Just Breathe

by Janette Paul

  Dee was staring at Howard’s diary but the words were a blur and her nerves were still jittering. Snap out of it, Dee, he needs your help. ‘Okay.’ She shook her head. ‘There’s Lucia, Penny, you and me.’

  ‘What about Pam?’

  ‘I’ve never seen her teach but we’ll need her if Howard’s out all week.’ She remembered the blood and hoped it wasn’t as bad as it looked.

  Leon wrote down the names. ‘And what about tonight?’

  She looked blank for a moment. ‘Oh, the demo. I don’t think we can cancel that. He’s already sold tickets.’

  ‘Howard was going to do a solo demonstration before he and I did the pairs routine. You’ll have to be him.’

  Dee closed her eyes. Even though she’d been splashed over the TV for the last two months, the idea of performing to an audience made her muscles tighten with stage fright. It’d been stressful doing straightforward yoga poses in front of a couple of cameras and a handful of people – this would need massive concentration to achieve complicated and taxing postures and all in front of a crowd. But with both Howard and Arianne out, she was the only teacher with enough experience to do it. ‘Shit.’

  They divided Howard’s phone list between them and agreed to meet back at the school for rehearsals between classes. It was going to be a long day. Just as well she’d already cracked open the adrenalin.

  Half the ladies’ intermediate class was coming to the demo, and so was her Friday student Fran and the entire advanced group. Dee hoped to turn people away by telling them she was replacing Howard but it seemed to have the opposite effect. She told Arianne and Howard when she rang the hospital that it was a lovely show of support for them, which felt much better than the idea they wanted to check out the Health Life yoga girl in action.

  The change of roles also complicated dinner with Ethan. She wouldn’t be ready to leave by eight o’clock and more than likely she’d be sweaty, red in the face and in need of rest. She should have cancelled but, hell, it was Ethan. With the DVD and her new business contacts, there might not be many more nights out with him. She left a message at his office about Arianne, the demo and the bad timing, and hoped he still wanted to pick her up.

  When she walked into the studio that night, she almost turned and walked out again. There were at least sixty people squished into the room, sitting on the floor, lining the walls, perched on tables. It was Nerve City.

  Dressed in black pants and a singlet top that Graeme Paffe had given her to try out, Dee thought of Arianne and Howard, steeled herself and her anxiety and began a twenty-minute series of advanced poses. Leon joined her for a sequence of synchronised postures, then, skins slick with sweat, they moved into postures for pairs, using each other’s bodies for support.

  As Dee dropped out of a handstand, Leon squatted beside her and whispered, ‘Are you okay? You feel like you’re tiring.’

  She blinked, so immersed in the yoga that she had to force herself to consider the state of her body. It had been a long week, she needed a good sleep, another coffee and a decent meal, her arms were sore and her belly ached from being held tight. ‘I am but I feel good.’

  ‘Don’t look now but Ethan Roxburgh just walked in.’

  The muscles in her stomach tensed some more. ‘I wish you hadn’t told me that.’

  Avoiding the temptation to look, she pressed up into another handstand, felt herself wobble and dropped back to her haunches. Okay, Dee, you’ll hurt yourself if you don’t concentrate. She closed her eyes, counted off three deep breaths and felt herself sink into her yoga space, the place where the world disappeared, her mind turned inwards and her body took over.

  Finally finished, Dee and Leon lay on their backs, covered in light blankets, and waited for their muscles to settle. While Lucia took questions from the crowd, Dee wondered what Ethan was doing, what he was thinking. Wondered why she couldn’t tune him out as easily as everything else …

  In the disorder created by sixty people taking their time to clear a small room, it was a while before Dee actually saw him. When she did, he was leaning on a window ledge, observing her from a distance, and the sight of him made her mouth go dry. She took a long drink from a bottle of water before joining him.

  ‘So that’s my real job. What do you think?’

  His eyes took a brief tour of her shoulders, her arms, her hips and back up to her face. ‘Your body is amazing.’ He touched the tip of her chin and caught a drip of perspiration. The contact felt like a flash of heat from a furnace.

