Tales from the Yoga Studio

by Rain Mitchell

  Dear Mr. Ross

  1. Nice weather we’ve been having, eh? 2. My bike got stolen from in front of the yoga studio. Boo hoo. 3. I watched Casablanca on TV the other night and had a good long cry. 4. There are a lot of things in my past I wish I could change but I can’t. I’m just trying to make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again. 5. The sun is coming up and there’s a little orange glow on the horizon, and to tell you the truth, Mr. Ross, I would do almost anything you could name to have you here with me right now.

  Brodski

  Now, now, now, before the sun comes up and all that light starts flooding in. She hits the “send” button and goes to make coffee.

  Sinew and Fireplug made it clear, to the point of being insulting, that it’s an honor to be invited to Zhannette and Frank’s house in Laurel Canyon. After a while, Lee began to feel that the two men were crazily jealous that Lee and Alan—unworthy newcomers—had received an invitation. They usually don’t invite teachers out to their place. None of the employees gets a personal invite.

  “You’re just picking on nothing,” Alan says. “Probably because you’re a nervous wreck about meeting them.”

  There’s something about the term “nervous wreck” that Lee finds insulting, especially since it’s clear that Alan is the one who’s anxious about this meeting. He spent half an hour trying to figure out what to wear, he has been scratching his neck a lot, and he’s even been ignoring the chirping sound his phone makes when he gets a text message, something that’s been happening about every ten minutes since he came by the house to pick up Lee and the kids. Apparently his friend Benjamin wasn’t happy when Alan told him he was moving back home in two weeks, especially since Benjamin kicked out one of his roommates to make space for Alan. They’re driving the kids to the studio, dropping them off with Barrett, and then continuing on to Laurel Canyon. The kids are strapped into the backseat, and they have the windows down and the air conditioner on. Wasteful and not very green, but one of those indulgences Lee allows herself from time to time, especially when Alan is so stressed.

  “Just remember, no matter how rich and successful they are, they’re just people.”

  “I didn’t think they were deities,” Lee says.

  “Jesus Christ, Lee. Can you try to curb the irony for maybe one hour? I know you’re a bundle of nerves, but come on. Don’t try and get me upset, too.”

  Lee wants to correct him and point out that she’s not a “bundle of nerves,” she’s a “nervous wreck,” but better just to change the subject. Chirp. Another text message.

  “How many messages is he sending?” Lee asks.

  “He’s nuts. I told him it was temporary lodging. I never even implied to him, or anyone, that we were getting a divorce. People are so fucking conventional, as if taking a little breather means some big thing.”

  There’s something disturbing about this comment, but Lee lets it go. Let it go, let it go, let it go. Just move forward.

  “You kids looking forward to the class?” she asks.

  This starts Michael and Marcus on their new favorite pastime, which is competitive chanting of “om” to see who can be the loudest. It can be irritating, but it’s cute, too, and it’s certainly a lot better than the pushing and shoving and swatting each other they were into before they started practicing. When they get close to an intolerable volume, Lee joins in, as if they’re all singing together, and then Alan adds his best rolling bass. Okay, she thinks, nothing’s perfect. But at moments like this, we’re at least a happy little family. If she has to close the studio for this, so be it. In the end, this is more important.

  As they’re about to walk into the studio, Lee takes Alan’s hand and kisses him. “I’m not a nervous wreck when you’re around,” she says.

  He leans his shoulder against hers and says, “Lend me a little of that calm, then. I’m tense.”

  Barrett is sitting behind the registration desk scribbling on a piece of paper with one hand and, with the other, doing something with her BlackBerry. Like everyone else, she’s been a little grumpy and uncommunicative, and in truth, Lee can’t say she blames her. She expected there would be a lot of this once word got out. Lee’s been doing her best to find places for everyone, and last night she sent an e-mail to Barrett telling her it looked about ninety percent sure that the school system was going to hire her to teach yoga to the kids, three times a week, as part of the physical ed classes. It’s a little bit of a shock that she didn’t respond. She doesn’t even look up when they walk into the studio.

