A Chance for Sunny Skies (6 page)

As I got further and further away from shoe guy, my run turned to a walk and my heart settled down. The it's-beating-too-fast ache turned into a what-have-I-done ache instantly. What had I done?

Even though meeting Rainbow and her friends had been awkward and I thought it was the end of the world, it had turned out great. I stopped. I couldn't breathe. I had just walked away (actually ran really fast away) from the third vision. What did that mean? Did I automatically lose that one? Maybe he would've gone out with me. Maybe he was the person I was supposed to be with. Now I had ruined it. All of it.

I looked back, down the street, at the place where he'd been. Maybe he'd stayed put. I could.... My eyes strained as I squinted and stood on my tip toes. Nope. No cute guy. No green shoes. Not even his stupid chuckling friend. Lost.

That freaking split-second-scared-shitless decision had cost me whatever I was supposed to learn or gain from that vision. My lungs felt tight and I leaned forward, trying to get any amount of air into them. My tote bag swung forward and hit me in the face, a painful reminder I was supposed to be at the class.

I stood up as much as a person who was completely gutless and backbone-less could and walked down the block to the address I had for the studio. At least I could follow
that
vision, right?

The door was painted a bright orange and the window sported a vinyl sticker of a person's hands pressed together in prayer or Namaste. I yanked the door open and a rush of lavender and cinnamon smelling air shot forward as if kept against its will and needing to escape.

Rainy and Anna stood by a small table with incense burning on it, clad in black pants and cute stretchy tops. Their faces relaxed into smiles as their eyes registered me in all my hot-sweaty-bad-decision-making glory.

"You made it." The statement sounded like an exhale. Rainy stepped forward and linked her arm through mine. "I'll show her the changing room, you lay out some mats for us," she told Anna who waved at me and nodded, moving through a curtain into a large, open, wood-floored room.

Rainy practically dragged me into a small changing room/bathroom and pointed to a cubby where I could put my things. Still smiling, she turned to me. "Do you want me to --" her smile disappeared as she looked closely at my face. "You okay?"

I took a deep breath and shook my head. "Green. Shoe."

I watched Rainy's face brighten with excitement, but I felt none of it. I looked at her and shook my head, then let it fall back as the full weight of what I'd done settled over me like a suffocating sheep-shit-blanket of depression.

Rainbow looked like she was about to ask what had happened when a peaceful gong sounded through the studio. Her eyes opened wide as the waves of relaxing sound reverberated through the bathroom.

"Look, if you don't want to -"

I cut her off. "No." I had just run away from the last vision. The purpose of the yoga bag vision had been to get me here, right? I had to do this. "No," I repeated and placed a hand on her shoulder. I was going to do this, dammit. I had just felt the sting of disappointment that came from not following one of my signs, I wasn't about to do it again. I started ripping my clothes off like some crazed stripper, flinging them wherever and squeezing my body into the workout clothes I'd brought.

Rainy started laughing. "You're crazy, Sun." She picked up my clothes as I finished dressing and we shoved my stuff into a cubby. We ran out into the hall giggling, but Rainy put a finger to her lips as we slipped through the curtain and tiptoed into the quiet room.

I spotted Anna sitting cross-legged on a mat in the corner and I followed Rainy as she picked through the room, trying to avoid the ten or so people shoved in there. We plopped down next to Anna; Rainy letting me take the mat in the middle. As I crammed my legs into as much of a crossed position as they'd go, I saw Lizzy open her eyes and wave at me from her spot at the front, facing the class, her yoga bag sitting behind her.

I smiled and closed my eyes, straightened my spine, shimmied down into my butt fat, and placed my hands on my knees. Crap. I'd forgotten how you were supposed to hold your fingers. Yogis had some secret handshake or something, didn't they? Two fingers on each side like a V? Nope, pretty sure that was Spock's thing. I peaked open one eye and tried to look at everyone's fingers. To my right, Anna just held hers open as if waiting for someone to put a cookie in her hand. I wrinkled my brow and looked to my left. Rainy's fingers were doing something alright, but from my "I shouldn't be opening my eyes" squinting position, I couldn't for the life of me tell what it was.

I screwed up my face and tried to concentrate on opening my left eye a little more to see what sort of tiny pretzel Rainy had twisted her fingers into. I'm pretty sure I made a face like an ogre to do so, but I finally figured out that she had her thumb and pointer finger pressed together.

I put my fingers into position and took a deep breath.

Nope, uncomfortable. Holding my fingers like that gave me a thumb cramp. I looked back over to Anna's put-a-cookie-here version. That didn't look much better. I pressed my lips together and thought for a second before I settled back on the Spock version. I liked it and that guy was pretty zen, right?

