The Art of Adapting (21 page)

“Latte. Better than battery acid,” he said.

“Thanks. Did you know I was going to be here?”

“Gerry told me he'd called you to sub for him. Everybody loves Lana.” He smiled and nudged her with his elbow. Mitch was the king of mixed signals.

“Everybody but her soon-to-be ex-husband.”

“He's an idiot. Don't let him get you down. Get through the divorce and then go celebrate. Head to Cabo for a weekend. Or the entire summer.”

“Sounds tempting,” she said, but she was thinking:
Spoken like a man with no children to consider
. “I'm running the reading lab again this summer, but before it starts I might take the kids and Matt to Florida to visit my parents. I could sit on the beach there.” She hadn't really been considering it, but once she said it aloud, it sounded like a good idea. She could prove Gloria wrong by bringing Matt to her, let her parents see firsthand how well he was adjusting, and show them that Lana wasn't one to give up on her family responsibilities just because life threw her an unfair curveball.

“So what can you do for yourself in the meantime?” Mitch asked. “Something against your caretaker nature. Something just for you.”

Lana laughed, not because it was a ridiculous suggestion, but because her mind was blank. What did she ever do just for her? How had she ended up forty-four and single, without one hobby or interest aside from her family? What did women her age do for fun or relaxation anyway? Mitch watched her think it over.

“That bad, huh?” he said, laughing. She shrugged. Nodded. “Okay, what about yoga?” he suggested. “I'm in an awesome class. Very low-key, perfect for a beginner.”

Lana wanted to object, but she really couldn't think of a good
reason to turn him down, aside from fear of embarrassment. Becca swore by yoga as the best form of stress relief. Lana could use some of that. Plus, she felt she'd made her point to both Gloria and Graham, the anti-snack tyrants in her life, by eating everything she wanted post-separation, and had the extra pounds to prove it. It was time to let those go, before they settled in for good.

“When?”

“Tonight. Class is at seven.” Mitch smiled. “Wear something you can move in. I'll pick you up at six-forty.”

He arrived right on time, smelling of cologne. Who wore cologne to yoga? Lana started having misgivings about the outfit she'd chosen.

“Do you have a mat?” Mitch asked as he looked her over without a flicker of attraction. Not that she blamed him. She needed to get proper yoga pants instead of wearing her comfy couch sweats.

“No. Should I bring a blanket or a towel?”

“I tossed an extra mat into the car for you, just in case.” He flashed a smile, proud of his forward thinking. “Do you have something for your hair?” He made a motion of pulling his short hair back into a ponytail. Lana held up her left wrist to show the hair tie on it, and off they went.

En route Lana made small talk to ease her anxiety. She was not a natural athlete like her kids. She almost never exercised. She liked walking, but that was about it. A lifetime spent watching her mother diet, exercise, and, when all else failed, purge her way to thinness had led Lana to spurn most fitness regimens and avoid scales whenever possible. Gloria's perfectionist streak had affected Lana the same way as Nick's self-control. She had rebelled like some moody teenager. It was time to find a balance.

Lana told Mitch about Matt's Vizsla obsession to pass the time, only to find that Mitch had a good friend with one.

“They're amazing dogs. Smart and eager to learn. We should get them together. See if it'll bring Matt out of his shell,” he suggested.

Lana was expecting to head downtown to one of the fancy gyms of glaring lights and pop music, spandex-clad twenty-somethings
grinding to iPods before gleaming mirrors. Instead, they turned into the local community center, where low buildings flaked brown paint and eucalyptus leaves blanketed the parking lot so thickly they obliterated the lines between parking spaces. Lana agreed to the Matt and Vizsla introduction without thinking, because her stomach was suddenly a mess. It was like the first day of school all over again, that horrible anxiety of needing acceptance.

The class was in a large empty room with a once-glossy, now-marred hardwood floor. It was made up of a dozen ragtag middle-agers with a handful of hippie-ish youngsters thrown into the mix. Lana felt less anxious at the sight of them. These were her kind of yogis. She rolled out Mitch's purple mat. She wondered if it was his ex-girlfriend's or his current girlfriend's or if he just liked purple.

