How to Be Brave(30)

“Isn’t that the one I’m here for?” I say.

Desk Girl nods, and they all laugh.

I don’t.

It’s not too late to leave. I could just stand right up and walk out that door. They’d never know who I was. I seriously consider bolting out the door but then it opens. It’s Liss and Evelyn, both out of breath and smiling.

“We made it! We’re here for the tribal yoga class!” Liss announces. “Oh, Georgia, you’re here already—”

Damn.

Desk Girl says good-bye to the Amazon ladies and checks us in.

“You girls are here to dance?”

Liss and Evelyn respond that we are and I just nod.

“Okay, then. I’m Aspen. Nice to meet you.” She shakes our hands formally. “Let’s do it.”

It’s 9:05 already, but it looks like no one else is showing up. She shows us where to put our stuff and where to set up our mats. Thank God it’s just the three of us.

Aspen takes off her shirt and pants to reveal a very small sports bra and very, very small black shorts. Like they’re so small I can see full-on butt cheeks.

She turns on the stereo and the music blasts a low, heavy bass. The walls shake with the reverberation.

“Before we start, let’s warm up a bit. I’ll show you some of the basics.” She stands in front of me on her mat, places her feet wide apart and spreads her knees, and starts shaking her body, and I swear I can nearly see everything. It’s all jiggling and wiggling and quivering. This isn’t tribal yoga dancing; it’s yoga for wannabe porn stars.

Dear Lord, what have I gotten myself into?

And then she starts “popping” and “bumping” (that’s what she calls it) and thrusting her hips and swirling her arms above her head and her eyes close and she’s lost in her dance. “You want to let yourself go. You want to let yourself be free. Release your hips, your back, your shoulders, your chest.”

Next to me, Liss and Evelyn are mimicking her moves awkwardly. All I can do is stand there and gape, but then Liss punches me in the arm and yells, “Start moving! Number ten!”

Aspen shakes herself out of her porn trance and walks to the corner of the room, where she lights some candles, closes the curtains, and shuts off the lights. It’s enough so that we can see her, but enough so that we can’t see ourselves.

“That should do it,” Aspen says, returning to her mat. “No one here is going to watch you. Just let go. Let yourself be inside your body.”

And so I do.

I grind and

I pop and

I thrust and

I shake

my hips.

I twirl and wave and let myself be

free.

I close my eyes.

I bury myself deep.

I bury it all.

I let myself be here,

here.

And

at the end, when Aspen tells us to give thanks

to our bodies,

to my body,

to the blood and

the muscle and

the bone

that moves us forward,

I do give thanks, but then

I cry, too.


It’s taken me so very long to get here.

*

I purchase the introductory package of ten classes for fifty bucks (I want to do that all of the time), and then we head back to my place. We spend the afternoon dancing in my room. We just can’t stop. The class was too much fun, the music was too good, and I haven’t felt this great in so long.

As the afternoon shifts into night, we decide to head over to Evelyn’s for the night. I pack up a few things—clean underwear, a toothbrush, my pj’s, a change of clothes, and my hair gel—and I leave a note for my dad telling him that I’m spending the night at Liss’s. Having never met Evelyn’s mom, he’d never approve of my staying at some stranger’s house. He’s just that archaic.

We walk a few blocks down through the freezing air to the Red Line, where we take the warm train down to Evelyn’s apartment. Her mom, as usual, is not home. And her place, as usual, is a total wreck. We stumble over empty plates and shoes and unpacked luggage. “Let’s go in my room.” We follow her in and sprawl out on her bed, pushing clothes and magazines onto the floor. It’s not any cleaner in here, but at least it’s a place where we can sit and they can smoke.

We order a pizza and change into our loungewear, as Liss calls it.

Evelyn passes around her pack of cigarettes. They’re not cloves, so I try to partake. Liss and I each take one, and Evelyn holds out her lighter.

“Thanks,” Liss says. “Your mom won’t care that you’ve been smoking in here?”

“Yeah, she’ll care.” Evelyn inhales and blows the smoke to the side. “But I won’t.”

It seems as though Evelyn purposely tries to piss off her mom, like most recently, getting caught smoking up in the janitor’s closet so that her mom had to reschedule her flights to attend meetings with Principal Q-tip about Evelyn’s progress, or lack thereof.

“But one more time, and she said you’d be sent to another school, right?” I cough out. It’s getting a little easier, but smoking still burns my lungs and makes me dizzy. “St. Mark’s or something?”

“Eh.” Evelyn shrugs. “She’s said that before, like a million times. It won’t happen. You know, we’ve moved so much for my mom’s job that I’ve been at five different schools in four different cities over the past four years? And I was kicked out of two of those.”