Breathe: A Novel (3 page)

“Tripp, are you tan?” I squinted. “And what are all those marks on your chest?”

He was riffling through the blue-shirt section of his closet. Stopping for a moment, he looked down at his sudden case of gargantuan hives and sighed.

“Cupping, Alex,” he said, annoyed by my scrutiny.

“I’m sorry, what?” My towel turban flopped to the side.

“Cupping.”

Yes, Tripp, I heard you the first time.

“What’s ‘cupping’? I thought you were doing a meditation seminar or something.”

“I was on
wellness retreat
,” he emphasized the words as if I’d have trouble understanding. When had our communication broken down so completely?

“Okay, so is ‘cupping’ part of your new enlightenment strategy?” I asked.

Tripp hated when I was sarcastic, but he was being just plain shady. Sarcasm was more than deserved. I mean, you can’t switch the
Wall Street Journal
for yoga porn and think your wife won’t ask questions. Not to mention the mysterious tan and suspicious skin condition. It was like
Invasion of the Body Snatchers
. Sarcasm was more than deserved.

“Cupping, Alex, happens to be an ancient acupressure technique that opens your energy channels. You ought to try it. You seem stuck.”

Stuck?
Was he being sarcastic now? Who did he think was trying to get things moving here?

“My energy channels
are
open,” I retorted, not sure what that even meant. He was speaking a vaguely familiar language that I associated with my mom.

He sighed again. “Alex,” He spoke to the row of gleaming shoes that lined his closet floor. “You’re a beautiful woman. And I love you. But I don’t think that you . . . ” He hesitated, then turned to meet my eyes. “I don’t think that we’re at the same place in our lives.”

My throat was suddenly very dry.

“Do you understand what I’m trying to say, Alex?”

I swallowed hard and croaked, “Would you please stop using my name?”

He stood in front of me and put his hands on my shoulders. I felt like a trapped animal. My eyes darted around our bedroom. What was happening? The Oriental rug, the hardwood floors, the Pratesi sheets and Cartier alarm clock. What once had seemed so impressive suddenly seemed only menacing.

“Alex, I’m leaving.”

I gagged on a wisp of highlighted hair that had sprung from the towel and stuck to my lip balm. Tripp liked my hair blonde. I’d had it done that day.

“What?” I sputtered.

“I’ll let you take a minute.” He turned and walked into the bathroom.

I followed him, stumbling over a pile by the door: boots, corset, thigh highs . . .

“What do you mean ‘you’re leaving’?”

Tripp turned from the mirror where he was preparing to shave as if nothing had happened. As he stared at me, I felt like one-eared Billy at a dog show. Flawed. Judged.

“Stop looking at me like that! You can’t tell me it’s over and then look at me like that!” I yelled. He smiled mildly.

“Alex, you need to connect to your Truth. I can’t tell you how. That’s your journey. I can only tell you that I can’t follow this path with you anymore. My truth isn’t here. I found my Authentic Self.” I was beyond insulted. It was one thing to hear this stuff from my mother, who, if nothing else, lived her mundane ‘truth’ day after day, but not from a man who has eight sets of identical platinum cufflinks.

“You found
what
, where?”

“My Truth is in Atlanta, Alex. I found a place where my spirit can truly soar.” He started shaving.

The light bulb went on, and with the flip of a switch, I went from pissed to full on enraged.

“Wait a minute—your piece of
ass
is in Atlanta! Let’s not get confused here. Would your ‘Truth’ happen to be a contortionist with perfect boobs? Holy shit, Tripp, are you sleeping with—with Lauren—Lauren—” I spun around, looking for the magazine.

“This isn’t about sex, Alex. Lauren and I are united at a soul level, which I don’t expect you to understand. We’ve traveled through many lifetimes together.” He put the razor down and rubbed his smooth jaw line.

“
What?
Are you talking past lives with me, Tripp? Six months ago, you believed ‘God’ was a nickname for Microsoft. Can you please speak the actual truth here?”

“Like I said, I don’t expect you to understand. I found my path. Yoga has taken me to my true self, my higher self. None of this stuff really matters.” He was looking at himself in the mirror. “Lauren has been my guide.”

I looked at him in cross-eyed disbelief, then ran to grab the
Yoga Journal
. Panting, I returned to the bathroom, opened to the dog-eared page, and shoved it in his face.

