Tales from the Yoga Studio (8 page)

Her car is roasting hot, and when she turns on the AC, she hears that funny ticking noise the engine's been making for the past few weeks. Like she needs another expense. According to careful calculations, she can live off her savings for another two months. If she's careful. After that . . .

But she's not sure what happens after, and she's not going to drive herself crazy thinking about it. She'll
get
the money. She will make this movie. She'll show . . .
Cheeseburger, goddamn it!

Stephanie is supposed to meet Graciela this afternoon, but if she hits any traffic at all, she'll probably be late anyway. She's not entirely sure if she's eaten yet today. She was nervous about the meeting and rushing around. Oddly enough, she's not hungry. What she really wants is a drink. There's a restaurant not far from here that serves great salads and the kind of fun, frothy cocktails you can pretend are smoothies.

But as she's heading down Melrose, all that sunlight and sparkle start to get to her, and she can feel the headache creeping up on her again. She decides to head up to Santa Monica Boulevard and go straight back to West Hollywood. She's got a list of a dozen names of people with no credentials but a few extra dollars they want to use to buy their way into the movie business. She never thought she'd have to sink this low, but it is what it is. Might as well plunge in. She'll pick up a bottle of wine, head home, pull the shades, and start making calls.

L
ee takes it as a positive sign that Alan has agreed to go to the gallery for the opening of Garth's show. She couldn't get out of attending since she sees Lorraine at school almost every day, and to have gone solo would have been humiliating and the start of rumors and gossip. At least this way, they'll present a picture of domestic stability. She's surprised that this matters to her—the picture—but right now, it seems important. There's no need to make this temporary move of Alan's look more significant to friends than it is.

The night of the opening is so cool and beautiful, that when Alan shows up at the house, they decide to walk. Another positive sign. It should only take them about thirty minutes. Barrett, one of the interns at the studio, has agreed to babysit for the twins. Barrett's a senior in college studying early childhood education. She was a gymnast up until a few years ago when she aged out of the sport and made a canny decision to transition to yoga. She's studying with another gymnast-turned-yogini at school and she has an impressive (if maybe
too
athletic) practice. Someday she could be a great teacher. The twins like her. Lee does, too, even though she doesn't always trust her. Sometimes Barrett gives indications of being envious of other people's lives—Katherine's massage practice, Chloe's teaching skill—in ways that make Lee uncomfortable.

“Katherine spotted the YogaHappens people at the studio the other day,” she says to Alan as they stroll along.

“It'll be all over the studio in a week,” Alan says.

“She's the most discreet person I know,” Lee says. “I didn't even ask her to keep it quiet. It's understood.”

“It's understood until she decides to blab,” he says. “People like her get better, Lee, but they don't change.”

Lee decides to keep her mouth shut. Alan is thirty-four, two years younger than Lee. He's been on the fringes of the music business since he was twenty. Although squeaky clean himself, there's no question that he's hung out with his fair share of drinkers and druggies, but the fact that they're
musicians
somehow excuses the substance abuse in his mind, even when it's ongoing. The fact that they're men helps, too. At Alan's level, there's a lot of sexism in music—it's a bit of a boys' club—and he, like a few of the guys he plays with, has a very thinly veiled resentment of women who get the attention he thinks he deserves. The same old arguments about women not being
real
guitar players—as if—what?—you play guitar with your penis? (Grudgingly, they admit that women can sometimes be real pianists and, of course, violinists.) If Katherine were a man, he'd be more understanding about her past and her transformation.

“There are a lot of bad feelings about that YogaHappens,” she says. “Too corporate, too aggressive.”

“It's about us, Lee. It's not about Katherine. It's good for both of us.”

She's grateful that he's talking about them as a couple. “Let's have a nice time tonight,” she says. “And speaking of discretion, I'd really appreciate it if you don't say anything about your current housing situation.”

“Give me a little more credit than that,” he says.

“How's the work going on the songs?” she asks.

“Jesus, Lee. You sound so suspicious when you ask that. Like you assume things aren't going well.”

“I'm not assuming anything. I just asked how your work is coming along.”

“It's in the tone. It's all about the tone.” He moves away from her slightly. “And it's coming great. We've finished three songs. One of them is definitely right for a new reality show that has a soundtrack. Ben's agent is going to be sending it off soon.”

“I can't wait to hear.”

He shakes his head slowly, another indication that he's taken offense at her tone again. Maybe she did reveal something. When she hears Alan's songs or sees him performing, she can see and hear the talent, no question of that, but also has a strong sense that there's some small but crucial missing piece. Maybe he knows it, too, and that's why he's so defensive. It's probably best to keep quiet.

The gallery is on the fringes of downtown Silver Lake, a former curtain shop that's been painted white from top to bottom and is, if you can believe Lorraine and Garth, becoming one of the more important galleries in a neighborhood known for its artists. There's a crowd of thirty or more people inside, most holding wineglasses, dressed primarily in jeans and stylish little print dresses, listening.

The gallery owner is in the middle of introducing Garth when they walk in. He's a rotund man with huge black eyeglasses that cover half his face.

“. . . And so we're caught in this miasma of tertiary malignancy. The question isn't
whether
the artist responds, but
how
. And Garth's way is to contextualize the incumbent . . . voluptuary . . .
solemnity
of the current ardency. That's why this series of paintings is so important, not only to his body of work, but also to our very existence. The malevolent
betrothal
we all feel when we look at this work makes it possible to say:
Yes
.”

