“Have you checked your coat?” she asked, as if she were inspired.
Bobby nodded.
“And your suit jacket?” she continued, looking up at him.
He walked back to the closet, all filled with hope—to his gray suit jacket, hanging beside his topcoat in the narrow closet. It was impossible, he knew, but it was a fresh thought, at least. He confirmed they weren’t there.
Susan walked around the room, her eyes ranging high and low, like a pair of headlights on a dusky road.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t see them.”
He thanked her kindly; he meant it too—for stepping in when he needed her. He sat down at his desk again. It was just a set of keys, he supposed, trying to settle himself down. It wasn’t as if Emma would know what doors they unlocked even if she had found them. He knew it was true, but he couldn’t tolerate lapses.
Bobby needed to be vigilant where Emma was concerned.
Susan called in again: “Should I let Emma’s office know?” she asked.
“No!” he called back, startled and loud. “Don’t do that.”
“Well, you’re locked out of the apartment, aren’t you?” she asked, appearing in the doorway again, as if by magic. The emergency seemed to have had a salutary effect on her office etiquette.
“No,” he said, “I’ve got those still”—in something like a normal tone of voice. He watched her looking back at him quizzically. “Don’t worry,” he said, cutting her off before she asked the question that he didn’t want to hear. “I’ll be fine,” he said, nodding his head in brisk dismissal.
Bobby stared at the empty briefcase in front of him.
He remembered emptying his trouser pockets the night before; he remembered pulling out a delivery slip for a turkey sandwich. He’d made sure there was no address on it before he threw it away. I would have remembered a set of keys, he thought—especially with the tension from the dinner swirling all through the apartment, Cassy’s bickering, and Emma stewing just a room away.
He could remember admonishing himself, earlier in the afternoon, as he stood in the peach-colored hallway, the girl across the way locking his apartment up tight: Be careful with those keys, he’d thought.
Still, he couldn’t remember what he’d done with them.
Had the girl kept them, he wondered—the sexy one with the ugly face? He seized on the possibility. Maybe she hadn’t given them back? It was unlikely, he thought, but his only hope.
He remembered the girl and her black go-go boots, her tight red coat and piercing stare.
Why couldn’t he remember the one thing he needed to?
Bobby snatched up his briefcase and his blue overcoat. “Good night,” he said, walking past Susan a little too fast, straight down the hall to the elevator landing.
“Don’t stay too late,” he said, the way he always did, but it sounded like an afterthought. He was busy pushing an arm through the sleeve of his navy coat, willing the elevator to arrive on the spot. He needed to get to the girl across the hall. He jumped into the elevator as soon as it came, pressing buttons right and left—lobby, door close, lobby, door close—his right sleeve dangling down behind him. He transferred the useless briefcase to his free hand, its zipped compartment as empty as his pockets. He finished putting on his coat and buttoned it up tight.
I’m sure I put them back, he thought.
When the elevator doors opened again, Bobby rushed through the lobby, just like everyone else in the world, hurrying to find that very first cab; he was heading uptown before he knew it.
Where could they be? he wondered.
Twenty minutes later, he walked into the secret building, straight to the elevator and onto his floor. He ran his hand tenderly over his beige metal door—no means of entry, but a foolish hope in his heart. She probably wouldn’t be home from work yet. Bobby knocked on her door.
The girl answered it right away, just as fast as she did everything else—whipping it open as if a fierce wind were blowing through. She looked like a NASCAR racer that afternoon, in a short leather jacket with colorful patches and tight black leggings underneath.
“You’re here!” he cried, so happy to see her. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but I was—”
“Oh, my God,” she interrupted—talking loud and fast, trampling over his every word—past his early jubilation and his polite apology too. “What was Emma Fucking Sutton doing here today?” That was the only thing she wanted to know.
Bobby dropped his chin to chest.
He supposed he’d known all along. He was sure he’d put those keys back. So that’s the end of that, he thought, closing his eyes for just a second. The hallway was quiet, but Bobby heard a riot of noise: the ticking of fluorescence overhead, and the water whooshing through pipes in the walls; he heard the girl breathing right in front of him, and his own heart beating, steady and slow.
He heard Emma in every decibel.
This time you’ve gone too far, he thought.
MELORA FLOATED HER ARMS UP INTO THE AIR—AS long and light as two helium balloons, touching palm to palm above her head, in perfect time with a long, deep breath.
Benjamin looked on in wonder.
They were facing each other in the open room, his own bare feet not twelve inches from hers. Then she dropped her arms in a slow, sweeping arc, her hands carving the open air, and bent forward at the waist like a pocketknife—a silvery blade retracting back to its sheath. She touched the top of her head right onto the floor, and placed her forearms flat as any stony sphinx.
It was a yoga class, for couples: Monday night at six o’clock.
Benjamin was meant to be doing the same, but he froze as he watched his girlfriend perform: her movements as smooth as a clock’s second hand, ticking past each minute mark, no faster—or slower—than the one before.
