Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
Case
“So that’s it?” Jared says as we’re on the phone, my desk covered in so many spreadsheets I’m starting to feel like an accountant on April 14.
“What do you mean, ‘that’s it’? Not it . We’re seeing each other again.”
“Not the seeing each other part. The tell-her-the-truth part.”
Sarah left my place in a terrible rush, a series of early-morning texts about work giving her a startle. What had morphed into an extraordinary night held such promise for a sex-filled, leisurely morning, but that all fell apart after her boss intruded.
Pity.
Now she’s busy with work. It’s four o’clock in the afternoon now, and I’m restless. She hasn’t answered my texts, but I’m not worried.
She’s working.
Given that I am her work – or, at least, Chakroga123 is – and given she’s a writer who does whatever journalists do in terms of “work,” I have no idea when she is going to call.
Meanwhile, my external conscience, aka my brother-in-law, is giving me a lecture.
“I will tell her the truth when she tells me the truth.”
Jared snorts. “That’s pathetic.”
“She started to.”
“Started to become pathetic like you?”
My jaw clenches. I’m really, really liking my spreadsheets more than my brother-in-law right now. Spreadsheets don’t have opinions .
“Started to confess.”
“But didn’t actually confess?”
“Right.”
“And then you didn’t use the opportunity to clear up your mess?”
“What mess?”
“You preyed on her at that bar.”
“Prey! I did no such thing.”
“You saw her, loose and happy. You knew who she was. You didn’t tell her you knew who she was. You slept with her. And now you two are in some sick liars' game.”
“I wanna play!” I hear little Corey scream through the phone.
“Not this game, Corey,” Jared says in a grumpy voice. “Some games are bad.”
“I want to play the bad game!”
“See what you’re doing to me?” Jared mutters into the phone. “You’re a bad influence on my kids.”
I know he’s joking, but the comment has some kick to it. My gut tightens.
“I’m trying to maneuver a set of complicated, dynamic parts. They all have to line up just right, and then everything changes. Everything .”
“What if you lose Sarah, Case? What if that’s one of the parts you’re not managing well?”
All the air in the room seems to have entered my lungs at once.
“She’s going to freak out when she finds out,” he continues, as if I’m not smothering over here. “Any normal person would.”
The air rushes out of me, body letting me breathe again, though it feels like all my organs are a half-beat off from each other. “What about her lie to me? She’s just as bad as I am.”
“Maybe you two deserve each other.”
“What the hell, Jared?”
“Hey, man.” I can’t see it, but I know he has his hands in the air. “Don’t get mad at me. I’m just saying you both are lying. One of you can’t be more mad at the other.”
“Have you met humans, Jared? We aren’t a particularly rational species.”
“Is Candyland a bad game?” I hear in the background, followed by Jared’s not-quite patient sigh.
“Corey is dragging all the games out of the game closet now. Asking me which ones are good and bad. Thanks, Uncle Case.”
“Think of it as an opportunity to teach your son about morality,” I say with a chuckle.
“He’s four.”
“Never too young to start.”
“Clearly. You’re nearly thirty-five and still need lessons.”
That’s the thing about Jared. He’s one of the most chill guys you’ve ever met. Honest to a fault and internally calm, he’s a high school band director. Work is chaos and his job is to turn all these adolescent bodies into functional musicians who play and march in enough synchronicity to make good – or good enough – music for public consumption.
The man knows dysfunction when he sees it.
Which is why this conversation hurts.
He’s right. I know he’s right, and he knows he’s right, but Sarah also knows she’s lying to me. That early morning departure was too weird and awkward to be just a boss thing. Something else was going on when she left. I respect her enough not to pry, but it’s bugging the hell out of me.
Too many lies in this web we’re weaving.
Bad game alright. Bad, bad game.
“Case?”
“Yeah.” My head goes fuzzy, the way it always has since I was a teenager. When I get this way, I need a pick-me-up or a release.
Pick-me-ups include tea, coffee, and sugar.
Releases include exercise and orgasms.
I’m in a suit, required today for the business meetings I just finished up, and I last had an orgasm nine hours ago.
Coffee it is.
A rap on my door makes me look up.
It’s Rory. “You busy?”
The speaker on my phone pipes up.
