The Gift Bag Chronicles (18 page)

It’s almost 7:30 when I pull into the parking lot, and of course, two minutes before class, all six of the spaces are filled with the usual schizophrenic cars — glossy BMWs and SUVs belonging to the students and then rotting-on-their-hubs Toyotas, which are the teachers’. There’s a lone cherry red VW Beetle holding the middle ground. I bump my Audi over the potholed alley to the lot behind the nail salon a few doors down and pull in between the Mercedes S class and the Range Rover parked there. More inner-directed yoga students.

I jump out of the car, pop the trunk, and fish out my old backpack. I reach inside past the Band-Aid can, the aspirin bottle, the TP roll, and the flask — a flask? what was I thinking? — to the clothes wadded at the bottom. Great. My earthquake wardrobe, such as it is, is the paint leggings and an old, ripped
LIFE GUARD
T-shirt from the college summer I worked the pool at Helen and Jack’s country club. Obviously perfect for the next 5.8 shaker. Oh well. No time to worry about it now. I shove the leggings and the T-shirt into my handbag, and the flask for good measure, slam the trunk, and make a dash for the studio.

They’re already chanting when I slip in through the back door and head for the changing room. Haven’t been here for almost a year, and nothing’s changed. Still the same ratty carpet, the old high school lockers spray-painted blue, the scuffed wooden bench, and a few hooks and hangers. Two laminated signs are thumbtacked to the wall. Oh, these are new. One has a picture of a cell phone with a red line through it, and the other reads
IN RESPECT TO YOUR FELLOW STUDENTS, NO PERFUMES, SCENTED OILS, LOTIONS, OR SCENTS OF ANY KIND ARE TO BE WORN
.

Oh, please. No perfume? How about a sign banning all those
weird guys in their yoga diapers who just reek of curry and B.O.? Talk about no respect for your fellow students. I toss my bag to the bench and kick off my mules. They’re still chanting down the hall, although I’m more than happy to miss the opening sing-along. Way too out there for me. It’s only amusing if you keep your eyes open while everyone else’s are closed and watch all the Brentwood yentas in their manicures and breast-lifts warble the Hindu “Kumbaya.”

I’m just pulling on the leggings — man, these look worse than I remember, with all the paint spatters and the holes at the knees — when Maude pokes her head around the corner. “Alex, oh my God, you’re here,” she says, shoving her glasses up her nose. “I can’t believe it.”

“Hey, honey,” I say, leaning forward, one leg still half in and half out of the legging, to give her a fast hug. I’ve known Maude more than a year and have yet to see her anywhere outside this studio. But with her short red hair and helpful student-teacher mien, fostered by years of volunteering at the institute, Maude is one of the only remotely normal people here. “Yeah, I sent you an e-mail,” I say, turning back to wrestle with the leggings. “A screening got canceled, and I realized it had been too long since I’d taken Marla’s level two class.”

“Oh no,” she says, looking stricken. “Didn’t you read the e-mails I sent? Marla doesn’t teach it on Mondays anymore.”

“Oh well,” I say, hopping to get the leggings adjusted and managing to rip the kneeholes even more. “Who is teaching it?”

“Sarah, and it’s a level three now.”

“Oh,
shit.”
I don’t scare easy, but a level III Iyengar class will flush the sheep from the goats in a hurry, especially when taught by a yoga Nazi like Sarah. Not only am I not a level III student — well, okay, I can hold my own in forward bends, but no way in back bends — but Sarah is one of the toughest teachers. Which in Iyengar terms puts her just shy of a cult leader. I had her twice when she was subbing for Marla last summer, and after two
classes — the last one where she told me if I wasn’t willing to push myself to do the poses
correctly
, I should pursue my practice at home — I never came back.

“Maybe I should just bag it,” I say, staring at my ripped and paint-spattered leggings. “I’m already late.”

“No, no, you’ll be fine,” Maude says, running her hands nervously through her baby-fine hair. “But hurry, because she hates latecomers.”

The class has finished chanting, and everyone is scrambling for mats and straps when Maude and I slip in. Only a few heads swivel in our direction. I recognize a couple of faces — like the guy who owns that cool antiques shop on La Cienega, and the frizzy-haired woman who teaches something at UCLA, and isn’t that Annette Bening in the corner? — but true to form, no one says hello or even cracks a smile.

