My Big Nose and Other Natural Disasters (11 page)

"They're supposed to be sticky, silly." Hannah sat on her mat cross-legged. "So you don't slide around during the poses."

Hannah took a few deep breaths.

"Oh." I sat down on the mat and decided I would shower again after class.

"So how many times have you seen him? And didn't he, like, get kicked out of school?"

All of a sudden she's interested in analyzing my lack of a love life! If this yoga thing worked out, I planned on traveling to the headwaters of the Ganges, wasting away to ninety pounds, living alone with my spiritually awakened self, and being okay with dying a virgin after I turned 117. Only a hundred years to go.

"Jor—"

"We've had exactly two conversations, but I've heard him play the violin three times, including, you know, the other night." I closed my eyes and shook away the memory without even thinking.

"Oh, Jory. Yoga will totally help you release all the tension from the other night." Hannah rolled her head in a slow circle. "What did your mom say?"

"About the Ass Grabber? I didn't exactly tell her." I hadn't even let myself think about it because it felt so dirty. I wanted to forget the whole thing. Nothing really happened anyway, right? Still, I kept waking up in the middle of the night after dreaming about being trapped in a fire; I never dreamed about Ass Grabber, but it was like I knew he was lurking in the flames. Yesterday I felt all panicky when I had to deliver a bouquet of flowers up near UNR. Maybe I'd have to study harder senior year so I could go to school out of state after all. No matter what, my new nose would have a big brute of a boyfriend who wouldn't let anyone near my butt.

I could tell that Hannah was working on some kind of speech, but the yoga teacher came into the room, dimmed the lights, turned on some weird chanting music, and told us to stand at the front of our mats.

I let a tiny bit of gas escape.

"Bring your hands to your heart center and find your breath." Find my breath? A bunch of people started gasping as if suffocating. I glanced at Hannah to make a joke, but she did it too. No way was I making that noise in public. Instead, I farted. Quietly.

Next, Yoga Lady had us face toward the windows and do sun salutations to, quote, "honor the beauty of the day." Sun salutations apparently involve a lot of toe touches. My big T-shirt kept flopping over my nose, making my giant nostrils blow hot air all around my face. Hannah's body practically bent in half, but my fingers barely touched the mat. Even this old geezer man next to me placed his hands flat on the ground.

We went up and down a few times, moving into this position called Down Dog. It looked easy to put your hands and feet on the ground and stick your butt in the air, but I wanted to die.
Let us stop,
I wanted to scream. My hands and arms hurt as I pressed into the mat.

Yoga Lady complimented everyone on their beautiful poses but came over and lifted my hips up. A little puff of gas escaped. Could she smell it?
Oh, God, this is so embarrassing.

"Is that better?" Yoga Lady kind of turned away.
Oh, God, she smelled it. Serves her right for singling me out in front of everyone as the sucky new student.

I tilted my head and looked at the geezer next to me. His giant, hairy bare feet stood flat on the ground! The guy was my grandpa's age probably. Finally Yoga Lady told us to walk to the front of the mat and touch our toes again. My legs wobbled with weakness and I felt like crying, for some strange reason. Hannah had told me yoga would relax me. Liar! She had gone on and on about how professional athletes and movie stars did yoga. So how come everyone in
this
room looked like they lived in a retirement village? How could my passion be something that made me feel weak and extra klutzy and didn't even involve cute boys?

Next, we did balancing poses. I teetered on one leg, tipping over as I tried to do the flamingo thing called Tree. Even the old ladies could do it!

"Sometimes we blow in the wind." Yoga Lady, or, rather, the Sunny Sadist, looked right at me. "We're working toward rooting ourselves in the ground."

Everyone knew she was talking about me. Blowing in the wind. Worst of all, I was still blowing wind—little puff-puff farts poisoned the air around me. I hoped people were thinking that Hairy-Feet Geezer had done it, but then he scooted his mat up a couple of feet from me. Even Hannah gave me a strange look. I could just see it.
Caughlin Rancher
headline: "Yoga Class Evacuated After Jory Michaels Fumigates the Place with Cabbage Soup Gas; Three People Hospitalized." Okay, maybe not.

I fell on my butt when the Sunny Sadist told us to do this pretzel-type move. No one laughed, but almost everyone looked at me. Hannah gave me one of her sympathetic closed-mouth smiles. I'd show her! Squeezing my butt gas-trapping tight, I made myself do the twisty thing even though my leg shook as if hurricane-force winds blasted through the room.