“Is Cards Against Humanity a bad game?” Corey asks Jared.
“I have to go. Business,” I say into the phone, hanging up on my brother-in-law as he experiences the four-year-old version of a game audit.
I stand as Rory enters the room, and she gives me a sour look.
“Why do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Stand whenever I come into your office.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“It’s weird.”
“It’s habit.”
“Someone taught you to do that?”
“Yes. My father.”
“Why?”
“Etiquette.”
“Etiquette?”
I try for a simpler word. “Manners.”
“I know what etiquette means, for fuck’s sake!”
“Clearly. You're a paragon of politeness.”
“I mean, why? Why stand? Is it a patriarchy thing?”
“Huh?”
“Like, do you only do it for women?”
“No. It’s a human thing. You stand when someone new enters the room or comes up to a table.”
“Your dad is very proper.”
“I guess so.”
“Well, cut it out. Don’t do it when I enter the room. Makes me feel like there are suddenly unwritten rules in the air and I get all confused.”
“Muscle memory will make that hard, but I will try for the next eighteen days to do so.”
Her face falls. “Oh, damn! Eighteen days. Wow. Seriously.” She falls into a chair, limbs askew. “Now I feel like an asshole.”
“There are so many reasons why you could feel like one, so please tell me the specific reason.”
“Hmph.” Picking a piece of lint off her shirt, she looks back at the door, stands, closes it, then sits down again, this time with more tension in her body. “Look, Case. I know how much selling means to you.”
No one in my organization knows the real reason I’m selling. Not about the shady financial work on Prakash’s part, not about Jared and the kids – nothing. You’re chum in the water when you mix emotions with business.
Like what I’ve done with Sarah.
“Right.”
“So I have to warn you.”
My entire body turns into one big vibration, tense and ready to fight.
“Warn?”
“That Sarah woman? The one in Maisie’s class the other day, who helped John with his blood sugar crisis? The one who carries mainstream candy in her backpack?” That last sentence is spat out like Sarah carries decapitated squirrel heads in her purse.
“Yes? What about her?”
“She’s an investigative reporter.”
“What?” I feign shock.
“Yeah. Freelancer or something. She’s been asking a lot of employees questions.”
“How do you know she’s an investigative reporter?”
“Because I can Google. Just do an internet search for her name. She has articles everywhere.”
Juggling the lying with Sarah is hard enough. Now I have to balance out knowing what I know about Sarah with Rory.
“Okay.”
“I think she’s digging into Chakroga123, Case.”
“Lots of journalists write articles about the company. Yoga is a hot topic. Prakash has a PR department for this. Full-time employees who pitch stories to magazines and newspapers.”
“This is different.”
“Different how?”
“I don’t know.” Uncertainty flashes through her eyes as she looks up at the ceiling, tracing the perimeter of the room. “Are there cameras in here?”
“Cameras?”
“Or audio?”
“Rory. What the hell. Why would you even ask that?”
“Nothing’s being recorded?”
“No!”
She reaches back for the arms of the chair and humps her way closer, three big scooches bringing her close. Motioning for me to lean in, I do, wondering why all the fuss.
“Uncle Prakash is not who you think he is.”
“What does that mean?”
“He’s not this upstanding, spiritual guru.”
It takes everything in me not to snort. “That’s what you’re really warning me about? Not about the reporter?”
“I’m warning you about both. I think Sarah has figured out some of the truth about Uncle Prakash.”
“What truth is that, Rory?”
Thin ice is hard enough to walk on. Watching it crack under you leads to pure panic, and when you’re panicked, you make bad decisions.
The kind that end up chilling you to the bone before you die a slow, painful death.
“You’ve worked really, really hard for this deal to go through, Case. I know retiring at thirty-five is some dudebro wet dream.”
“That’s – uh…” I was about to protest, but I’m stuck here. Can’t tell her the real reason why I’m selling.
“And I know all that FIRE stuff, the financially independent retirement extreme podcast whatever world you live in -- ”
“It’s financial independence, retire early,” I correct her. “FIRE.”
Rory’s face scrunches with a scowl. “See? That’s the shit I don’t like about you. Who cares about details? I’m making a point.”
I just stare at her.
