by Edward Vilga
I retreat to adjust the sound system. I whipped together a generic yoga mix on my iPod this afternoon. I now wish I had been paying more attention to Marguerite’s stereo instructions. There are all sorts of “in studio” controls and levels to fiddle with, and yet no sound’s coming out.
A Very Slinky Brunette sashays toward me. “Are you the new teacher?” I smile and nod. “I just wanted to let you know that my right wrist is a little sore. I went rock climbing this weekend,” she continues.
I manufacture a look that tries to convey, “I’m concerned but informed,” but frankly, I’m not sure what to say. Does she want me to modify poses? Is this just an excuse to talk to the teacher? Is it too forward to ask for her number? Instead, I strive for something generic and comforting, something unobjectionable.
“Do what you can. Don’t push it. Focus on the breath.” She nods as though I’ve said something original and insightful, and a smile returns to her face.
Another woman—a classic Park Avenue matron-type—approaches me to say this is her third yoga class, then asks do I think she’ll be okay in it? I’m about to reply that “you’re way ahead of me; this is my first,” but think the better of the quip. It probably won’t help me cultivate the illusion of authority I assume I should try to instill. Instead, I welcome her and repeat exactly what I told Slinky Brunette Rock Climber: “Do what you can. Don’t push it. Focus on the breath.” (Perhaps I should have cards printed out, good for any and all yoga occasions: “Do what you can. Don’t push it. Focus on the breath.”)
There are a lot of last-minute entrances to the class. People are all very, very anxious about getting their hit of serenity ASAP. The energy is more like the scrambling for bargains at a Barneys Warehouse sale. It’s by no means “a sacred space.” In fact, this room at Epitome will be used for seven different classes during the course of the day. The one right before me was “Amazing Abs, Butts, and Thighs”—no doubt attended by Serious and Diamond Cleavage between massages—and “Cardio Funk Blastoff” comes right after. Except now I can’t figure out how to get any sound out of the system despite flipping every switch on and off a few times. Looking up at the large clock, I notice that it’s time to begin. One of the latecomers—a very buff, definitely gay guy in an Epitome tank top—takes pity on me. “Both of these have to be on,” he explains, indicating two buttons I’ve been fumbling with in various ineffective combinations.
I’m about to introduce myself and thank him, but since I’ve cranked the volume way too high in my previous, failed stereo fiddling, when I press the buttons as directed, the music blasts into the room. I quickly adjust the volume.
Despite the students still drifting in, I realize I have to start. I introduce myself briefly and invite everyone to close their eyes and observe their breathing.
I find myself looking out at the thirty or so students in the room, utterly distracted. Some are dangerously fit women who might give my own yoga practice a run for its money; others are clearly total beginners. Suddenly, I realize I have no idea what I’m doing or how this is going to work, but since I can’t keep them sitting there silently forever, I decide it’s as good as time as any to start Om-ing, hoping it’s not too spiritual, but not really caring. Frankly, I need the Om to center myself. The clock is ticking, and judging from my own class’s frenzied arrival, God knows I can’t run a minute over or fans of Cardio-Funk Blastoff will ramrod the door.
With the first real physical direction I give to the class—they’re in Downward Dog as I say, “Lift your right foot up to the sky”—I am utterly astonished that everyone complies in unison. Frankly, I feel a slight rush of power as it happens, followed an instant later by a wave of fear: they are actually listening to me, awaiting my direction.
The class proceeds, but I’m flailing around more and more. We move through some basic up-and-down Sun Salute motions, and more than once I forget which side I’ve done, right or left. I assume I guess correctly, or else no one bothers to contradict me.
When I glance up at the clock again, I realize my timing is wildly off. I’m taking way too long on some poses and forgetting others, and we’re not where we should be according to my plan. Maybe no one cares, though. I can’t tell because everyone looks unhappy—but again, maybe that’s good. Gigi always encourages her students to smile, relax their faces, and even to laugh while practicing. Either it’s me or it’s the crowd here, but all these ladies look like they’re in agony, enduring the most cruel physical-fitness humiliations for some obscure, sadistic end. But then again, especially knowing the way chicks are, maybe that’s exactly what they want. (By the way, the super-buff gay Epitome guy is the only man in the room besides me.)
