by Sarah Fuller
That was the best point she could have made. I had gone to the salon that morning. Having a stylist do one’s hair is the fastest way to up confidence. Somehow, my stylist has a way of doing my hair that makes me suddenly look younger, thinner and more radiant. It’s like she’s my fairy godmother, waving a magic wand and transforming me for the night. However, it lasts way past midnight. If I don’t wash my hair, it lasts for several days. Thank the gods for dry shampoo, am I right ladies?
Unable to argue with Pelé, I agreed to go.
We got to the club at around eleven, which was pretty much two hours after my bedtime.
“If you don’t stop yawning, I’ll make your ass pay,” she said as we parked.
I knew that her threat was serious. She would make me do so many butt crunches the next week, I’d cry for mercy. I’m a grown adult who can do as I like, unless I’m paying gobs of dollars to have someone make me work out—then I do whatever they say. Otherwise, it just seems like a waste of money, and we all know how frugal I am.
We breezed by the bouncer, who recognized Pelé. Once in the club, the DJ also recognized her, shouting out from the microphone.
“You’re sort of a celebrity,” I admired.
“I’ve performed here,” she stated casually.
“I have, too.”
“You have?” she asked with disbelief.
“Well, yeah, until they kicked me off the stage,” I said, pointing to where the DJ was.
Tequila had been involved that night, which, as we’ve discussed, is never a good idea for me. I hadn’t really been kicked off the stage, so much as the club was shutting down. However, while on tequila, I have no concept of time. I remember going to the bathroom, and when I came out, the club was empty.
I shook my head at the bouncer beside the stage, unaware at the time that the DJ was packing up his equipment. “Man, this place really isn’t doing so hot,” I said to him, knowing he was also the manager of the club. “I’ve got a Master’s in business if you want some pointers on how to improve things here.”
The guy gave me a good-humored smile. “Sure thing, but your Uber is here.”
“Wait,” I said in disbelief. “But it’s not supposed to be here until after two in the morning.” My friends and I had made arrangements ahead of time, the gang wanting to stay out as late as possible.
“That’s right, sweetheart.” He pointed to the exit. “The girls are all waiting for you out there since we’ve shut down the club.”
I gulped, realizing that tequila and I never needed to spend time together. It would only end with me marching across the desert in Las Vegas, firmly believing that not sleeping for thirty-six hours was totally fine.
After Pelé scored us a round of free drinks from the bartender, who, unsurprisingly, knew her, it was time for me to make my move.
“Just pick someone and start talking to them,” she encouraged. “Everyone here is single. That’s why they are here.”
I nodded, gathering my confidence, which was about like trying to pick up sand with a net.
“That guy looks cute,” I said, pointing to a man with dark hair and a nice smile. More importantly, he wasn’t surrounded by a horde of his friends.
Pelé pushed me, which I sort of found abusive, but I wasn’t going to mention it, since she’s taller and so much stronger than me.
“Hey, there,” I said to the guy at the bar, trying to remember my script.
I hadn’t gotten out the next line before he shook his head at me.
“Sorry, I just got out of a relationship,” he yelled over the loud music.
And right then, my confidence plummeted. However, I plastered a fake smile on my face.
“Uhhh…I was just going to ask if you’d hand me a napkin,” I said, pointing behind his back where a stack of cocktail napkins sat.
“Oh, right,” the guy said, looking embarrassed. “Sorry. Of course.”
He turned around and grabbed a napkin, thrusting it into my hand, the one not holding the perspiring wine glass.
“Thanks,” I said and turned around, muttering under my breath, “you dumb asshole.”
Who goes to a club right out of a relationship? Then I reminded myself, Every guy ever. And besides, he may have just been making that up. I’m not everyone’s type; I’m short, have a resting bitch face that keeps most at bay, and a conservative dress code.
When I rejoined Pelé, she was surrounded by three guys. Shocking. Before she could ask how it went, I shook my head roughly. She seemed to understand my nonverbal communication.
