Tales from the Yoga Studio

by Rain Mitchell

  Hearing the beauty of his music is reassuring to her. She doesn’t pretend to think Alan is perfect—any more than she is herself—but her mother really ought to give him credit where it’s been earned, and in terms of musical talent he clearly has earned credit.

  “Lee,” Tina says from behind the product counter, “I know you’re going into class, but could you come here for a minute?”

  Brian/Boner is standing off to the side of the counter, and if Lee didn’t know better (by which she means she hopes she’s wrong) she could swear he’s flirting with Tina. Oh, please, Tina, she feels like saying, don’t fall for this guy. He’s got that exhibitionist streak, and he must be close to twenty years older than Tina.

  “Hi, Lee,” he says. “You’ve got a good crowd today. I think you’re going to be happy with it.”

  “Sundays are unpredictable,” she says, “but it looks that way. I’m happy to see you’re here.”

  “I’m trying to come three times a week,” he says. “It gets me in touch with my spiritual side. Especially with the music. It really opens me up.”

  Hopefully not too much, she wants to say. “That’s great. What did you want to discuss, Tina?”

  “Brian has an issue with the merchandise, and . . . maybe you should explain it yourself.”

  It would be a lot simpler to count up the people who don’t have an issue with the merchandise. If Tina had stocked bubble gum and chocolate it might have been simpler.

  “It’s not a big deal,” he says. “But the thing is, Lee, you’re not selling any products for men here. The outfits, the Kegel exercisers, the toe rings, the bags. All for women.”

  Lee hates this kind of argument. Does he really feel left out, or is he just trying to make trouble? The funny thing is, though, thinking about the fact that this annoying business with the merchandise is about to end when she closes the studio, Lee is suddenly filled with melancholy.

  “Was there something in particular you wanted?”

  “Well, if you’re going to stock women’s underwear and bras, I think you really need to stock jockstraps as well.”

  “I see.”

  “Otherwise it just looks sexist, and it’s tough enough for us men being so outnumbered by women in classes.”

  Oh, boy. Where does she even begin with this one? It seems like a given that one of the reasons he comes to classes is to be surrounded by women. Could it be that he feels he’s not getting enough attention? I know of some workshops in Connecticut that might interest you, she’s tempted to say. I have a feeling you’d get a lot of attention there. And probably wouldn’t need to wear anything.

  “There’s still a stigma in a lot of places about men taking yoga classes,” he goes on. “It takes a lot of guts, Lee, for men to come to classes. You have to be secure in your masculinity.”

  “Oh, God,” Tina says. “I really didn’t mean to offend anyone, I swear. But honestly, Brian, no one here questions your masculinity.”

  Tough to do when constantly presented with the evidence of same. Lee is tempted to tell Brian that if he’d actually wear underwear of any kind, she’d be happy to buy it for him herself.

  “The thing is,” Lee says, “I’m going to make an announcement in class today, so you’ll be finding out anyway. I’m afraid there are going to be some big changes here in the next month. I don’t think you should do any advance orders . . . well, on anything, Tina.”

  Tina’s pinched, pretty face crumples. “You’re closing the studio?”

  “I’m afraid so, Tina. I’m sorry. I was planning to tell you before I made the announcement in class, but I got here a little late. . . .”

  But Tina is already starting to cry, so there’s no point in going on. Brian seizes the opportunity and has her in a bear hug, petting her hair, telling her it’s all right, and glaring at Lee.

  It’s definitely time to start class.

  Midway through class, Katherine begins to feel hypnotized by the sounds of Alan’s portable harmonium and the improvisational chanting he does to go along with it. Given the way she feels about Alan, it’s a real testament to his talent that she’s able to get lost in his music. The vibrations of the notes as his fingers play over the keyboard have a way of getting under your skin, and the little bellows at the back of the instrument that he pumps with his left hand make it even easier to sink into the breathing instructions that Lee is giving. In fact, there’s a way in which the two of them seem to be more in sync than she’s used to seeing. It’s doubtful they worked out the routine ahead of time; they’ve just fallen into it naturally. Maybe this bodes well for the marriage. You never know what goes on in people’s lives behind closed doors, and if this synchronicity of theirs in class is an indication of their private chemistry, she can only be happy for Lee.

  Men cheat. (And it’s not as if she has a perfect fidelity record.) Someone as narcissistic as Alan is probably capable of doing so without feeling anything for the person he’s cheating with. He’ll move back in, and poor Barrett will have to nurse her own wounds. Some things are better left unknown, unspoken. If husbands and wives confessed every indiscretion to each other, the divorce rate would be even higher than it is already.

  And when she looks at the class, it’s as if everyone is flowing and dancing, hearing Lee’s words and Alan’s music and letting their bodies respond. The deep lunges, the long stretches, the beautiful silent floating, the arching back bends, and the magic of thirty people breathing in unison creates a feeling of connection and community that goes far beyond anything that can be deconstructed.

  It will be sad to lose this. There are plenty of other places to practice, but this feeling of community is going to be a lot harder to find. Graciela and Stephanie are in class, and Imani finally made a return visit, this time with Becky Antrim in tow. There was the initial murmur and gasp of recognition, but eventually everyone settled down.