In Corpse Pose, I make a point of working the room to give each student a hands-on adjustment, just like Gigi did for me. Admittedly, the last students I touch receive the barest of an assist, more like a gesture toward one. Eyeing the clock, I redirect everyone from rest back up to sitting so that we can complete with three Oms together. True to form, I end smack-dab on time. Sadly, my greatest skill as a teacher seems to be punctuality.
Before the last breath of the final Om evaporates, Gay Muscle Guy has leapt to the front of the room, plugged in his iPod, and Donna Summer’s “Hot Stuff” floods its way into the room. Cardio Funk Blastoff has already begun.
I approach Cardio Funk to thank him—his name is Gary (I know this because Gary-fan after Gary-fan greets him)—but after flashing me a huge come-hither smile, he’s already confidently barking out directions for students to pick up hand weights and other mysterious props.
My class strolls out to the strains of amped up Donna Summer disco. Some of the ladies half smile at me and thank me for the class. It feels like a polite acknowledgment that’s only necessary because I’m retrieving my things near the doorway and they have to pass me by. I feel pathetic, like I’ve set myself up in a receiving line for a wedding that everyone knows is a bad match.
As I hit the Upper East Side street outside Epitome, Slinky Brunette, the one with the rock-climbing wrist injury, looks up and smiles at me. She’s trying to hail a cab; it’s still rush hour and the snow is starting to come down.
“Thanks for class,” she says. I want to wince. In the elevator ride down, I’ve remembered another dozen or so errors, omissions, and misjudgments. I forgot arm balances, forward bends, and even twisting after backbending. The more I think about it, the more I realize that technically, the class was a disaster.
“You’re welcome … It’ll get better.”
“I’m sorry?” She looks puzzled.
“It was my first class. It’s going to get better. I promise.”
“Oh, really. I thought it was very nice.”
I want my class to be like Gigi’s are: amazing, inspiring, life changing. “Nice?” Screw that—I was going for “Awesome.” Nothing stings an Alpha male worse than “nice.”
“I mean it. It was very sweet.”
Okay … this is a new low. “Sweet” is definitely worse than “nice.”
Slinky’s trying to be helpful, I know, but she has no understanding of a competitive male’s psyche. I don’t want reassurance right now, when I know what I did sucked. I just want a drink. And, come to think of it—I want one with her.
As if reading my mind, just as a cab pulls up, Slinky demurs, “Maybe we could grab a coffee?”
Out of nowhere, from the underdeveloped—make that never-used—portion of my brain devoted to impulse control, however, I find myself responding with, “Maybe some other time.”
Can this be? Or more specifically, can this be me? Am I, in fact, postponing pleasure? Hutch would be horrified.
On the other hand, maybe Hutch wouldn’t feel that way. Maybe he’d be proud of me, that I’m not screwing up this situation yet—wait, more positive thinking, that I’m not going to fuck up this situation period.
Slinky’s vulnerable look weakens me a bit, but for better or worse, the moment lends itself t
o the easy choreography of departure. Quite literally, the meter is running. Inordinately proud of myself, I hold the door open for Slinky, gently shutting it after her. And as she heads off into the flurries, I make my way toward the subway to slither myself home.
Chapter 9
It’s the usual Saturday night scene. I meet up with Hutch around midnight at an upscale Chelsea joint where he’s sitting with a flock of folks I know pretty well. I note that they are overdoing the whole velvet rope thing—I know the doorman so it’s cool—but whenever I check out the reviews online, folks are pissed by the exclusivity in a way that I think detracts from the place’s reputation.
Inside, I do dig the vibe, though. The exclusivity has its advantages in terms of breathing room. I make some notes on the hipster/retro décor and conclude that I’m liking the staged intimacy here, more or less
“Dude, you know Janek, right?”
