Tales from the Yoga Studio Read Free Page B

to a little much-needed praise. Positive reinforcement. Why, she wonders, hasn’t Alan figured that out yet?

    I t takes Lee twenty minutes to walk from Edendale Yoga to the school to pick up the twins. Alan dropped them there this morning and went downtown to work with his writing partner on a song they’re hoping to sell to another reality show about addiction on VH1. He was supposed to leave the car for her and walk back to his new digs. She’d bet anything it’s not in the lot. Fortunately, she’s not a gambler, so she’ll just stay focused on what’s right with the day.
    Growing up in suburban Connecticut, Lee never imagined she’d live in a place as urban as Silver Lake. California had never been on her radar screen, period. She always dreamed she’d end up in Vermont, some pretty, small town where she could have a private practice as a GP, raise a family, and go pond skating a few months a year. Basically, the full Currier and Ives fantasy. The last time she was in Vermont, she got stuck in a traffic jam outside a strip mall of outlet shops. Oh, well. Now she can’t imagine leaving Silver Lake. It’s just the right mixture of fun and funky, boho and beautiful. And yes, people do walk in this neighborhood and ride bikes to work and sit around drinking coffee (caffeinated!) at sidewalk cafés. It’s probably in the low seventies today, and as she strolls down the street from the studio, she can see the reservoir spread out before her like a shimmering mirror framed by the green of palm trees and the stucco houses with their red tile rooftops.
    She breathes it all in, trying to store up some of this calm ( this feeling is there for you when you need it ) before the twins storm back into her life and make every moment an exercise in accepting the unacceptable. Systems? Plans? No point with two eight-year-old boys steering the ship. Still, she couldn’t have picked a better place to raise kids, even if Silver Lake is a little scruffy around the edges once you take a good look, even if the air can be a little thicker up here. Her own path would have been a lot clearer a lot sooner if she’d grown up in someplace as diverse and fun as this instead of Darien.
    As she steps onto the sidewalk around the reservoir, the breeze picks up, freshening the air and making her think, for one moment, that everything really is going to work out all right. Alan is just being moody and childish in the way he can be sometimes. It’s his most unappealing quality, but she’s dealing with it. At least he started working on some new songs. That will make him feel good about himself until there’s one of those rejections that always send him into a spiral of self-doubt expressed as anger at someone else. It was her idea for him to pick up the harmonium and start playing live music at a few of the classes in the studio. He has a surprising flair for it, and students love it. True, it’s not what he imagined doing with music, but it gives him an audience, and Lee has gotten him a couple of gigs at other small studios around town. If he needs a little time to look at what he’s doing and reevaluate, she can deal with it. He told her it’s not about her and it’s definitely not about an affair. For the moment, it’s easiest to believe he’s being honest. It’s all going to work out. It’s all going to be fine .
    She rounds the corner and the school comes into view. The entire student body is lined up on the sidewalk, and there’s a fleet of police cruisers at the door, blue lights flashing, and the sound of fire trucks in the distance.
    That’s when she starts to run.

    T he fast was incredible,” the woman says as Katherine kneads her calves. “After the third day, I had absolutely no hunger whatsoever. I mean, what is that about? And for the ten days, ten whole days without a bite of food, I was still . . . you know . . . a few times