The more I thought about it, the more attractive this idea became. Becoming a private teacher would be a route where I was entirely self-reliant—I wouldn’t defer to any yoga authority, Skylar or otherwise. Skylar could spitefully blackball me at every studio, and it wouldn’t matter. If I failed to meet enough students on my own, I could always go back to the conventional route. But this option was worth a shot. Thousands of followers made it feel plausible. The aha moment was liberating.
I embraced the app as a tool. I posted more pictures and videos of myself and captioned each with a yoga credo. “Yoga is a way to freedom,” came from Indra Devi. “Compassion is the radicalism of our time,” from the Dalai Lama. I needed to support myself, but I wanted to make honest connections at the same time, so I kept the captions as earnest as possible. I added a professional bio to the profile.
Over the next handful of days, calendar squares kept flickering down like confetti, and I built up to posting at least twice a day. I gained regular commenters including @2PeaceInAPod which was obviously Tripp. He forgave me for the Titan fiasco (I guess there are good people in the world) and started liking all of my pictures within five minutes of my posting them. He’d comment things like, “Brutal,” or, “If a tree falls and it doesn’t make a sound, does anyone hear it?” The joke made him laugh as he wrote it. I responded as @PretzelYoga, “Tripp un-mask thyself.” He swiveled in his chair until his back faced me. @2PeaceInAPod replied, “Nah.”
With Titan-Sierra off, I barely saw Mark anymore. Whenever I passed his office, he was barking at juniors scribbling their wrists off. Rumor was that Mark had all of his major deals fall through this year. Talk about his inability to close continued to spread. People guessed why and passed on semi-credible information: junior consensus was that he might rub clients the wrong way. It’s the way he slicks his hair back, some off-color humor, a too-macho vibe. He snapped at Trixie publicly on the floor, which made everyone uncomfortable. That day, I posted about karma.
I haven’t seen Skylar since the chakra workshop a week ago. Still, even without face-to-face interaction, she’s made her presence felt. She has been texting me—How is your third-eye chakra? and What do you think of Houston, TX? and Do you know your last day yet? You sound so busy!! and I know this must be a tough transition time for you—but I have not engaged, blaming work. For every five messages from her, I respond maybe once. We agree to talk at the holiday party.
* * *
I booked my first student, Lucy, for a session a few days before the event. It was harder than I thought to get internet people to meet. It turned out most of my followers were only casually interested in yoga, or were young gymnasts or pervs. I knew they were pervs because they DM’ed me to solicit sex, or their bios were something to the tune of “Just a married man who loves women, and a man living in a sex less marriage.” Was the space between sex and less meant to emphasize absence? #Poetry.
Lucy could be a catfish, but she checks out across multiple sources. Per LinkedIn, she is an SVP of wealth management at Morgan Stanley with a recent master’s in archaeology. Per Facebook, she is blond.
I knock on the door to Lucy’s penthouse, on time for our first session together. I’d never hit the PH button in an elevator before, and something about getting no thrill from it makes me feel insanely free. As footsteps amplify on the other side of the door, a new email hits, from Vivienne.
Fuck. Don’t blow up my non-pass Saturday.
Vivienne has been trying to CPR the Titan-Sierra deal back to life with suggestions for new decks as chest compressions. Mark hasn’t approved any of them, so the deal’s stayed pretty fucking dead. Meanwhile, Vivienne has been floundering. She started asking me to get her lunch for her—small carrot-ginger soup—which I pay for without reimbursement. She made Tripp and me begin every email to her with an estimate of the time it would take her to read it. Like, Est. reading time: 30 secs. She’s also started staying in the office later than she used to, pushing deals for other clients. Now she wants me to find an equity research report on Titan. That can wait an hour.
Lucy’s door swings open as if on fast-forward.
“You’re here!” she says. “Come inside.”
Lucy looms several inches taller than I am and glistens with post-run sweat. Her biceps are cut, and she gestures with a strong arm for me to enter. Her career-woman assertiveness is immediately familiar.