“Maybe coming in here was a mistake,” she says with a caustic tone. “Maybe I’m spending too much time listening to true crime podcasts and getting paranoid.”
“Maybe.”
Rory is Prakash’s niece. She’s been an outstanding assistant for my studios, but she’s still his relative. How much to trust her is up in the air. For all I know, she’s digging into me, to figure out what I know.
Is this a loyalty test? Did Prakash put her up to this?
Gotta play it cool.
She swallows, chin going up, her throat long and smooth, leading down to prominent, perfectly symmetrical collarbones. Brown eyes meet mine, her dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, her blinking rapid, as if she’s holding back emotion.
Instinct tells me this isn’t a con.
“Thank you,” I say honestly. Either way, she’s giving me information, and I genuinely appreciate it.
“For what?”
“For being open.”
That makes her head reel back.
“Never thought about it that way,” she replies, frowning. “You know, it’s so much better working for you than at Uncle’s HQ. Everything is chill here. People aren’t so stressed out. Over there, it’s like they’re all looking over their shoulders, waiting to be attacked.”
“Oof.”
“I know, right? Interning with him was rough.”
“Sounds like it.”
“And no one trusted me.”
Bingo.
“Really?”
“I’m his niece. Everyone thinks I’m a mole.”
Either she is a really, really good spy, or I’m getting an unfiltered version of Rory. A window into someone who needs to spill her guts.
“That must be so hard.”
“People are pleasant to me. Nice. Surface-level nice. But when they all went out for drinks, it was always on the days I had to stay late.”
“Does that happen here? With my studios?”
“Sometimes. Not as much. But sure.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you sorry? Not your fault.”
“I’m not apologizing, Rory. I’m empathizing. That must feel very isolating.”
Tears fill her eyes, sudden and swift.
“Oh, shit,” she murmurs, reaching under her lower lids to drain them off. I stand, plucking a tissue from a box on my desk, and hand it to her.
She laughs as she pats her eyes. “Etiquette, huh? You weren’t taught etiquette, Case. You were taught how to be a gentleman.”
“No one can teach you how to be a gentleman, Rory. Etiquette, yes. Gentleman, no.”
“Well, you are one.”
“I’ll take the compliment.”
“Sorry for turning into a blubbery bitch in your office.”
“Never apologize for being human.”
She stands, and I walk to her, patting her shoulder. “I was about to go grab a cup of coffee. Want to come with me?”
Her phone buzzes and she looks at it.
“I can’t. New shipment of blankets coming within the hour. Plus, I’m overcaffeinated. A new energy drink company rep came a few hours ago and left three cases of samples. I drank too much yerba maté already.” She ponders for a moment. “Maybe that’s why I’m a blubbery bitch.”
“You don’t have to always have an explanation for feeling feelings, Rory. You can just be.”
“Now you’re getting all spiritual.”
“I think it’s the lack of caffeine.”
“The world cannot handle an undercaffeinated Case Willingham,” she says in her normal, sarcastic voice. “Go get your coffee. Try KoFigaro.”
“Ko-fee-go what?”
“KoFigaro. Koh-FEE-gar-oh. New coffee shop where all the baristas are opera singers.”
“You’re joking.”
“Completely serious.” She names an address, about a twenty-minute walk from here. “It’s cool. And the coffee is phenomenal. They named all the drinks after famous operas.”
“That’s quite a branding choice.”
“It’s brilliant! They’re getting all the boomers with money to show up. Coffee bar by day, wine bar by night, free opera.”
I’ll have to take Sarah there , I think to myself, smiling at the thought.
“Oh, damn, Case. There’s that porny smile again.”
“What?”
“Opera turns you on?”
I force my face to go slack. “Can’t a man enjoy a good aria?”
Her withering look makes it clear she’s not buying my deflection.
But I don’t care.
“Caffeine,” I mutter as I guide her toward my office door.
“Far be it for me to be an obstacle in your quest for energy in a cup. Did you try the yerba maté drinks?”
I shudder. “No.”
“Smart. They’re sweetened with date sugar and molasses. Looks like you’re drinking sweet watery mud. Or someone’s cholera diarrhea.”
“You’re really selling it, Rory.”
