Page 88 of Hard Hitter
TWENTY-SIX
MONDAY, MARCH 28TH
Ari slept uneasily in Brooklyn that night. Georgia had tried to convince her to spend the night in their spare room, but she hadn’t agreed.
Instead, she kept her panic button close by, and spent half the night listening for trouble, before finally falling into a deep sleep around three thirty.
She woke up with a start when her alarm went off, and felt immediately uneasy.
Given all that had occurred in her life lately, that wasn’t terribly unusual. But as she came to consciousness alone in her own bed, it wasn’t Vince she was worried about. This morning she woke with an image of Patrick in her mind, and a tickle of worry at the base of her skull.
Maybe it was just uncertainty about the gift she’d bought him. Yesterday after her massage appointments ended she walked Atlantic Avenue until she found what she was looking for—a dual coffee and espresso machine, the same model as her own. It made good coffee and it had never let her down. She’d figured she could save him the hassle of shopping and just gift it to him.
But was that weird? Friends could buy friends a coffeemaker, right?
She ate a small breakfast in her pajamas at her kitchen table. An hour from now she’d be up in front of the team, teaching a yoga class at the practice facility. Usually she used this time to meditate on what she wanted to accomplish with them.
But the prickle of unease wouldn’t leave her. It persisted while Ari drank some water and changed into yoga clothes. Before she left her house, she picked up the pendant Patrick had given her. It was so pretty, but she felt a twinge of guilt at keeping it. So she put it back down on the dresser. But that didn’t feel right either. So she picked it back up again and put it on.
The home screen of her Katt Phone glowed with her schedule for the day.Yoga class in twenty minutes, it said.Studio B.
She slung the shopping bag containing the coffeemaker over one shoulder and left the house. It was a cool morning, and on her short walk to work, she felt the chill all the way to her bones. So when she reached the Bruisers’ headquarters, she stashed her gift in her treatment room, then went straight to the yoga studio to bump up the thermostat.
Ari loved teaching in this bright, modern room. It had high-tech sprung flooring and soft natural light. She hooked her iPod up to the sound system and straightened the stack of yoga blocks in the corner. Sometimes she looked around this lovely room and thought,I can’t believe this is really my job.
Players began to trickle in one at a time, placing their mats on the floor facing hers at the end of the room. A yoga class was supposed to begin peacefully, without a lot of chatter, and they all knew the drill. So it was quiet while they assembled.
Too quiet, though. Today the silence was tomblike. At first she attributed it to the early hour. But one after another the players who unrolled their mats in the room sank down on them, eyes cast low, expressions grim. Ari looked up as Georgia entered the room in her yoga clothes. She alwayscame into the room with a cheery smile. But today she looked tired and drawn. And—this was weird—she didn’t make eye contact with Ari at all.
At one minute to eight she counted heads. Most every player was there, and members of the training staff. But Coach Worthington, Hugh Major, and Nate Kattenberger were all absent.
That was a little weird, too. Nate always tried to make her classes, usually scheduling his Manhattan appointments an hour later than usual just so he could begin his day with her vinyasa class. It was his favorite way of staying in touch with the team. Consequently, his management staff usually showed up, too.
Not today, though.
The very last person to enter the room was Patrick. Whoever is late to yoga class always ends up in the front row, dead center, and it was no different for him. He strode into the room purposefully, as if he’d shown up on a dare. But he didn’t look anyone in the eye either. And when he took the last spot right in front of Ari, she could swear that she heard a crackle of tension in the air.
That was odd.
“Good morning,” she told the class. Fewer than the usual number of attentive gazes raised to meet hers. “Let’s open our practice in a seated position.” She sat down on her mat, crossing her legs. “It’s cold outside, and I really feel the chill.”Not just from the weather, either. “So we’re going to raise the temperature of our practice today, and sweat out our tensions.”
A couple of the players shook their heads. Not everyone loved hot yoga.
Ari asked her students to close their eyes and relax. She walked them through a brief meditation on the subject of inner focus. Then she hit play on her iPod. A drum rhythm started up, lending the room its heartbeat. “Rise into mountain pose, please. On the exhale, forward fold. Hang there and gently roll your head for two breath cycles. On the nextinhale, rise to Utkatasana... Good.” She walked over to the thermostat and nudged it up to eighty degrees, just as an opening gambit.
“...Arms up, offering the heart,” she said, lifting her hands in the air. “On the exhale, dive into forward fold.”
As a room full of bodies dropped forward in perfect sync, Ari was full of gratitude. The power she commanded in this room was only hers because her students gave it to her. For an hour every other morning, they handed her the reins, and she held them gently.
It was an honor.
“Inhale, rising to half lift, finding length in your back. Exhale, hands planted, feet float back to high plank.” On their mats, she took them through a quick series of push-ups, and then into the basic vinyasa. “Exhale, rising into downward dog. Now walk it out. Stretch those hamstrings.”
Butts in the air everywhere—that was her view. Two dozen guys warming up their powerful bodies. Just another day at the office.
Next, she took them through a long series of sun salutations and warrior poses. But there was still so much tightness in the room. And the tightest of all was Patrick. His shoulders were tense, and his movements short. He was the epicenter of the morning’s stress. She could almost feel the others leaning away from him, as if his aura were poisonous.
She nudged the thermostat’s temperature even higher. Maybe she could burn away the tension. There was no complaining, even as sweat began to drip off the players. One by one they shed their shirts, until the room was full of rippling abs. To think that they paid her for this.
