She kicked her flip-flops into the cubbies that lined the wall under the street-facing windows and checked her phone one last time before silencing it for the next hour, hoping that nothing earth shattering happened during her ten-minute walk to the studio that would prevent her from practicing.
From: David Greene
To: Kennedy Sloane
CC: WBS Executives, WBS News
Subject: RE: Clinton White Coverage
Kenny, thank you for your valiant efforts. Please keep me directly in the loop on thestatus and logistics of the White interview. It’s the get of the decade. We’ll finally close the gap between us and the competition. We can’t lose this one. Keep doing what you’re doing. You are a rising star here at WBS. DG
David Greene
President and Executive Director, WBS News
Beaming with confidence and pride from the accolade, Kenny tossed her phone in her red drawstring sack and grabbed her oversized Swell bottle. She took a deep breath and peered out the window, admiring the rays of sunshine popping between the buildings on the other side of the street. It wasn’t a sunrise over the ocean, but the sun coming up over her city was a close second.
Four
“Breathe in, two, three, four. Hold two, three, four. Out two, three, four. Breathe in two, three, four. Hold two, three, four. Out two, three, four,” Yogi Marah hummed as she glided around the candlelit room, incense stick in hand while the class settled into their mats.
Marah was a pint sized, raspy voiced spiritual guru. She seemed timeless, but Kenny thought she was much older than she presented given her experiences of the universe. Marah traveled to India to master her practice and met the Dali Lama when she was exploring Tibet. While she was in Stanford’s Ph.D. program, she moved to Germany and wrote her thesis on the correlation between yoga and the philosophies of Immanuel Kant. Her Vinyasa style focused on the mind just as much as the body, and she believed that humans had the supernatural power tobreathethrough any difficult or adverse situation. Classes revolved around breathwork. Kenny hadn’t bought into the faculties of inhaling and exhaling, but she mostly took to heart everything that Marah preached.
Marah’s deliberate, yet effortless guidance filled the studio with an energy that was palpable from all corners of the room. As the heat and humidity rose so did the audible breaths from the room of yogis who filled and emptied their lungs in rhythmic unison.
For the first time in a while, Kenny slowly started to feel connected with her body as the community moved through a fast-paced series of Sun A and Sun B Salutations.
“Top of mat. Rise up. Forward fold. Halfway lift. Forward fold. Hands to mat. Chaturanga. Upward facing dog. Downward facing dog. Breathe in. Breathe out,” Marah hypnotically repeated.
Although her body was heavy and her swan dive wasn’t as graceful as it was a few weeks ago, Kenny felt her limbs elongate and strengthen with each flow. The sweat poured off her face and body like a faucet that someone forgot to turn off. It was a rapid detox. The movement and positions were invigorating and freeing. Except the forward fold. The position that had her bent in half, face to feet, was a glaring reminder of how badly she needed a pedicure. Her toenails were chipped and misshapen, and she could not remember the last time she had a tootsie tune-up. Memorial Day? Easter?
“Mental note: Add pedicure to to-do list,” Kenny quietly whispered to herself between breaths. “Throw in brow wax and Brazilian, too.”
A good brow wax was like an instant face lift, especially when Kenny had a spare fifteen minutes to enjoy the under-eye gel masks her esthetician started adding to the service. She wondered if the treatment was offered to all loyal clients or only to her out of pity because she always looked so stressed and tired.
The hour-long class approached culmination, and she took pigeon pose on the right side. And then pigeon on the left side before reclining into Savasana.
“Namaste,” Marah cooed as she firmly placed a chilled lavender towel across Kenny’s shut eyes, her body sinking fully into corpse pose.
Kenny laid, completely still, in the pool of her own sweat for longer than the traditional two minutes a yogi stays in the final resting posture. She wasn’t ready to give up the quiet and 105-degree temperature of the room or to begin tackling her ever-growing to-do list. She was also self-conscious about standing up, knowing that her soaked, oversized tank would cling to the rolls of her midsection.
She gingerly pushed herself up to a seated position, rolled up her mat, and made her way out of the hot room. After grabbing a bottle of guava goddess Kombucha from the cooler in the hall, she sat on the cubbies to cool down. She reached under the bench for the red drawstring bag and pulled out her flip-flops, sliding ten grimy toes into them. While she sipped the raw tea drink with one hand, she dug around for her phone with the other, and when the screen lit up, mid-gulp, she almost regurgitated the liquid that was halfway down her throat.
Fifteen missed calls. Five voicemails. Thirty-seven emails.
All with the subject lineURGENT: Dr. Love. Flagged with the red exclamation point of dread, the symbol that noted exceptionally high priority messages.
Kenny’s heart rate was still elevated from the workout, but she physically felt the blood-pumping organ drop inside her. It had been exactly sixty-eight minutes since she received the glowing email from David Greene singing her praises. And now this.
From: David Greene
To: Kennedy Sloane
CC: WBS Executives, WBS News
Subject: RE: Clinton White Coverage
WHERE ARE YOU????????? CALL ME NOW.