“What are we doing today?” I whisper to Maude, trying to work out the Iyengar calendar in my head. What was it, first week of the month is standing poses, second is forward bends, and third is back bends, or is it back bends before forward bends? God knows how I ever thought yoga was relaxing, with all the rules.

“Back bends,” she says, heading into the crowd.

Oh, great. I should just turn around and walk out now. While I’m still ambulatory. Last time I took a back bends class, I pulled my lower back so badly it took two weeks before I stopped limping around like a marionette. Besides, if I leave now, I still can make the dry cleaner’s, Whole Foods, and be home having a drink in less than an hour. I’m seriously considering slipping out the door when I hear a voice at my back.

“Haven’t seen you in a while.” I turn. Sarah, with her whippet body all but quivering in her black leggings and turquoise tank top inscribed with some Hindu script. Probably says something like
YOGIS DO IT ON THEIR HEADS
.

“Yeah,” I say, forcing a smile. “Well, I’m out of town a lot.”

“Apparently,” she says, eyeing my outfit. “Well, I hope you’re up for a good workout tonight.”

The thing about yoga is that if you have any flexibility at all, you can pretty much force yourself into a pose, at least for a second, before you fall out of it. You can fool yourself, or more important, fool those around you, that you can actually
do
the pose. Holding it is another matter. So even though it’s been almost nine months since I’ve set foot in the Iyengar House of Torture, I manage to get through almost all the poses Sarah dishes out. Shoulder stand, headstand. I’m
so
there. Even the scary ones — camel, wheel, pushing yourself up into a back bend with your hands on blocks, which to my mind only makes it harder, not easier — I manage to get through. Maybe this wasn’t as hard as I remembered it.

“I can’t believe you haven’t been here for so long,” Maude says when we’re partnering on one of the last poses, a killer seated pose with your body pressed against the wall, one leg twisted under you and the other pulled up the back that I have never done and that might be called octopus for all I know.

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” I breathe, reaching around my back with my left arm to grab my left ankle and winch my calf up my back while Maude pushes on my hip and shoulder. Got it. Got it. Got it. Okay, don’t have it. I fall out of the pose, thumping to the floor so a few heads turn in my direction. “Yeah,” I say, struggling to sit up. “I totally forgot how fun this is.”

“Okay, switch,” Sarah calls out, clapping her hands like a balletomane.

“Gladly,” I say, crawling to my knees and turning to help Maude twist herself into the pose.

I’m just pushing Maude’s right shoulder to square up with her left hip as she grabs her ankle when Sarah bustles over. “Partners watch,” she calls out to the class, pushing my hands out of the way. “Like
this,”
she says as everyone swarms to watch her adjust Maude’s back into what looks exactly like what I was just doing.
“I’m seeing too many of you do this,” she says, moving her hands imperceptibly. Everyone nods sagely.

“Got it now?” she says, turning to me.

I nod. “Yeah, thanks,” I say. “That really helps.”

“She’s only trying to help,” Maude says when Sarah moves off.

“Please, she could have been on the staff at Abu Ghraib,” I say, pushing on Maude’s back again.

“You know, yoga isn’t about ego,” she says, breathing hard. “It’s about letting go of ego.”

“That must be why India is such a major player on the world scene,” I say, pushing harder. “All that lack of ego.”

“Okay, come out of the pose,” Sarah calls out, and Maude and I collapse onto the floor. Actually, I collapse. Maude unwraps herself.

“Thanks, that felt great,” she says, rolling her shoulder blades in their sockets.

I smile weakly, pawing at the small of my back. “Yeah, great.”

“You okay?” she says, eyeing me.

“Oh, sure,” I say, pushing to my feet. A searing pain flashes across my lower back. Oh,
fuck
. Just when I thought I might get away unscathed. Instead of going home like a normal person and
resting
, I had to be a maniac and spend my free night doing killer yoga.

Sarah calls out the next pose, and everyone rushes for blocks and straps. I check the clock on the wall. 8:45. This has to be the last pose. I look around. Everyone is sitting on the floor, tying their legs together with the straps and then lying backward on the blocks. Okay, at least we’re lying down. I can probably get through this and then head home for a long drink and a hot bath, my bloodstream a soothing cocktail of alcohol and ibuprofen.

I’m just settling back on my block — oh, God, maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all — when a cell phone burbles down the hall. So much for the precious sign.