Laughter fills the hallway as I part from her, intentionally taking the stairs on the far end, out on the street in under a minute, head pounding along with my footsteps.
Sarah’s caught the attention of Rory, of all people. Prakash’s niece. A niece I’d always assumed was… not a spy. Not quite. Prakash is too self-centered to actually care about her, but I could see him using her. Sending her to work for me and milking her for information.
When I first approached Prakash about buying a franchise license for a studio and developing my own offshoot, he was intrigued. Eager, even, and guys like him don’t get eager easily. The wellness industry is a weird and wacky place, with plenty of snake oil salespersons ready to tell you with a straight face that you should inject dangerous substances for questionable benefits, but then there are the tried-and-true, genuinely helpful approaches that reach people where and when they need it, and really do improve lives.
Like yoga helped me.
Back in college, I fell out of my bunk bed in the dorm. No, I wasn’t drunk. I don’t even have stupidity as a defense. Random fall, in my sleep, which means I can only blame my subconscious for queueing up some kind of bad dream, and my amygdala for being terrible at his job as a warning signal.
My body took the blow on my left side, shoulder and hip. When you’re twenty, after a fall like that you make sure nothing’s broken, crawl back into bed, and expect to be sore for a week.
That’s not what happened.
Instead, I woke up to a shoulder that burned, a hip with a bruise that wrapped back around half my ass, and day by day I lost mobility.
Within a week, I was forced to go to my university’s health services, who sent me to an orthopedist, who ordered X-rays and an MRI.
Those twenty-five minutes in a claustrophobic tube were unbearable. Ever have a panic attack in a clanging death chamber?
Right.
“Excuse me,” says a fast walker behind me, someone sharp and focused, walking at a pace much more hurried than me. I rotate my hips and shoulders so she has more room and she glides by, earbuds in, voice sharp as she orders someone to send a report to someone else by eleven a.m. by God .
Stress. People are stressed .
And they want tangible ways to ooze that stress out of their bodies and into the air, for someone else to deal with it.
Which is where yoga comes into the picture.
By the time my torn rotator cuff was diagnosed, I’d had to drop out of an intramural baseball league, let my chemistry lab partner do all the physical work with the lab glass, and the pain left me miserable like no other. Nerve pain radiated from my upper back through biceps unaccustomed to being triggered nonstop, and my tingling pinkie finger didn’t like the intrusion.
No surgery needed, I was told. Just lots of physical therapy and stretching.
“Yo! Watch out!”
My ears catch the sound of a bike before the guy pops the curb from the street and enters the sidewalk. An orange-striped barrel on the edge of the road, plus oncoming traffic, force the guy into the crowd, though he stops after I’ve passed, some woman yelling at him.
Not my problem.
I’ve got plenty of my own.
The twenty-minute walk to a coffee opera house is folly, I know, but I think I need a little folly in my life right now. Yoga was my savior in college, helping where painkillers, muscle relaxants, TENS units, and physical therapy couldn’t. I was in between girlfriends and spent most of my time playing video games with buddies – and losing because my reflexes sucked.
When the physical therapist suggested I try yoga, he had winked at me.
“Great ratio of men to women if you’re straight.”
I was twenty and straight. Instant motivation.
The first class I walked into smelled like patchouli and hummus. Oddly enough, that didn’t deter me. Each teacher, I learned, had their own sense-space, turning the class into a mix of touch, scent, sound, and sight. Some used brightly-dyed silks as backdrops, with fans running that pushed lavender into the air. Others were more like kind drill sergeants, fingers on my hips or shoulders to correct my alignment for a pose, the adjustment always bettering how it felt.
Some were very calm and centered, focused on breath, a living embodiment to creating a low-stress life, whatever that meant. In their presence, I could taste a chance at being in that state, though. If I attended enough restorative yoga classes, perhaps I could truly melt into the floor, let my soul lift and float, and my pain would dissolve, evaporate, dissipate.
But that’s not what happened.
Instead, I looked around with each class, choosing to take one of every type, sampling from the great offering of chakra releases and breath connections. Power yoga was a different world compared to the other classes, and in there I seemed to find my people.
They turned yoga into something I could understand.
Achievement.
“Whoa! Dude! Watch out!”