I can’t compete with that, he thought, lifting his arms halfheartedly up and bending over as far as he could go—which turned out to be not very far at all. His head hung down like a bunch of grapes.
He felt lucky to reach the floor with his fingertips.
It’s not a competition, he reminded himself, as he often did on the brink of loss. Benjamin felt plenty competitive though: there was a teacher there, after all.
He strained his fingers farther down.
“Now melt deeper,” the teacher called, in a soft monotone, that breathy voice that’s used for reporting dreams to friends. He was a rough-looking man with tattoos running down his naked arms.
That voice didn’t suit him at all.
There were pairs of men and women scattered all around the room—eight couples, he counted, plus the pair of women at the back who couldn’t keep their hands to themselves.
Benjamin was having a rough time. He couldn’t stop his whirring mind or concentrate on the poses at hand. His thoughts hopped from place to place like a grasshopper in a bed of Boston ivy, leaping high and covering improbable distances: from the rough confrontation with Tina Santiago at school, to Emma’s squabble with her daughter the night before, then on to the rent that would be due in fifteen days. He had no idea where his thoughts might land.
“And deeper,” the teacher purred.
Benjamin heard the sound of wings beating.
It was coming from the stereo: no music or lyrics, just the sound of beating wings, and an occasional bird cawing in the distance. He rolled his eyes, but he didn’t bother with that sound track for long. The teacher was roaming all through the room, doling out little compliments and complaints. Benjamin strained to hear them all, like a boy with a drinking glass pressed up against the door. He made sure he knew the recipients too, begrudging every last one of them. Every word of encouragement to someone else was one less word of praise in the world, one fewer that he might win for himself. He knew it didn’t make any rational sense, but resources were finite, in Benjamin’s experience, and the world had a way of being miserly.
But in a yoga class even? he wondered.
&nbs
p; There was just no avoiding himself, sometimes.
“That’s beautiful, Melora,” the teacher called, wandering over to their side of the room. It was only fair, he supposed. A blind man could see how good she was. Benjamin felt a little aggrieved all the same, longing for a word of praise himself, but the rough-looking man didn’t have one to spare.
The birds don’t caw for me here, he thought, sneering past his hurt feelings. He muscled his fingers farther down, until he felt a strain slicing through his lower back. He pushed straight through it—for as long as the teacher was in sight anyway. There was very little Benjamin wouldn’t have done for the attention of that tattooed man. It was all he ever wanted really: for the person in charge to approve. He looked up from his stretch to find the man. It crimped his neck looking up like that, and made his back feel even worse. He watched the teacher walking away, his own heart sinking in perfect time.
“Why didn’t you return my calls?” Melora whispered, breaking free of her perfect pose for just long enough to catch Benjamin’s eye, then returning to it as effortlessly as before, as if laying her head and feet on the very same plane was her preferred posture.
She might have bent down deeper still.
“I told you I was busy,” he replied, whispering back.
He heard the ice in his voice. Benjamin was annoyed with her for making him come to this yoga class.
“Remember to breathe,” the teacher called.
In fairness, of course, he knew that Melora hadn’t made him do anything. She’d only asked him if he wanted to come, but to Benjamin, it came down to the same thing.
It does, he thought, if I want to please her.
So he didn’t return either of her calls—in a silent blaze of annoyance—then met her at the yoga studio at quarter to six.
“Listen for the sound of your breath,” the teacher told them.
It was called Ujjayi breathing. Benjamin closed his mouth and breathed through his nose. He heard the raspy commotion at the back of his throat. It sounded like the sea, he thought, like the peaceful roar of distant waves. He could feel himself floating off—listening to the sound of his breath, nothing but that.
What if I did this always? he wondered.
He began to settle down, his heart beating slower with every breath.
“You’re obviously upset about something,” Melora hissed.
A bird squawked loudly on the stereo.
So much for seaside breathing, he thought. Benjamin wished she could be quiet. None of the other couples was making a peep.
“Now place your hands on the floor and kick back to Plank,” the instructor called. “Gently, please. Beginners, walk back.”
Benjamin was a beginner; there was no doubt about that. He felt a little stab of shame. He heard his classmates jumping their legs back behind them, landing heavily on the floor like so many sacks of potatoes. He knew they hadn’t done it right, but he envied them all the same. Benjamin had to scuttle his own legs back: He didn’t know how to jump. Still, he made his back as straight as a board—that plank of wood they were meant to emulate.
Just the beginning of a push-up, he thought.
He heard the teacher moving close. Benjamin locked his arms in place. The man stood above him, straddling his hips: “Just a little higher,” the teacher whispered, lifting Benjamin’s midsection from above. “Now relax your neck,” he said, rubbing it gently, “and keep on breathing.”
Benjamin exaggerated the sound of the sea.
He kept his stomach high and his neck down low. He tried so hard to keep it all straight.
“Very nice,” the teacher said.
Benjamin felt a flush of pride.