  The kids rush behind the desk, and Alan, iPhone in hand, walks through the glass doors into the yoga room.

  “Ready for chaos?” Lee asks, nodding toward the kids.

  Barrett shrugs. “Whatever.”

  “Did you get the e-mail I sent you last night?”

  “Yeah, I got it. Thanks.”

  “You know, I really worked hard to make that happen, Barrett. It wasn’t easy. It’s going to be great for the whole school, but it’s going to be a good thing for you, too.”

  “I just said thank you.”

  “I know you did, but it might sound a little more sincere if you’d look at me when you say it.”

  Now Barrett’s phone is chirping, too. Someone ought to do a psychological analysis of the world’s most annoying ring tones and cell phone signals and how people choose the ones they choose. Barrett checks her message and then does look at Lee, right in the eyes. “Thank you,” she says. She grabs the pad of paper she’s been scribbling on and stomps out to the sidewalk.

  “Mood alert! Mood alert!” Michael and Marcus chant, echoing the phrase Lee and Alan having been using around the house for years.

  Lee goes behind the desk to check the computer. There’s that chirp again! Is she hearing things? No, Barrett walked out without her phone and it’s sitting on the desk chirping and blinking. Lee moves it to the far end of the desk, and in doing so she notices that it has an alert for an incoming text message.

  From Alan.

  Interesting.

  Zhannette and Frank’s house is one of those miracles of modern architecture clinging to the side of a hill in Laurel Canyon. From the street, it looks almost like a little glass box that would be too thin to stand up in. Obviously an optical illusion. But even from below and even though there are other houses around it, it exudes some feeling of peace and balance, both things Lee is feeling the need for right now.

  Alan chatted pretty much the whole drive out here about some changes he wants to make on their house—basically: install a home gym in the basement, a career investment since he’s planning to start auditioning for performing gigs in a more active and aggressive way once they get the monkey of Edendale off their backs and a little more money in their joint account. He didn’t seem to notice that she was saying pretty much nothing the whole way. In fact, Lee felt a strange and welcome kind of peace come over her as soon as she got into the car with Alan and started to mull over what she’d seen. And what she’d seen—and all that she’d seen—was Barrett’s BlackBerry indicating that she’d received a text message from Alan. Lee has received text messages from Barrett on many occasions, hasn’t she? Wouldn’t it be dangerous to leap to assumptions and make accusations? Yes, it would be.

  “Is this amazing or what?” Alan says, looking up at the house reverently.

  “I’d have to have curtains,” Lee says.

  “They probably don’t have anything to hide.”

  “Everyone’s got something to hide, Alan.”

  They climb up the steep steps and are met at the top by a slim man with a blond crew cut. Definitely a yoga fanatic, Lee can tell by the build, and definitely a fanatic in some other ways, she can tell by the too bright, unblinking gaze. “You must be Lee and Alan,” he says, hand out. “I’m James. Zhannette and Frank are very eager to meet you. They’ve been waiting.”

  “Are we late?” Alan asks.

  James makes an amused frown. “You’re seven minutes late, Alan. Hardly worth m
entioning. Don’t even think about it. They know you wouldn’t be even a minute late for classes.”

  “Traffic,” Alan says.

  James lays a hand on Alan’s arm and his gaze grows even more intense. “Don’t even think about it, all right?”

  Lee takes a small measure of comfort in knowing that she is not responsible for this horrible seven-minute faux pas. There’s also something about the treatment they’re receiving that makes it clear, in case there was any doubt, that this is a business meeting more than a social call. When was the last time Lee called out any guest for being a few minutes late? For being late, period?

  The first thing Lee notices about the inside of the house is that it’s the most perfect temperature she’s ever felt. There must be a sophisticated climate control in here that regulates the temperature and the humidity and the ions. Maybe the scent as well; there’s a fragrance in the air, like roses, but lighter. And there are soft sounds, too, something between wind chimes and the chirping of distant birds. Even in her less-than-spectacular frame of mind, Lee feels calmed and reassured by the atmosphere.