“This is my new friend Nick. He was just about to show me pictures of his cat,” Pelé said loudly, indicating the guy next to her. “Don’t you have a cat, Sarah?”
“Yeah,” I said, defeat heavy in my voice. I snapped my fingers at the guy next to Pelé. “Let’s see your cat photos.”
The guy was sort of handsome, but a bit too young for me. Actually, he was way too young for me; he was never going to get any of my 1980s references. However, I reminded myself this was about confidence, not about finding the man of my dreams.
Baby steps, I told myself.
“A fellow cat lover,” the guy said, winking at me. “Pelé tells me she’s allergic, which is too bad.”
“Yeah, she’ll never know the joy of waking up to find a cat purring on her chest, looking down at her with a deranged stalker smile,” I said.
The guy laughed. “Said like a true cat owner.” He pulled up a photo on his phone and handed it to me. “That’s my best friend, Pluto.”
I took one look at his phone and shrank away in disgust. “Dude, that’s fucking animal abuse. How heavy is your cat?”
And there was that look of offense I was so good at producing on other people’s faces. I hadn’t even had any tequila…yet.
“He’s roughly twenty pounds.”
I shook my head. “Do you shove food down his throat?”
He laughed uncomfortably. “Pluto has a thyroid problem.”
I clapped my hand to my chest. “So do I!”
Maybe everything was going to work out for the best after all. I hadn’t lost those ten pounds, but maybe Nick wouldn’t care.
He nodded. “I have to give him medicine, but he’s my best friend, so I don’t mind. Whatever it takes.”
“I’m sorry that I called your cat fat and insinuated you’re a bad cat dad.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m guessing your cat isn’t fat, then?”
I shook my head. “No, Finley, my cat, takes Pilates with me. Pelé keeps his ass in shape,” I joked.
The guy laughed, cutting his eyes at Pelé, who was enjoying the attention of the other two guys.
“Yeah, it’s tough to ensure they get enough exercise,” Nick said. “I’ve been struggling with it.”
This might have been my perfect scenario. I was talking to a man about his cat. The universe had given me the perfect setup.
“Hey, why don’t you give me your number, and we can exchange ways to keep our cats healthy?” I suggested, instantly wondering if this strange approach would work. All I had to do was get the phone number.
He didn’t throw his drink in my face, as I expected. He didn’t shrink back and say he was in a committed relationship with his cat or that he’d just gotten out of a relationship.
“Sure thing,” Nick said.
And right then, I had done it. I’d completed my first mission. Victory was sweet and it filled up the confidence meter, ensuring more future successes. Nick might be too young for me, based on my standards, but he’d agreed to give me his phone number.
“You realize you still have to text him,” Pelé said as she drove me home that night…well, early morning.
“Even though there’s no potential of a future?” I asked.
She nodded. “It’s about strengthening your dating muscle.”
I agreed with her as I got out of her car.
The next morning, I crafted the perfect, casual message to Nick: “He
y, how is Pluto? Tell him Finley says ‘hi.’”
I nervously waited a couple of minutes, as the dots popped up, indicating that Nick was messaging me back.
“Hey! He’s good, and we’re both looking forward to hearing those fitness tips.”
I was just about to send him a picture of this new toy I’d gotten for Finley and that he loved when another message came through.
“Hey, is your friend single? The taller, blonder one?”
I wasn’t sure why he was describing Pelé. It wasn’t like I needed to be reminded that she was the hotter friend.
“Yeah, she totally is,” I messaged back.
“Cool, can I have her number?”
I’m a good friend; that’s why I deleted Nick. There was no future for him and Pelé. Not only because he abused his cat by overfeeding it, but also because he had a shitty memory and didn’t recall that she was allergic to cats.