“This woman opened your soul with some . . . ” I pulled the magazine back, furiously scanning the article. “Lavender and eucalyptus?” I was seething. “
Seriously?
”

I threw the magazine at his face and missed. It hit his chest pathetically and flopped to the floor. He stepped over it and went back to the bedroom, slid into his jeans commando-style, and picked up his suitcase, still packed.

“Alex, I’m sorry it has to be this way, but there is no talking to you about this.”

No
talking
to me?

“How are we supposed to talk when you are never here?” I cried.

“This was a mistake, and I haven’t known how to tell you. I’m leaving, Alex.”

I ran down the hall after him, caught my robe on a drawer pull, and lost the entire thing. Who makes robes out of cashmere anyway? When I finally wrestled it back on and reached the door, Tripp’s black Range Rover was sailing down the street, a large sticker on the rear window proclaiming, “Namaste.”

I scrambled for my phone and ran back to the porch. After twelve voicemails, I gave up. It was New York all over again, only this time my heart was broken. I stood there trembling, my mouth and robe hanging open. I was as terrified and confused as a calf before the branding iron, devastated that her trusted companion should deal such a searing blow.

What had just happened?

Wave after wave of shock, panic, and shame swelled and smacked me over until I sank to the floor, my bare rear-end perched upon the very threshold Tripp had carried me over. My eyes were fixed on the spot where his car had disappeared, and I doubt I blinked once until Nancy’s convertible SL rolled into the light of a street lamp in front of our house.

Nancy was my fifty-ish neighbor who seemed to possess some ancient secret to life. Her cleavage was perky, diamonds blinding, and smile unfaltering; yet there was nothing vacuous about her. She meditated daily and spouted Buddhism like a monk—if Goldie Hawn were a monk, that is. We had grown close through “over-the-hedge” conversations. Nancy spent a few hours every morning tending to her rose bushes while I pretended to do the same, sporting my Smith and Hawken clogs and wide-brimmed hat. My mother-in-law, Louise, had hired a gardening crew for us, so there was never much for me to do. But women in Marin seemed to garden, so I pretended to prune.

Nancy had a grounds staff also, but never allowed them to touch her flowers. She said things like, “A woman must stay close to the earth,” which always reminded me of my mom and made me feel safe. So one day, I asked Nancy if it was normal for investment bankers to have meetings at midnight and if they all traveled as much as Tripp. She had taken off her gloves, moved a stray hair from her face, and looked at me with compassionate eyes.

“Honey, the universe has a plan for us all. Trust in its unfolding.” Then she spritzed her face with Evian, put her gloves back on, and went back to work. “Take my recent upgrades,” she looked down at her chest with delight. “Had Dr. Ryan not been hopelessly lost up in Napa the very weekend I was tasting at Jordan, these gifts would never have come to pass.” As always, she seemed delighted by the absurdity and truth in what she was saying. Like she was on the verge of laughter every time she spoke.

“Nancy, I have a feeling you could make anything come to pass,” I said.

“Anything and any
one
, my darling. It’s all about intention, and—ahem—
opening
yourself to possibility.” She continued to pluck dry petals from each rose, looked up for a moment and wrinkled her nose. “If you know what I mean.”

I think that’s when I plotted the cowgirl seduction scene. If only I’d just swallowed my pride and struck a yoga pose.

***

“Everything okay?” Nancy called breezily, shifting into park.

“Huh?” I swiveled my head in slow motion.

“Sweetie? Are you alright?” she asked.

We looked at each other for a long moment before I replied, “Uh huh.”

“Are you sure? Because your bare derrière is telling a different story.” She covered her mouth in mock horror. I looked over my left shoulder and noticed the majority of my bathrobe was tucked into the belt. I pulled the hem over my knees.

“Oh, no darling, don’t cover yourself. It’s refreshing. Let it all hang out. I do.” When she didn’t get so much as a smile, Nancy furrowed her brow. “Would you like me to come in?” she asked, turning off her ignition.

I shook my head.

She continued to look at me, puzzled. “Alright. Do you need anything while I’m out?”

My husband please
.

My voice wouldn’t work, like in those dreams where you’re panicked but can’t yell for help. I waved my hands in what probably looked like an attempt to say “no thanks,” “don’t worry,” or perhaps “goodbye.” Unconvinced, Nancy unbuckled her seatbelt and reached for the door handle.