  The house is so clean, all the marble and polished wood floors gleaming, and so minimally furnished, that it’s a little hard to believe anyone lives here. From inside, it’s clear that the gardens have been so lushly and amply planted, there’s no need for curtains. It feels a little like a terrarium, but there’s such a flow from inside to out, it’s hard to tell if you’re inside the terrarium or outside looking into it.

  The living room juts out at the back of the house like the prow of a ship, and, sitting at the far end of it, with the milky white sky behind them, are Zhannette and Frank. They’re sitting on invisible chairs that must be made of Lucite, so they appear to be floating in this room, which is itself floating.

  They stand in unison and come forward to greet Lee and Alan. Given the buildup, the reputation, the house, the names, and the smell of roses in the air, Lee was expecting two lithe gurus in white robes. What a surprise then that Frank is a perfectly ordinary-looking man, probably in his late fifties, wearing a pair of jeans and a V-necked sweater with nothing underneath. There’s some graying chest hair sticking out the neckline, and the suggestion of a gut above his cinched belt.

  Zhannette is one of those extremely well-put-together women who looks as if every inch of her body is pampered and preserved by expensive treatments—soft hair, a lovely complexion, perfect nails. But there’s something about her features and the shape of her face and body—a little chunky and fleshy—that suggest she wasn’t born into this wealth. She could be fifty, but who knows? She has on a pair of jeans and a white shirt that appears to be one of those six-hundred-dollar knockoffs of a man’s business shirt. Everything about her looks clean, and you can tell she’s covered in a thin layer of an expensive and lightly scented moisturizer.

  She puts her hands in prayer and bows a little to Alan and Lee, as if this is what they expect as a greeting. Really, a handshake would have been fine.

  “You have such a beautiful aura,” she says to Lee. “It’s radiating all around you, like a brilliant evening star in the clear northern sky.”

  Lee supposes she ought to say thank you, but the whole point of the comment seems to be to show Zhannette’s own abilities, not to compliment Lee. “It was warm in the car,” Lee says. “That’s probably what it is.”

  “Isn’t she lovely, Frank? We’re so lucky to have you on board. Both of you. James will bring out some drinks in a minute. Sit.”

  There are four identical S-shaped Lucite chairs, and as Alan begins to sit in one, Frank says, “That’s mine.”

  “Oh. Sorry about that.”

  Frank is one of those preoccupied businessmen who seems to have at least a dozen things he’d rather be doing than this and who views this meeting as an obligation, either to the business or to keep his wife happy. Although something in Zhannette’s appearance suggests to Lee that the antidepressants do the happiness trick on their own pretty effectively.

  “We have been wanting to meet you for so long now,” Zhannette says. “As soon as we heard about your studio, I said to Frank, ‘We have to get these wonderful people.’ I wanted you to know that while you probably felt like you were working in a mine somewhere, you were noticed and that people like us were aware of your existence! I want to know everything about you, Lee. Everything.

  “But first—you’re probably wondering how we got into the spirituality industry. Do you want to tell them, Frank?”

  He folds his arms across his chest, resting them on his little belly. This is apparently sign language for You tell them, so Zhannette continues:

  “About ten years ago, everything came together for us, Lee. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say that we were suddenly among the most admired people in this town. Do you have any idea how difficult that is when it first happens? When money and success thrust one into the stratosphere? I’m just guessing you don’t know what it’s like to be wealthy, Alan, and invited to every A-list party and jetting off to Morocco for ‘someone’s’ birthday party. I know it sounds marvelous to someone like you, Lee, and okay, I’m not going to deny—partly it is marvelous. But the whole truth is always different from what we see on the glittering surface.”

  She clasps her hands and gives another little bow, although it’s not clear who she’s bowing to. Truth? The glittering surface?

  “Back when we were just rich, it was relatively carefree. But when you get into the category we’re in now, Lee, the obligations and the pressures mount exponentially. Just stop and think about it for a minute, Alan: if you had the ability to do whatever you wanted, whatever you wanted to do, how many decisions would you have to make on a minute-to-minute basis? Dozens? Try hundreds, Alan. Think about that.