I’ve met Janek a couple of times before, hanging out in situations exactly like these. I’ve always thought he was a pretty cool guy, with an amazing apartment, a lot of cash, and an awesomely beautiful, one-name model girlfriend. Sadly, her one name always escapes me. She reintroduces herself, however, and I think it sounds like “Symphony,” but I remember I made that mistake last time as well. “It’s Synnove,” Janek offers. She tells me it means “Sun Gift” in Old Norse, as though that’s going to be a helpful mnemonic.
Janek’s around my age—still on the good side of thirty—but loaded. Unlike me, he’s a total success story, a testament to hard work and making the American dream come true.
Janek was born in Slovakia—or at least I think so; all those countries totally blend in my mind—and a few years before the Velvet Revolution, and when he was just shy of fifteen years old, he immigrated to the United States. The kid had balls apparently, leaving behind the dregs of his remaining family and a completely non-upwardly mobile farm life. While I was dreaming of getting my driver’s license, he was busy coming to a new country where he knew no one, having only some nebulous cousins to look up. To hear Hutch tell it, Janek pretty much threw himself on the doorsteps of his closest American relatives, offering to work his ass off in exchange for housing in the great land of American Idol and Survivor. His fourth cousins—a middle-aged divorced couple who still worked together every day at the low-end furniture store they owned in Queens—took him in. The divorcees would spend the day together, their bickering set at simmer, and then retire each night to their apartments in different boroughs. Somehow, taking in a distant stray cousin into such a garbled extended family made sense.
Massively hardworking, Janek also charmed them with his charisma and good looks. Urban legend has it that at one point he was even approached to model by Bruce Weber for Abercrombie and Fitch, but when Janek found out the dismal salaries most male mannequins make, he intensified his commitment to business.
Janek resurrected his extended family’s dowdy furniture chain, which consisted of stores littered through Queens, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, and then started an upscale Manhattan branch. In the same way that Calvin Klein made his completely uncool, nerdy name synonymous with understated, upscale elegance, Janek turned Zilinikov Furniture into something mysterious and classy. A dozen years later, Janek’s the president of the whole enterprise. Hip pad, tons of loot, supermodel girlfriend … frankly, there’s nothing about Janek that’s not enviable. The dude would be easy to totally player-hate, except Hutch swears he’s a really cool guy, and since I’ve never had a round of drinks with him that he (or Hutch) hasn’t bought, my mind is open.
FYI, I’ve brought Heidi along with me and she’s still wearing pigtails—apparently it’s her signature style—and things are heating up between us. I’m not one for the whole “dinner and a movie” thing, but I figured this group event counts as seduction as long as we spend enough “quality time” together. Before tonight, I spent about fifteen minutes chatting over bullshit the night we met, followed up by a twenty-minute phone call two days later and a second call to arrange this night. Summary of time expenditure to date: forty-five minutes. I know it makes me sound mercenary, but gauging the level of our bonding now, I’m thinking that an additional hour and change translates to getting laid tonight
Don’t get me wrong, I am deeply interested in “getting physical” with Heidi (aka “nailing her”) and yet …
Somehow, I’m also feeling a little less carefree about this than I usually do. Maybe because I’m suddenly defining myself as a “yoga teacher,” I weirdly feel like I’ve got this new standard to uphold. It’s as though I’m contemplating running for office despite having a lot of secret vices.
Our evening proceeds as usual until there’s a moment when the ladies depart en masse to the bathroom and Janek and I actually get into a conversation.
“So I hear you’re not doing the whole club/restaurant scene any more, right?”
“Yup. Learned my lesson.”
“Yeah, it’s a very risky business. Very unstable. I don’t blame you.”
It’s refreshing to know that there’s at least one person in New York City who doesn’t blame me for something.
Janek continues, “Hutch tells me that you’re teaching yoga these days. My trainer really thinks I should do yoga. Thinks it would be good for my lower back especially. It goes out a couple times a year.”
I don’t have to sell Janek at all—he’s clearly decided to try yoga even before Hutch’s plug about my teaching—and we set up a lesson on Monday morning. Client number four, Hutch later reminds me, as we clink shot glasses together—all thanks to him.