“Great to meet you,” I say.
“Come on in,” she says.
Massive abstract paintings flank us on the way to her living room. She points at the plush sofa, and I sit still as two fluffy dogs twitch and paw at my legs. Framed pictures of the terriers are all over the place. I’d say, never married. A far door opens to her personal yoga room, which has its own bonsai tree and floor-to-ceiling view of the skyline.
“Drink?” she asks.
“No, thank you,” I say.
Her tone makes me think she is offering whiskey, but I catch sight of an expensive juicer on her countertop. Lucy crosses her spandexed legs on the chair beside me, with her back to the spectacular view. One of the terriers yaps.
“So, you won the yoga gold?” she asks.
I nod.
“That’s impressive,” she says. “Anderson, too?”
“Yes.”
“Very impressive.”
At this rate, we are going to finish the hour in a minute. I’m supposed to be the one interviewing her, anyway, for a baseline. Lucy already looks athletic, with Kate Hudson’s peppy smile, Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop-y aesthetic, and Uma Thurman’s drive in Kill Bill. I see her through a kaleidoscope of famous blondes.
“It really is great to meet you,” I repeat, regaining control. I breathe once, deeply, hoping she might take the hint. She swings her top, crossed leg back and forth. “How’s your morning?”
“Busy day,” she says. “Sotheby’s, then drinks, then event.”
“I see,” I say.
“But first, yoga,” she says.
“Of course.”
Riiiight. This lady needs more than yoga. She needs drugs to chill her the fuck out. Her vibe suggests she plays the net every Wednesday at a coed volleyball night. Or maybe she misses college rugby.
“So, I thought we might begin by talking about your experience with yoga,” I say. “What has your practice been like?”
“Strong,” she says. “Started with groups a few years ago, moved on to private lessons. Been doing one-on-ones for a year now.”
I breathe again. Maybe I can slow her down. I’d planned to take notes, but Lucy needs to relax. I don’t want her to tense up like she’s at the doctor’s office getting measured with cold metal instruments.
“Okay, that’s helpful,” I say. “Do you have any injuries?”
“No,” she says. “Like an ox.”
“Returning to your practice,” I say. “Can you speak more to the styles you have seen? Any particular studio?”
“Oh, and I do meditation,” she says. “Mainly for success.”
“That’s wonderful,” I say.
“Let’s see,” she says. “I did the power yoga class three times a week at YogaWorks. But SoHo got to be pretty inconvenient. Cabs took forever. I was following all the Instagram yoga, obviously, and so a while back I got in touch with Skylar Smith and practiced with her.”
“Oh,” I say. “Skylar Smith?”
My stomach craters.
“I’m not yoga cheating on you,” she says.
“No more Skylar?” I probe.
“No,” she says, more thoughtful. “Your page caught my eye because it helped me put my finger on something that was starting to irk me about Skylar.” As she says, “put my finger on,” she gives a horizontal thumbs-up and punches it forward. Jesus. “Skylar kept trying to sell me on her videos and other yoga things. I ended up buying more gear for her classes than for mountain climbing. Which I do, by the way.”
“Oh, good for you,” I say.
“It’s a great sweat,” she
says. “But anyway. On your page, it didn’t look like you were selling anything. My read was you’re not a product pusher, just a genuine teacher.” She makes an “OK” shape with her fingers.
“Wow, that’s so nice of you,” I blurt.
“Right, right,” she says hurriedly.
As in, Let’s keep this thing rolling.
“Okay, so a bit more on the yoga lessons I offer,” I say, taking her cue. “I guide a personalized flow to music. We will emphasize flexibility and build up to deeper poses over time. Hopefully, we can move energy from the mind back down into the body. The hour will be a place to do less, think less, and breathe deeper. We can be calm.”
“Great,” she says. “Can we start now?”
chapter 22
The hour before the holiday party is endured without seasonal cheer. The HG heads leave a group-wide voice mail stating the “imperative” that we be grateful.