“No!” I blurted. “Please, Nancy, I’m fine.” I couldn’t do it; I couldn’t talk about it. “I just got some bad news. I need a minute to process. I’ll see you tomorrow. In the garden,” I said, hoping that would suffice.

Nancy reluctantly re-buckled her seat belt and said slowly, “Okay. Well . . . I’ll be waiting.” She was still watching me in the rearview mirror as her car crawled down the street, a rectangle of light across her eyes.

“Bye,” I said to no one.

Bye.

He didn’t even say goodbye. He didn’t even say
goodbye
!

I turned back toward the house, suddenly hot with rage, then an instant later, freezing cold. Where was Billy? Pulling the robe around myself, I cinched the belt so tight that I could barely breathe.

I tripped on the doorway, stubbing my toe. “Arrgh!” I screamed, swiping a neat stack of mail off the circular front hallway table. After a year of behaving as I believed an Edwards should, I had quite a bit of pent-up self-expression. Storming from room to room, I screamed and swore, pounding my fists against every soft surface I could find. Soon I was hyperventilating, running around frantically looking for Billy.

But instead I found Tripp.

In our wedding pictures. In the cant of his rolling office chair. In his running shoes by the back door. And his damp bath towel, shed and left behind without so much as a backward glance. At the sight of it, my knees gave out, and I fell into a heap, face buried in the soggy terry cloth. My sobs were so loud I could barely hear Billy, who yipped with his nose pressed against the glass. I crawled over to let him in and put my arms around him. Carefully, I picked him up and carried him into the living room. I sank in slow motion onto the couch and curled myself tightly around him. Indulging my need for closeness, Billy steadied himself in my embrace, digging his nails into the cream silk upholstery, something I had scolded him for over a dozen times. I pulled him even closer. He could shred the thing to bits for all I cared.

***

Tripp hadn’t shown much interest in Billy after we got married; the two seemed to quietly tolerate each other. Louise, on the other hand, could never hide her disdain. This was clear from the first time we met at the Edwards Family’s fourth and favorite home on the shore of North Lake Tahoe.

“Tripp, honey, run in and phone Animal Control. There’s a maimed stray by the hammock,” she called from the expansive wrap-around porch. We had just arrived. “Those strays. I don’t know where they all come from,” she complained while rearranging some potted plants. “Don’t our tax dollars take care of such nuisances?” I slowly registered that she was talking about my dog, and had yet to introduce herself.

“Mother, that’s Alex’s dog,” Tripp called from the trunk, where he was retrieving my bag.

Louise looked long and hard at me and then said, “Oh, dear. Well, why don’t you all come in? Tripp, Allen will get the bags.” She walked back into the house without a hug or a handshake. Billy scurried to my side, tail wagging. I knelt down beside him and surveyed the enormous lodge Tripp had called a “cabin in the woods.”

“Don’t worry, Bill. She’ll love you once she knows you,” I told him, feeling rattled. I wanted to adore Tripp’s mom as he did, but this was not a promising start. Still, stubborn as a barn mule, I refused to give up, and at our next meeting, I recounted for Louise the tragic story about Billy’s ear, hoping she’d embrace him for his courage and plight. Instead, she just became obsessed with getting it fixed, constantly dropping hints about “surgical options.” It made me furious—like he needed to endure any more pain. One morning, a few weeks after our wedding, she dropped by unannounced to deliver a Baccarat fruit bowl from her bridge club. One glance at Billy, and she started right in on it.

When I protested, she snapped, “Your decision. But let me remind you,
Alex
, that you’re long way from the backwoods of Oregon, and those doe eyes don’t fool me for a minute. It’s only a matter of time for you and that thing. So don’t get too comfortable.” She walked toward the door, stopping to glance at her reflection in the mirror, giving me a minute to gather my wits.
How dare she!

“What’s that supposed to mean? In case you forgot, I married your son
because he loves me.
”

She took out her lipstick and applied with precision. “You and that dog may have charmed Tripp, but I’ll have you know, you will not see a penny when this little love affair runs dry. And it will.” With that, she dropped her lipstick in her purse and left. I stood there, choking on her perfume, trying to gather my jaw up off the floor.