This is unquestionably a good thing, but I realize that something feels a bit off. With my three current clients (and my Epitome students), I am basically a blank slate. None of them know anything about me, thankfully, beyond my (entirely projected) guru status. Not so with Janek. Janek, although he’s not a particularly close friend, totally has my number. But let’s be honest: it doesn’t take much to figure me out.
As you might have predicted, I’m ecstatic when, after a night of shagging, Heidi leaves midmorning on Sunday to join her friends—at a knitting club or reading group or something she does regularly that involves brunch and ladies. I sleep the rest of Sunday away, but Monday morning arrives nonetheless, cold and empty-handed.
Rather than choosing an Upper East Side address, Janek’s opted for the deluxe Soho pad. It’s funny how much difference a twelve-minute walk can make in one’s environment; in this case, moving from my dingy Chinatown crash pad to the heights of upscale Soho Pseudo-Bohemian Chic. As with my other clients, Janek’s building has only one unit per floor, so when the elevator door opens, you step right inside Janek’s amazing apartment. In the upper stratospheres of wealth, even sharing airspace with someone in your building is too plebeian.
Entering the posh loft, I realize I’ve only been here at night. It’s your classic chick-magnet apartment, demonstrating that the owner’s very rich, has incredible taste, and yet somehow is still laid back and louche. Looking around, I realize it’s maybe even more gorgeous during the day, with light streaming in from huge windows and a set of skylights, endowing it with the spirituality and sexiness of a playboy’s cathedral.
This is exactly how I would live, had I the loot: hardwood floors, open space, everything spare and lean. A stainless steel fantasy kitchen with a floating island, most probably for someone who can’t cook, but fantastic for parties. Frankly, it’s like living in a yoga studio, but with a few pieces of high-end Italian furniture thrown in, and lavish hipster art (beautiful but ironic) covering the huge wall spaces. “Symphony” has an alcove devoted to her framed fashion mag covers. On another wall, there’s a series of vaguely S&M, Helmut Newton-esque black-and-white photos that I think are of her and various “friends” (she’s masked in them, but the legs and butt seem remarkably familiar). They are one arty step away from Penthouse—not the sort of Nice American Girl you bring home to your Slovakian Mamushka—adding to the aura of ups
cale chic.
Janek greets me himself. “Symphony” is off to South Beach for a shoot—Vanity Fair, I think, is the title he tosses off—and so we’ve got the place to ourselves. “Can I get you anything?” Janek asks. Were it not 7 a.m., and were we not meeting to do yoga, Janek would absolutely be offering me a glass of a full-bodied pinot noir. I dismiss this thought, realizing that I must focus on my official identity here as yoga instructor, not my alter ego as someone he was out with until 4 a.m. only twenty-seven hours ago.
“I’m good, thanks,” I say. “Let’s get started.”
Janek’s ready to go. He’s wearing sweats and a wifebeater, and although this comes as no surprise, his trainer has done a good job conditioning the lean, strong body that nature gave him. With just him to focus on, I notice more fully that Janek really is a good-looking guy, with thick, unruly dark blonde hair that makes him look more like a soap star then a businessman. He’s unshaven now, which only enhances the effect of upscale dishabille.
I’ve already decided that I’m going to go for broke in establishing my identity as yoga guru—three Oms together, the whole nine yards—as though he were someone I were meeting for the first time.
Janek’s Om-ing is a little hesitant—I suppose it’s a little weird if you’ve never chanted before in your life, and it’s just you and me, two non-monk guys if ever there were ones, stone-cold sober at 7 a.m.—but he’s game nonetheless. Unlike Andrew, I can tell he’s actually focusing on his breath and striving to understand and make all the subtle adjustments I suggest.
The second we start doing poses, however, is when he really comes to life. Although he’s more than a little tight from all the weight lifting, Janek’s in great shape. He responds to every instruction with the right mix of eagerness and competition, one that I understand so well. A natural athlete, aware of his body, he takes pleasure in the experience of moving and challenging it.