Shaken from my memory, I look behind me to find yet another delivery person, this one on a motorized scooter, weaving between humans on the sidewalk. Reflex makes me step off the curb then pop right back on as he passes, my ankle wobbling slightly, but as the limb weakens I tighten my thigh and core to compensate.
In return, I see his brown-shorts-covered butt fade ahead of me, backpack full, one arm loaded with a comical stack of cardboard boxes.
Remembering Rory’s description of KoFigaro, I take a left at the next light, instantly off the path of busy walkers. One more quick right and I start scanning the street for the sign, aware of muted music from Carmen in the distance.
This has to be it.
Roasted coffee wafts through the air, twining with the music and like that first yoga class, I’m transported back in time, a feeling of being on the line between two worlds, two realities, coming into sharp focus.
And then I shake it off.
This is just a cup of coffee.
My phone buzzes with a text and I stop under a tree, the music reaching a high note. A mezzo sings the song “Habanera” in the distance as I read an email from my lawyer about the sale. Prakash is buying back my seven studios, an all-cash deal. Originally, I opened up the sale to anyone but he had right of first refusal as part of our original franchise deal. Once we settled on a number, the deal became a formality, in the hands of lawyers and banks, the process slow but clear.
Eighteen days now.
Eighteen days to freedom.
My lawyer’s email is procedural. Letting me know another step has been completed.
What Prakash does to his own books is entirely up to him. Once I started realizing he was playing loose with accounting, I panicked, knowing my financial health was tied to Chakroga123’s reputation.
Getting out became a priority.
The last year has been an emotional rollercoaster, watching Stacey decline, being there for Jared, Molly, and Corey, supporting my parents, and trying to manage seven studios. Rory once asked me when I was going to focus on me and I remember laughing in her face.
Didn’t she understand that not only was there no time for “me,” but that helping everyone I adore was how I focused on me?
We were losing Stacey no matter what. I couldn’t lose a single other person I loved.
That meant doing whatever it took to support them all.
It was in Stacey’s final month that I decided to sell out. Watching Jared love her with every bone in his body, every muscle movement, every breath, triggered a full-body change in me, my cells releasing some powerful juice that invaded my brain and heart.
I want that , I remember hearing in my head. Not the dying partner part.
I wanted that kind of love.
And then Jared emptied her emesis bin, brushed her teeth, wiped her face tenderly with a washcloth, and crawled into bed with her, spooning from behind, his body releasing as he held her.
I still wanted that kind of love.
I’m on a street corner across from the coffeehouse, listening to the mezzo, my stupid phone in my stupid hand as my stupid eyes start welling up.
Get a grip , I tell myself, but grief doesn’t work that way, does it?
Grief doesn’t have a grip. Grief can’t cope. Grief is wild and loose, unmoored and untamed, love that never gets to be expressed again, floating without purpose, unable to dock, its anchor lost.
Stacey is gone. Jared lost his person. Molly and Corey lost their mother. I lost my sister, and now I’m the only child my parents have left alive.
And I'm in danger of losing Sarah before I even really had her.
There are different ways to melt your body. Yoga is one of them.
Sheer burden is another.
I literally shake my head, sniff, and mutter, “This is what happens when you’re undercaffeinated,” as if saying something silly aloud will make my feelings go away.
Grief doesn’t let you neutralize it, though.
You have to feel every atom. Every speck. Every drop.
It will not be ignored. Grief just defers .
A text comes in just then, this time from Rory, asking about a discount a supplier is offering if we buy equipment in larger amounts than normal.
I’m on the phone with them. Huge price break at 500. Should I go for it?
Eighteen days. Prakash owns the studios in eighteen days, so why buy inventory he’ll benefit from? Business brain shoves emotional brain aside and I reply:
No. Just get the bare minimum for what we need.
I get a thumbs-up in return.
I am fifty-fifty on whether selling to him is a good idea. If the guy’s messing around with the IRS and Mass Department of Revenue, or worse – money laundering, as I suspect but can’t prove – then selling to him might just put me out of the frying pan and into the fire.
No choice on the matter, though. Our franchise contract gave him right of first refusal. Fighting that would have been costly, time-consuming, and possibly end with having to sell to him anyway, so I took the easy way out.
Eighteen days.
So close.
All I have to do is bide my time.