“Apparently someone forgot,” Sarah says, accusingly gazing
around the room. No one says anything, and after a few more rings, the phone falls silent.

“Okay, settle into this and breathe,” Sarah says, reaching for the light switch and dimming the room. In the murk, I hear everyone breathing gently, like babies in their cribs. Apparently, I’m the only one lying on a bed of nails. I reach under my back and try to adjust my block, but there is no way to get comfortable with a three-by-five block of unvarnished pine digging into your sacrum.

I shift around some more, trying to get comfortable or at least somewhere where the pain is less intense, when suddenly the woman lying next to me rolls off her block and begins plucking angrily at the strap around her thighs. Sarah rushes over to her. There is a whispered exchange before the woman grabs her block and strap and stalks off to the far side of the room. What’s her problem? I’m the one with rigor mortis setting in.

I turn back and stare at the ceiling, trying to think calm thoughts, get some calming visual, but I’m too distracted by the cracks in the ceiling, which seem to be mirroring the spasms in my back. I’m just trying to figure out how many more seconds I can stay in this pose without crumpling to the floor when I feel warm breath on my cheek. I turn so quickly that I lose my balance, slip off my block.

“Did you miss the signs?” Sarah hisses, her face close to mine.

“It wasn’t my phone,” I say, struggling to sit up and realizing the pain in my back makes this impossible.

“Perfume!” she hisses again. “It’s so polluting.”

“I’m not wearing any,” I say, propping myself up on my hands, my legs still strapped together. I look like either a seal or a paraplegic, but in any event, I’m fragrance-free. Well, other than some Magie Noire body lotion I smeared on my neck at 7:00
A.M.
, but that was more than twelve hours ago. What does that woman have, the nose of a coonhound?

“Next time, come
clean,”
Sarah says, standing now, towering over me. “Or you’ll be asked to leave.”

She moves to the front of the room, leaving me sprawled on the floor. I feel the blood rise to my cheeks. Between the pain in my back and the public dressing-down, there is not going to be a “next time.” I roll onto my side and attempt to sit up. Another shot of pain flashes across my back, but I force myself upright and begin to unpeel the strap from my legs.

“Okay, slide off your straps and blocks, and go into corpse pose where you are,” Sarah says. Everyone rolls effortlessly off their blocks. They’d probably run off a cliff if she told them to. I stagger to my feet, trying not to wince. Everyone is flat on the floor, eyes closed. Sarah ignores me as I step over the bodies to put away my block and strap and then limp toward the door. As I step over Maude, she opens her eyes and shoots me a concerned what-gives? look. I shake my head and keep moving. If I stop now, I’m dead.

I limp down the hall to the changing room. The thought of pulling off my leggings and getting back into my skirt is too painful to contemplate. I reach in my bag for the bottle of water and fish around for my silver pill case. I shake out two ibuprofen like a junkie jonesing for a fix and take a swig of water. I just want to be home, in the tub with a glass of wine. I’m pondering taking a small hit from the flask, just to get a jump on things, when I hear the low hum of voices down the hall. Oh no, they’re already chanting the ending song. I shove my feet into my mules, grab my bag, and hobble out the door.

I’m halfway across the parking lot, the fluorescent lights casting an eerie glow across the darkened cars, when the door to the institute flies open behind me. Students spill out in a murmur of voices, laughter, and the chirping sound of car alarms being deactivated. I start to hobble faster. What if the freaky woman with the nose of a coonhound is parked in the Mercedes next to me?

My mule catches on one of the potholes in the dark, and I stumble.
Oww
. I fish around in my bag for my keys. Okay, got them. Okay, almost there. I’m just putting the key in the car door
lock when my cell goes. No time to answer. I pull open the door, toss my bag to the passenger seat, and crawl in after it, slamming the door behind me. The heat of the day still trapped in the car envelopes me. Oh, thank God. I press my back against the warm leather seat and close my eyes. I swear I will stop trying to do everything, be everywhere, vet everything, if only I can wake up tomorrow not in pain. I promise I will even be nice to Patrice.

I sit there for a few minutes, until the pain starts to ebb. Okay, I think I can face the drive home now. I reach forward to start the car — oops, there’s a twinge — when the cell burbles again. Oh, Christ. I reach over —
oww!
— and fish it out of my bag. Charles.