by Unknown
“Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Go get me another beer,” Lucas said, kissing me on the forehead. “I have to go snicker like a twelve-year-old boy in the bathroom.” He walked off, presumably to do just that.
But I stood still for a moment before I went anywhere. I didn’t focus on the photographs—which were, in any case, burned forever into my brain—but on the fact that twenty-four hours ago, I hadn’t seen or spoken to Raine or Matt in six years. And now here I was.
I might feel a little more turmoil about Matt than I’d like, but that wasn’t the end of the world. It was just tension—a reasonable response, I thought. And I might not have been as persuaded by Raine’s current art as I had been years ago, but that was okay, too. None of that mattered. We were all different people now.
The important thing was that I was here. I was banishing old ghosts just by reaching out.
If that wasn’t worth celebrating, I didn’t know what was.
Chapter Ten
I woke on Sunday morning to the sound of my cell phone blaring.
Lucas groaned as if I were the one making the noise directly into his ear.
“Please do something about that god-awful sound,” he demanded. Or that’s what I thought he demanded—his head was buried in the pillows and he didn’t seem to be able to move it in order to speak.
He had a lot of nerve, complaining about the ring. He was the one who thought it was so funny to load my cell phone with ring tones from the likes of the Black Eyed Peas, Britney Spears, and the current selection: Justin Timberlake. All of which went over well with the rest of the orchestra when he called me during our breaks, of course.
I heaved myself out from under his arm, then out of the bed. I had to upend my bag on the bed to find the obnoxious cell phone, still bleating out the notes to “SexyBack.”
I glared balefully at Lucas’s prone form as I snapped the phone open and barked out a greeting.
“Uh-oh,” Raine singsonged. “Someone sounds tense!”
I was given to understand from her tone that “tension” was to San Franciscans what sloth was to East Coast types (i.e., anathema).
“I’m not tense,” I said at once.
“If you say so, I believe you,” Raine said.
“I was asleep.”
“Well, it’s time to rise and shine, sweetie,” Raine said smoothly. “I had the most wonderful idea! I think it came to me in a dream.”
Which was how I found myself dragging my ass—and that of my yawning, bleary-eyed fiancé—onto San Francisco’s BART train for the forty-five-minute trip across the bay to Berkeley.
And it was BART, not the BART, according to the huffy pedestrian we’d accosted for directions to the correct stop. Apparently, San Franciscans were as pissy about their articles of speech as they were about their politics. The highway was a freeway and it was called 101, not the 101, and should you forget this, you were likely to be reminded. Sharply.
Raine’s great idea was that I should attend her yoga class. Once we saluted the sun and assumed the dog position—and I was just making that up, because I’d done a yoga tape exactly once in the comfort of my living room, and not well—she thought we would bond. More than we had while she was working, or so she hoped.
Lucas had no interest in bonding over chakras, aligned or otherwise. But he was game for a trip out to Berkeley, where he figured he would find a coffee shop and the paper, so he rode over with me.
Once off BART, Berkeley shone before us in the Sunday morning light. Lucas slouched behind his sunglasses. I inhaled. Deeply. The air smelled like pine, sea, and incense. Sleepy-looking students in dark blue Cal sweatshirts shuffled along the streets, next to political protestors reeking of marijuana and total commitment. Ragged-looking street people with dogs and guitars gathered on the sidewalks of Telegraph, while drums tapped out a rhythm somewhere in the hills above us.
It looked exactly the way it was supposed to look.
I was filled with the urge to foment worker rebellion, convert to vegan activism, and overthrow the current administration. All at once.
Instead, I deposited Lucas at a coffee shop near the university and found my way to Raine’s yoga studio, tucked away in a little California Craftsman bungalow.
Raine was waiting for me just inside the door, a vision of bright eyes and flushed cheeks. I didn’t understand how she could look so healthy and well rested when she’d been up working half the night. I had seen what I looked like, and I’d supposedly been relaxing.
