Part 1
Chapter 1
Elise
I am not feelin’ Namaste today, Elise Armstrong said to herself as she struggled through her Monday evening yoga class.
It wasn’t as if she was stressed out or in a bad mood. On a normal Monday, Elise looked forward to the class. She enjoyed yoga, appreciating the discipline of it and the flexibility the practice brought to her body. Yoga had strengthened her posture and toned her arms and legs. And it worked better than a pill for the back and shoulder pain she’d had lately, probably from sitting too long hunched over her computer. It was a part of Elise’s beauty regimen. But tonight? It seemed that all the star signs, chakras, and incense from Sergeant Jasmine, the instructor, had aligned to create a perfect storm of I-just-don’t-feel-like-this syndrome. Yet she couldn’t explain why.
All the meditation she’d done over the years had flown out the window. Elise had taken off her watch, and Sergeant Jasmine didn’t believe in clocks, so she had no idea what time it was or how close it was to the end of the ninety-minute class. Considering it was the first yoga class she’d attended in almost two months, one would think she’d be more . . . mindful. Instead, she was un-mindful. And starving. I’m thinking tacos, guacamole, and a margarita . . . then a hot bath and a couple of Tylenol, not necessarily in that order. By the time the class reached its fifteenth downward-facing dog, Elise’s thoughts had wandered from Mexican to Thai cuisine. Yep. That’s it. Pad Thai, a couple of fresh spring rolls . . . She worked it all out as she set up for her headstand. It would be the perfect evening. Her son, Wade, had headed back to Chicago, his weekend visit over. Tonight it would be just her with a bubble bath accompanied by vanilla-sandalwood candles and the new Esperanza Spalding CD, followed by the mystery she’d picked up by that new Scandinavian writer what’s-his-name. And . . . oh yes, that thick manila envelope from the lawyer.
“Class, remember, don’t let monkey mind distract you from your purpose as you prepare.” Jasmine’s voice had cut through Elise’s reverie like an F5 tornado. And was it just her imagination or was Jasmine making a comment about her? Elise stole a peek at the teacher. Jasmine’s eyes quickly moved in another direction.
“Puff out your kidneys and tuck in your tailbone!”
Are you kidding me? Puff out your kidneys? How the hell do you do that?
“Spine straight!” The yoga teacher was standing two mats away. She tapped one woman on the back. “Tailbone!” Jasmine’s freight-train voice was earsplitting against the muted sitar music playing serenely in the background. “Focus! Concentrate!”
Elise took a slow, deep breath, tucked her tailbone, adjusted her shoulders, and concentrated: on a small white dish of green curry chicken, plated with slices of lime on the side. That worked until the image of a plate of overstuffed tacos dripping with super-spicy salsa replaced it. That was all it took. Her arms began to quiver. Her shoulders buckled. Disaster was then inevitable. Her legs swayed, and down she went.
“Daammnn!”
She caught herself just before a complete bone-breaking collapse on her mat.
The woman on her left chuckled, and her headstand evaporated too. Unfortunately, she bumped her funny bone on the way down.
“Ouch!”
“Shit!”
Headstands across the studio fell like dominos.
Jasmine was not pleased.
“Ujjayi breathing, class.” The instructor frowned in Elise’s direction. “No negative energy. Let’s regroup.”
Elise was tempted to stick out her tongue.
“Ohhh . . . let’s not and say we did,” said the woman on the purple mat.
“I’ve got some negative energy for you.” This loudly whispered comment emanated from the woman two mats down from Elise, now seated and rubbing her knee, a sour expression on her face.
Elise suppressed a giggle.
“Well, shit and double damn!” the woman added.
To Elise’s right, a woman Sergeant Jasmine had called Deanna unfolded from her headstand and crumpled into a heap of giggles.
“My feelings exactly,” the woman on the purple mat said, her low voice shaded by suppressed amusement.
Soon afterward, Jasmine concluded the session with “Namaste, class.” She bowed, her hands clasped together. She was frowning at Elise as she rose.
“Namaste,” the class responded in unison.
“Whatever,” Elise murmured. She limped over to the cubbyholes to collect her things and put on her shoes.
The woman called Deanna plopped down on the floor beside her and laced up her sneakers. “Thanks for that,” she said to Elise, grinning. “That’s the most fun I’ve had in a headstand pose since I came here!”
“Me too,” came a voice from behind them. The woman from the purple mat grabbed a gym bag from one of the cubbyholes. “Most of the time, I look forward to class. It helps me reduce my stress.” She rummaged around in the bag for a moment, then pulled out a towel and draped it around her neck. “But I have to tell you,” she said with a sigh, “I just was not feeling it tonight.”
The two women laughed and introduced themselves as they dressed. They were relative newcomers to the class, having joined only a few months before Elise’s brief absence.
“Deanna Davis, but call me Dee Dee—everyone else does.” Dee Dee’s wide smile lit up her face. She was tall and slim with an elegant neck and smooth features that reminded Elise of a fashion model. She moved with the confidence of an athlete, and Elise wondered if she was a runner.
“Carmen Bradshaw,” said the woman from the purple mat, extending her hand first to Elise, then to Dee Dee. Carmen’s almond-shaped hazel eyes sparkled with mischief. “I just love it that you cursed in class. Sometimes I think our esteemed leader is a bit of a tight ass.” Carmen’s cheeks brightened as she laughed, soft peach against her light caramel skin sprinkled with freckles. Her light brown hair, a profusion of corkscrew curls, was corralled with an animal-print scrunchy. “She gets just a little bit too serious for a Monday night.”
“Amen to that,” Elise said, fumbling around in the bottom of her purse to find her keys. Her fingertips brushed against a cool, smooth surface. “Got ’em!” she said and added, “I’m Elise Armstrong.” And then she thought with amazement how she had taken this class for over two years and had shared floor space with a revolving group of twelve to twenty people, including these two women, and this was one of the few times she’d actually held a conversation with her classmates beyond the perfunctory “Hi, how are you doing?” Why was that? All that focus on tadasana feet, puffed out kidneys, and downward-facing canines, then out the door to rush off to their respective busy lives and no time out for the real Namaste moments. Life went too fast to throw those things away.
“You haven’t been in class in a while,” said Dee Dee, shrugging a sweater over her toned shoulders.
“Uh-huh. We’ve missed you,” Carmen observed, hunched over a tote bag the size of Vermont. “You know you’re the role model for the class, right? We spend half the class trying to figure out what the hell Sergeant J is saying and the other half copying you. Not successfully, by the way.” She sighed.