I never shared that conversation with Tripp, afraid that there might be truth in what Louise had said. So our battle went on silently. I ignored her comments and scowls, and even brought Billy to the Edwards Charity Golf Tournament and Thanksgiving in Tahoe. For Tripp, I agreed to wear the ugly, pale blue monogrammed shirts worn by all family members as mandated by Louise. But I refused to leave Billy behind. He was the one area for which I would not compromise. But looking around me now, it was clear that I’d compromised far more than I had realized. Not one thing in that living room was mine. My tears blurred Tripp’s yoga mat, which leaned against the built-ins. Louise would be thrilled. She had won, but it was yoga that had thrown me out. My Tripp had chosen New Age dogma and a yoga Barbie over me, down-to-earth, tell-it-like-it-is me. I was drowning in self-pity.

The cruel irony was I had given Tripp that yoga mat for his fortieth birthday two months earlier. I’d walked down to Chi-Chi, Marin’s elegant ‘wellness boutique,’ and purchased the world’s most expensive pad. With a limitless Amex and a Visa Black to back it up, I’d thought nothing of its outrageous price tag. It was obnoxious, really. But that day, all I could think was that marrying Tripp Edwards was the best decision I had ever made. Not because of the house or the Amex, but because he was the whole package. He was my friend, funny, and fun. He was smart, sophisticated, and gorgeous. And he loved the backcountry girl in me. At least I thought he did.

Even Haley had been envious.

What prompted me to buy him a mat in the first place was yet another evening of frustrating disconnect. Tripp had gotten home late for the third night in a row, having attended a yoga class from seven to eight-thirty. I was two glasses into some collectors-item Chardonnay, and the ‘sole meuniere’ on our plates was withered and cold.

“Class was incredible.” Tripp dropped his keys and cell phone on the counter. “I can’t believe how long it took me to try this.” He leafed through a pile of mail before coming to the table. Then he sat, poured a glass of wine, and leaned back in his chair. “Seriously, Al, you feel like you’ve been wrung out afterwards. They say it’s the key to longevity.”

“I suppose next you’ll be doing wheatgrass fasts and joining Nancy’s colonic club,” I said flatly, waving my wineglass to no one in particular.

He paused mid-bite. “I forgot to call.”

“Again,” I said.

“How about you just assume I’m going to hit a class after work,” he said.

“Tripp, I barely see you as it is.”

“Well, then meet me at the class.”

“I told you, Tripp. Not my thing,” I said. If you wanted to sit around and let the universe decide your fate, sure, do yoga. But we were making our own destiny. Weren’t we?

“Alex, I don’t understand why you’re so against trying it,” Tripp said. I was loading dishes in one of our two silent dishwashers.

“And I don’t understand why it matters so much. I have tried it. With my mother.”

“Yes, and you were twelve years old. I’m just asking you to give it a chance. Tucker said Jenny goes to a class every day. You could go with her.” Tucker was Tripp’s business partner, and Jenny was Tucker’s wife. “It might help you with your lack of direction,” he said, opening the latest Forbes magazine and stretching out on the overstuffed couch.

“I’m sorry, my what?” I turned and stared at him. “I spent two hours this afternoon perfecting a French dish that I’ve never even heard of. I spent twice that time searching for window treatments to protect Louise’s paintings from the sun in the ‘sun room’ AND I sent out all sixty-three hand-addressed invitations to your wine tasting. I have
plenty
of direction, thank you. I just want to spend a few
un
-directed minutes with my husband, and I
don’t
want to talk about yoga! I was never a cheerleader, never a ballet dancer, Tripp. The whole lovely, graceful, princess thing? Not for me.” I flicked off the garbage disposal and glanced up. Tripp was smirking. We looked at each other for a minute then burst out laughing.

“You done?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said, my pouty glare unconvincing.

“Come here,” Tripp said, putting down his wineglass. Slowly, I dried my hands and went to him, pretending to drag my feet. “Sounds to me like you’re intimidated.” He reached up to put his hands on my waist and pull me onto his lap. Resistance was futile. Overcome with desire, I wrapped my arms around him.

“No fair triggering my competitiveness to win this one,” I spoke into the soft space between his neck and shoulder. I inhaled his evening scent, clean but worn-out. He pressed his body against mine. I felt the defined muscles through his shirt, my hands roaming from his shoulders to his back. Maybe there were some benefits to yoga. I began unbuttoning him, feeling like the luckiest woman in the world.

The next day I went to Chi Chi. I’d hoped buying the mat would say, “I support your interests. I am over my issue,” without actually having to go to a yoga class. Now I stared at it, the only piece of clutter in our expansive home, forgotten and left behind in Tripp’s hurry to get out the door.