost 110 degrees. That’s what it feels like.

  As for the smell, she isn’t going to think about it. If all these people can stand it, she supposes she can, too.

  It starts out easily enough, some waving of the elbows and the usual loud breathing, but about fifteen minutes in, Imani is drenched in her own sweat and beginning to feel irritable. The instructor is standing on a little podium, and even though there are maybe fifty people in the room, he seems to know everyone’s name. There’s something a little creepy about that.

  “Hold it, hold it, hold it, Thomas. Higher, higher, higher. If you can you must, Barry. Thirty more seconds on the clock. Higher, Amy.”

  She’s all for encouragement, but the combination of the extreme heat and the smell and the militaristic monologue of the instructor is making her want to shout out a big fat Shut up!

  But maybe the worst part of it is that the walls are covered in mirrors. The problem is that they make the room seem like a locked little ecosystem and, worse still, make it impossible for her to look away from her body, dripping in sweat and teetering through half the poses.

  Every time she thinks she really is going to lose it completely, she thinks about what Becky said to her: It works. No idea why. All she has to do is believe it. Show up. Do it. Pose by pose. One drop of sweat after the next.

  But she tries to imagine that there’s a little reservoir of fear inside of her, a pool of it, a finite amount, and that every time more sweat runs down her limbs, she’s getting closer to draining it dry. Let the carpet seep it all up. As long as she leaves some of it behind when she walks out of here, she’s going to consider it a win.

  When the music stops, Graciela is, as choreographed, suspended in midair. Only for a half second, of course, but long enough to make the point that she is capable of some breath-taking leaps that make it look as if she’s able to float through the air in slow motion. In the silence, she lands back on the floor as softly as a cat.

  There are three people watching her: the choreographer, the director of the video, and a small woman who looks as if the skin of her face has been pulled back and tucked into the elastic of the big flying saucer beret she’s wearing.

  “Thank you,” the choreographer says, dry as sand. “Interesting choice of music.”

  “Especially for this decade,” the woman with the hat says, and the choreographer gives a little snort.

  Graciela never has a clear idea of how she’s done at any audition. There’s too much tension in the moment and she’s so focused on what she’s doing and, at the same time, so inside the music, it’s never entirely clear what she looks like. She didn’t miss anything she had planned today, didn’t pull any muscles, and for the most part, was perfectly relaxed. They let her dance for the full two minutes, usually a good sign.

  But the current reception, bland and slightly sarcastic, isn’t very reassuring.

  “We’ll be in touch,” the director says.

  “You have my—”

  “Yes, yes, yes. We have everything.”

  The whole thing feels like a massive anticlimax, after all the preparation, the injury, the weeks she’s put into taking it easy, trying to heal. All for this. Yes, yes, yes, we have everything, see you later. Don’t call us.

  “Thank you for the opportunity.”

  “She’s polite, anyway,” the little woman says, as if Graciela isn’t standing right there. The woman reaches up to her beret and really does look as if she’s tucking her skin under her hat.

  Crossing the floor to the exit feels like a classic walk of shame, but she does it with as much dignity as she can muster. As she is about to leave, someone’s cell phone rings, and the director calls out to Graciela, “Hold on.”

  She doesn’t stop so much as freeze, her hand reaching for the door, unable to turn around. Sh
e can see the three of them in the mirror on the wall in front of her, huddling over the table, chatting into the phone, and looking over the notes they took. The director finishes the call.

  “Graciela, isn’t it?”

  She turns. “Yes.”

  “She’d like to see you perform that again.”

  Graciela looks around the room. None of the mirrors looks suspicious, but you never know. There’s no question about who “she” is.

  “Can you do that for us? Run through it again?”

  “Of course.”

  “If you were cast in the video, would you agree to cut your hair? ”

  “I would,” she says.

  The little woman wags her head in a sassy sort of way. “Right answer. We’re planning on long hair anyway.”

  When she steps out of the building and onto the street, Graciela has the distinct impression that her life has changed. She wasn’t given any assurances, but after her second run-through, the phone rang again, and this time they asked her if she knew how to do the Charleston. “We’re using a lot of surprise elements,” the choreographer said.

  When Graciela was a girl, she was obsessed with Josephine Baker—her elegance and glamour and that crazy dance style of hers that wasn’t like anything anyone else did before or since. She had only a faint memory of a grainy black-and-white video she saw of Josephine Baker doing a Charleston in a documentary, but, filled with hopefulness and optimism and a touch of pure joy, she launched into twenty seconds of what she hoped was a close approximation.

  Now that “she” had given her nod of approval, “they” were downright friendly.

  You’ve got such great spirit.

  Doesn’t she? I saw that immediately.

  And the smile! Of course, we won’t use that, but it’s priceless.

  Lindsay is waiting in the lobby of the building. She silently asks Graciela the inevitable question. Graciela shrugs and then can’t help but burst into a huge grin. Lindsay screams and runs toward her, arms open.