"Okay, come onto all fours, please." Lizzy's voice buzzed in my ears. I grappled with the mat for a second, while I tried to get it to release my feet from its sticky grabby-ness. Finally, I maneuvered into a position Lizzy called Cow. My stomach poured forward and I almost felt a "moooooo" coming on. Super flattering. Whose idea was it to call a position Cow?

We moved back and forth through Cat and Cow for a few minutes. I tried to breathe long and fluid like Rainy and Anna, but by the third go through I felt like I was hyperventilating. We did a few other stretchy things that felt pretty good, but I had an itching suspicion I would be a lot better at them if I didn't have this spare tire sitting around my middle.

"Thread your right arm under your left and stretch out your shoulder," Lizzy said. I watched her and the rest of the class move into position.

I reached my right arm under, flipping my hair to get it out of my eye and -- Ouch! The flip tweaked a muscle in my neck and a lighting strike of pain sliced down it. I fell the rest of the way forward, onto my face.

At that moment I wondered who'd used my mat before me. Was this Anna's or some grotty class lender? Heat spread from the tightness in my neck and radiated down my shoulder. I couldn't move. Shit, was I paralyzed? Did that happen in yoga?

"Change to the other side."

I begged my neck to work as everyone started to untwist themselves; they were all about to look my way. Finally, my prayers were answered and I picked my face up, moving through the ache, flexing my neck to one side then the other. Thank Jesus, I wasn't paralyzed -- oh, wait, I was in yoga class. Thank... Buddha? I stretched my left arm under my right and used my hand to move my hair out of my eyes this time.

"Settle back into your first downward dog."

I looked around and smiled. I'd seen this pose. Easy. I poked my butt up in the air and stretched my arms forward. I tried to make my body into a tiny mountain like Lizzy's, but my arms really didn't want to straighten out.

That's when my fingers started slipping. I thought this damn mat was supposed to be sticky. I watched in horror as my hands slid an inch, then two. I picked up one at a time and wiped the sweat off on my shirt.

The second I placed them down, they started the slow evil slide all over again. I grumbled a few swear words under my breath and turned my head to watch Anna. She looked as steady and unmovable as an actual mountain. On the other side Rainy held super still, too. Damn. Was I the only one in the class whose sticky mat had lost its stick?

"Move forward into plank."

Thank God, something different. I watched Lizzy move her body into a push-up position. I gulped, but reminded myself it was okay. I could do it. As long as we weren't going to do any push-ups. I shimmied my body into position. After only about one second of holding the position, however, my arms started to shake under me. Like a horse shaking its skin to get rid of a fly, but instead, my arms were trying to get rid of me. I could almost hear them complain.
We can't hold her! What is she thinking?

The class started to heat up. We were moving, stretching, and breathing. At least, the rest of the class was. Me? I flopped, grunted, shook, and sweated. But I was making it through. Sort of.

Every time we got into a position, Lizzy would pop over and try to help me. Try being the operative word.

"Um, stick your butt out and then tuck your pelvis forward," she'd say.

My brain felt fried. What? Weren't those two things complete opposites? I attempted to follow her cues, but my body and I weren't communicating very well because I'd try to fix my pelvis and my leg would go all wonky. Straightening my arms put my back out of position.

"Open your chest, Sunny."

I almost yelled out, "How?"

Lizzy tried, she really did. She used her hands to push and pull me into position, saying, "Don't worry, it'll come with time. Your body isn't used to moving like this yet."

So I kept trying, kept listening, kept attempting to make the small adjustments without falling on my face.

That's when it happened. I felt my stomach groan in complaint and my evil fibrous breakfast cereal betray me as it started moving. Oh no. I tried clenching my cheeks together. I couldn't fart in a yoga class. It was too small of a space. Plus it was all hot in there and everyone was breathing hard. They'd be forced to inhale the smell. It was the perfect storm of awful fart-scenarios.

As if the universe knew, as if maybe it
had
been trying to drown me and it was still out to get me, at that moment Lizzy commenced the twisting portion of the class. Holy holding-it-in, Batman. I wasn't going to make it. My eyes flew to the curtain. Were people allowed to leave during a class to go to the bathroom? I hadn't seen anyone do anything other than follow Lizzy's directions to a T the whole time I'd been in there.

Then there was the possibility standing up might make it worse. This wasn't sitting in a chair by a long shot. This involved heaving my body off the floor. That alone could be the clincher, or in this case, the un-clencher. After a few twists and a lot of going over "what if" scenarios in my head, I finally decided on just waiting it out. Staying put had to be better. Plus, if I got up now everyone would know the new girl had to use the bathroom so bad she couldn't wait. They'd all know what I left for. Heck, they might even be able to hear what happened in the bathroom. That settled it.