“I’m so excited about this!” she cried when she saw me. “I can’t think of a better way to share our true selves after all this time than yoga, can you?” She didn’t wait for me to answer, suggesting she knew me better than her question indicated. “You can tell a lot about a person by their yoga, you know.”
“I think you might be able to tell that I’m not very flexible,” I told her. “More than that, I don’t know.”
“Flexibility is sixty-percent in your mind,” Raine said with a laugh, and then motioned for me to follow her into the large open room that served as the actual yoga space. There were wind chimes in the front windows, and everything was very white and soothing. I immediately felt more highly evolved.
“This is a women’s class,” Raine told me in a whisper. “Some of us like to experience only feminine energy while we practice. I think you’ll like it.”
And for a few moments, I agreed with her. I spread a mat on the floor and sat down on it cross-legged, trying to imitate Raine’s casual swami position without seeming to do so. Other women filed into the room and smiled at one another, and I felt delighted that I could raise my consciousness simply by sharing in all this wonderful female energy—
—until Bronwen walked in.
Or, to be more precise, slithered into the room, a fresh pair of yoga pants riding low on her toned hips, her only other garment a torso-baring halter top. Her hair was piled on the back of her head in some bohemian updo involving a collection of braids, and her piercings glowed in the morning sunshine.
I immediately felt all my insecurity about my appearance—which I had been pretending not to feel because of Raine’s equally cute attire—collapse on top of me. I was wearing track pants and an oversize T-shirt. This was the closest thing I had to yoga clothes, and I hadn’t planned to mention the fact that the only reason I even had the outfit at all was I’d been sleeping in it.
Trust Raine, in her matching yellow yoga pants and fluttery T-shirt, and stupid hippie Bronwen to be contenders in a yoga fashion show. I felt like a flat-chested, dorky troll. Which did not, I was aware, bode well for my attempt at relaxation. Or spiritual enlightenment.
Bronwen looked at Raine and nodded. Raine nodded back serenely. Then Bronwen turned to me, and looked at me for a while. It was a long, cool stare. She didn’t bother to crack a smile, which I decided meant I wasn’t obliged to throw one out there either.
Which was just as well, seeing as I was obsessed with the grungy inappropriateness of my clothing. You would have thought that it might have occurred to my sister to mention the fact that she liked to attend yoga classes where the main requirement—apparently—was to already possess abs of steel and an exhibitionist streak. It was higher consciousness for the already highly health-conscious. Mine was the only covered midsection in the room.
A quick survey confirmed that mine was also the only midsection that needed covering. Joy.
“Good morning,” Bronwen said in a voice that carried to the far corners of the room. I jerked my attention to her, horror dawning as everyone else smiled expectantly at her. “Let’s get started.”
Because, of course, Matt Cheney’s latest bedmate wasn’t just a self-righteous anti-engagement-ring activist. She wasn’t just lithe and muscled and happy to flaunt her toned abdomen. Oh, no. She was also a yoga instructor.
I wanted to kill myself.
And then, shortly thereafter, wanted to die and who cared how, because when Raine had told me that her Sunday morning yo
ga class was a lovely exercise that really gets you in tune with your body, what she’d apparently meant by that was that it would get me in tune with her body. And her body was, apparently, made of rubber and perfectly content to be twisted into shapes that would make a pretzel cry.
My body, needless to say, was not.
My body did not know how to perform the fluid stretch-up-then-fall-to-the-floor-then-perform-a-push-up thingie that every woman around me seemed to flow through, happily and without effort. My body, in fact, got caught on the stretching-up part.
My body—which I had never taken the time to catalogue in quite so comprehensive a fashion before—decided after about five minutes of Bronwen’s yoga death march that it would prefer staging a civil war to any further yoga attempts. It decided this on its own, right about the time I attempted to perform a headstand.
A headstand.
The last headstand I had attempted to perform had been an abject failure in my sixth-grade gymnasium. It was not coincidental that I’d become a cellist. When I said I had no other skills, I meant no other skills, including those most children seemed to possess naturally. Headstands, somersaults—I even tripped when skipping rope.
