From Comfortable Distances Read Free Page B

Kyle
said.

Chapter 3: The
Awakening
     
    The scent of nag champa
incense—sweet and spicy—filtered through Tess as she made her way up the two
flights of stairs to the yoga studio. Michael had insisted that they beat the
crowd in the lobby waiting for the elevator by taking the stairs. For a moment,
just as she was reaching the top stair, she closed her eyes and thought of her
childhood home. Michael caught her from behind: “steady there, Tess. No
accidents before we make it into the studio.” He pulled the heavy steel door
open and suddenly the scent enveloped them full blast.
    “Your shoes!” the girl
behind the counter screeched. “Please! Take them off before you walk in.”
    “Oh,” Tess said, turning
to Michael and leaning on him for support. She pulled one black suede Gucci
loafer off and then the other, putting them in her tote bag.
    “What are you doing?”
Michael said.
    “What does it look like
I’m doing?”
    He stuffed his sneakers into
the shoe-holder egg crates.
    “Why don’t you put your
shoes next to the rest of them,” he said.
    “Are you kidding me?”
Tess said. “These shoes cost $550.”
    Michael rolled his eyes. “Since
when did you become so paranoid?”
    “If I were wearing a pair
of out-of-date sneakers like you, I’d gladly put them on the shoe rack or in
whatever that is—the shoe cubby thing.”
    “Excuse me!” the girl
behind the desk whispered rather loudly. She pointed to a circular white plaque
that had the word talking on it in red caps with a line through it. “Please
obey the rules; we don’t speak while a class is in session.”
    The studio was a mix of
light Danish wood benches and matching built-into-the-wall shelves filled with
precisely folded yoga clothes and books. Across from where the elevator let
out, there was an oversized semi-circle shaped wooden desk covered with sign-in
clipboards. Tess squinted up at the high ceiling. Exposed silver beams and
silver track lighting rods were interspersed with extra small light fixtures.
From their glow, she imagined they had used either hot pink or dim-orange
bulbs, which created a nice echo effect. Spacious is how Tess would have
described it. Sophisticated, airy, and spacious.
    The girl behind the
counter smiled sugar sweet at Michael when they approached. That was all he
needed to be hooked: a twenty-something year old flirting with him the minute
he walked in. She looked like a cheerleader to Tess, with her tawny blonde
stick straight hair, and her red bra top that did nothing for her concave
chest, although her flat stomach was, Tess noted, rather appealingly
accentuated by her low wasted skin-tight black leggings that flared out at the
bottoms. Yoga clothes had come a long way from the oversized t-shirts and the
flowing bohemian tops that all the men and women who used to come to do yoga
with her mother wore.
    “Have you been here
before?” the girl said.
    “No, we haven’t,” Michael
said.
    “You’ll have to fill out
a release,” the girl said. She handed Michael a clipboard with a form on it and
pushed one in front of Tess. “Let’s put your name into the system so we can at
least get you paid up,” she said, her eyes on the computer screen she was
tapping information into. “Will you be paying for your wife, too?” she said.
    “I’m not his wife, but
yes, he’ll be paying for me, won’t you, Michael?”
    “I dragged her here, so I
guess I have to pay,” he said. The girl grimaced at him, as if they were
sharing a secret, and Michael winked at her. Tess’s bullshit detector was
ringing at full volume.
    “Will you need to rent
mats?” the girl asked Michael.
    “Yes, we both need to
rent mats,” he said, handing her his credit card.
    The girl smiled a cheesy
smile at Tess. “Splendid,” she said. “If you could just move to the side to
fill these out so that I can take care of the other people,” the girl said,
motioning to the line that had formed behind them. “I’ll give you