So I went through the rest of the class, the twisting portion, flopping, grunting, shaking, sweating, and now clenching, too. At least I was working my muscles, right? After what felt like three hours, we started the cool down, stretching part.

"Hold onto the bottoms of your feet as you move into Happy Baby," Lizzy said.

The name put a smile on my face. Happy Ba-- Oh no. I watched as Rainy laid on her back and pulled her feet forward. Even though I couldn't argue with the yoga gods that it did look a lot like an actual happy baby, at the moment it seemed like an even better name would be The Farter. How was I supposed to hold anything in like that?

I hesitated. My legs just flopped down on the mat as if my body protested the idea, too. Even my limbs knew this was a bad idea. I closed my eyes.

"Did you need help, Sunny?" Lizzy's bare feet padded up next to me. I kept my eyes shut and shook my head. Then I brought my legs up along side my body (well, as far as they would go, which wasn't far). Lizzy's footsteps moved to the other side of the room and I breathed a sigh of re--

A fart echoed through the room.

My legs shot forward like an arrow. Heat wound its way up my neck and face. I didn't want to open my eyes, so I just sat there waiting for the laughter to start, for the smell to waft through the room, for them to kick me out. Instead, all I heard was, "Excuse me" from some lady in the corner.

My pulse slowed instantly. It hadn't been me. I smiled and pulled my legs up again. I wasn't the farter! I almost laughed out loud, but then I realized that would have been rude because no one else laughed or made fun. No one cared.

I let my fears slip out of me in a long exhale and settled back, rocking side to side, holding my feet like a little happy baby.

"Roll to your right and keep your eyes closed as you make your way into a seated position."

I followed Lizzy's directions, my brain fuzzy and blissful from the last fifteen minutes of stretching and what seemed a lot like sleeping at the end of class. We finished with an Om, a Namaste, and a bow. I peeled my eyes open and looked at Rainy.

She smiled as she saw my face. "I'd say she liked it," she said to Anna on my right.

Anna nodded. "It was the end, wasn't it? It'll make a believer out of anyone." She leaned in close to me and whispered. "It's the only reason I keep doing this."

I pressed my lips together, but I knew my eyes were still smiling. They were right. I had actually liked it. I stood up and almost fell over. I felt thinner already, as if all of that stretching had tucked my fat away into all the right places. I felt long and lean and genuinely happy.

So this is what exercise did for people.

I'd tried running, treadmills, cardio classes, all that jazz, but all of those felt very jiggly and made me want to die. This hadn't been easy, at all, but my body felt better than it ever had after any of those other workouts.

I helped Anna and Rainy roll up the mats and then we went into the bathroom to change.

"So? Tell me more about the... guy," Rainy said as we got back into our street clothes.

Anna raised her eyebrows and elbowed me. "Guy?"

I blushed and looked down. "It's -- I --." I shook my head.

Rainy narrowed her eyes at me while she slipped on her socks, but she must've gotten the hint because she stayed quiet after that. Sure, I'd been talking to her, letting her in, but talking in front of a whole room full of undressing women still seemed like a stretch.

When we were ready, the three of us walked out together. Lizzy stood in the hall, talking to some gray-haired lady. She touched the woman's shoulder and said goodbye when she spotted us.

"So?" Her face was bright and I don't think it was just from the workout.

I nodded and smiled.

"Yay! I knew you'd like it!" She pulled me into a hug, but someone else wanted her attention, so she scampered off.

Anna waved as we walked out onto the street. "Back to the grind. Ha!" She laughed and scurried off to the left.

Rainy laughed back and then noticed the puzzle my face was in. "Oh. Anna owns her own coffee shop."

"Got it." I shuffled my shoes on the pavement. "Wait. Coffee shop. Tea shop. Doesn't that make you two like mortal enemies or something? Like Norway and Sweden?" I asked.

Rainy let her head fall back in a laugh. "Ha! I like it! Well, we've managed to go this far without killing each other, so..." She cocked an eyebrow at me mysteriously.

I wasn't quite sure what that meant, so I pointed behind me. "My office is this way."

She threaded her arm through mine. I stiffened for a moment, not flinching exactly, but I could tell Rainy felt my discomfort. Images of me walking like this with Nanny Marie when I was a kid flooded through my mind. I felt myself pulling back, finding it all too much, but Rainy just tightened her grip and smiled.

"I'll walk you to work."

I nodded, relaxing into her sureness. It actually wasn't too bad walking arm in arm with someone.

"Cliff's watching the shop, so I don't need to worry about getting back at a certain time," she said as we pressed forward through the streets.