Bethany scrutinized my position, then nudged me into a more accurate semblance of the pose. She seldom did this with Carl. Not because he was NP—after all, we could very well hit the yoga jackpot and discover he was secretly a telekinetic all this time, and the reason he hated people pawing through his belongings was that he could feel the residue of their touch. But I strongly doubted it. I’ve only been on a first-name basis with one TK in the course of my life. And between Camp Hell, the PsyCop program and F-Pimp, I’ve met a lot of Psychs.
No, Carl was just way better at yoga.
Bethany went back to her mat, stretched into a perfect warrior one, then flowed into warrior two. As Carl and I mirrored her, she said, “Focus on your spine, above the navel, below the ribcage. Imagine a field of energy there, tucked behind the solar plexus against the front of the spine. Vic? It’s just potential energy. Nothing is spinning. Not in any direction.”
This was the thing about personalized yoga lessons. A hyper-observant teacher like Bethany gets to know your which-way-is-clockwise face.
“Imagine the energy as a beautiful sphere. A warm, rich yellow. And visualize the image of a lotus within.”
Did most guys know what a lotus looked like, or was it one of those things women were great at and men just nodded along and hoped to change the subject before they revealed that they had absolutely zero clue? The cannery had decorative brick along the roofline that was supposed to be a lotus pattern—Egyptian Revival, and a weird attempt at it, to boot—but they were incredibly stylized. Still, I’m visual to a fault. When Bethany said the words lotus and sphere, the image of a big, round marble—the size of my fist, with a fake lotus in the center—popped into my head. Belatedly, I mentally painted the thing yellow.
“Vic? Did you have a question?”
It always felt funny to speak up during F-pimp yoga. But Bethany was big on “dialog.” And our boss was really keen on her helping me figure my shit out. “Isn’t this the digestive chakra?”
“That’s right—Manipura is associated with metabolism and digestion.”
“Great. But we didn’t really touch on it that one time—”
“You’re leaning forward,” she said calmly. I straightened myself. “As you well know, chakras are merely a way to understand an abstract concept. Yes, digestion is one of the third-chakra functions, but Manipura is also the seat of dynamism. It represents your personal power. Isn’t that exactly what you’re hoping to activate?”
Well…when she put it that way.
“Can you picture the yellow sphere?”
“I guess.”
“Breathe in.”
Bethany was big into breathing, and she acted as if the majority of people were doing it wrong. But if I could forego the dangerous horse-pills and shove my psychic ability into another bracket by breathing in a certain way? I was all for it. I dutifully forced air in and out of my lungs according to her direction as we flowed through a few more poses. And when Bethany murmured, “Good,” I felt a ridiculous sense of accomplishment. Because she wasn’t effusive with her praise…and I really dug the thought of being good at something other than seeing ghosts.
Once our session drew to a close and the woman in the lab coat peeled the electrodes from my temples, Bethany said, “Have you spoken to Jack lately?”
I always had to do some mental gymnastics to figure out who we were talking about whenever someone called Jack Bly by his first name, even though he’d been my fake husband for a month. “Monday’s staff meeting. Why?”
“Our focus on the Manipura reminded me of his digestive issues. I think he’d benefit from a session like this.”
“Yeah…that thing I told you about him having irritable bowel syndrome was just a part of our undercover identities.”
“It was?”
“His bowels are fine.”
“Oh. Well. Good. That’s good to hear. Very…good. Anyway. Remember to check in with your breath periodically, and I’ll see you Friday.”
“Will do.”
Bethany and her scientist left Carl and me to roll up our mats and stow them in the cabinet with our exorcism gear. I shrugged into my jacket and was adjusting my necktie when I realized Carl was giving me a look—and quiet guys like him can say a heck of a lot without uttering a word.
“What?” I said.
The look intensified.
“Spit it out, Carl. What did I do now?”
“She’s looking for a reason to talk to Agent Bly. Would it kill you to make that happen?”
“Wait, what? How did you get that from…?” Scratch that. I knew where he got it. Carl was excellent at reading people. Mostly, he’d trained to figure out who was carrying a hidden firearm or a suicide bomb. But he was also ten steps ahead of me in any given social situation.
I grabbed my phone, scowled it open, and said, “Tell Bly, The yoga lady’s hot for you.”
“Sending.”
Carl shook his head.
“What? We shared a freaking bed. I don’t need to waste mental energy trying to be diplomatic.”
“Sending,” the phone repeated as it helpfully appended that last statement to the message.
The reply, WTF? appeared beneath the inadvertent second half of my message. I sent him a thumbs-up, then navigated away from the messaging app.
Mission accomplished.
3
WHILE MY BACK might have felt fantastic, my mood definitely did not. I’d come home from work prepared for a night of picking through old rolodexes and yearbooks, both hoping I’d find something, worrying I wouldn’t…and dreading that if I did, I’d regret it. But when I walked in the door, Jacob called out from the kitchen, “Zoom meeting with Pastor Jill in fifteen.” Oh, right. The wedding. “Soup’s on the stove if you’re hungry.”
“Remind me again what your priest wants.”
“Not a priest—that’s Catholic. Pastor Jill is a Lutheran Minister.”
“And that’s different how?”
“She’s a woman, for one. And she’s happy to marry us in church, for another.”
“You’re just gonna overlook the obvious dig about groping altar boys?”
Jacob ignored my sorry attempt at humor.
I said, “Isn’t Christianity all basically the same?”
“I have no idea—what I know about Catholicism doesn’t amount to much. My father converted when my parents tied the knot, and according to him, he never looked back. When my sister and I had sleepovers at my grandparents’ place, Grandma would drag us to mass…to my mother’s great annoyance. Barbara and I were intrigued by all the statuary and stained glass. It felt mysterious. Taboo.”
“So you’re sure there was no altar boy type action?”
Jacob gave me an exasperated look.
Satisfied I’d finally landed my awful joke, I dropped an ice cube into my soup so I could pound it without cooking my own esophagus, then dragged a dining room chair upstairs so we could video chat with the pastor side by side. I hadn’t exactly been thrilled to find out our church wedding involved actually meeting with the pastor—frankly, I would’ve preferred to write a check and call it good. But apparently, this was how things were done.