Chapter 9
nine
BILLIE
The yoga studio Alana’s invited me to is exactly the kind of place I’d expect her to choose. It’s beautiful, obviously— exposed wooden beams, enormous windows, and a succulent at the front desk that’s thriving to such a degree it looks fake at first glance.
I’m carrying a yoga mat I overnighted from Amazon in a rolled bundle under one arm. I’m wearing my only pair of leggings, and I’ve just discovered a hole in the right leg.
Then Alana walks in, and I get a glimpse of what “athleisure” looks like when done right.
Her mat is a deep blush pink and has a matching carrying case that’s monogrammed and zipped. Her workout set— coordinated from crop top to high-waist leggings— features a repeating pattern of moons and stars. She has a small gold ring on her right hand. She’s radiant.
“You look great,” she says when she sees me. She says it with full conviction, no performance— I almost believe her.
“Your mat has a monogram,” I say dumbly.
“Everything should have a monogram,” she answers with a wink.
I offer to pay at the counter, but Alana waves me away. “This one’s on me,” she tells me. Then, she turns to the woman behind the counter, “You can just charge both our reservations to my account.” The woman winks at Alana as if she does this often for her.
She’s treating me to free yoga? I think. She must… really like me.
We collect our spots near the middle of the room and unroll our mats.
“I started coming here because of Oprah,” Alana tells me, settling cross-legged on her mat and reaching her arms up into a stretch with the casual ease.
Her body does what she asks it to, and I wonder what that feels like.
“I’m like, totally addicted to watching her YouTube channel.
Oprah does yoga. Did you know that? So, obviously. ”
“Obviously,” I say, not even sure what I’m agreeing to.
“However,” Alana continues, pressing one hand flat to the floor and tilting her torso sideways in a stretch that extends her whole ribcage, “her down dog is a little shameful. Like, I was behind her in a class in Los Angeles once, and I was shocked.” Alana takes a beat to stretch her other arm then adds.
“This yoga studio is actually where I met Melissa. A few weeks ago, but it feels like years! She was doing this exact class and we just started talking and she’s incredible, right? ”
“She’s my favorite person,” I say.
“She’s one of mine too,” Alana says, simply.
She draws one knee across her body and holds the stretch, then looks at me again.
“Which is actually why I wanted to bring you here. I think we could be really great friends, you and me. I felt it yesterday.” She releases the stretch.
“And also— I’m going to be honest with you, because I feel like you’re someone who actually appreciates that— once Melissa has this baby…
” She opens her hands in the gesture of someone presenting an obvious but unavoidable truth.
“She’s not going to have time for either one of us the way she does now. You know?”
A tight feeling grips my chest, and I want to shout “Of course I freaking know!” My first reaction when Melissa told me she was pregnant was “oh my gosh, I’m so happy for her and I can’t wait to meet this child” But as the months went on, I started to realize: I’m going to see less of my friend.
And she’ll make new “Mom friends” who have babies of their own.
It would be a lie to say I haven’t wondered if there will still be room for me in all of that.
It’s a selfish question, but I’ve been asking it just the same.
“She’ll still be around,” I say, which is what I say to the part of me that is afraid.
“Of course,” Alana agrees, easily. “But it’ll be different.
That's all I mean. So we should be each other’s people too.
” She looks at me across our two yoga mats— hers monogrammed, mine the cheapest one I could find— and her expression is open and genuine.
“Just because, like, Melissa has found her happiness. We’re allowed to find our own.
Like, everybody has to do what’s right for them, you know? ”
The instructor arrives before I figure out what to say to that. The room settles.
For the first twenty minutes, I hold my own. I know a few of these poses. My warrior two is acceptable. My tree pose wobbles.
Then I look over at Alana.
She is in a backbend so complete that her hands are flat on the floor behind her head and she is simply— hovering there, suspended, chest open to the ceiling, without any apparent effort.
Her expression is serene. The instructor passes her and makes a small sound of appreciation.
