Tales from the Yoga Studio (37 page)

The house is so clean, all the marble and polished wood floors gleaming, and so minimally furnished, that it's a little hard to believe anyone lives here. From inside, it's clear that the gardens have been so lushly and amply planted, there's no need for curtains. It feels a little like a terrarium, but there's such a flow from inside to out, it's hard to tell if you're inside the terrarium or outside looking into it.

The living room juts out at the back of the house like the prow of a ship, and, sitting at the far end of it, with the milky white sky behind them, are Zhannette and Frank. They're sitting on invisible chairs that must be made of Lucite, so they appear to be floating in this room, which is itself floating.

They stand in unison and come forward to greet Lee and Alan. Given the buildup, the reputation, the house, the names, and the smell of roses in the air, Lee was expecting two lithe gurus in white robes. What a surprise then that Frank is a perfectly ordinary-looking man, probably in his late fifties, wearing a pair of jeans and a V-necked sweater with nothing underneath. There's some graying chest hair sticking out the neckline, and the suggestion of a gut above his cinched belt.

Zhannette is one of those extremely well-put-together women who looks as if every inch of her body is pampered and preserved by expensive treatments—soft hair, a lovely complexion, perfect nails. But there's something about her features and the shape of her face and body—a little chunky and fleshy—that suggest she wasn't born into this wealth. She could be fifty, but who knows? She has on a pair of jeans and a white shirt that appears to be one of those six-hundred-dollar knockoffs of a man's business shirt. Everything about her looks clean, and you can tell she's covered in a thin layer of an expensive and lightly scented moisturizer.

She puts her hands in prayer and bows a little to Alan and Lee, as if this is what they expect as a greeting. Really, a handshake would have been fine.

“You have such a beautiful aura,” she says to Lee. “It's radiating all around you, like a brilliant evening star in the clear northern sky.”

Lee supposes she ought to say thank you, but the whole point of the comment seems to be to show Zhannette's own abilities, not to compliment Lee. “It was warm in the car,” Lee says. “That's probably what it is.”

“Isn't she lovely, Frank? We're so lucky to have you on board. Both of you. James will bring out some drinks in a minute. Sit.”

There are four identical S-shaped Lucite chairs, and as Alan begins to sit in one, Frank says, “That's mine.”

“Oh. Sorry about that.”

Frank is one of those preoccupied businessmen who seems to have at least a dozen things he'd rather be doing than this and who views this meeting as an obligation, either to the business or to keep his wife happy. Although something in Zhannette's appearance suggests to Lee that the antidepressants do the happiness trick on their own pretty effectively.

“We have been wanting to meet you for so long now,” Zhannette says. “As soon as we heard about your studio, I said to Frank, ‘We have to get these wonderful people.' I wanted you to know that while you probably felt like you were working in a mine somewhere, you were noticed and that people like us were aware of your existence! I want to know everything about you, Lee. Everything.

“But first—you're probably wondering how we got into the spirituality industry. Do you want to tell them, Frank?”

He folds his arms across his chest, resting them on his little belly. This is apparently sign language for
You tell them
, so Zhannette continues:

“About ten years ago, everything came together for us, Lee. I won't bore you with the details, but let's just say that we were suddenly among the most admired people in this town. Do you have any idea how difficult that is when it first happens? When money and success thrust one into the stratosphere? I'm just guessing you don't know what it's like to be wealthy, Alan, and invited to every A-list party and jetting off to Morocco for ‘someone's' birthday party. I know it sounds marvelous to someone like you, Lee, and okay, I'm not going to deny—partly it
is
marvelous. But the whole truth is always different from what we see on the glittering surface.”

She clasps her hands and gives another little bow, although it's not clear who she's bowing to. Truth? The glittering surface?

“Back when we were just rich, it was relatively carefree. But when you get into the category we're in now, Lee, the obligations and the pressures mount exponentially. Just stop and think about it for a minute, Alan: if you had the ability to do whatever you wanted,
whatever
you wanted to do, how many decisions would you have to make on a minute-to-minute basis? Dozens? Try hundreds, Alan. Think about that.

“But you know what, Lee? I have always faced adversity head-on. I have
never
been one to let a crisis like this roll over me and pull me under. So many of the megarich are swept away by the difficulty of their positions, just like those unfortunate little people who were pulled out to sea by the tsunami.”

James arrives with a glass tray of juice and clear bowls with colorful fruits heaped up in them. He sets it on a glass table beside Zhannette, but she doesn't acknowledge it or James, a shame really, since Lee is dying of thirst and didn't have much for lunch.

“So I began meditating. And from the minute I first went into a deep meditative state—and I had a real talent for it—I saw the path in front of me. Can I tell you how I view you, Lee? I don't want to embarrass you—I know how modest you are, I can read it in your beautiful aura—but I know I can be honest with you.

“You are a work of art. No, really, you
are
. And you are, too, Alan.” She reaches out and takes both their hands. “And when you think about it, it's always been up to the wealthy and privileged people of the world to buy art so that it can be protected and made available to everyone. So that's what I began doing, Lee. I began buying the most wonderful, masterful works of art in the world. The truly
precious
things in the world. Things like
you
.”

She drops their hands and signals to James, who, apparently, has been somewhere on the periphery, watching. He appears, and Zhannette says, “If you wouldn't mind taking this away, dear. I'm not thirsty now.
Namaste.
” That said, the food and drink disappear.

