Om

 

"Tell me again why you can’t make the breakfast meeting." Felix’s voice crackled through the cell phone.

Chris inched his Mazda forward while adjusting his Bluetooth headset. The traffic at the Old Port of Montreal was already pretty bad at 7:49 a.m., even without the cobblestone streets impeding his progress. "I’ve got an appointment."

"Move it."

"Not this one."

"Why not?"

A horse-drawn carriage had pulled out three cars ahead, the horse’s hooves clopping on the cobblestones. Who knew that the calèches started working this early? The tourists were probably still dreaming about croissants and café au lait. "Can’t reschedule it."

"Why not?"

"She’d kill me. I’m doing this thing for Reece." The words slipped out of his mouth before he figured out how soft it made him look.

"A thing for Reece! You already married her. She’s got you by the short hairs. What else does she want?"

"Felix—"

"Does she want you on a boat?"

"How’d you know I’m going on a boat?" He frowned. He hadn’t found the parking lot yet. Reece had told him to park for $15 on Queen Street.

"Does she want you doing yoga on a boat?"

He just about hung up. "How’d you know that?"

"Easy. She told me."

He frowned. "When were you talking to Reece?"

"Yesterday, I guess. She came by the office. Must’ve been looking for you. Anyway, she told me all about it. Yoga matinale pour célébrer le solstice d'été." Felix’s French accent was terrible, but his hoity toity inflections hit the mark. "Are you serious? You’re blowing us off for a bunch of sun salutations on a boat? For summer solstice?"

"Shut up."

"I can smell the hippie from here."

He hung up, but not before Felix’s cackling rankled in his ear for a few crucial seconds.

Yeah, it was dumb. But he’d do a lot dumber stuff for Reece. He loved everything about her: the way she braided her blonde hair without even looking in the mirror. The way she stuck her tongue out a little when she opened their mail with the diamond letter opener he’d bought her. The way she punched the air in victory after taking a perfect picture on her phone. She wasn’t like every other gorgeous women he’d met, obsessed with shoes and money. Reece was always racing off to hike a mountain, Rollerblade the Lachine canal, or ski and snowboard Mount Tremblant. Now that she’d added yoga to her list and begged him to join her, he couldn’t say no.

She’d hugged him. "It’s our one year anniversary. It’s at sunrise, so even you can’t be working yet, right? And it’s free."

He’d laughed. Like it mattered if she dropped some bills on a yoga class. Reece had grown up without a lot of money, so she still cared about stuff like that.

"I promise you’ll feel better after." She’d glanced at him and bitten her lip.

"Okay, okay," he said, kissing her temple and breathing in the smell of her shampoo. It smelled fresh and sharp. Eucalyptus oil, she’d once said.

Chris snapped back to real time and took a left into the parking garage. He lowered the window and jabbed the button for a ticket, sending a stab of pain through his left neck. He set the ticket on the dashboard and rubbed the spot between his spine and ear. It’d been bothering him a lot lately. "It’s just stress," he’d said, but Reece had made him go see a doctor and bullied them into a private MRI last week. "You’ve got to take care of yourself. I can’t afford to lose you, Chris," she’d said, holding tight to his arm. For some reason, that had made him feel kind of old.

Which was ridiculous. Forty-eight was the prime of his life. It wasn’t 26, like Reece, but he was just as strong as in college. Sure, he didn’t have time to work out much, but he could do this yoga whatever, no problem. And he might make the end of the breakfast meeting too.

He squeezed the Miata into a "Compact car only" space just as his phone buzzed with a text.

Are you coming, slowpoke? :)

Reece, of course. He would’ve known, even without the accompanying photo of her standing on one leg on the deck of the boat, with a drink in her hand. The picture was dark enough that she was in silhouette against a dark blue sky, but he’d recognize that body anywhere.

Coming, he texted back. He could never think of anything witty to say to her. He closed his message icon, ignoring the voice message from an unfamiliar number that had come in while he was driving. Then he paused. Reece had somehow replaced his usual background photo of her face with a black and white shot of her back, naked to the waist.

Good thing he hadn’t come across that at the meeting. Chris grinned, shook his head and pocketed the phone before making his way out of the cool, concrete parking garage that smelled like urine. As soon as he stepped outside, into the fresh June air, he remembered how he used to run in college. He got up to a half-marathon before his MBA then the real world sucked all his time away.

He crossed the street to the Spa Ship. It looked like they’d docked an old tug boat and converted it. Still butt ugly, like a few rectangles squatting on top of a barge, but when he stepped aboard, he was pretty impressed at the renovations: windows along the length of the boat, wide corridors, high ceilings, and ample light. The boat rocked lightly under his feet. Nothing he couldn’t handle.