  “But you know what, Lee? I have always faced adversity head-on. I have never been one to let a crisis like this roll over me and pull me under. So many of the megarich are swept away by the difficulty of their positions, just like those unfortunate little people who were pulled out to sea by the tsunami.”

  James arrives with a glass tray of juice and clear bowls with colorful fruits heaped up in them. He sets it on a glass table beside Zhannette, but she doesn’t acknowledge it or James, a shame really, since Lee is dying of thirst and didn’t have much for lunch.

  “So I began meditating. And from the minute I first went into a deep meditative state—and I had a real talent for it—I saw the path in front of me. Can I tell you how I view you, Lee? I don’t want to embarrass you—I know how modest you are, I can read it in your beautiful aura—but I know I can be honest with you.

  “You are a work of art. No, really, you are. And you are, too, Alan.” She reaches out and takes both their hands. “And when you think about it, it’s always been up to the wealthy and privileged people of the world to buy art so that it can be protected and made available to everyone. So that’s what I began doing, Lee. I began buying the most wonderful, masterful works of art in the world. The truly precious things in the world. Things like you.”

  She drops their hands and signals to James, who, apparently, has been somewhere on the periphery, watching. He appears, and Zhannette says, “If you wouldn’t mind taking this away, dear. I’m not thirsty now. Namaste.” That said, the food and drink disappear.

  “But what do you do with art, Alan? Oh, don’t look worried, I don’t mean you, I mean one. What does one who can afford to acquire art do with it? Well, you either keep it hidden away or you put it in a museum. So that’s where YogaHappens comes in. You see, the Experience Centers are museums. That’s why they’re so gorgeous, Lee. They’re museums, Alan. And I know people like you probably think we have a lot of rules and regulations and such, but when you think about it, doesn’t the Getty? Doesn’t the Prado? Doesn’t the Louvre? How else can all the lovely things they hold, all the wonderful objects on exhibit, be protected from the people they are there for?

  “So now I’ve babbled on here, I know, but I real
ly want you to know where I’m coming from. Some people say—and we hear the rumors, Lee, all the way up here in our cottage and even down in Malibu, where we have our real house—people say: ‘Oh, Zhannette and Frank are taking the best teachers from the little yoga studios.’ Well, number one, we’re not taking anyone, we’re buying them, and number two, if a beautiful, priceless Picasso like you, Lee, or a charming little sketch like you, Alan, were sitting around some moldy old junk shop in the middle of nowhere, wouldn’t you want to rescue them if it was in your power? Wouldn’t it be almost a moral obligation?

  “Aren’t I right, Frank?”

  Frank unclasps his arms. “We’re raising the class fee to thirty-eight dollars next month,” he says.

  “He’s the businessman, Lee. I don’t get involved in that, and you don’t need to, either. That’s the beauty of it. Do you see what I mean, Alan? I envy you being in the position you’re in. No, really, I do. It’s like my dogs. Sometimes I look at them and I think: Aren’t they lucky? The food just appears in their bowls!

  “By the way, my name. Let’s just get that one out of the way, okay? Once I became a Buddhist, Lee, the name Janet just didn’t sound right to me. It was fine for Milwaukee, where I grew up, but I felt like a new person and I wanted a name to suit me. So I was in Paris and all the little women at the couture houses were saying Miss Janet this and Miss Janet that, but, naturally, they pronounce it ‘Zhannette.’ Have you ever been out of the country, Lee? The French speak English so beautifully, even the peasants. So I embraced it and changed the spelling.

  “I really have gone on too long. Please. Do you have any questions, Alan? What about you, Lee? Is there anything you’d like to ask?”

  “Well, in fact, I do have one question,” Lee says. She turns to Alan and says, “You’ve been fucking Barrett, haven’t you?”

  How could you do that to me?” Alan asks.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “In front of Zhannette and Frank! Did you see the looks on their faces? They were so embarrassed they didn’t know what to do.”