Tales from the Yoga Studio (28 page)

Sinew: You very softly say: “Don't let that happen again.”

Fireplug: We prefer you use those words. All teachers do.

Sinew: Reinforces the same message.

Fireplug: Very effective.

This issue strikes Lee as so petty and inconsequential she's embarrassed even to respond to it, one way or the other. Diandra had mentioned the water bottles to her before the class, but it was the kind of thing she couldn't take seriously. Apparently, it's an obsession with everyone who works here. The guys tell her there are just a few other small items: she didn't start off the class making sure everyone had signed a waiver, she didn't promote the upcoming studio events, and she didn't suggest that students replenish with fresh juice or a blender drink at the Karma Lounge. Oh, and one other thing, it would be great if she'd put in one or two advanced poses that she advises the students
not
to try but that she demonstrates anyway. Maybe a pose that involves her foot behind her head or a complicated arm balance.

“The students feel more comfortable and safe,” Sinewy Dave says, “if they're reminded that the teacher can do things they can't.”

“And you might tell them,” Chuck puts in, “that if they want to do the more complicated and sexy poses . . .”

“We prefer you use that word. Very effective.”

“. . . that they should think about private lessons. One hundred and twenty an hour.”

Sinew: Other than that . . .

Fireplug: . . . it was brilliant. Beyond even . . .

Sinew: . . . our expectations. We'd love to celebrate by having you join us for lunch in the Karma Lounge.

Fireplug: It encourages students to hang out there if they see the teachers going in.

“I'm not terribly hungry,” Lee says.

“A small beverage would suffice.”

“Absolutely. It's in the staff handbook.”

K
atherine's massage client has booked a ninety-minute appointment and explains to Katherine when she comes in that she would like a detoxifying massage.

“I've just come out of a two-week rehab where I was treated for addiction, and I'm still feeling a little fragile. I need special attention paid to my kidneys and adrenals.”

“I understand completely,” Katherine says.

Naturally, she does, but the client, Cecily, is a tall, slim woman who has been coming to Edendale for massage and yoga classes for over a year now. She is fit and agile, has perfect balance in classes, and follows a strict diet of raw foods. With all the work Katherine has done on Cecily's body she has never noticed any signs of the marks, scarring, and sensitivity that she's used to seeing with drug abusers and drinkers. She might have believed some esoteric form of disordered eating, but this revelation comes as a shock.

Cecily is lying facedown on Katherine's table, and as Katherine is about to press her hands into her perfect back, she lifts her head up and says, “What kind of oil are you using on me?”

“It's organic almond oil.”

“Anything in it?”

“I was going to use one with a light scent of lavender, which a lot of people find to be purifying. But if you'd rather . . .”

“Oh, my God,” she says. “I'm so glad I asked. Nothing with floral or herbal extracts or oils. It's
completely
off-limits for me.”

“I have unscented. Or a plain lotion, if that's better.”

“Unscented oil is fine. I'm sorry, I don't mean to be demanding, but I can't let anything throw me off.”

Katherine was never one to talk about her addictions and drug issues to people. She was always humiliated by what she saw as her own weaknesses and has found that in general, she deals with her problems best when she keeps her head down and focuses on them in privacy. It's one of the reasons she's never gotten into twelve-step programs. But she's noticed over the years that this is not the norm, and that most people can't stop talking about their dependencies and addictions once they step or are pushed out of denial. She's tempted to ask Cecily what she was using, but she knows that all she has to do is keep quiet long enough, and that will be revealed.

And sure enough, after half an hour, Cecily says, “I think for me, the hardest things to give up were the tinctures. And naturally I used the nonalcoholic varieties.”

“Tinctures?”

“It started off with echinacea and goldenseal, for immune system support. It turns out they're gateway extracts for a lot of people. You feel a cold coming on and you go buy some echinacea tincture, and you feel a little bit better. It's totally acceptable and unregulated. We're surrounded by advertisements for them in every yoga magazine and health food store. The next time you're in Whole Foods, you happen to notice that there's an entire aisle of tinctures. So you think you'll try Saint-John's-wort for your mood, and then valerian to help you sleep. And then yerba extract to help you wake up. And that's not even scratching the surface. Something for your eyesight, something for your joints, something for your hair.” Katherine can feel Cecily's body shudder a little beneath her hands. “And then there are the capsules and the mineral extracts and the homeopathic cures and the Bach flower remedies.”

It's clear that Cecily is crying now with the addict's combination of regret and self-pity. Katherine puts a piece of tissue into her limp hand, and she brings it up under her face rest and blows her nose. “I was spending a few hundred a week on remedies. I'd sometimes chew a whole vial of homeopathic medicine as if it were candy. I'd shop at different stores so the clerks wouldn't be able to tell how much I was buying. I was isolating more and more. It's not social the way drinking or heroin is.”

“I guess not.”

“One Saturday morning, I found myself at a GNC in the mall surrounded by a lot of bloated guys buying protein powder in plastic drums. That was my bottom. That's when I knew I had to confront the fact that I had a problem.”