Not that my lack of physical coordination in gymnastics concerned me much in the orchestra pit.
Bronwen, naturally, flipped her legs over her head and just sort of extended herself, as if she were a marionette and someone was plucking her string and lifting her, feet first, toward the ceiling. So unaffected was she by this pose that she continued to talk to the class as she performed it, never pausing for breath or even sounding the slightest bit muffled.
Raine, seemingly oblivious to my horror, easily slid into the same position without appearing to try very hard. Or even appearing to concentrate terribly hard, for that matter. Headstands were second nature for Raine.
And for the rest of the class.
I, meanwhile, rocked and kicked and toppled over to one side, red-faced and furious.
“Don’t worry,” Bronwen purred at me, triumph glowing across her face as she lowered her hips and returned to sitting position in one easy motion. “It can be a very difficult pose.”
My face reddened even further as the entire class turned to look at the loser. Since I was, obviously, the only person in the room (and, possibly, in all of Berkeley) to find it difficult at all.
Next to me, Raine held her headstand just the showiest bit too long, as if in emphasis.
I had the urge to shout out that there were things I could do that I’d bet they couldn’t, like play Prokofiev’s Symphony-Concerto, op. 125. Maybe not well, precisely, since it was renowned to be perhaps the most difficult cello piece around, but I could play it—hard articulations, difficult transitions, and all—so maybe they should stick that on top of their smug headstands—
But I restrained myself. I had learned long ago that if you felt pressed to declare your achievements in an aggrieved and dramatic tone, that was probably a sign that you should do nothing of the kind.
So I stayed quiet, and spent the rest of the class failing, moment by moment, to achieve all but two of the ridiculous poses all the other women in the class struck and held for ages. When it came time to relax against my mat and meditate, I found my mind was empty of just about everything except a burning need to leap up and start kicking people with my shaking, aching muscles. Or regale them with my professional achievements. Both very mature impulses.
Oh, and vivid images of Bronwen’s body—which I had now seen in almost every conceivable position (and some previously inconceivable ones)—intertwined with Matt Cheney’s. The dark ink of his dragon tattoo figured prominently.
When Bronwen announced that the meditation period had ended, and said something that sounded vaguely Eastern, I opened my eyes and glared at the ceiling. I felt as if I’d actually walked in on her and Matt, thanks to my treacherous imagination and the fact I’d seen her legs bent behind her head more than once in the past hour.
Raine alit from her meditation looking truly refreshed, even renewed. She arched her back and smiled at me.
I had to actually bite my tongue to keep from growling.
“Well done, Bronwen,” Raine called toward the front of the room.
Bronwen bowed her head slightly, and shot me an arch look from beneath her lashes.
I am better than you, her smile said. Loudly, I thought.
“Great class,” I managed, with an insincere smile of my own.
The only time in my life I had ever felt more like a sulky thirteen-year-old, I reflected in that moment, was when I actually was a sulky thirteen-year-old.
Raine and Bronwen exchanged a series of deeply unconvincing namastes, which I thought made it perfectly clear that they loathed each other, and then Raine tucked her hand in mine and tugged me away.
“I love that class,” Raine told me as we emerged into the cleansing Berkeley sunshine. She cast out a hand, as if she might at any moment begin singing. “It makes me feel so alive and connected.”
I slid my sunglasses onto my face.
“It was fun,” I lied.
“I get the sense you’re not really into yoga,” Raine said as if I hadn’t even attempted to be polite. “I have to tell you, I can’t imagine being creative without it. It’s how I refill the well.”
I blinked. I had never really considered the inspirational properties of yoga. I’d simply lusted after certain superstars and the bodies they swore came from yoga practice with little dietary restriction, a claim I’d long found suspicious. I worried this shallowness was evidence that Raine was right and I lived a tiny, tiny life.
“I don’t have much time for yoga.” I found this a lame excuse at best. So I tried to make it all about work. “Between rehearsals and practice.”