  At the end of class, Lee slowly brings them out of a deep meditative savasana and has them sit up with their hands on their knees. Katherine knows what’s coming and feels a little anxiety deep inside. This will make it all too real. No turning back.

  “As you know,” Lee says, “we spend a lot of time in class talking about letting go. Letting go of tension, letting go of expectations, letting go of fear. Because the truth is, you can’t advance in your practice unless you let go of your fear of falling over or turning upside down, your fear of looking foolish or failing. Or farting, for that matter! If you think about the first time you did a headstand, you can maybe remember the leap of faith it took to finally feel your feet lifting off the floor and realize that you’re still standing. Just not the way you usually do.

  “But as you know, the physical postures are just the vehicle to achieve the deeper changes elsewhere in your life. So I’ve come to a moment in my life when in order to move on, I find I have to let go of something I love. Specifically, this studio.

  “Alan and I have an opportunity to do our teaching and music in a different setting, and in order to do that, we will be closing the studio in two weeks.”

  Katherine had no idea what to expect, but she wasn’t prepared for silence. She makes eye contact with Lee and shrugs.

  “Does anyone have any questions?” Lee asks. One hand goes up. “Carol?”

  “I lost a pair of sunglasses here last week, and I’m wondering if anyone found them.”

  “What did they look like? ” a dark-haired woman who frequently naps during savasana asks.

  “Cheap red plastic. I got them at the drugstore, but I like them.”

  “We’ll look in lost and found,” Lee says. “Any other questions?”

  “I might have a class or two left on my ten-pass,” Roger says. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

  “We’ll deal with those individually as they come up,” Lee says. Alan, Katherine’s been told, has devised a plan for this. “Anything else? Sharon?”

  “I’m assuming you’re going to have a clearance sale on mats and some of the o
ther stuff up front. Any idea what the mark-down will be?”

  “You should talk with Tina next week. She and I will try to figure something out.”

  People have already started to roll up their mats, and Katherine can tell from the look on Lee’s face that she’s feeling a little foolish for having made such a big deal about the announcement. She sees a few sad faces, and then Andrea, a woman who has been a regular for years now, raises her hand. “Andrea?”

  She looks at Lee for a moment, and the activity in the room comes to a stop. All the students turn toward her. She looks a little lost and dumbfounded.

  “Did you want to ask something, Andrea?”

  “What—what are we supposed to do?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “What are we supposed to do without you?” she asks.

  That’s when Tina starts crying loudly and runs to Brian for comfort.

  After class, Stephanie, Graciela, Imani, and Becky decide to go to Café Crème across the street, and they ask Katherine to join them. Katherine can tell that Lee wants her to stay and talk with her, to help her process what happened at the end of class, but for the moment, Katherine feels a stronger allegiance to her other friends. It’s as if they’ve all been abandoned by Lee and need to band together. Besides which, Katherine’s been a big fan of Becky Antrim for years. She’s not going to pass up the opportunity to sit across from her with a latte.

  The weather is still beautiful, and as they walk, she notices the way people stop and turn around, point, and pull out their phones to snap pictures of Becky. What would it be like to be so visible and under a microscope? More to the point, why would anyone want to be? Becky seems to have made peace with it. She walks with a combination of disregard and haughty imperviousness that only draws more attention to her.

  At the Crème, they get their drinks and sit at a table on the sidewalk.

  “Somehow,” Stephanie says, “I didn’t think Lee would go through with this. How long have you known, Kat?”

  “She told me a few days ago. She’s already signed the contract.”

  “I’m still floored by how good she is,” Becky says. “I’m the most promiscuous yoga slut in this town, so when I say she’s good, you can believe she’s good.”

  “I still don’t see why she can’t teach here, too,” Graciela says.

  “YogaHappens only wants her to do an exclusive contract,” Katherine says. “She’s worth more to them that way. And they’re giving Alan a contract to play live music at classes.”

  “He’s cute,” Imani says.

  Katherine decides to hold her tongue.

  “You know,” Stephanie says, “I used to think you were screwed once you’d signed a contract. But all you need is a good lawyer. The woman who’s producing our movie has lawyers who seem to be able to do anything. Break any contract.”

  Becky is sipping an enormous cup of coffee to which, Katherine noticed, she had a double shot of espresso added. High-octane movie stars. She spills some coffee on her T-shirt and blots it with a napkin. It’s funny how someone can be so glamorous and famous and completely casual and unaffected at the same time.

  “A friend of mine,” Becky says, “had a little studio in Santa Monica. Big following, packed classes. Alan Cumming took me to her years ago. Anyway, YogaHappens gave her a fat contract, forced her to close her studio, and then a few months later they claimed she broke the terms she’d agreed to over some ridiculously minor thing she said in class, probably about the fucking water bottles. She had to renegotiate the contract and ended up making half the original offer. They started up in Denver, and they did it all over the place there. I guess word hasn’t really gotten out here yet.”

  “Sleazy!” Stephanie says. “It figures.”

  “Has she met the owners? Zhannette—with a ‘Zh’—and Frank—with an ‘a,’ one assumes. I’ve heard they’re weirdos.”