The Sunny Sadist told us we could retreat into Child's Pose at any time. She came over, tapped me on the shoulder with her light-as-a-feather touch, and told me to find my breath. I let out a gasp of air; I hadn't realized that I'd been holding it in. She plopped down on the floor and showed me how to fold up like a sleeping baby. Everyone else did the pretzel pose on the other leg. No one looked at me.

"Breathe," she whispered.

Two big tears plunked down on the mat and I had to stifle one big snuffle before I started thinking about how I should've punched that damn Ass Grabber in the balls.

"Focus on the breath," the Sunny Sadist said. "Keep your mind clear as you do the inversion pose of your choice."

I peeked over at Hannah, who stood on her head with her feet up in the air, totally still. A few other ladies balanced their legs against the wall. Cheaters.

"Remember, we learn from our failures," the Sunny Sadist said.

What a load of stinky cabbage gas! What had I learned today?

• Never, ever do yoga again.

• Never, ever eat cabbage
anything
again.

• Make peace with dying a virgin.

• No one decent will ever want a Super Schnozz.

The Sunny Sadist spoke in a soft voice. "Now, release your pose, keeping your mind clear. Breathe."

Huddled in a cloud of my own smelly gas, I tried not to breathe. How could I keep my mind clear? Ass Grabber never would've done that to a prettier girl. Ugly girls are supposed to be easy, right? I should've been grateful. Gideon probably noticed me only because my big red-from-crying nose shone in the lights; he probably figured he should talk to a member of the big-nose club. Just to be nice. The way Tyler always says flirty things to be nice but goes off to every single movie-you-have-to-read with Megan. And feeds her popcorn.

I skipped the next three poses, but when the teacher told us all to roll over on our backs, I happily complied. Plus, no one would be able to tell that I'd been crying. The Sunny Sadist told us to balance our legs in the air with our shoulders off the mats. My abs burned like my bellybutton had caught fire. I looked over at Hannah, who had bent her body into a graceful V shape. Long, perfect, tan legs. If Alex from Church didn't go for her, he must be planning to be a monk. She even smiled.

I tried to lift my legs straight but crashed down with a thump that hurt my back.

"Remember, this is not a competition," the Sunny Sadist said. "We're always striving toward something, pushing at the edge of sensation but not pain."

Pain walloped every part of my body as we lay in a cleansing twist, wringing out our organs. I pictured my heart as a sopping-wet rag.
Focus,
I told myself, but I kept feeling bad about being the worst one in the room in the over-two and under-ninety-nine category. Put me up against an infant or a 120-year-old woman, and I'd show you some yoga! I also had the biggest nose in the room, with the exception of Hairy-Feet Geezer.

The Sunny Sadist pulled down the shades on the windows and switched to weird, wordless
wa-wa-thwang
music. We lay flat on our backs with our hands facing the ceiling and our eyes closed. Corpse Pose. Or, in my case, Dead Virgin.

"You may repeat something inspirational to yourself if you wish," the Sunny Sadist said.

My nose tickled. I tried to make the feeling go away by doing strange contortions with my mouth and nose. Everyone had closed eyes, right? I peeked at the teacher, who was lying still with her eyes closed, smiling serenely, but then she picked a wedgie. I sucked in air instead of laughing out loud. I turned my head and looked at what other people were doing. One old lady's giant boobs oozed down the sides of her chest like lava. I sucked in another giggle. I watched Hannah mouthing
Alex
over and over again. I sucked in a huge gulp of air.
Do not laugh. Do not laugh.

I let out a rip-roaring, make-my-little-bro-proud belch, followed by a big guffaw and a Nevada nuclear-test-site atomic fart.

Kaboom!

At least the Sunny Sadist stopped smiling.

One week of the Cabbage Soup Cleanse + Snobby Rich Caughlin Ranch Families + the Dickenson Lake House + an Old-Fashioned Bunk-Bed Sleepover = the Fourth of July.

I tossed some clothes into a duffel bag. Mom, in a fit of über-excitement about losing six pounds on the cabbage cleanse and daring to wear her bikini with a heavy-fabric sarong, let me borrow the minivan to drive up to the Dickensons' quote "cabin," aka "mansion bigger than our house" at the lake. She and Dad headed up early with friends to enjoy the full day of festivities—rich people fawning over one another's possessions and drinking too much.