“It is critical that we take this time to recognize our good fortune,” they said. “We have been blessed, so let us be gratitude champions. Give thanks tirelessly.”
Finally, I taxi to our Holiday Cocktails & Buffet, nearby in Midtown. The ballroom teems with bankers and their spouses, who are sometimes the same age. I am the last of the pod to arrive, delayed by comments. I’ve spent the whole day revising a confidential information memorandum, or “CIM,” which I only just sent to my VP. A CIM—pronounced like Sim in The Sims—is a “reasons to buy me” document that we write when selling a company. Writing a CIM can be like playing The Sims, too, where we as authors exist half-alive in a virtual world.
Food calls me back to my physical existence. A buffet table of raw bar, plated first courses, and entrée meats extends the full length of the room. My salivary glands hell-yes at the sight of burrata, calamari, carrot risotto, and sirloin. Mark chats with his wife on the other side of the room. Hell no. I turn my back to them, to see the one thing scarier: Skylar walking in with Harry. She wears a black satin dress, blond hair coiffed. I hide among the crowd, not eager to face her yet. Tripp stands in the outer ring around the mentalist with Chloe and a doughy guy who keeps whispering in Chloe’s ear.
“Greetings,” I say.
“Ugh, you sound like that voice mail,” Tripp says.
His breath smells like mai tais.
“Have you seen the mentalist?” he asks.
I shake my head. Been busy with another mindfucker. Tripp fills me in. The mentalist has been guessing people’s randomly chosen three-digit numbers. Some “asshole MD, I mean Tyler” tried to trick the mentalist by concentrating on the number 010, but the mentalist guessed Tyler’s number anyway. Then he guessed the exact amount of cash that Brian had in his pocket: eight dollars. The mentalist also asked Chloe to draw a shape with her back to him, and simultaneously, he drew the same four-petaled flower and one-leafed stem. It hits me that the man next to Chloe must be her boyfriend.
Waiters circulate trays of canapés, each served with a quick description: “Oysters with red-wine mignonette?” “Peekytoe crab with jalapeño?” Tripp accepts every offer of hors d’oeuvres with his non-drink hand.
“You can say no, you realize,” Chloe says.
“Oh, can I?” he asks, mouth full of food and sarcasm.
“I’m Charles,” Chloe’s boyfriend introduces himself. Turns out he is a soft-spoken Virginian and a commodities trader. As we small-talk, I get the impression that he is extremely wealthy. He’s my age and already managing money. His pool of capital comes from only two clients, and he works out of his studio in Tribeca. His fund does not have a name, because apparently you don’t need an official name until you get to managing $100 million. He is going on about how the markets are like a “puzzle.”
“You see a pattern,” he says. “You realize what the next piece should be. And then you have to anticipate how fast everyone else will realize it, too.”
How does Chloe fucking deal with him?
Tripp nabs another hors d’oeuvre.
“What did you drink to get so drunk?” Chloe asks.
“I was drunk before I got here,” Tripp says.
I consider whether what he is saying is true. Tripp shakes the ice in his empty glass back and forth. He tips his head back and takes a dry swig, inclining a column of ice to slide back and hit him in the nose.
“I’ll refill,” I say.
With water. I head with his glass for the bar, passing the mentalist wowing a new group with the three-digit-number-guess trick. Asshole MD Tyler stands at the front of this crowd, chomping at the bit like, I’m going to figure you the fuck out, magic man. The bar is packed with a pulsing throng of first-years itching to get hammered for free. I wait in the back for my turn and lean against the wall. How did I get so old in one fucking year?
“Allegra.”
It’s Mark beside me. His silver tie knot is massive at the base of his throat, like a second Adam’s apple. We are somewhat secluded behind the wall of first-year backs.
“Hi, Mark,” I say.
He sips a dark drink from his glass.
“How are you?” I ask, honestly curious.
“Hm?” he asks as if he didn’t hear me.
“How are you?” I ask again.
He downs the rest of his drink.
