Tales from the Yoga Studio

by Rain Mitchell

  “I think we underestimated Barrett. If she can do this with the twins, I think she has real potential.” She puts her head on Alan’s stomach, that solid plank of muscles. “I’ve started talking to someone at their school again to see if they’re interested in having us start a yoga program there. For the kids, but also for the teachers. With Barrett as my assistant.”

  “Barrett? I wouldn’t get too entangled with her. On top of that, you’re signing an exclusive contract. You don’t want to start violating that before you’ve even closed the deal. Zhannette and Frank seem to find out about everything.”

  Lee senses that she has to deal with this somewhat gently. The last thing she wants is to set Alan off. “I know,” she says. “But what if we tried to negotiate the deal a little differently? We pretty much just agreed to whatever they proposed.”

  “Are you kidding me, Lee? You know what they’re offering for a salary.”

  “Yeah, but they loved my class, it’s what they need. That should give us some room to bargain.”

  Alan rolls out of bed and storms across the room. “Jesus, Lee. Don’t tell me you’re going to pull this on me. You hold all the cards here, and I’m just the little nobody in background with the squeeze box. If you decide to bargain, go right ahead. And if it ends up screwing up the whole deal, don’t come whining to me about tuitions and health insurance . . .”

  “I’m just putting it out there, Alan. Nothing’s been decided.”

  “And I’ll tell you something else. If you do fuck it up, don’t expect me to come around here and do this for you.”

  “Do what?”

  “You treat me like some pathetic pool boy you hired to get you off.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me, Lee. You think men aren’t capable of feeling they’ve been objectified? You think I don’t feel hurt being treated like your paid companion?”

  On the one hand, Lee is so insulted by this, she doesn’t know how to respond. And on the other, she sees a hurt look on Alan’s face that makes her doubt herself—her perceptions, her motives. It’s all so confusing, it’s almost a relief when Alan storms out of the house.

  Sybille Brent has moved out of the Mondrian Hotel and into a “cottage” she’s rented in Los Feliz. She tells Stephanie that the Mondrian was just too ridiculously expensive. Stephanie finds this reassuring. You never know who has money in this business and who’s bluffing, and only someone who is so loaded she can afford anything would dare complain about a hotel being too pricey. If she’d actually been appalled by the prices, she would have complained of inadequate service or some other pretense or stayed until she was forced into bankruptcy.

  And then there’s the “cottage.” Tucked discreetly off of Mountain Oak Drive, the white Greek Revival house has stunning views of the city, and gardens out back that have been maintained, since the 1930s, to their original design.

  “I’m finding this a little more cozy,” Sybille says.

  They’re sitting under the pergola and gazing down the tiered garden where three people are clipping and raking. The pool is somewhere below, perched on a precarious-looking outcropping.

  “It’s gorgeous,” Stephanie says.

  “It’s adequate. It only has two bedrooms, believe it or not, but they’re immense and in completely different parts of the house. Anderson can carry on in any way he likes. I suppose it makes him appear like more of a servant, but that doesn’t seem to bother him.”

  Stephanie doesn’t know if this means he is a servant or not, but then decides it doesn’t make much difference to her one way or the other. After all, since she’s on the payroll, she’s technically a servant of sorts herself.

  “The house was built for a woman director and her female ‘companion.’ I suppose it’s been renovated a dozen times since, but it still has the feel of a little hideaway constructed for a successful, mannish woman without an excess of delicacy or taste.”

  There’s no mistaking the fact that Sybille is not talking about herself. She’s dressed this morning in a light dove gray dress that offsets her white hair perfectly and is moving in a striking way in the light breeze. The fabric is rippling like water. She’s sipping from a large white cup of cappuccino. Stephanie wonders if Sybille requested a meeting at this time of day so the awkward question of alcohol would not be an issue. Hard to tell and there’s no point in going there anyway.