A pretty brunette stepped forward to greet him. Before she could speak, Reece raced down the hallway with her arms wide open. "Chris! You made it!"

"’Course I did," he said, wrapping Reece in his arms and lifting her in the air like she was a kid. His neck spasmed again, and he set her down slowly, as if he’d meant to do that. He covered it by kissing her. She kissed him back, sliding her tongue into his mouth for one teasing second, but something seemed different about her.

He took a step back to check her out. She whirled in a circle for him to admire her before she curtseyed in front of him. She was wearing a pale blue tank top that showed off the muscles in her arms and some sort of loose red yoga pants with crescent moons embroidered on the legs. "Do you like my new pants? I liked Anya’s so much, we traded."

Right. Anya. The yoga teacher. It seemed kind of weird that they’d be swapping clothes, but he figured it was a girl thing. "So you had a good sleepover on the boat?"

"It’s called a yoga retreat, and yes, it was a-MA-zing!" She practically sang the last word. "I’m so psyched that I’ve got one more night here. You don’t mind, do you? I feel kind of guilty, because it’s our anniversary…"

"Doesn’t matter to me if we celebrate the twenty-first or twenty-second of June." Actually, he was planning to work late to make up for this yoga thing. "I booked us a table at Aube."

"I love you," she said, and kissed him again.

"I love you." He leaned into the kiss. Something still seemed off. Not just the pants. But she grabbed his hand and ran the length of the hall, calling, "Come on! We can’t miss the class!"

He had to sprint to keep up with her, keeping his other hand on his cell phone so it wouldn’t bounce out of his short’s pocket. It buzzed in his hand, signalizing a missed message, but he figured Felix could wait. Why the guy would wake up at 7 a.m. to harass him repeatedly about yoga just showed that he really needed a life.

Reece threw open a set of glass doors on the far end of the boat, revealing a concrete deck covered in at least 30 women and their yoga mats. Most women were lying down, but a few were stretching. He recognized the downward dog that Reece was always hanging out in. He started edging toward the rails, but Reece tugged him to a black mat right in front of the teacher, who was set up on the far end of the deck, near the round hot tub that was covered by a tarp. "I saved you a spot."

"Uh, thanks." He recognized Reece’s flowery pink mat beside his. On the other side of Chris was the only other guy in the class, a 20-something dude who was wearing a bun on the top of his head. No kidding. A big hair bun like Wilma Flintstone, anchored with a neon yellow elastic.

"Welcome, bro," said the bun guy.

Chris nodded. He thought about snapping a picture of the bun guy to send to Felix, but figured it would just trigger another round of stupid phone calls.

The bun guy turned to check out Reece, and suddenly the guy wasn’t so funny any more.

"That’s my wife," said Chris.

"Yeah?" The bun guy looked at Reece, who was talking to a tiny woman with curly black hair who was wearing a skin-coloured, form-fitting shirt and pants, but still didn’t look as good as Reece. "Congratulations, man. She’s smokin’. She and Anya are something else."

Chris nodded instead of punching the guy in the face. "Did you do the sleepover last night?"

"You mean the retreat? Nah. Mucho dinero, man."

Good. It obviously kept the riff raff out.

"It’s cool that they’re doing this part free for the solstice. We gotta honour Mother Nature, you know? This is the only planet we’ve got. Our blue marble in the universe."

Frig. Chris would rather sit through a thousand meetings than spend another second with this yob, but as if she read his mind, Reece grabbed his hand and yanked him toward the teacher. "Chris, you’ve got to meet Anya!"

The teacher’s dark eyes bore into his. She could have been more than five foot two, which was a foot shorter than Chris, and she was probably half his weight, but she stood with her feet planted on the deck like she was a well-rooted oak tree instead of bobbing on a boat like the rest of them. She smelled like something that made Chris want to sneeze. After a second, he remembered that it was called patchouli. I can smell the hippie from here. Chris bit back a smile.

Anya shook his hand with surprising force. "Welcome, Chris. Thank you for sharing your solstice with us."

"Thanks." He couldn’t wait for this to be over, but Reece threw one arm around him, the other one around Anya and squealed, "This is so cool!"

"If this is your first visit to Ship Spa, you’ll have to sign a waiver," said Anya. She picked up the brown clipboard beside her mat and handed it to Chris.