  She pressed a handtowel to her face. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll shower before we go.’ Perhaps a cold shower.

  ‘There’s no rush,’ he said, following the path of the cloth down her throat as though it was the most fascinating thing he’d ever seen.

  She pulled pins from her hair, loosening the knot and freeing the long strands. Ethan licked his lips, cleared his throat. ‘How’s Arianne?’

  ‘Not great. They don’t know what’s causing the haemorrhage. They’re just trying to stop it.’

  They stood a moment, the conversation playing on in silence. She watched him and he watched her back. It felt strange and nice and awkward. She didn’t want to stop, wanted this particular topic to go on for hours, but she was conscious of being sweaty and red and she wanted to be closer to a Roxburgh Girl than a smelly old rag when they went to dinner. She grabbed his wrist to check his watch, surprising herself at the familiarity and the intimacy of it.

  ‘Be back in five.’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

  Stripping off in the small bathroom next to the studio, Dee should’ve been exhausted – but she wasn’t. Exhilaration pulsed through her veins and not just from the applause. Ethan wasn’t shocked and he didn’t think she was a freak. He thought her body was amazing and his eyes said, ‘What Roxburgh Girls?’ There was a chance, an outside chance, she might get to press her lips to his, run her hands over his chest, wrap her legs around …

  Take a breath, Dee, and stay in the moment. You can’t get disappointed there.

  Stepping out of the cubicle, she rummaged through the contents of her basket. ‘Shit!’ She forgot to collect Amanda’s suit from the flat. The mish-mash of extra clothes she usually carried didn’t come close to the sensible black her sister insisted was appropriate for ‘meetings and anything else that might crop up’. Dee had told her she had enough to cover the ‘anything else’ scenario, to which Amanda scoffed and said, ‘So long as you’re expecting Ethan Roxburgh and his buddies to embrace hippie overnight.’ Dee pulled out a purple skirt, a tasselled scarf and a loose shirt. Bloody Amanda. Now she was terrified of her own wardrobe.

  ‘I’m inverted not introverted,’ Leon was saying when she returned. He was with Ethan and a group of regulars. The students laughed. Ethan still seemed to be waiting for the punchline. As Dee approached, he took in her outfit and smiled as though she was more amusing than Leon.

  ‘I had another, um, more conservative outfit for tonight but it’s been a complicated day and forgot to pick them up.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ Ethan said. ‘It’s pretty casual tonight.’

  Fine? That was deflating. ‘It’d only take a second to change if you can drop past my place on the way.’

  ‘No need. You look great. It’s the real you.’

  He thought the real Dee was great?

  ‘Just a heads up before we get there,’ Ethan said as he drove. ‘We’re going to dinner with Bob Sheppard and Eli Lewis. They own a small manufacturing business on the South Coast that Roxburgh Holdings is about to purchase. We’ve been locked up in meetings for the last two days nutting out the deal, which we all finally agreed on this afternoon. So tonight’s like the handshake before the signature goes on the contracts next week. Any questions?’

  ‘Will there be a test before we go in?’ Dee asked.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve been consumed by this all week. Guess I haven’t switched off business mode yet.’ His straight face suddenly cracked a grin. ‘Although the yo
ga demonstration was a good short-term distraction.’

  ‘Pleased to help. What do they make?’

  ‘Component parts for surgical equipment.’

  ‘The perfect conversation starter. Do you have any brochures I can speed-read before we get there?’

  He laughed a little, relaxing some more. ‘It won’t be all business. Their wives have been doing some serious retail therapy.’

  Dee’s phone buzzed a text message. ‘So, considering my limited knowledge of surgical equipment and shopping, I guess you didn’t ask me along for my expert opinions.’ She pulled the mobile from her bag.

  It was Leon. He thinks you look great!!!! Lindall’s flight delayed. Yawn. C u tonight.

  ‘Everything okay?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Leon wants me to party on later but after everything that’s happened today, I think I’d prefer to party into bed.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘I mean, I’d prefer to go to bed.’

  ‘Is that right?’