She put her hair into a ponytail as Mitch made his rounds, apparently buddies with about half the class. The young half of the class. He stretched as he talked to his friends, getting warmed up. One girl seemed particularly interested in Mitch, showing off her sculpted body in a snug camisole and yoga capri pants. She was in the same category as Mitch's preferred type: long hair, narrow face, tall, and thin. Lana suddenly felt self-conscious of her extra twenty pounds of curves. Well, possibly thirty. Abby had moved the scale into the kids' bathroom and Lana had taken it as a sign that she no longer needed to weigh herself.

A handsome, reasonably aged man settled in to Lana's left. He wore gray gym shorts and a blue Cal-Berkeley T-shirt and was so utterly lacking in pretension that his proximity put Lana back at ease.

“First time?” he asked Lana. He had nice broad shoulders, a strong jaw, thick silvering hair, and warm eyes.

“That obvious?” she asked.

“You'll be fine. I'm terribly inflexible, so I'll make you look good.”

Lana laughed. She wanted to chat more, but a bearded man took his place at the front of the class and bowed his head with his hands clasped before him. “Namaste,” he said. The class echoed him. “Let's begin in mountain pose. Three deep cleansing breaths.”
Everyone stood statue-straight on their mat: shoulders back, chins up, arms down at their sides. The handsome man to Lana's left gave her encouraging little smiles as she faked her way through the class.

While many of her classmates looked her age or older, they were all able to bend into positions that Lana couldn't even attempt. Even the handsome man next to her, Mr. Inflexible, could reach his toes while she couldn't. And her balance was crap, too. She nearly fell over several times. Mitch helped her fine-tune her poses a couple of times, but he was such a yoga perfectionist that she felt like she was letting him down with her ineptitude.

Lana preferred to watch the handsome man to her left. He couldn't do every pose perfectly, but he was totally at ease with the constraints of his body. He had a tendency to close his eyes as he held each pose. He seemed off somewhere peaceful and distant, somewhere Lana wanted to go, too. He caught her watching him twice and grinned, guileless and uninhibited. He was the embodiment of what she wanted to be: happy, self-accepting, with nothing to prove.

As the class progressed and Lana's body warmed up, she was able to bend a little bit farther with each pose. By the end of the class she was a limp noodle, her muscles barely attached to her bones. The teacher walked them through a relaxation exercise, breathing and clearing their minds, letting thoughts enter but drift away like clouds in a vast sky. It worked so well that Lana fell asleep. She awoke to the instructor's deep voice seeping into her subconscious, pulling her back to reality.

“Slowly come back into the room,” he said. “Rub your hands and feet together. When you are ready, sit up.” Lana sat up, spacey and tired, exhausted but invigorated.

“Well?” Mitch asked as he rolled up his mat.

“Amazing,” she said, unable to move just yet.

“Told you,” he said. A young man walked up and tapped Mitch's shoulder. One of his rock-climbing buddies, judging by their conversation about crash pads and carabiners. Within minutes Mitch was surrounded by the young set, all laughing and telling
stories about outdoorsy adventures and drinking binges. The young beauty flirted and flaunted before Mitch, and he gave her the attention she sought. The whole group was so young that their mere existence made Lana feel old and tired. She put on her shoes and socks and smiled at the handsome man beside her.

“Thank you,” she said. He was a reminder that beauty came in all ages, shapes, and sizes. He had a good build, a nice face, but, most importantly, a kindness about him, his entire being a peaceful cloud.

“You did great. My first time I couldn't do half of what you can. I'd just had back surgery and I was trying to limber up, only to realize that
limber
isn't a word that will ever be associated with me.”

Lana laughed. “I understand completely. But I have no back surgery to blame.”

“Oh, I wish I could blame the surgery. I'm just built more for football than yoga. All the more reason to do it.” He smiled and held out his hand. “I'm Abbot, by the way.”

“Lana.”

“Very nice to meet you, Lana. Will I see you again next week?”

“I think I might have to,” Lana said. “I feel compelled to master at least one pose.” He laughed. “Did you go to Cal?” she asked, pointing at his shirt. He looked to be about Becca's age, in that late-forties to early-fifties range. Becca had gone to UC Berkeley and had been pretty popular there. It was possible they knew each other.