He scanned the list. Asthma, diabetes, or a heart conditions? Nah. High blood pressure? Well, it was up a bit when he had his neck looked at, but they’d just asked him to come back and have it checked again, so that didn’t really count. Knee injuries? He’d had the right one scoped a few years ago, cleaning out the cartilage, and now it was as good as new. He jotted that down and checked the rest of the list. At least he knew he wasn’t pregnant. He glanced sidelong at Reece, wondering when she’d feel ready to take that plunge. He wouldn’t mind a couple of rug rats. He read, "I agree to assume full responsibility for any risks, injuries or damages, known and unknown, which I might incur…" Blah blah. He signed it.

His phone buzzed again.

Anya glared at him. "This is a phone-free zone." She turned to the rest of the class. "Just a reminder to turn all your cell phones off or switch them to vibrate."

For a yoga teacher, she seemed pretty tense. Chris wanted to check his messages—he had three of them, including one from last night that he’d missed somehow—but with Anya’s eagle eye on him, he just turned it off without reading them. That reminded him of the background photo switch, though, and he pointed to the phone and whispered to Reece, "Nice back."

She giggled. "Thanks."

"How’d you change it on my phone when you weren’t around last night?" Even with his phone’s PIN number, how could she access his phone remotely?

She glanced at Anya, who was handing the waiver to a middle-aged, chubby black woman, and whispered, "I found an app that switches the background photo on a timer, so I put it on your phone when I stopped by your office yesterday. I wanted to remind you of me, even when I’m not there."

"No need." He kissed the top of her head. Something still seemed a little strange to him, but maybe he was light-headed from the incense that Anya had just lit.

He shoved his phone back in the pocket of his loose-fitting shorts. Reece gestured that it would fall out. She pointed to her phone parked neatly at the back right corner of her mat. He lined his up at the back right corner of his own mat, liking the symmetry.

Anya cranked the music up. Before, it had been some sort of electronica beeping quietly along with the sound of the waves, but now it was a chorus of people singing, "A-ooooooooohm….Ah-OOOOOOhm."

Man, he was glad Felix wasn’t here.

Reece tugged him down on to the mat.

The bun guy was sitting in lotus pose, ankles crossed in his lap, with his eyes closed.

Kill me now, thought Chris, but then Reece smiled at him, and he didn’t mind so much. It was only 90 minutes. He could do anything for 90 minutes. Especially for his woman.

Reece sat down with her legs straight in front of her and bent forward, practically laying the front of her body along her thighs and shins. Chris trailed his hand along her back, remembering the picture she’d sent. Would she keep changing the background on his phone? Maybe do a little virtual striptease for him?

Anya knelt behind Reece and placed her hands on either side of Anya’s spine, just above the waistline of her new, red yoga pants. Reece sighed and pressed forward, deepening the stretch and closing her eyes.

Chris drew his hand back into his lap and sat on his mat cross-legged. That was the best he could do. Most other women were sitting cross-legged too, or had one ankle tucked in their lap. Only the bun guy and about five other women sat in full lotus pose, so he didn’t feel too bad.

Anya whispered something in Reece’s ear, and she rose up, sitting straight-backed, legs still on the floor, arms high in the air, before placing her hands on the floor, behind her butt. She lifted her glorious ass off the ground, arching her back and looking up at the ceiling, so that only her feet and hands touched the ground. Her head and the rest of her body formed a perfect line in space. Then she came down to sit on the ground, tucked herself into full lotus pose, and grinned at Chris.

He grinned back. What could he say? He was a sucker for this woman. Always had been, always would be.

Anya said, "Before we begin, I want to stress that you should only do what feels right. If your body says to stop, you stop. You can ride your edge, challenging yourself, but only to a point that feels comfortable. Never pain."

The guys at the gym would just laugh at that. No pain, no gain. But the bun guy nodded along, all serious, and Reece squeezed Chris’s hand. She mouthed at him, "I love you."

"I love you," he whispered back.

Anya raised her voice. "Let’s begin in a comfortable sitting position. Easy pose. Sukhasana. If your knees are higher than your knees, sit on blocks or on a blanket." She glanced at Chis, and he looked down. His knees had bounced up almost as high as his armpits, while Reece’s were level with her cute little hips.

The bun guy managed to get his knees down to the floor, even though he was still in full lotus pose.

Damn it. Anya shoved a purple block at Chris back. He sat on top of it. He’d already been the tallest guy in the class. Now he towered over everyone, plus his knees still pointed into the clouds, like skyscrapers.

"Your hips will open in time," said Anya, passing behind Chris to correct other students. That black woman who’d signed a waiver ended up sitting on a block too, but then her knees aligned with her hips, and Anya smiled at her and nodded.