  ‘Not for … not to … you know … to sleep.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Uh-huh. Anything else you need me to clarify?’

  Ethan’s out-of-town guests looked uncomfortable in the trendy, upmarket restaurant. They agonised over the complex menu, wondered aloud if the meals came with chips, used their phones to take photos of a soap star dining nearby.

  Over dinner the wives, Shelley and Rachael, leaned across the table and drew Dee in. ‘It must be so exciting living in Sydney,’ Rachael said.

  ‘If you could ever get used to the traffic,’ said Shelley. ‘I was terrified when I drove the hire car.’

  ‘And there are famous people everywhere.’ Rachael reached over Shelley’s shoulder to snap a game show host who’d walked in, then ducked back into their huddle. ‘Actually, I thought Ethan Roxburgh might be a bit hard to talk to, being so clever and a celebrity and all, but he’s very nice, isn’t he?’

  ‘Much nicer than you’d expect,’ Dee agreed.

  He glanced up as though he’d heard his name but not the context. His eyes caught on hers and a smile played on his lips.

  ‘Your reticence concerns us,’ Bob said loudly to Ethan.

  Shelley glared at him crossly. ‘You boys aren’t still talking business, are you?’

  ‘We’re nearly done, Shell,’ Bob said then spoke to Ethan. ‘I know it’s not part of the deal but we want to know what your plans are.’

  There was a beat and Dee sensed the mood at the table had shifted.

  ‘Like I said, we haven’t made any decisions yet,’ Ethan finally replied and laid his napkin on the table, as though that was the end of that.

  Bob pushed his plate away. ‘Eli and I have spent twenty years building up that factory and we made sure there’d be no reason to make massive changes.’

  ‘All I can tell you is that there are no plans.’

  ‘We assured our one hundred and forty-six good workers before we left on Wednesday that their jobs were safe. Don’t make liars of us.’

  Dee watched a muscle in the side of Ethan’s jaw flex and contract as he clenched and unclenched his jaw. ‘Our contract doesn’t relate to decisions Roxburgh Holdings might make down the line. If you’ve got problems with what we’ve agreed on, you should say so now.’

  An edgy silence fell over the group.

  Dee glanced between Ethan and Bob and Eli. They’d all been getting along so nicely then the warriors put up shields and got defensive. Bob drained his wine glass, turned to Eli with some kind of silent communication. Ethan sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. Were they going to ditch an agreement because they couldn’t let their defences down? Boys, take a deep breath, she wanted to say. Then Bob shoved his chair back, seemed ready to walk.

  She grabbed a bottle of wine, topped up his glass and hoped she was doing the right thing. ‘It must be hard to leave your workers in someone else’s hands when you’ve looked after them for so long.’

  No one spoke. Ethan’s jaw clenched and unclenched again. Maybe she just made it worse.

  ‘It is,’ Bob said with sudden volume. ‘Some of those boys have been with us for twenty years. They rely on us to look after their families.’

  ‘That must be very rewarding,’ Dee said.

  ‘We’re like a family,’ he told her.

  ‘We all work hard and everyone benefits,’ Eli added.

  Dee faced Ethan, raised an eyebrow at him, like a prompt. It was his turn.

  His eyes moved from Bob to Eli to Dee and understanding dawned on his face. He unfolded his arms. ‘Roxburgh Holdings is a large corporation but we have other small-scale businesses like yours and we understand the value of the loyalty you’ve built. I think it’s safe to say it wouldn’t be in anyone’s best interest to break that up.’

  Bob and Eli nodded slowly in united approval. The shields came down warily. A TV current affairs host walked into the restaurant and Shelley and Rachael picked up their phones. After that distraction, the conversation moved on to safer ground.

  An hour later, as they left the restaurant, Bob slung an arm around Dee. ‘Take a word of advice from an old guy, Ethan. Make sure you hang on to this girl. She’s a smart cookie and us guys need to keep them around, right, Shell?’

  ‘Right, Bobby.’

  ‘I’ll bear that in mind,’ Ethan answered, his eyes on Dee as he said it.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  ‘I think Bob has excellent taste in cookies,’ Dee said as Ethan steered the car out of the parking lot.