I'd been up since six helping Katie with a Fourth of July wedding. She'd made this cake with red, white, and blue fondant decorated to look like the stitching on an old American quilt. Who gets married on the Fourth of July, anyway? Guess the bride had a thing for fireworks and old quilts. She looked pretty old—gray hair and the whole bit. Was she still a virgin? Had it really taken her an entire lifetime to find someone who actually loved her? Groom Dude had a weird beard, long ponytail, beer belly, and laughed too hard at his own jokes. Did she actually love him? Or did she just get too desperately lonely?

I imagined myself decades in the future, withered with age yet still virginal, designing my own quilted wedding cake. I shuddered. All week I'd dyed white carnations blue and red for this wedding. The only good thing about working the Fourth: time and a half. It added $108 to the nose fund, for a grand total of $1,100-ish.

After work, I raced home to pack my cutest shortie PJs, favorite bikini, and new casual but sexy mini, just in case a certain flirtatious someone happened to be there. He was last year. That's when the obsession began: fireworks, the beach, my first-ever margarita.

He had smiled at me and uttered the immortal words, "Weren't you in my English class?"

No, but I still fell into a crush deeper than Lake Tahoe. A year of "Hi, Jory" smiles in the yellow-tiled hallways of good old Reno High only deepened my feelings. Even Hannah's family didn't socialize with the Dickensons, so I knew Megan and her schoolteacher mommy wouldn't have scored an invitation—maybe that's why she'd called Hannah (as if I wouldn't find out!) last night to ask how much I
really
liked Tyler. Ha! She
should
worry. Jory's back! I'd blast into Tyler's consciousness like an M-80.
Whammo.
I'd do whatever it took.
Prepare to have your world rocked.
I turned up the stereo and sang along with Vampire Weekend, changing the words to "Jory's got a new face."

I took the freeway instead of the scenic route. Cops pulled several people over, but no one ever notices speeding in a minivan, so I made good time and caught my first view of Lake Tahoe—a deep Tyler's-eyes blue—right as the cocktail hour started.

Mom's minivan looked out of place in the Lexus/Mercedes/ BMW dealership—looking driveway. I glossed my lips, fluffed my hair around my shoulders, and strode up the driveway. I noticed a bit of red fondant under my fingernail as I rang the doorbell. No one answered, so I let myself in. Mom's high-pitched laugh echoed from the kitchen across the cathedral ceiling. Cocktail hour must have started
much
earlier.

"Oh, stop it," Mom said. "I look the same as always."

A blender whirred.

"You truly are the mix master, Barbara."

Barbara? As in Barbara Briggs? Excellent. I took a deep, cleansing yoga breath, but not one of the strange noisy ones.

"Hi, Mom! Hi, Mrs. Briggs."

"Jory, don't you look cute, as usual." Mrs. Briggs scraped salt off the rim of her margarita glass with a long red-white-and-blue polished fingernail. "Tyler and the kids are down on the dock."

"Uh, great. Where can I change into my suit?" I held up my duffel.

"You youngsters are up on the sleeping porch," she said. "We grownups get the bedrooms." Barbara clinked glasses with Mom, who looked at me with a blissful, slightly tipsy grin.

"So, I'll be sure to pick up that book tomorrow—I'm sure I can finish it in time." Mom winked at me and gave me a subtle thumbs-up.
Looks like she finally swung an invite to the book club.

Upstairs, I examined each duffel bag and suitcase carefully to figure out which bunk belonged to Tyler. I peeked inside one and saw Tyler's LCD Soundsystem T-shirt. Bingo! I put my duffel on the bunk next to his, changed into my bikini, gave my hair a good flip-over brushing, and headed down to the water.

As I stepped down the path to the Dickensons' private dock, I soaked in the pine-scented air and enjoyed the tickle of my hair against my bare back. Anything can happen! Drew Dickenson's ski boat pulled a wakeboard out past the rocks. Only one person sat on the dock sticking his feet in the water.
Yes!

"Happy Fourth," I sang out. Tyler wore red and blue swim trunks and nothing on his fabulously tan upper body; his skin was the color of caramel pie.

"Jory," he said. "I wondered if you were going to come up. Your mom's trying to outdrink mine. Quite a challenge." He held up a pitcher of margaritas. "But she might be winning because her judgment was impaired enough to give me this. Want one?"