“But what do you
do
with art, Alan? Oh, don't look worried, I don't mean you, I mean
one
. What does
one
who can afford to acquire art do with it? Well, you either keep it hidden away or you put it in a museum. So that's where YogaHappens comes in. You see, the Experience Centers are museums. That's why they're so gorgeous, Lee. They're museums, Alan. And I know people like you probably think we have a lot of rules and regulations and such, but when you think about it, doesn't the Getty? Doesn't the Prado? Doesn't the Louvre? How else can all the lovely things they hold, all the wonderful objects on exhibit, be protected from the people they are there for?

“So now I've babbled on here, I know, but I really want you to know where I'm coming from. Some people say—and we hear the rumors, Lee, all the way up here in our cottage and even down in Malibu, where we have our real house—people say: ‘Oh, Zhannette and Frank are taking the best teachers from the little yoga studios.' Well, number one, we're not
taking
anyone, we're
buying
them, and number two, if a beautiful, priceless Picasso like you, Lee, or a charming little sketch like you, Alan, were sitting around some moldy old junk shop in the middle of nowhere, wouldn't you want to rescue them if it was in your power? Wouldn't it be almost a moral obligation?

“Aren't I right, Frank?”

Frank unclasps his arms. “We're raising the class fee to thirty-eight dollars next month,” he says.

“He's the businessman, Lee. I don't get involved in that, and you don't need to, either. That's the beauty of it. Do you see what I mean, Alan? I
envy
you being in the position you're in. No, really, I do. It's like my dogs. Sometimes I look at them and I think: Aren't they lucky? The food just appears in their bowls!

“By the way, my name. Let's just get that one out of the way, okay? Once I became a Buddhist, Lee, the name Janet just didn't sound right to me. It was fine for Milwaukee, where I grew up, but I felt like a new person and I wanted a name to suit me. So I was in Paris and all the little women at the couture houses were saying
Miss Janet
this and
Miss Janet
that, but, naturally, they pronounce it ‘Zhannette.' Have you ever been out of the country, Lee? The French speak English so beautifully, even the peasants. So I embraced it and changed the spelling.

“I really
have
gone on too long. Please. Do you have any questions, Alan? What about you, Lee? Is there anything you'd like to ask?”

“Well, in fact, I do have one question,” Lee says. She turns to Alan and says, “You've been fucking Barrett, haven't you?”

H
ow could you do that to me?” Alan asks.

“What are you
talking
about?”

“In front of Zhannette and Frank! Did you see the looks on their faces? They were so embarrassed they didn't know what to do.”

“Do you really think I give a
shit
about Frank and
Janet
? Just start the car, Alan. Start the car and drive me home.”

“Fortunately, she has enough social skills to pretend you hadn't said anything.”

“Fortunately, she's so pathologically self-absorbed, she wouldn't have noticed if I'd pushed you through one of those windows, which is what I felt like doing.”

“You're jumping to conclusions.”

“Start the car, Alan.”

“I'm trying to find my keys.”

“Try
harder
.”

There are so many zippers and tiny Velcroed pockets on the pair of yoga pants Alan is wearing, he keeps losing track of where he's already looked and where he hasn't. What, Lee wonders, did the designer have in mind: a different pocket for each coin?

“And you haven't answered my original question,” she says.

“I'm not going to honor that with a response, Lee.”

“Oh, yes, you are. And you're going to honor it right now.” For so many years, Lee has been practicing equanimity and calm, breathing into anger, releasing, relaxing, letting go. But she feels a completely unfamiliar rage churning inside her, almost as if she's losing control of her thoughts and her actions. It's a physical sensation as much as anything else, a tingling in her arms and legs and across her scalp. “In case you've forgotten, I asked: You've been fucking Barrett, haven't you?”

“I haven't
slept with her
, Lee,” he says, pulling the keys out of a pouch below his knee. “And we're not
having an affair
, either.”

“Oh, my God,” Lee says. “Oh, my God! In other words, you've been having sex.” She punches at the button on the glove compartment, and when it doesn't open, she fishes through her bag until she's found her own keys. “She's a
kid
, Alan! She's a senior in college!” Lee opens the glove compartment and roots around until she's located the pack of cigarettes she stashed there that night Alan moved out, months ago. She knew they'd come inin handy sometime. “And she's
our
kids' babysitter. That is so . . . fucking . . . tacky and clichéd.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

“I'm lighting a cigarette,” Lee says. “Isn't it obvious?” The Marlboro is bobbing up and down in her mouth as she nervously tries to strike a match. “And once I have it lit, I'm going to
smoke
it. Right down to the goddamned filter.”

“Are you out of your mind? What if Zhannette and Frank saw you?”

“Do you really think I care about them? Do you really think I have
any intention
of working for them? They're horrible. I mean, he's a complete corporate pig, and she's so clueless, I'm tempted to feel bad but am resisting the temptation. She just referred to us as
dogs
, Alan. Which is actually completely true in your case, but not for the reasons she thinks.”

Alan puts the car into drive and slowly pulls away from the house, glancing up just to make sure no one spotted them. Lee rolls down her window and sticks her head out and shouts,
“I'm smoking a cigarette down here,
Janet
! Want a puff?”

“You're out of your mind. You're so full of hostility.”

“And what do you call fucking the girl—
girl
, Alan—who works for us? For
me
?”