See, he thought, that’s all it takes. But he knew better than that: that’s what it took, in fact, twenty-four hours a day. He was ever vigilant for that mumble of approval—hungry for it all day long—from Dick Spooner Monday to Friday, and Emma all weekend long. He turned to strangers in yoga rooms when no one better was around.
“Did you not want to come tonight?” Melora asked him.
The teacher had barely walked away, and here she was, ruining his moment in the sun.
Benjamin shushed her.
He knew he ought to stand up for himself, tell her that he didn’t like yoga under the best of circumstances, much less after a long day at school. He felt his arms trembling as he clung to his push-up pose.
It didn’t look as if it was taking Melora any effort at all.
Benjamin was reticent about speaking up. He’d always been extremely talented at figuring out what other people wanted, and frightened at the prospect of not giving it to them. That was his source of value in the world, he supposed—his utility.
The smallest lapse might cause a terrible rift.
“Now fold your left leg under your body,” the teacher called, in his hushed voice, “as you lower yourself into Pigeon pose.”
Benjamin hated this one. He bent his knee and jerked his ankle beneath his hips. When his leg was nearly in place, he began to lower his body down. He felt a searing pain spread through his buttocks and back.
“Remember to breathe,” the teacher called.
Benjamin tried to, but his back and shoulders were too seized up for that. He flexed every muscle in his body instead, as if he might will himself straight through the pain. He was sweating profusely, and panicked that this moment would never end.
I can’t, he thought finally, cheating his left leg lower down.
The pain subsided, and the sweating too; his leg was scarcely bent at all.
He looked over at Melora, folded into a compact little shape. More like a bug, he thought, than any kind of pigeon. She looked back at him, a question mark all over her face.
“I hate this,” he said, surprising himself.
“What?” she asked.
“I hate yoga,” he told her—from the bottom of his heart—“and I hate this couples class even more.”
She smiled back at him.
“I’m serious,” he said, resting his head onto folded arms. He was exhausted already, only twenty minutes in.
“I believe you,” she replied.
It gave him a thrill to be so difficult. He waited for the fallout.
“Will you two be quiet, please?” It was the woman next to them. Her “please” didn’t sound sincere at all.
“Let’s get out of here,” he said, with authority to spare. Their pissy neighbor was the very last straw.
Melora unfolded herself from her perfect pose and stood up just as gracefully as she did everything else. “Okay,” she said.
Benjamin rolled up their yoga mats and walked to the door, with a fleeting glance at the yoga teacher. He couldn’t help it. The two of them started down the narrow hallway, back to the lockers at the very end.
He supposed she’d be annoyed with him. “I’m sorry,” he said. He really was.
“For what?” she asked. Melora didn’t seem upset in the least.
“Leaving class,” he replied.
“It’s fine with me,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
Shouldn’t she be upset? he wondered.
Benjamin felt confused. It was one of the extraordinary things about working so hard to please people, failing so rarely: he was always much more frightened of the consequences than he needed to be—as if the mountains might crumble down to the sea because of an aborted yoga class.
Melora didn’t even care.
They kept walking down the hallway. Benjamin looked into an open classroom, at a bunch of women with babies in their arms.
“What’s that?” he asked.
Melora peeked in. “It’s new,” she told him. “It’s called Mommy and Me—a class for newborns.”
“But they’re just babies,” he said. “They can’t do anything.”
Melora shrugged her shoulders. “It’s very popular.”
“They can’t even sit up,” he said, brimming over with frustration.
There couldn’t be anyth
ing in it for those babies. It was all for the mothers, he suspected, with a flash of resentment.
“You’re so funny,” Melora said, turning away from the classroom and the women with babies in their arms.
Benjamin looked at her. He wasn’t sure what she meant.
“What are you really upset about?” she asked.
Benjamin looked down at the ground, at his naked feet, so bony and fragile. He felt a bright flash of fear, as if those awful yoga mothers might come barreling out, their beanbag babies in their muscular arms, and trample his feet with their sensible shoes.
Benjamin didn’t know what he was so upset about.
Melora reached out and touched his arm, the cotton sleeve of his sweaty yoga shirt. He thought he felt his eyes welling up.
Water everywhere, he thought.
He tried to locate that seaside breath again, somewhere at the very back of his throat. He needed to stay quiet for a minute. He was sure that the next word out of his mouth would slide into a sob.
They walked in silence to the locker rooms: the men’s on the left side, the women’s on the right.
“Are you taking a shower?” she asked.
“Is this working?” Benjamin blurted back, looking straight into Melora’s bright blue eyes.
“Is what working?” she asked him.
“This,” he said, moving his index finger back and forth between them. “Us.” He was more surprised than when he told her he wanted to leave the yoga class.
He hadn’t meant to say anything so big.
“What do you think?” Melora asked softly.
She didn’t sound upset at all.
Unfortunately, Benjamin didn’t have the vaguest idea. It was why he’d asked her: he didn’t begin to know himself. He was so busy trying to make her happy that he hadn’t a clue whether their relationship was working for him.
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