Tales from the Yoga Studio by Rain Mitchell Read Free Book Online Page B

the most honest people you can run into. The bike is amazing, a combination of an old clunker from childhood and deluxe modern efficiency. Maybe Katherine made the real leap of faith by giving her the key to her lock. There’s just no way you can feel depressed pedaling along on a pink bike. She might not come back to yoga class, but she probably should rethink that D rating. The day is rapidly turning into a B plus.

    K atherine has to admit she got a special kick out of plotting with Imani Lang and then driving Imani Lang’s car up the block. She hasn’t been on TV in close to a year (Perez Hilton was full of items about the miscarriage) but she’s still gorgeous and it isn’t like they get a whole lot of celebrities at the studio. Does it make Katherine shallow to be a little starstruck? Well, that and everything else about her, probably. The tabloids always portrayed Lang as a megadiva with an iron will. Not so. She was like a kid when Katherine complimented her poses. An exaggeration, for sure, but everyone has to start someplace.
    Katherine has a noon client coming in for a hot rock massage, a policeman who’s constantly making get-your-rocks-off jokes. She has a strong feeling it’s all protesting too much and that he’s a closet case, but at least he never makes a move. She heads back to the studio instead of circling the block again and checking for Conor. He moved out here a month ago, one of the other firemen told her, smirking, yesterday. And no, he hasn’t got a girlfriend . “I didn’t ask,” Katherine said. Believe me, he said. You did.
    Down the street from the studio, she notices the Mutt and Jeff guys who were showing off with their routine before class this morning getting into a car. When they close the door, she sees the logo for YogaHappens stenciled onto the side. (Prius, it figures.) She knew there was something about the two of them. The smug way they folded deeply into their paschimottanasanas, their showy ujjai breathing.
    YogaHappens is the Starbucks of yoga studios, a corporate concern that’s rapidly gobbling up small studios or opening a superstudio next door and forcing them out of business.
    Katherine knocks on Lee’s office door and rushes in, too steamed to bother with formalities.
    â€œYou know those two guys showing off on the right side of the studio today? Tall and short, perfect everything? I thought they were a little Stepford Yogi. Guess where they’re from? YogaHappens! Can you believe it? Probably scouts, looking to see whose business they can destroy next. Why don’t they just change their name to Walmart and get it over with? Jesus.”
    Lee bursts out laughing, not what Katherine was expecting. “I feel as if I’m watching ninety minutes of deep breathing go right down the drain.”
    â€œOverreacting? You know how I get. But I hate how all these big chains come along and turn everything into a business . And what’s with that logo of theirs? It looks like a big boob, which is probably a subliminal message they’re trying to send. Do you have to let them in if they come back?”
    Suddenly Lee isn’t laughing anymore. She looks stricken, in fact.
    â€œI’m sorry, Lee. Just ignore me.”
    â€œIt isn’t that, Kat.” She runs her hands through her hair. “I invited them to class.”
    â€œYou what ?”
    â€œClose the door, will you?”
    Katherine closes it and sits down in front of Lee’s desk with a bad feeling. It’s never a good idea to assume you’re on the same wavelength as someone else. It’s never a good idea to assume anything , a lesson she ought to have learned by now.
    â€œThey originally got in touch a couple of months ago. They heard about me and wanted me to ‘audition’ or something crazy. I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention.”
    Get to the point, Katherine wants to say. She’s always hated backstory,