There's a smattering of polite applause, and then Garth is introduced. He and Lorraine are wearing identical outfits—untucked navy blue shirts over white jeans. And Birdy, standing beside them, is color coordinated. Garth holds up his hands and lets his head drop. He's a handsome man, probably in his late forties, with graying hair he keeps plastered to his scalp.

“I am truly humbled by Tony's words,” he says. “They're obviously unearned, but if ”—he throws up his hands”—this work keeps the planet spinning on its orbit for even ten seconds longer, I will be happy. I'm grateful to all of you for coming and giving me the opportunity to move you in some small, small way with this work. Now for Christ's sake, let's enjoy!”

Lee sometimes wonders if her own inability to appreciate art is the problem. In style, Garth's painting are somewhere between David Hockney and gay porn. Cool California blues and greens, lots of water, and lots of male flesh. This series of twenty or so paintings depicts Garth sprawled nude (of course) in a variety of positions—faceup, facedown—on a reclining webbed lawn chair. She's not sure what “malevolent betrothal” means, but she's pretty sure it doesn't mean the combination of embarrassment and faint revulsion she feels when she looks at the paintings. What does Lorraine make of all the lurid images of his ass that seem to be invitations? And what about Birdy? She's dressed in a lacy white dress and navy blue Chinese slippers, and is looking at a painting while her father kneels beside her, pointing to something or other on the canvas. Hopefully a palm tree.

When she whispers some of this to Alan, he says, “Don't be such a prude, Lee. You're around bodies all day. You wanted to be a doctor.”

“It's not the nudity,” she says quietly. “It's that you're supposed to pretend you don't see it and comment instead on the malignancy or whatever it is.”

“A minute ago, you were asking me to pretend I hadn't moved out.”

Lorraine comes over and gives them big hugs. She smells lemony and sweet, not as if she's wearing perfume, but as if her golden hair and skin are emitting this lovely fragrance.

“We are
so
delighted you could come,” she says. Again, there's the emphasis she gives to her words that makes Lee think she knows or suspects something. “Isn't the work amazing? The show is causing a sensation. You're looking as devastating as always, Alan. Don't let him out of your sight, Lee.”

Although Alan is (deservedly) vain about his looks, he has begun to express regret that he never gets complimented for anything other than his appearance. People don't even ask him anymore what he's doing musically. Lee wouldn't say so, but she sometimes wonders if this is a matter of friends politely not wanting to rub salt into wounds, since he often reacts in the hostile way he did to her questions.

“There are a couple of people who are dying to meet you, Lee. They all want to start doing yoga.”

Lee grabs a glass of wine, takes Alan's hand, and follows Lorraine. There's a group of three women, probably in their forties, standing near the back of the gallery, laughing uproariously about something, maybe a little sloshed. Lorraine introduces Lee, and the first thing one of them says is: “You
drink
?”

“In moderation,” Lee says.

“That's so funny. I thought you yoga teachers were all so
pure
.”

Uh-oh. Lee can hear the drip of condescension in her voice, as if Lee has been berating her with a lecture on temperance for hours.

“I guess it depends how you define purity,” Lee says. She'd love to tell them she has a pack of cigarettes stashed in her glove compartment, but she'd rather Alan didn't find out about that. “This is my husband, Alan.”

“Now
he
doesn't look so pure.”

“Alan's a musician,” Lee says. “And a songwriter.”

“How interesting. Anything we've heard?”

This question is always a slap in the face to Alan. People assume that you're legitimate only if they've heard something you've written on the sound system at Trader Joe's. Lee rattles off the name of a song that was used over the end credits of a movie five years ago.

“Don't know it,” one of the women says.

It was a hit with
young
people
, Lee longs to say, but that's so catty and also, sadly, untrue.

“Do you ever worry,” a woman with bracelets says, “that the yoga ‘thing' is like the aerobics fad, and it's going to die out in a year or two?”

This again.

“The practice has been around for thousands of years,” Lee says, “so it's already outlived Jane Fonda.”

“Really? I heard the Indians cobbled it all together from watching the British soldiers do calisthenics. I'd happily stand on my head if it made me look as good as you two. You're so
fit
.”

Somehow or other, this woman makes the word sound obscene. Lee is all too familiar with this kind of thing, being treated with envy and, at the same time, as if she were a freak. It's easy enough to ignore, and at least the condescension toward her balances out a little of the sting Alan probably feels right now.

“I'll bet it's good for your
marriage
,” one of the others leers.

“You're welcome to come by the studio anytime you like,” Lee says. “Try it out. Bring your husbands.”

“There's a laugh,” one says. “I'd have as much luck trying to get him to wear a tutu!”

Lee smiles and takes Alan's hand. They go over to Birdy and Garth and congratulate him on the show. He puts his arms around Lee's waist in a way that makes everyone uncomfortable.

“Do you like the incumbent ardency?” he asks.

Lee doesn't say anything and Garth winks. “It's all showbiz, folks. You gotta pay the bills somehow. Nothing sells like selling out!”

Lee is relieved. This is the first time he's given any indication that he knows how all the pretentious talk about his work sounds. It's really the first time he's ever been ironic about himself. “How do you like your daddy's paintings?” she asks Birdy.