  Stephanie’s screenplay is sitting on the table in front of Sybille, and sooner or later they’re going to have to get to it. The longer Sybille waits to bring it up, the more dread Stephanie is feeling. There are little pink tags sticking out of the script, dozens of them. Hard to know if that’s good or bad, but it’s impressive that Sybille read the script that closely either way.

  Stephanie notices Sybille noticing her noticing the script.

  “We had quite a row with the author of this novel, you know.”

  “I didn’t know. You’ve been generous about keeping me in the dark.”

  “He’s quite the self-possessed young man. I think the reviews and attention went to his head. He was holding out for a ridiculous sum of money. The terms you gave him smacked of desperation on your part, my dear. I’m quoting my lawyer. I hope you don’t mind hearing that.”

  “It’s accurate.”

  “Were we trying to prove something by outbidding someone? A rival?” Sybille cagily picks up her coffee cup and gazes off at the pool, as if only marginally interested in the answer.

  “Much more embarrassing than that. An ex-boyfriend.”

  “Ah.” She sets the cup back down delicately and rearranges a croissant on the plate in front of them. Judging from her appearance, this little gesture probably constitutes breakfast. “Boyfriend. How unexpected.”

  It’s not clear from her tone if she’s being ironic or not.

  “So it was partly an act of vengeance?” Sybille says.

  “I’m afraid so. Or trying to prove myself, in a very expensive way.”

  “You sound so apologetic. I hope you don’t think you need to be with me. I assumed it was obvious that a good portion of my motivation in being here was revenge and trying to prove myself. I don’t find the fact of it embarrassing in the least. Pretending it was otherwise might be humiliating, but I’m obviously not headed in that direction. A productive life requires motivation of some kind. I don’t see why revenge is necessarily a bad motivation. As long as guns aren’t involved.”

  “That’s a liberating attitude,” Stephanie says. She’s been putting off tasting her coffee for fear that her hand is shaking, but now it seems she doesn’t have anything to worry about. As she lifts her cup, she notes with some pride that her hand is perfectly steady. “Jesus,” she says. “This is amazing coffee.”

  “You knew it would be, didn’t you? The bottom line is, I flew your little author out here to meet with me. Anderson was there, of course, and two of my lawyers. The whole idea was to intimidate him.”

  “You’re putting a lot of money into this.”

  “I don’t believe in doing anything halfway, and besides, it’s a huge amount of fun for me. I always thought my ex-husband was a tyrant with his money, wielding power; now I appreciate how exhilarating it is flashing dollar bills.”

  “Sooner or later,” Stephanie says, “you’re going to have to tell me what you think of the screenplay.”

  “Yes, I am, aren’t I?” She pushes the cup and croissants aside, draws the script toward her, and puts on a pair of round purple eyeglasses, which, like everything else about Sybille, scream style and money. “As you can see, I’ve made some notes. I think all the characters need a little more development and precision in their motivations. The mother needs to be more glamorous.”

  “In the book, she’s a waitress with a prescription drug addiction.”

  “We’ve taken care of the book,” Sybille says. “I see the mother as more the Catherine Deneuve type. I’ve met her at charity functions in Paris, you know, and I can send her the script. We can e
xplain the accent in a line. Structurally, it’s brilliant. I don’t think that needs a thing. We’ve sent the script to Kathryn Bigelow.”

  “You have?”

  “I don’t believe in wasting time, and money opens doors, as you know.”

  Since Sybille seemed motivated primarily by the potential of humiliating her ex-husband through the character of the father, Stephanie is a little hesitant to bring him up. But she must. “What did you think of the father?”

  “You did a magnificent job with him. The only change there is we’ll have the yoga classes be those überheated things, so we can have him with sweat pouring down. We can cast someone like Danny DeVito and surround him with actors who look like Adonis. The contrast will be mesmerizing. The first act should end with him passing out in a class, drenched in sweat, flushed, completely ignored by the beauties, who don’t even see him.”