“Sure, that would be great,” he says.
Mark lets his arm drift toward me until his drink brushes my chest. He releases the glass, assuming I’ll take it. He must have thought I just offered to get him another one. His glass drops to the floor and shatters in one piercing, staccato second. Heads turn, but quickly lose interest. A waiter kneels to brush the glass shards into a plastic dustpan, and I move away as quickly as possible.
I spot Vivienne, Mark’s wife, Skylar, and Harry walking to us, presumably tipped off to Mark’s location by the shattering glass. Vivienne wears a holiday-red pencil dress, and I can feel her eagerness for MD face time from here. She leads the pack to join us.
“Mark, what a pleasure,” Vivienne chirps. “What a coincidence I ran into Mary.”
Mary—Mark’s wife—kisses me hello on the cheek. Skylar hugs me next, close and comfortably, as if our relationship is completely unstrained. She feels warm and smells like sandalwood. Her friendliness is borderline convincing, and for a moment, I think how easy it would be to submit to her expectations, travel the country, and preach her virtues. Then, I remember the strips. Skylar releases me and shines the light of her smile back to Mary.
“Mark, you have to meet Skylar,” Mary says. “She is an amazing yoga teacher. She teaches Dan Glasgow. I was telling her how much we love Dan.” She faces Skylar. “He’s a great doubles partner.”
“Mark Swift,” he introduces himself.
They shake hands.
“Mark and I try to do yoga a couple times a month,” Mary says. “You always leave just feeling so clear. You don’t think about what you have to do at all.” She snaps her fingers to illustrate her to-do list dissipating. As a public aside to Mark, she adds, “I told her we’d love to work with her. She can come to the studio in our Greenwich house.”
“Oh, I love yoga,” Vivienne says.
“Skylar has booked ten clients since we got here,” Harry says. He puffs his chest as if he is her proud boyfriend, and her success is their success. “I was telling her, we must be like fish in a barrel. She’s closing deals left and right.”
Mark is visibly uncomfortable.
“We do have a lot of friends you could work with,” Mary says. She laughs ashamedly, like she just told a sex joke at a garden party, covering her mouth with her manicured hand. “I’ll mention your name.”
“I’d love to take a class,” Vivienne says.
I gaze curiously at Skylar. She flips her blond hair over into an extreme side part, revealing the intricate web of ink strokes in her karma tattoo. I fit the pieces together: Skylar reached out to me right after reading that I work at Anderson Shaw. She invited herself on an office tour where she introduced herself to my coworkers. “Skylar Smi
th from SkylarSmithYoga,” she told them. “If you have friends interested in the practice, here or at another firm . . .” Now here she is, chatting up bankers at our holiday party.
And this hasn’t been her first introduction to Wall Street types, either. She teaches Dan Glasgow. I’m almost positive she orchestrated the turnout at Yoga Cyclone, which means she had the banking connections to pull those strings, too. She taught Lucy. It hits me: This line of work is chock-full of people looking to spend serious money to make themselves less miserable. She is literally surrounded by rich people who feel unfulfilled, and she is here to pitch. She is her own CIM.
Tripp enters our group with the mentalist.
“These people,” Tripp announces in a faux aside to the mentalist, “need to see you.” He turns to us. “Have you ever seen a mentalist before?”
Vivienne shakes her head no.
“It’s unreal,” Tripp says.
“Phenomenal,” Vivienne says.
Are these two suck-ups going to carry the entire conversation by themselves? As our circle faces the mentalist, I keep my eyes on Skylar.
“Can I talk to you?” I ask. “Alone?”
“Now?” Skylar asks.
“That’s rude,” Harry says snidely.
“Well, she is my student,” Skylar says to him.
“No, I’m not,” I assert.
Skylar laughs as if I’ve just told a joke. The mentalist waves his arms in a distracting, elaborate gesture, presumably to signal the end of a trick. Tripp makes a yeow noise. Mary claps excitedly.
Breathe In, Cash Out Page 20