  He chuckled. ‘You made a good call tonight. I was just annoyed they were bringing that stuff up so late in the game. You’ve got good instincts.’

  Dee felt herself puff up at the high praise. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘So do you think I should keep you around?’

  She peered across the darkened car at him, unsure what he meant. Yes, please, was on the tip of her tongue but Ethan Roxburgh, millionaire entrepreneur and man of many women, was unlikely to take the advice of Bobby and Shell on the spur of the moment. ‘Well, I, um …’

  ‘I think you could mentor me. We should have a contra deal – I give you business advice, you teach me to read people.’

  Oh, of course. Like he meant anything else, you idiot. She forced a laugh and dug her buzzing phone out of her bag. It was Leon again: Lindall says hi. Dont b long or we’ll run out of champers xx

  ‘Is Leon’s party calling?’ Ethan asked.

  ‘Yeah. Sounds like I should make an appearance.’ It would be better than going home to dream of something that would never happen. On my way xx, she wrote back. ‘Just drop me at the yoga school. You’ll never get a parking spot on a Friday night and my car’s right around the corner.’

  He did a lap of the block anyway before double-parking at the corner. ‘Are you sure this is okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ she lied. She wanted him to keep her around. She unclipped her seatbelt. ‘Thanks for tonight. It was fun. I hope the deal comes off all right on Monday.’

  He turned towards her. ‘I’m sure it will, thanks to you.’

  Neither of them moved. Dee could smell the sweet muskiness of his skin, the after-dinner coffee. His hand on the steering wheel glowed red from the traffic light behind. Then green. A car honked its horn before speeding past and they watched its tail lights trail in the night.

  What was she waiting for? For the heat in the car to make them melt together? ‘I should go,’ she said. Her lips were aching, her heart hammering. She forced herself forward, aiming for the door handle, took a detour and leaned the other way. They were past the hand-shaking stage now, weren’t they? A goodnight kiss was appropriate, wasn’t it? She reached across the car, touched her lips to his cheek, left them there as though they’d been drawn in on a string. Her breath caught on a buzz of electricity. Such a shame this was all that would be happening. Come on, Dee, if you don’t move soon, he’ll think you’ve attached yourself with Super-Glue. She shifted slightly, felt his l
ips at the corner of hers, and before she knew what she was doing, she turned and pressed her mouth to his.

  He hesitated a moment. Almost long enough to make her pull away. Then his lips softened, parted, and he kissed her back.

  His mouth was soft and firm and gentle and insistent – and her head swam with a concoction of sensations. She put a hand to his face, ran it through his hair. His arm slid around her, his palm burning a path down the centre of her back. His breath on her cheek felt like hers – hard and ragged.

  Voices hooted at them as harsh lights flashed past, breaking the spell of the moment, making her snap back with a gasp.

  Across the darkness, she saw Ethan’s expression of utter astonishment. Perhaps it was best if she left quickly.

  ‘You know, I’ve been wondering how that would feel. Night.’ She threw open the door, jumped out and slammed it behind her.

  You have lost your mind, she ticked herself off as she ran to her car, heart hammering, lips aching for more of him. As she slid into the driver’s seat, she glimpsed Ethan’s car still waiting at the corner, his silhouette turned her way, and fought an intense desire to bang her forehead on the steering wheel. Her phone rang as she pulled into the street. She checked the display, winced, drove a block before switching on the speaker phone. ‘Ethan, I, um …’

  ‘That’s not fair,’ he cut in.

  ‘I know, I know. You’re my mentor and it’s entirely inappropriate and –’

  ‘It’s not fair that someone who doesn’t date can kiss like that.’

  Huh? ‘Just because I don’t date doesn’t mean I can’t kiss.’

  ‘Does it work like that?’

  ‘Well, no. It would work better if I had some dates, then there would be more opportunities to kiss people. Even kiss them again if the first one goes well.’

  There was silence on the end of the line for so long that Dee thought they’d been cut off.

  ‘Turn right,’ he said.

  ‘What?’