  Stephanie is making notes on a pad of paper she brought with her. In some peculiar way, all of Sybille’s suggestions make perfect sense. Now that the question of revenge has been elevated to a higher plane, she feels free to toss in some of her own suggestions.

  “Instead of passing out, we can make it a minor heart attack.”

  “I like that. Unless you think it will elicit sympathy.”

  “Not if it’s shot correctly. And the ridiculous boyfriend. I think we should change his name to Preston.”

  Sybille thinks this over. “I was going to suggest Kenneth. Little Kenneth. But I can live with Preston. In fact, I like. I think we’re a very good team.”

  “I do, too,” Stephanie says. And she means it. She wasn’t expecting the project would ever be this much fun.

  For the past week or so Katherine has been trying to convince herself that, ultimately, Lee will not leave Edendale, no matter how much financial sense it makes for her to sign a contract with YogaHappens. Once you hack your way through the saunas and the towels and the frills, the corporate feeling of the place is downright creepy. And in her own quiet way, Lee has always had a rebellious streak. When she comes into work first thing on Monday morning and tells Katherine she wants to talk with her in her office, Katherine is fully expecting her to say that she’s changed her mind and has sent the men from YogaHappens back where they belong.

  “I wanted to tell you first,” Lee says.

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve signed the contract with YogaHappens.”

  Surprisingly, Katherine feels numb. Probably, underneath her hopes, this is exactly what Katherine knew was coming. She looks at Lee and doesn’t say anything.

  “I know you don’t approve. . . .”

  “It’s not up to me to approve or not, Lee. You’ve made that clear.”

  “Don’t make it sound so cut-and-dried.”

  “Well, isn’t it?”

  “If it were up to me, I would have thrown them out the minute they approached me. You know that.”

  “To be honest with you, I’m not sure I do. And I suppose it isn’t really any of my business, but if it isn’t ‘up to you,’ who is it up to? It’s your business. It’s your life.”

  “I can’t make unilateral decisions, Kat. I’ve got the kids. I’ve got Alan.”

  Alan. There’s a joke. The idea that Alan might make a decision that in any way took Lee into consideration, or anyone other than himself, is completely far-fetched.

  “And please don’t look at me like that. Alan’s going to be moving back in.”

  The only good thing that Katherine can see in this little announcement is that Lee doesn’t make it with any particular joy in her voice. She just reports it as if it’s a simple business plan, which may be exactly what it is.

  “When was that decided?”

  “We went over everything, we went out to dinner, I signed the contract, and then . . . we decided.”

  Katherine can tell from the look on Lee’s face and the oddly apologetic tone in her voice how this went down. Oh, Lee, she wants to say, please don’t do this. Alan basically blackmailed her into signing with the promise of returning home. Katherine hears music and looks out of the office door and into the yoga room, where Barrett is practicing with one of the interns. Hearing Lee’s news makes Katherine happier than ever that, whatever mistakes she’s made and continues to make, at least she isn’t basing all of her choices on a man.

  “If it’s what you want, Lee, then it’s probably for the best.”

  “We need to talk about you, too. Since we won’t be using the studio anymore, we’re probably going to sell the building. It isn’t the best time, but Alan and I don’t feel like being landlords.”

  There’s a little voice inside Katherine advising her to tell Lee what she knows. It only seems fair, after all. But the last thing she needs is to complicate her own life. And besides that, the messenger always gets blamed.

  “I probably wouldn’t want to be one myself,” Katherine says. “It’s tough enough having a landlord.”

  “I’ve talked to a real estate agent, and there’s a building about two blocks from here with an office that would be ideal for you. They’ve been trying to lease it for a while, so I’m guessing they’d negotiate on the rent. It’s close to the fire station. I don’t know if that would be awkward or not.”

  “There’s no reason it would. Conor’s stint in Silver Lake is up. He’s in a different part of the city altogether.”