“No, I went to UCLA. My son goes to Cal. A freshman in computer science. I also have a son at Boulder. Business major.”

“Wow, college-aged kids. I have high-schoolers. A freshman daughter and a sophomore son. College is coming fast, though. I'm not ready.”

He laughed and slid his bare feet into his shoes, dark brown Crocs. Lana liked everything about him but the shoes: the same ones half the kids wore at school. Why would a grown man wear kids' shoes? She glanced at Mitch and he gestured toward the door. The leggy beauty was sauntering off, swinging her narrow hips in her butt-hugging capris for all of the men to appreciate.

Lana and Abbot said goodbye, and as Mitch drove her home she kept thinking about Abbot. A grown man wearing kids' shoes had to be unpretentious. It showed a sense of humor and play. Becca would say he was in touch with his inner child. These were good qualities, Lana decided. The kind she needed more of in her life. Enough with the young, chiseled beauties with their complicated egos and groupies. Enough with the solid gorgeous men with their rigid rules and structures and lack of humor. Lana wanted someone real and deep and self-effacing and utterly approachable. Someone emotionally available. Maybe someone a little more like Abbot.

Mitch looked Lana over. “I think this is the most relaxed I've seen you. Want to get a drink or some tea or something?”

“As nice as that offer sounds,” Lana said, “I'd like to head home to make sure my kids and Matt are okay.” It was the first time she had left them all alone together.

“Back to caretaker mode,” he teased. “At least I got you off-duty for an hour.”

“I like taking care of the people I love,” Lana told him, fighting her defensive tone. “I'm not interested in changing that. But I think I'll join the yoga class. That gets me a regular hour off, right? Provided my house is still standing.”

The house was fine, the kids were fine, and Matt was fine. It looked like Lana would be getting a regular night to herself each week. And a chance to see Abbot again.

The dog, definitely a Vizsla, but the wrong kind of Vizsla, was wiggling like its copper-colored fur was too tight and it needed to escape from it. This dog was nothing like Matt's beautiful running Vizsla. The color and build were right, although this Vizsla was female, therefore slightly smaller in stature, but everything else about it was wrong.

“Why does it move so much?” Matt asked. Lana and Mitch were trying to keep the dog between them, but she was determined to escape, even if it meant leaving her skin behind. They took turns holding her collar while she leapt around like the ground was on fire.

“She's just excited to see you,” Mitch said.

Mitch's friend, the dog's owner, had gone inside to answer the phone, and this was when the dog had lost its well-trained composure. She was sitting nicely and being rewarded for it with treats until the phone rang. Then the man went inside the house and the dog turned into this unruly jumpy thing that never had all four feet on the ground at once. She kept trying to leap up to Lana's face, either to lick Lana or break her nose, Matt wasn't sure which.

“Bella!” the owner yelled from the back porch, and the jumping
dog immediately sat, but her tail was still alive, wagging wildly against the ground and making a hissing noise as it swept back and forth across the tile. She was a hyperactive rattlesnake in Vizsla skin. Matt looked from the tiled area where they stood to an undeveloped field behind the house, and beyond that to a hill with dried grass, rocks, and rodent holes. It was possible there were rattlesnakes out there. Those shady crevices were perfect for snakes.

Lana and Mitch released Bella's collar and she kept sitting. The man who owned Bella held his hand out flat, palm down, as he walked toward her. When he was right in front of Bella he tipped his fingertips downward in a quick flick. The dog dropped to her belly, sphinxlike. The man tossed her a treat, but it was too far away for her to reach. Bella stayed put. She pricked up her ears and eyebrows, waiting, looking from the man to the treat. “Okay, take it,” the man said. Bella lunged for the treat, gobbled it down, and came straight for Matt.

Matt let out a shriek and covered his nose, bracing for the impact. The man yelled, “Sit!” and nothing else happened. When Matt uncovered his face, Bella was sitting in front of him, her entire body rigid with attention, her tail the only thing moving. A rattlesnake poised to strike.

“Wow,” Matt said. He couldn't look at the dog. Her amber eyes were fixed on him. She was waiting for something, but he wasn't sure what. She looked desperate for it, though. “Are there rattlesnakes around here?” He pointed toward the hill, turning his body away from the eager dog and her hungry eyes.