Tonight there were only five males in the class, none of them familiar, thank God. A couple of weeks ago she’d found herself standing one row behind a guy she’d hooked up with on Tinder, a forty-two-year-old graphic artist named Dell, with long graying hair and a sad little belly bulging over the waistband of his Speedo. Their eyes had met in the front mirror and he’d smiled in happy surprise. She was aware of his scrutiny throughout all twenty-six postures, and it had completely ruined her concentration. And then he’d tried to chat her up in the parking lot, as if they were old pals, rather than strangers who’d fucked once, just because they both happened to be bored and lonely at the same time.
She wasn’t sure why the encounter had unnerved her so much. Dell was a pretty nice guy—they’d actually done okay in bed together—and she was ninety-nine percent sure his presence at the studio was pure coincidence, not the beginning of a stalking nightmare. But it didn’t matter; it was just creepy to see him there, totally out of context, as if he were an actual human being, rather than a figment of her sexual imagination. She went home that night and deleted her Tinder account, so nothing like that would ever happen again.
*
At the Senior Center, Amanda’s tattoos were a constant source of friction with the clients, and, apparently, an open invitation to criticism, like one of those bumper stickers that read, How’s my driving? She wished she could have supplied a toll-free number, so the irate old folks could call at their leisure and leave a message, instead of accosting her in the crafts room to inform her that she’d made a terrible mistake, that she could have been a pretty girl, and what the heck was she thinking?
At least wear some long sleeves, the sweet old ladies told her. A turtleneck and some dark tights might not be such a bad idea, either.
Something subtler, and far more frustrating, went on in the Bikram changing room, where a number of the younger women had tattoos of their own, though of a more decorous suburban variety—a dolphin on a shoulder blade, a constellation of three or four stars around an ankle, a cheerful little bird on the nape of the neck. The first time she undressed there, she felt a sudden chill of separation, her own more drastic aesthetic marking her as an instant outsider, the badass chick with the cobra wrapped around her leg, the hand grenade on her breast, the anarchist bomb on her thigh, and the meat cleaver—the only one she truly regretted—dripping blood on her upper arm.
She tried to compensate by being extra friendly, smiling at everyone she passed, but the others rarely smiled back. Most of them avoided eye contact altogether, the same way Amanda used to avert her gaze from the anorexic woman at her old gym, the one who seemed intent on committing suicide by elliptical. You wanted to look—how could you not?—but you didn’t want to be rude, so you just minded your business and pretended she wasn’t there.
Five years ago, when she’d been living in Brooklyn with Blake, she would have enjoyed this outcast feeling, the knowledge that she was a little too edgy for the yoga moms and single ladies of Haddington, but she wasn’t that person anymore. She was lonely and looking for new friends, and it broke her heart a little every time she showered and changed without exchanging a single pleasant word or sympathetic look with anyone.
She’d gotten so used to being ignored, she wasn’t sure what to think when she emerged from the shower, a much-too-skimpy towel wrapped around her torso, and noticed a slender, pretty woman staring at her with a quizzical expression. Amanda had never seen this woman at Bikram before, but she’d been aware of her throughout the class. It was hard not to be—she was one of those front-row yoga goddesses, enviably fit and limber, observing herself in the mirror with an air of scientific detachment as she tied herself in elegant knots, barely breaking a sweat.
It was a cramped space, a single wooden bench set between two rows of lockers, with several women milling about in various states of undress, trying not to get in one another’s way. Amanda had just released the towel when she sensed a presence at her side.
“Excuse me?” The woman’s voice was surprisingly casual, considering that Amanda was naked, and she herself was wearing nothing but yoga pants. “I think we know each other.”
The stranger was even prettier up close, with black pixie-cut hair and blue eyes that seemed pale and bright at the same time. A tiny tattoo peeked from the waistband of her pants, something dark and swirly, a tornado or maybe a comet.
“You went to Haddington?” she continued. “We were in AP English senior year?”
Her voice sounded vaguely familiar, but Amanda searched in vain for a name to connect to the face. It didn’t help that she was distracted by the woman’s breasts, which were small and pert, with optimistic upturned nipples. She couldn’t help wondering what that would feel like, having boobs that defied gravity, and a stomach so flat it might actually be concave. She glanced with longing at her own discarded towel, lying uselessly on the floor.
“I’m sorry,” Amanda said. “Your name is . . . ?”
“Beckett.” After an awkward moment of silence, the woman smiled, realizing her error. “In high school I went by Trish? Trish Lozano?”
Holy shit, Amanda thought. Trish Lozano. She could see it now, the ghost of the girl she’d known hidden inside a whole new person.
“I didn’t recognize you,” she said. “You were blond back then.”
“Of course I was.” Trish shook her head. “I was such a cliché. The cute little cheerleader from hell.”
Amanda wasn’t sure how to respond. She’d never thought of Trish Lozano as a cliché. She was more like the platonic ideal of an American high school girl, pretty and bubbly and super-popular, always at the center of the action. And she’d been smart, too, which seemed even more unfair.
“Your name’s Beckett now?”
“I changed it in college. I got into acting and Trish just seemed so blah. We were doing this all-female production of Waiting for Godot, and I don’t know, Beckett seemed like a cool name.” Trish rolled her eyes, amused by her younger, more pretentious self. “Turns out I’m a terrible actor, so the joke was on me. But I kept the name. It’s a big improvement.”
Amanda could feel herself nodding a little too emphatically, as if she were receiving news of profound importance, and it made her queasy to think of what she must look like, plump and flushed and naked, listening so intently to a beautiful, bare-breasted woman who called herself Beckett.
“You look great,” Trish said, touching her gently on the arm. “Are you still living here?”
“It’s just temporary.” Amanda’s face warmed with embarrassment. “I was living with my boyfriend in Brooklyn, but . . .” It was a long story, not one she wanted to go into just then. She turned toward the open locker, rifling through her clothes until she found her bra. “What about you?”
“Visiting my mom.” Trish made a sour face, as if this were an unpleasant obligation, like jury duty. “I live in L.A. now. I went out there for film school and never looked back. My fiancé’s a DP. You know, a cinematographer? So I think we’re pretty much stuck there.”
Involuntarily, Amanda’s gaze strayed to Trish’s left hand, the small diamond gleaming tastefully, not the least bit boastful or obnoxious. Just a fact.