"Now we will begin the class with the universal sound of Om three times. This sacred, mystical Sanskrit mantra is an invocation to the gods before any prayer, mantra, or sacrifice. Today, let us centre ourselves for the summer solstice. Inhale to chant."

Even though Chris could hear Reece take a breath beside him, he couldn’t bring myself to chant along with the rest of them. He opened his mouth and lip-synched while some very nasal voices hummed, "Ohmmmmmmmmmmm."

Reece sang a high and a little off-key. Chris had to smile.

Anya wandered back from the other side of the deck and started the next round. "Ahhh-OHMMMMMMMMMMMMMM." She sang on-key and loudly, like she was punching the air with her breath. They had to do it a third time, even though people’s voices trailed off uncertainly.

A deep ship horn boomed through the air. Chris figured it sounded better than all of them put together.

Except Reece. He could listen to her all day. She sat, leaning slightly forward, her eyes closed, her face relaxed and trusting, like a child.

"Let’s begin with our sun salutations," said Anya. "Some of you may remember our 108 days of doing 108 sun salutations."

Wait a minute. A hundred and eight? She was joking, right? But Anya was already back to her mat, instructing, "Stand at the top of your mat."

He could do that. He stepped to the short end of his mat, like everyone else. For him, this meant he faced the railings and could look out on the water, although Anya was in the way.

"Raise your hands into the air. Strong and free, like wings."

Chris felt like tucking his hands into his armpits and flapping his arms like chicken wings, but figured this was the wrong crowd for it. Reece swept her arms out to the side and reached into the air, leaning backwards and arching her back.

Chris tried to do the same thing, only his back stopped him. Straight up was as far as he could go.

Anya walked beside him and placed a firm hand along the small of his back.

Chris’s body jerked. He wasn’t used to strange women touching him. Back in his bar days, sure. Dancing, flirting, whatever. But not a teacher.

"Relax," intoned Anya. "Breathe in."

Chris clenched his teeth. His breath whistled.

"Relax the muscles of your jaw. Breathe out."

He exhaled and let his mouth sag, but he could still feel the tension.

So could Anya, because her cool fingers brushed the angle of his jaw.

That did it. Chris took a step back, away from her.

She met his eyes. Hers were so dark that they were almost black, and she wasn’t smiling. "If you don’t want any adjustments, raise your hand."

Chris lifted his hand in the air while staring right in her eyes.

"Very good." She turned away. "Inhale one more time, then exhale, folding your torso toward your thighs, lengthening your hamstrings. Release your back."

Chris felt a small pulse of victory. Chris, 1. Creepy yoga wench, 0. Of course, it meant that he’d probably never learn how to do yoga right, but oh, well. He glanced out of the corner of his eyes at Reece. She’d practically bent herself in half to touch her toes, her eyes blissfully closed.

Chris hastily folded himself in half, but that was worse than trying a backbend. His hamstrings seized up like a kite string suddenly jerking to its limit in the wind. He felt like a wind-up toy stuck halfway down.

"Inhale up halfway, looking up at the horizon. You can touch your hands to your shins, if you like. Ardha Uttanasana."

Chris’s back eased up when he pulled up to touch his shins. He should probably just stay here all day. He made the mistake of twisting his head to check on the bun guy.

"Ouch!" Chris muttered. Not only did his neck stab him again, but the bun guy still had his fingers on the floor, even though his back now formed a horizontal line.

"Yoga should be a source of pleasure, never pain," intoned Anya from the back of the boat. "You can ride your edge, but if you feel any discomfort, relax and return to your breathing."

What was she talking about? He was always breathing. Otherwise, he’d die. Chris inched his hands further down his legs, to the middle of his shins. That was tolerable. The boat rocked some more, and Chris spread his feet apart, trying to ground himself.

Anya was already moving on to the next step. "Exhale, fold forward once more in rag doll, or Uttanasana. If your hamstrings are tight, bend your knees. You should never hyperextend or lock your knees. Keep them soft."

Chris grunted, trying to straighten his legs as much as possible. Soft? He laughed at soft. Soft meant that you needed Viagra.

"Step your right leg back into a lunge."

That Viagra joke was pretty good. He should share that one with Felix after. After all, the guy kept calling him today for no reason. Might as well make his morning. Chris belatedly moved his right leg back a few feet, even though Reece’s legs practically spanned the length of her mat. She’d already stretched her arms up to the sky, arching her back.

So Chris did it too, even before Anya suggested it. This time, his lower back twinged. He bit back a curse, his arms freezing in mid-air.