  “Where? ”

  “I didn’t ask.” She can’t blame Conor for turning off like he did when he saw Phil at her house. But it would have been nice if he’d waited a couple of days and then called her and asked her to explain herself. Not that that would have been perfect, either. Katherine hates people who fuck up and then ladle out bowl after bowl of excuses, and she’s never been able to dish out explanations in that way, even when she knows she’s in the right. Conor had his heart broken once. He’s protecting himself. She knows about trying to spare yourself more pain—even if doing so hurts like hell.

  Katherine gets up to leave, but she doesn’t want to walk out of Lee’s office with this bad feeling hanging in the air. She turns to Lee and says, “I won’t stay upset about this for long. I promise. I owe you everything, Lee. My life, when you come down to it. So if this is what you’ve decided, I hope it works out the way you want.”

  She can see into the yoga room, where Barrett and the intern are taking turns spotting each other as they do flips. Barrett is wearing a girly little T-shirt and her hair in pigtails. Katherine wonders if she’s heard the news that Alan is moving back in with Lee, and if so, how she feels about that.

  I mani is sitting beside her pool watching Glenn swim laps in his green Speedo, a bathing suit that manages to be both sexy and nerdy at once. She’s bought him different kinds of swimsuits—and suggested he just go in without one—but he picked up the habit of wearing Speedos on the swim team at Dartmouth and he’s not about to give it up. It obviously recalls his athletic glory days and makes him swim a little more aggressively. Dartmouth College. It couldn’t be more perfect.

  If Imani had been able to go into a laboratory and assemble the pieces of her Ideal Man, she would have ended up with a guy who was, in every possible way, shape, and form, absolutely nothing like her husband. Where to begin? It might be easiest to start with “A.”

  Age: Glenn is forty-three, which makes him sixteen years older than her. She’d never really paid attention to the age of her boyfriends, mostly because all the men she went out with had always been within sight of her own age at the time. When she had thought about such things, she’d thought there was something marginally creepy about women who went out with men a good deal older than them. Like, why not just wear a sandwich board advertising your unresolved father issues?

  Height: At six foot three, Glenn is officially in the too-tall category in her book, almost a full foot taller than her and looming above her whenever they appear in photos together. She knows this is supposed to be sexy and signify masculinity and power and—let’s be honest—a big dick, but she was a
lways drawn to guys under six feet, the ones with the compact little soccer-player bodies, the perfect round little butts. It’s more convenient that way—you can kiss them without having to ask to have the draw-bridge lowered. And the proportions of their bodies work better aesthetically, are almost always more the Greek ideal.

  Weight: Glenn is, by almost any standard, skinny. She’s not into chubby, but guys who can wolf down anything they want as often as they want without ever gaining a pound are annoying and inconsiderate and make you look fatter. There’s a reason von Sternberg surrounded Dietrich with plump actresses in The Blue Angel.

  Profession: God knows Imani never wanted to marry an actor. She’s dated her share of that breed. If they’re less successful than you, it’s an impossible and doomed situation, and if they’re more successful than you, you can’t trust them, and it’s equally impossible and doomed, just in a different way. But a pediatric surgeon? She usually preferred to date men she thought weren’t quite as smart as she is. Always best to have the upper hand there.

  Race: Let’s just say that even though black men are, on the whole, a pain in the ass, usually carrying around a chip on their shoulders and pathologically commitmentphobic, she has to admit she’s always melted under the gaze of a brother’s big brown eyes. All that warm, open, steamy sensuality. And, mostly, just an immediate feeling of a connection and shared larger experience, no matter how different their backgrounds. Not exactly what she feels with a WASP from Columbus, Ohio.

  More? Oh, how about the fact that the guy doesn’t watch TV, not counting a few playoff sporting events? Or that he likes (she can barely bring herself to say the name) Jimmy Buffett?

  But why go on? The truth is, nothing about their relationship makes sense in eHarmony terms, and yet everything works. She just plain old adores the guy, and being married to him has made her feel as if her life is right on every level. Maybe for the first time ever.