Win Place Show
“Good… We’ll stay on the mat for this asana… Now lift the spine, making a hinge at the hips, not the waist. Keep those knees straight and lean, lean, lean down. Don’t worry about bringing the head to the floor, concentrate on bringing your chest forward… This is called Paschimottanasana… Glinda, can you tell everyone what the literal translation is?”
“Intense stretch… of the west?”
“Good. Yes, that’s correct. Everyone hold… And release. Ten minutes. Be sure to drink a least 12 ounces of water!”
Marigold Letero brought down the volume on the sound system and advanced to the next track, string instruments. The last track was a quick percussion capable of grinding away the fat of anyone who could keep pace with it for more than fifteen minutes at a time. At five feet and no extra inches, Mari knew she needed it. Not so, with Glinda Maze. Mari’s assistant looked more like the willowy actress-models tapped for exercise videos; six feet tall and a metabolism that made it look easy.
“Thank you, Glinda.” Mari accepted the SIGG and drank slowly, stalling as she could see her most defiant and needy student bearing down.
“Glinda, have you heard what happened at the derby?” Jaclyn Amarill asked an absurd question; the derby had run in the middle of their hour, and Mari forbade the use of a television, even a silent one, while in class. For some of the more wired students, one full hour without access to a television crawl was the most grueling part of the session. Jaclyn was one of those who seized her electronics on breaks and hurried after all the bits she had missed. Mari often imagined that Jaclyn’s ever frizzier hair was adapting to capture radio waves on their own, so the overstressed woman underneath need never postpone any business during her exercises.
“Mari, have you heard?” Again, absurd. Mari shook her head and checked the clock, the one device apart from the sound system that she felt obliged to keep in class. The derby should have ended several minutes ago, if it had started at the usual time, meaning several minutes late. So, it was over.
“Who won?”
Jaclyn didn’t answer Glinda’s question. “The filly died. She came in second and than fell down right after the finish line. A few minutes later they reported that she was euthanized. Right there.”
Already, friend-to-all-creatures Glinda was tearing up, and Jaclyn’s cheeks had taken on a dangerous hue. “Let’s talk about this after class, and keep it between us, for now,” Mari said quickly, although she would try to find a reason not to discuss it then, as well. It would be nice to leave on time, for once.
She told Glinda to get them started on the final workout as soon as the track changed, and stepped out onto the balcony where she had stowed her duffel. She drew a cell phone out of the zippered pocket and punched in her husband’s speed dial key. First it was busy, then Candy broke through. Mari sighed. “Tell whomever you’re talking to that you’ll call back later, if I find you haven’t used up too many of our minutes. Then, put your father on.”
Unwilling to waste any more of the family minutes on her mother, Candy bounced back to her original call without a word. The heavy percussion began behind Mari just as he took the phone. He confirmed what Jaclyn had reported, in addition to reading her the official results.
Mari peeked through the cracked door at her class. “Of course the Eight Belles accident is awful - I just hope it doesn’t become Barbaro II, in terms of coverage. Did you beat the odds on Big Brown? Okay. Now, how did we do with Denis of Cork?”
She gasped. “Much more than okay. Wow. Okay, I gotta get back to class. Love you lots. Road and Track tonight, or is that too obvious? Whatever, you’re buying.”
She ended the call and paused at the door again, hand on the knob, regarding her sweating class, eight women moving fast in a fat burning climax to an otherwise tranquil stretch session. This was never the curriculum she wanted, but it was what her employers and clients would accept.
Jaclyn would want to stay after to talk conspiracy, wonder why the first filly in ages had been euthanized so quickly. She would talk, and want them all to agree, or better yet, disagree so she could pound her opinions into them. If Mari couldn’t deflect her this time, she might lose more students. Already she was down to seven, the bare minimum for keeping her time-share lease marginally profitable.
And when she lost her assistant, as she certainly would soon, either to graduation, a man, a talent scout, or, most likely, a new age philosophy, the jig was up. No studio, no small business LLC. Back to the same circuit she’d been on before Candy went to school; fluff sessions once a month, advertised on tear-a-way flyers in health food markets and incense shops. Filing jointly with her husband, still, but making so little as to declare no income at all.
And how would that look if his hot streak should end soon, as it always, inevitably, did? He’d been so good about sticking to the allowance, but that had been established when she, and not he, was the stable income whose name carried the deed, the car, the utility bills.
Could she reinvent herself again, find a new way to sell tranquility and fitness? Encyclopedic knowledge of spirituality could only get you so much, if you didn’t look the part.