“Were you doing . . . vitamins?” Katherine asks.

Cecily shakes her head, crinkling the paper covering the headrest. “I never
touched
vitamins,” she says proudly.

At the end of their session, Cecily gives Katherine a thirty-dollar tip and asks her for her discretion.

“Of course,” Katherine says. “You just have to believe in yourself and trust that you can get through it.”

“I do. I never want to go back there, believe me. It was a very, very dark place. I've started taking Xanax, which really lowers my anxiety when I go food shopping. Which reminds me, I should take half of one now. I pass a Whole Foods on the way home. Actually, there's a health food store, too. What the heck, I'll take a whole.”

Katherine walks Cecily out to the sidewalk and stands in the warm air, drinking in the buzz of the street life at this time of day. She loves this about Silver Lake—the way there's more of a community and small-town feel than in other neighborhoods in L.A. The downside is that you bump into a lot of the same people all the time. Like, let's say you were trying to hook up with some wonderful guy who works just down the street and then, when you finally do, you freak out because he's
too nice
and then, when you decide you maybe won't sabotage a potentially good thing before it even gets going, you resort to your fucked-up old ways and completely blow it. She can still see the look of hurt and anger on Conor's face when Phil came up behind her that night. The whole incident was so embarrassing and misguided, she can't stand to focus on it. The good news is that she kicked Phil out when she did (one point for sanity, anyway) and that instead of spiraling out of control, she just got herself back into a routine with Lee's classes. So there's that. One of the guys who works at the station house with Conor told her Conor was going to get rotated to another neighborhood soon. Always that way with new guys.

Maybe he's mulling over the next step. Or maybe his silence means he's already decided his next step, and it's away from her.

She spots Stephanie sitting at a sidewalk table at Café Crème across the street, working on her computer and waiting for Lee's afternoon class to begin. She waves, and Stephanie beckons to her. Katherine sprints across the street and joins her at her table.

“I like the shoes,” Stephanie says.

Katherine looks down and realizes that she's barefoot. She likes to work without shoes sometimes; everyone is so used to seeing people barefoot in the studio, no one even notices.

“Glad you approve,” Katherine says. “They were reasonable. How's the work coming?”

“It's coming. I won't know if it's any good until I'm done.”

“When will that be?”

“Soon. I give it to the producer . . . we'll see.”

She's scrutinizing Katherine in a way that makes Katherine feel she has something she wants to ask her. “Is everything all right? ”

“Look,” Stephanie says, “I know you and Lee are good friends, and I don't want to get in the middle of that, but how serious is she about this YogaHappens thing?”

It's always best to mind your own business and let people make their own decisions, even if you think they're mistakes. She doesn't really believe the move will make Lee happy, but on the other hand, she's not in a position to judge. Maybe she feels Lee is abandoning her and doesn't
want
her to be happy.

“I'd guess she's pretty serious.”

“It's a big mistake. We have to talk her out of it.”

“I don't know, Stephanie. I'm trying to focus on avoiding my own mistakes.”

“Me, too. But don't you wish you had a little help sometimes? ”

When she has had help, it's usually come from Lee. “When you say ‘we have to talk her out of it,' I assume you mean I do.”

“I think you have to try.”

G
raciela is scrubbing out the storage space beneath her mother's kitchen sink when she gets the call. Heberto, her mother's late husband, was a do-it-yourself kind of guy and, like most do-it-yourselfers, he had lots of ambition and limited skills. Graciela's discovered that there are half-finished electrical and plumbing repairs all over the house. Almost every room contains some evidence of good intentions gone astray—a little box of building materials, half-filled tubes of caulking, pieces of tile, sections of drywall. At some point, he obviously tried to do something about a leak in the drain of the kitchen sink, but he either lost patience or faith in his abilities to complete the job. When she opened the cabinet, she was greeted by the sight and smell of mildewed sponges, damp rags, and boxes of Brillo pads and dishwasher detergent that had partly disintegrated.

One thing she's learned from helping her mother out is that the bigger the mess she tackles, the greater the satisfaction in getting the job done.

She replaced a washer, tightened a few loose nuts (Heberto had, of course, left the wrenches under the sink), and began throwing things out. Boxes of unusable cleaning supplies, containers of ammonia and floor wax covered with slime or rust or both. She stripped down to one of Daryl's tight T-shirts she'd thrown on that morning. When she hears her phone ringing on the kitchen table, she's covered in sweat and soap scum, and she decides to let it go to voice mail. A few minutes later, she slides out from under the sink and surveys the job. Spotless. One of the lesser accomplishments of her life, but still one that offers her a great deal of pleasure. She can't fix her mother's life; she can't change her attitude; she can't make her happy. But she can clean her house up so that when she's ready to make some of the other changes herself, everything will be in place.

She can hear the shrill voices of the Telemundo soap opera coming from the TV in the room out back and her mother's laughter and curses at the characters. No matter what she says, no matter how dismissive her mother is to her, somewhere inside, surely she appreciates what Graciela has been doing for her.