Alana is not showing off. She is just doing this, like she’s an acrobat or a cirque du soleil performer.
Somewhere around the advanced flow sequence, she transitions from the backbend through a movement that is— there is no other word for it— a backflip.
A single, controlled, unhesitating backflip, smooth as a breath, landing without sound.
Two people nearby actually stop to look.
The instructor tilts his head in a gesture that says he is deciding how to feel about this.
The flip looks more like a martial arts move than a yoga pose.
I am still in a forward fold. I have been in a forward fold for some time because I am trying to touch my toes, and the distance between my fingertips and the floor is the distance between California and Alaska.
Why don’t I find time to stretch at night?
I ask myself, cursing the hours spent watching reality tv shows after work instead of getting more limber.
When the instructor calls us back to center for the final resting pose, Alana drops immediately into savasana, arms loose at her sides, eyes closed. She appears to have achieved the kind of complete bodily peace that I have been chasing since I was twenty-two.
I stare at the ceiling. Soft snores echo beside me. Alana is so relaxed she’s fallen asleep. She’s so relaxed about this class she’s taking a nap.
Class ends. Alana’s mat goes back into its monogrammed case.
We walk out into the grey November morning together, and Alana is laughing at something before we’ve even hit the sidewalk— some small observation she makes about the man who fell out of his tree pose directly into the person next to him— and I am laughing too, easily, genuinely, before I’ve decided to.
I think: I like her enormously. Maybe it’s okay that I can’t do a backflip.
Maybe this is what it looks like to finally find someone who thinks you’re worth showing up for at eight in the morning.
Plus, Melissa is going to be busy with the baby soon, and— like Alana pointed out— I need to find my happiness, too.
And if it’s as simple as having a friend to do yoga with early in the morning, so be it.
I don’t think anything past that. I should probably think past that.
But I don’t.
* * *
Later, we get burned hash browns and eggs at a trendy diner down the street with black and white checked floors.
It’s way too expensive for what they’re offering, but the chandelier is made of gold leaf, and there’s a neon sign on the wall that says “People are the best thing that can happen to anyone,” so I figure we’re paying an ambiance tax.
We have a small corner table. There are two mugs of coffee. We are, I realize, having a very good time.
Alana’s talking about Rodrigo, and I’m embarrassed that hearing his name makes my heart beat a little harder for a second.
You’re not allowed to be attracted to your new friend’s boyfriend, I remind myself.
Plus, he’s a jerk, remember? I shake the feeling of attraction off immediately.
Rodrigo is already taken by someone I’m starting to consider a friend, and also— he’s an asshole.
My heart shouldn’t flutter for him at all.
Besides, it sounds like he’s driving Alana a little crazy, and I don’t need that kind of drama in my life anyway, even if it comes with a sculpted jawline.
“Oh, and he leaves his paintbrushes in the sink in this little coffee mug,” Alana says, taking another bite of her omelette.
“Rodrigo’s like, crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside.
He looks all tough because of the construction stuff, but his personality is all mush.
I seriously don’t know what he’d do without me.
” She pauses. “He annoys me though. Like now he keeps talking about how we might have to slow down because he may have to go home for a construction job for a little bit. Like, some work thing. Which would be totally fine!” She puts her arms up in the air defensively.
“But it’s like… he’s so needy and then just tries to get my attention with stuff like this.
Sometimes I honestly think I could just kill him.
” She laughs as if the idea is preposterous.
“You’re lucky you have someone who likes you so much,” I say, staring into the abyss of my coffee.
“Like, yeah, I guess,” Alana shrugs. “But he keeps talking about this construction job in Spain in a way that’s just driving me nuts,” she continues, shaking her head.
“Back in Barcelona, apparently. He keeps mentioning it like it’s just this thing he might do— like it’s nothing— when I’m over here trying to plan our wedding. It’s neglectful honestly.”
I look up from my glass. “You guys are engaged?” My heart almost stops, and I mentally remind myself to breathe. I’m not supposed to care. He’s practically a stranger. But for some reason— I do care.