  Although Lee never quoted an exact figure to Katherine, she knows that it’s something outrageously high. And on top of that, the contract with Alan. So it makes sense that something that sounds too good to be true actually is a setup, a trap, and one that Alan led her into. Blackmailed her into, in fact.

  She feels a new rush of anger, this time not at Alan or YogaHappens or anyone other than herself. She should have told Lee what she knew a long time ago. She finishes off her drink and gets up from the table. She isn’t going to make that mistake again. She can at least pass along what she has just heard.

  “I have to head back to the studio,” she says and rushes out. She tries not to run to the studio, but she can’t stop herself from doing some crazy speed-walking that’s close to a jog.

  Lee is still there, in the yoga room, straightening up and talking with Alan. She’d rather tell Lee alone. She pushes open the glass doors.

  “You rushed out,” Lee says. “I wanted to ask you how you thought that went.”

  “It went all right. I mean, a lot of people were shocked, but what can you . . . Listen, Lee, I just had a conversation with Graciela and Stephanie and . . . Anyway, Becky Antrim said something about YogaHappens. . . . Can I talk with you for a minute? ”

  “Of course.”

  Alan turns around from the wall where he’s stacking blocks. “You can talk to both of us,” he says. “We’re in this together, something you keep forgetting.”

  Later, when Katherine goes back to revisit this moment, she realizes that she probably did sound a little crazy. Her delivery was too rushed, and maybe hysterical. The wacko owners, the sleazy business practices. The fact that Stephanie has been working with someone who has lawyers who can get you out of a contract with Satan if need be. She didn’t make a strong case for the information she had. So, in retrospect, it wasn’t really a surprise that Alan accused her of making this up, of coming up with a desperate attempt to get them to keep the studio open for her own selfish reasons.

  He goes to Lee and puts his arm around her shoulder. “Did you really think we’d believe you?” he says.

  Lee doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t have to. The look she gives Katherine says it all. She feels bad for Katherine. Bad for her that she has to go to this extreme to try to change their plans. Even in the moment, Katherine understands. Lee and Alan are a team again, and if Alan is playing captain, Lee has to go along with him. Couples. It happens all the time, and if she were ever in a position to actually be in a solid, lasting couple, she’d probably behave the same way.

  She leaves the yoga room and walks outside. You just learn to accept the things you can’t change, even if you never learn to love them. She’ll go for a long ride and work it out of her system. Then she’ll go home contented and finish the dress for Lee.

  She walks up the street and when she’s halfway to the sign where she locked her bike, she notices that it’s gone.

  Sitting in Café Crème nursing an iced tea, Graciela starts to feel overwhelmed by the company. She’s disappointed in herself for feeling this way. After all, she is now officially a person who has credentials and standing in her field, a person whose talent has been recognized. She beat out hundreds of dancers and made it into a major video shoot. She was selected by Beyoncé herself. When the great lady (exactly the way Graciela thinks of her) met her for the first rehearsal, she looked at Graciela closely, shook her head, and said, “I might have made a mistake.” Graciela’s stomach dropped, but Beyoncé laughed and said, “Relax. You’re just so gorgeous it’s going to be tough dancing next to you.”

  Graciela doesn’t know if that comment was calculated, but it made her feel more confident, more of an equal somehow. It made her dance better, all in an attempt to live up to the confidence everyone had in her.

  Since then Graciela has heard rumors—little whispers from the choreographer—that she’s being considered for one of the backup dancers on the upcoming tour. That would take her to a whole new level. She can’t even let herself dwell on it.

  Still, you would think she wouldn’t feel so intimidated by these w
omen, still hear echoes of her mother’s insulting criticisms telling her she’s stupid and unworthy every time she’s about to open her mouth and add to the conversation. Too bad that voice is still so loud.

  “I just hate pigeon pose,” Becky says. “You know what it reminds me of? It reminds me of lying down on a really cheap pullout bed—you know, where you feel the metal bar across the middle of your stomach?”

  Imani bursts out laughing. “When was the last time you were on a cheap pullout bed, honey?”

  “For your information, I had a boyfriend in college who lived in a group house and slept on a convertible sofa in the living room. I should have married him.”

  “Sounds kind of romantic,” Stephanie says.

  “Uh-huh,” Imani says. “Now, let’s talk about what you were doing lying facedown.”

  Graciela wants to say, Maybe she just had her hair blow-dried. Not a brilliant comeback, but at least it’s something. But what if it comes out sounding as lame to them as it does to her? What if no one laughs? If Daryl were here, she’d at least have company in her silence; he rarely speaks up during these kinds of conversations, either. Their shared insecurity is a bond.

  “I used to feel that way about pigeon, too,” Stephanie says, and the moment for Graciela’s comment has passed. “Then I started pretending I was lying down with a cozy pillow under my chest.”

  “Oh, God,” Becky says. “If I started thinking about my thigh as a ‘cozy pillow’ I’d probably have a panic attack.”

  Graciela’s waiting for the day when her success in the past month will sink in and make her believe she deserves to be real friends with these women, not a mascot. (Como una animala.) Obviously she’s going to have to wait a little longer.