Chapter Fifteen
My Yoga Instructor Touched My Ass
Yoga is my church. When I first divorced and moved back to Southern California, I knew I had to renovate myself. I actually had a fair amount of anxiety. Newly divorced, with a five-year-old depending on me, trying to pay the high cost of LA living and sticking all my time and money into my books. Go figure that I was stressed.
My friends kept urging me to date or go out with them, but I didn’t have a spare moment. Then one day, while Eleanor and I were making mud cakes in the backyard, a full-on panic attack hit me. I couldn’t understand it. I had taken my life back. I had a beautiful home. I was playing on a Wednesday afternoon with my daughter because my schedule afforded such a luxury, and yet, my body was telling me I was not okay.
The body never lies. It knows that which the mind is trying to suppress.
I realized then that I had to start therapy and figure out some coping techniques. I really wanted to talk about George, explain to a nonbiased person why the relationship didn’t work. Let the guilt of divorcing him roll out of me.
But that’s not what happened.
I chose a cognitive behavioral therapist, who focused on offering tools rather than listening to problems. I did learn things that helped me immensely. For instance, when panic set in, I immediately asked myself, “Is this real, am I in danger?” and then I’d try to breathe into the space in my body that was closing up. It was from doing this technique that I learned there was no extra space in my body. It was all congested with emotions and frustrations. Regrets. Things I’d allowed to go unsaid.
I don’t believe in allowing fate to rule my life. However, I do believe that if I put something out into the universe, it will conspire to offer me that which I seek. I have to be willing to say yes, though.
I was managing with my stress, when one day, a Groupon happened to catch my attention. In LA, Groupons are how we check out most things, from paddle boarding to sushi. Why pay full price when we can get a deal and try something out?
I purchased a Groupon for what I thought was yoga classes but got an invaluable deal for something way more than some stretching and deep breathing.
I entered that small studio a bundle of stress, not having taken a proper breath in two or three years. The instructor, a calm hippie from Topanga Canyon with a European accent, said something that first day that has stuck with me ever since.
“Wherever you are today is where you’re supposed to be.”
It struck me in the chest. I’d been holding onto so much guilt since the divorce, punishing myself constantly for not being able to make things work with George. However, as I looked around from where I was perched on my foam yoga mat, I realized I was exactly where I needed to be in life.
Every time I looked backward, I was in jeopardy of going back that way. And every time I looked forward, I clenched my eyes shut, so afraid of where I was headed.
The instructor, Sami, who has become my spiritual guide, started telling me something every week that chipped away at the concrete that had formed in my body, creating stiffness.
“I’m only helping you to connect with your own inner wisdom,” she explained to me one day when I told her she couldn’t take a day off to teach senior citizens yoga.
“But, Sami, I need your help,” I said, realizing I was whining slightly. “Since I’ve been coming to your class, I’ve found space in my body. The other instructors aren’t as good as you.”
Sami’s good nature prevented her from saying anything about my jab. She simply smiled, probably dialing up Buddha in her head for a proper reply.
“That one instructor played Elvis and live concert music the entire time,” I continued to complain. “I left class more stressed than when I started.”
“I understand, Amber,” Sami said.
Side note: I’ve been taking a class from Sami for years now, and she still calls me Amber. I’ve let it go on for so long that I can’t bring myself to correct her at this point. She’d be mortified, and the last thing I’d do is make my guru so upset, she may potentially not guide my practice.
“Yoga is about finding peace within ourselves,” Sami continued. “And when we find that in ourselves, we find it for others. Then the things that bothered us before aren’t as big of a deal.”
Sami had repeatedly tried to drill this “namaste” crap into me. I got the concept: ‘the light within me honors the light within you.’ I totally understood it, except when dumbasses pissed me off in traffic.
I like hippie bullshit, which is why I feel at home on the West Coast. However, it’s important to note that, although I drive a Prius and rarely brush my hair, I’m not a dirty hippie. When I lived in Oregon, I strangely found the hippies to be the most judgmental types. They were the ones who gave me disapproving looks for using sunscreen or plastic bags.
