Chapter Thirteen - Lucas

My fight with Samantha keeps playing in my mind on a loop. I’m sure she was having a bad day. I probably was at least partially responsible for her bad day. I know that.

But I don’t think someone who goes around yelling self-righteous shit at complete strangers is really someone I should be worrying about. I should let it go and follow up on the information my real estate agent left me. I’ve got a number of a man named George I can call and some general information about the building’s worth. I have to say I’m considering it.

Going through with it would likely make me exactly who she accused me of being. I could end the illusion that this is really a competition right now. I could make an offer on her building and put an end to this.

I’m not sure I want things to go down that way. At least not yet.

I still think she’s all wrong about me and about my business, but I don’t like leaving things the way we did. For some reason I can’t figure out, Samantha feels important. I can’t stand the idea that she’s probably thinking all sorts of horrible things about me now. It shouldn’t matter – I hardly know her, and she was the one who confronted me – but still. I don’t want that fight to be her impression of me from now on. I want her to think better of me than that. We are going to be neighbors in more than one way. I’ll see her all the time and I know I won’t just be able to ignore her. I don’t want to just ignore her. Something about her is stuck in my head, and I can’t shake it out, no matter how much I work up a sweat.

I scan her center’s website. I’m looking for her personal contact email, thinking it might be easier to smooth the waters in writing. I don’t find it, only an extension of her office. I don’t really want to call – I’m concerned we’d just start yelling at each other again if I did.

The website has several pictures of Samantha on it, making me want to work this out with her even more. I scroll through the offering of classes and get an idea. I pull up this afternoon’s classes and select a yoga class. I pay for it through their interface, shaking my head at myself. I never thought I’d be attending a yoga class, but exercising her way, just this once, seems like a way to extend a peace offering to me.

I have a little free time in my schedule this afternoon, anyway. I don’t think it can hurt things, not after how badly our last encounter had gone. I don’t think it will make either of us change our minds about the other, but it might make the next few months slightly more tolerable.

“Hey,” Paul says, stepping into my office. “Are you going to be around for a while?”

“I’m actually headed out,” I tell him, standing up from my desk and starting to gather a few things. “Why?”

“Just wondering if you wanted to order lunch,” Paul says, shrugging. “Where are you off to?”

“Have you ever done yoga?” I ask, answering his question with one of my own.

“Yoga?” Paul asks, skeptical. “Is this about that Samantha woman? With the rundown fitness center?”

“I’m making a peace offering,” I say. Paul raises his eyebrows at me. “We had a fight. I want to smooth it over.”

“But you said she was terrible – and I cannot picture you doing yoga,” Paul says, laughing.

“She’s insufferable, but I said a few things I shouldn’t have, and we’re going to be neighbors. I feel like I need to make sure we can at least be civil to each other,” I say.

Paul still looks unconvinced. “You know,” Paul says, “you’ve never mentioned whether she was pretty, young, single, or all three.”

“Doesn’t seem important. It’s just business,” I say, grabbing my jacket from the back of my chair. I admit that Samantha being attractive might be part of the motivation, or least part of my hesitation to just shut her down before I even open. It’s not the entire reason, though, and I don’t really have time to explain all of it to Paul.

“So she’s not?” Paul asks. He’s looking at me like he thinks I’m full of shit.

“She is,” I admit. “Pretty, anyway, and about our age. But I have no idea if she’s single.”

“Looking to find out?” Paul asks, winking.

I shake my head. “It’s just business,” I say. It’s also that I can’t get Samantha out of my head, but I don’t tell Paul that.

“If you say so,” Paul says, eyebrows still raised. He watches me as I get ready to head out the door, and then adds, “You know, I took that whole semester of dance in college just to impress Molly,” as if he thinks it’s relevant to what’s going on here.

“It’s just business,” I repeat sharply, grabbing my keys and heading out the door to end the conversation. I know what Paul is getting at and how much he thinks it would be good to have someone special in my life. I just really don’t want to have that conversation right now.

“Have fun at yoga,” Paul calls as I leave, a teasing tone in his voice.

***

I get to the center a few minutes early and head for the yoga class. The girl at the front desk glares at me, but I ignore her and keep walking, finding the right studio for the class and taking a deep breath to steel myself before I enter. A dozen or so people of all ages are already there, stretching and chatting. The class fills up over the next several minutes to about twenty-five people.

The instructor is a young guy who looks straight out of college. I hadn’t expected it to be Samantha – as the owner, I’m sure she doesn’t have much time to teach classes herself – but I have to admit I’m a little disappointed.

When the class starts, I’m immediately struck by how difficult it is. We start with a supposedly easy warm-up sequence that involves ways my body does not want to bend at all, and then we transition into a series of moves that make my calves feel like they’re rebelling against me. Around me in the room, school-aged children and grandmotherly women are doing the move at a far more advanced level than I am, looking casual about it all. It’s as if they are relaxing on a sofa watching television.

I want to think it’s because I’m tall, or because I have a lot of muscle tone, but the young man instructing the class looks about my height. There are also a couple of really toned men in the class who very much look like they lift weights in addition to this. They all seem to be doing it with ease. I’d expected the class to be filled with people who could barely move without breaking into a sweat or losing their breath. Instead, I’m the one who feels out of shape and out of place.

Near the end, I catch Samantha out of the corner of my eye. She’s standing in the doorway, watching me. I don’t know how long she’s been there, but I’m glad my idea seems to be working, even if it’s a lot more difficult than I thought it would be.