Anya caught his arms and lowered his hands to the floor, even though she wasn’t supposed to touch him. "Listen to your body. Stay with your hands on your mat or on your hips if that is right for you."

"I can do it," Chris muttered.

"The first principle of yoga is ahimsa, or non-violence. Struggling to do poses your body isn’t ready for is a form of violence against the self. Mentally criticizing your body because you’re unable to do the asana is a form of violence against the self."

"True dat," said the bun guy, who was even more arched backwards than Reece, with his stupid bun pointing at the sky.

"Plank pose. Push-up position," said Anya, and everyone dropped to the floor.

This, at least, Chris could do. He used to do push-ups all the time. On his knuckles, even. He itched to try that now. Show these yoga freaks how it was done.

"Exhale in Chaturanga Dandasana."

Chris glanced at Reece. She was bending her elbows to bring her body almost parallel to the mat, a few inches off the ground.

He could do that. No sweat.

"Hold it here."

Well, maybe he’d sweat a little. His arms started to shake, but so did Reece’s.

"Go into Upward Dog, or Urdhva Mukha Svanasana." She rolled the foreign words with relish, like Oooooordva whatever whatever. What a poser. Although the real award had to go to the bun guy, who was now suspending himself just off the ground using only his hands and the tops of his feet, with the rest of his body in a deep backbend.

"Beginners, do knees-chest-chin and come into a baby cobra," Anya was nattering on, but Chris pushed himself into the Oooordva before she could force him into the baby pose.

Something seemed to snap on the left side of his neck.

He could hear it, almost like a click.

And then the pain flashed from his neck, flooding into his brain.

He collapsed face-first on the mat, pinned down by the agony.

"Chris?"

He could hear Reece’s high-frightened voice, her small hands patting his shoulders. "Chris, are you okay?"

No, he wasn’t okay. "Call," he started to say, but he couldn’t remember what the rest of it was, and the word seemed drawn out and flat. "Call," he tried again.

"You want me to call someone? Is that what you’re saying?"

Dimly, he could hear murmurs of anxiety around him. Reece was patting down the front of the mat. But she’d seen him tuck his phone at the back of the mat. Was she so worried about him that she’d forgotten?

Or why couldn’t she just use her own phone?

His head spun, but he knew Reece should be able to find her own phone.

"I found it," said Anya, crouching beside him. "We can call 911."

"Don’t. Need," said Chris, but part of him, the smart part of him, knew that he did, even as Anya passed the phone to Reece.

Reece dropped the phone on his back. "Oh, I’m sorry! My hands are slippery."

Not good in a crisis. Chris might have smiled except the muscles of his face didn’t seem to work right.

"I got it, I got it," said Reece, but then she said, "Oops," and Felix’s voice boomed through the speakerphone.

"Hey, buddy, your doctor’s office called. Something about your MRI’s all messed up, I guess. She left messages yesterday, sent the letter to your house last week, but you didn’t answer. She flipped out when I said you were doing yoga, so—"

Reece cut it off. "I just want to call an ambulance!"

"Press emergency call," said the bun guy.

"That works!" said Reece, and Chris could have laughed again at his dizzy blonde, only his head was spinning and the floor was spinning and the boat was rocking, and he puked all over his yoga mat.

"Ugh!" Reece leaped away from him, on to her pink mat.

Anya grabbed Chris’s arm and cranked on it.

The pain flared higher. He cried out.

"Don’t move him!" said the bun guy.

"I have to. He’ll choke on his vomit," said Anya, rolling him on to his left, and Chris started to say no, started to shove her, but then he gagged and started puking again, and she was pushing him one way and pulling his yoga mat the other way while the rest of the class stampeded off the boat, making it rock even more, so he puked some more, no, it was just heaving, his stomach was empty now, except some yellow stuff, and he couldn’t talk, but he was thinking.

He never got the phone calls yesterday.

He never got the letter last week.

Either they called the wrong number, or someone deleted the messages.

Someone intercepted the mail.

There was only one someone in his life.

Squinting through the pain, he craned his neck up to look at her. Her blonde hair was silhouetted in the sun. She was crying on the phone, with her back to him. She looked like an angel. His angel.

Even her back was beautiful.

Like the new black-and-white background photo on his phone. The smooth wave of her naked back.

Who took that picture of her naked?

He realized what had seemed so off about Reece this morning. She hadn’t smelled like eucalyptus oil. She’s smelled darker. More fetid.

Like patchouli.

He gagged.

Anya shoved his neck one more time. The agony ratcheted up one unbelievable, crucial notch.

And the world dissolved into black.

 

Originally published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine in January 2015