Needless to say, I got a little fed up with hippies when I confined myself to Ashland, Oregon for two years. I nearly plowed over the entire Birkenstock-wearing population to get out of there. I can’t live in a town where naked children with dreadlocks crawl around on the co-op floor, while the store manager plays a ukulele in the parking lot.
Because of these experiences, my tolerance for hippies is low. However, not only can I stand Sami, I fucking love the woman. When she talks about equinox shit, I don’t want to murder her.
“Today, to honor the autumn equinox, I invite you to recognize the cosmic equinity through breath exercises,” Sami said one day.
I was only hoping that meant we got to lie in pigeon pose for ten minutes. The hips, in yoga, are considered the emotional junk drawer of the body, and mine are always overflowing with shit I don’t need.
Sami guided us through the poses, having us hold triangle—another of my favorite poses—a little longer than usual. She’s a hands-on instructor, which took me by surprise the first time she touched my butt in an attempt to fix my alignment.
I looked at her and said, “You haven’t even bought me a drink yet.”
That was my first class with her, and ever since then, she’s been trying to get me to loosen up and be more accepting. She may not cast a judgmental look at me, but I know she sees when I’m obsessing over my hair instead of dropping down into warrior one. I’m also aware that Sami sees the scowls I give to the other students in class. In my defense, it’s because they are a bunch of undisciplined fuckers who need to learn some manners.
I’m such an asshole that I glare with disdain at the late arrivals in yoga class. And don’t even get me started on those who fucking crowd my mat. I always shoot them murderous looks. I was in class the other day, and you’d think I was fucking Beyoncé, by how much everyone wanted up on my junk. There was loads of space all over the room, but everyone kept throwing down their mats inches from mine, totally boxing me in.
Namaste to all, except that fucker whose feet I had to look at, inches from my face, when in upward dog. And to the blonde grandma whose ass I was staring at from close range, I don’t appreciate that the light within you is the light within me. Oh, and you’re eighty. How in the
hell is your hair so blonde?
Then there was the woman who barged into yoga class ten minutes late. Buddha doesn’t like her because she broke my focus. I don’t care that she just got out of spin class; leave that class early to get to yoga on time! This is my fucking church. Would you come to mass late, throwing your purse down loudly while I’m praying to Jesus? No, I didn’t think so. Respect my religion, or whatever this is for me. It might not be saving my soul, but it’s keeping me from killing you, which is important for both of us.
And how are ninety percent of the people in my yoga class blonde? That defies the odds of the population. Blonde hair color is a recessive gene, which means it’s impossible that four out of every five women in the class are light-haired. Well, I’m a blonde—just look at Eleanor. There’s my proof. I gave her that beautiful golden hair. And although I don’t have blonde hair anymore, I have to keep it up to match her. But ninety percent of the class wasn’t born blonde, let’s be honest.
I’m all too aware that my superficial judgments are blocking my chi. I’m fucking working on it.
“Your only concern is what happens on your mat,” Sami encouraged, probably provoked by the angry stare I was giving the redhead who kept checking out her butt in the mirror.
She was wearing a short top that showed off her abs. Okay, it was a sports bra. And her ass cheeks were hanging out of her shorts, which would have been tiny even on my daughter. After watching her turn around several times to eye her ass, I shot her a disapproving look, which Sami caught. I felt like I was in elementary school again, and the teacher was about to scold me.
Instead, Sami said, “When we find something in yoga that challenges us, it’s better to breathe through it than run from it or bottle it up.”
So I can’t punch the redheaded bimbo in the face, then?
“Amber, I invite you to tuck in your naval and your pelvic floor,” Sami said, and I realized a moment later she was talking to me.
I’m Amber! Right.
I never thought that cobra pose was going to liberate me from my asshole tendencies, but I’ve worked hard to try and create that stillness in my body.