“You poor thing.” Raine tucked her arm through mine. “It must be terrible, all that pressure. I remember what a wreck you were about the whole orchestra thing. I’m a little bit surprised you decided to go that route. It’s not what I expected from you, after all the things you said about it that summer.”
By that summer, of course, she meant the summer I was so in love with Matt that had he announced he wanted to spend the rest of his life creating music with found objects on the beach, I would have packed my bathing suit without comment, headed for the Atlantic, and set up shop on the Jersey Shore. But I didn’t know how much she knew about that summer. I assumed that of course Matt must have told Raine. Except what if he hadn’t? I had no way of knowing without directly asking, and somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
“It was a rough summer,” I said noncommittally.
“I remember how angry you were that you’d spent all that time preparing to do one thing,” Raine said, musing. “You could only do the one thing, and what if they wouldn’t let you do it?”
It was also the summer directly after my years at the conservatory, and after four years of auditions and orchestras, I’d been feeling a little rebellious. I’d complained about the tyranny of it all. A lot.
“Lucky for me, they let me,” I said, grinning.
“Do you feel lucky?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and studying me.
With that, I felt last night’s strange insecurity about my life creep back in. Even though, again, she hadn’t said anything directly to make me paranoid. Had she?
“You’re not suggesting that I shouldn’t have tried out for an orchestra chair, are you?” I asked with a little laugh. “Mom must have mentioned that I’ve been playing in the Second Symphony. You know, professionally.”
Raine looked at me. Her gaze was almost sympathetic. It swept from my (undoubtedly lank) hair to the soles of my feet, taking in my grubby T-shirt and baggy track pants. Instantly, I felt the way I had when I was thirteen. I’d been such a painful dork, all braces and red hair I didn’t know what to do with. And Raine had been nearly twenty, and so impossibly, easily gorgeous. I remembered her as a ray of light. Next to her I’d felt too much. Too tall, too klutzy, too
silly, too ugly. And if I’d needed that point underlined, there was always Matt Cheney right there with her. Back then, he’d been practically feral. And Raine’s shadow. I’d dreamed of possessing even a scrap of the grace they’d both worn like skins.
Standing on a sidewalk in Berkeley, I found myself feeling exactly the same way I’d felt then. And it was just as awful. Maybe there were downsides to spending more time with big sisters. Age thirteen seemed to factor a little too prominently.
I looked past her and saw Lucas sitting on the patio of the coffeehouse. He had his paper spread out before him and was propping his chin up with his fists. He looked scruffy and delicious, and I felt a rush of longing for the simple pleasure of touching him, feeling his skin beneath my hands. Falling into him and becoming my real self again. My adult self. As if he was my reward for not being thirteen anymore.
Then I noticed that Raine had followed my gaze, and that she’d turned that odd look of hers on Lucas. She turned back to face me and reached out to squeeze my arm.
Lucas looked up and saw us. A smile crept across his mouth, and I smiled back. Then I turned to find my sister watching me.
“I don’t know how to answer you,” she said softly, letting her shoulders rise and fall. Her eyes were big and, worse, sincere. “I just had bigger dreams for you, Courtney. I hope that’s not out of line to say.”
Chapter Eleven
Lucas got up early on Monday morning, and prepared for a day in the office doing his business mogul thing. I woke up enough to give him a kiss and a sleepy promise to be safe, and then fell back against the pillows. I slept for a few more hours, and only woke up when I accidentally rolled over and found myself squinting in the sunshine pouring in through the big window at the foot of the bed.
I ran a bath and soaked myself for a good hour before I accepted the fact that I was in a bit of a mood, and likely to remain that way. I decided it was because it was my last full day in San Francisco and I had no plans. Raine had been very noncommittal about her schedule, which stung, but was understandable since she hadn’t been expecting me. It also meant I was on my own. I climbed out of the tub, wiped off the bubbles, and got dressed. I had no idea what to do with myself, so I figured I might as well enjoy the fact that I was in the best walking city in the nation, according to everybody I met. Why not . . . walk?
