Three - Sarah
I woke up to the buzz of my alarm. I threw my feet off the side of the bed and blinked repeatedly, the room swimming in and out of focus. Today was a good day, or so I told myself to get by, every single morning of every single day. I really didn’t want to leave my bed, but I had to because Patricia was waiting for me. She was the one that got me into yoga, but before that, I used to enjoy falling asleep on my couch more than anything.
I slipped into my yoga clothes, grabbed my mat and headed out. It was cold outside, so I thought I’d grab a cup of coffee before going to the gym. Not the best idea, but I wasn’t perfect at this, far from it. I was the clumsy girl at yoga practice, the one who fell on her side and made everyone laugh, the one who went out for a cheeseburger after an hour of rigorous posing, the one who didn’t give a shit. I was okay with myself, and I was okay with my lack of grace and overflowing honesty.
The gym was only a few blocks away from my building, and when I went inside Patricia gave me one hell of a look. “Oh, for Christ’s sake!” she said, stomping her foot against the floor. “How many times did I tell you, no coffee before practice?”
“Hey, it was cold outside!” I said, rather defensively. “I needed something to keep me warm.”
“Well, you could’ve jogged!” she said. Patricia was the ultimate yoga guru. She had been doing this for as long as I could remember, slowly recruiting people to her vegan yoga-practicing cult, and I just happened to be one of her soldiers. “Come on, let’s do this.”
“So, how’s work?” I asked her, spreading out my yoga mat. I mirrored her stretches.
“Nothing much, but guess who raised twenty-thousand dollars for the National Breast Cancer Awareness Committee?”
“No way! At the banquet?”
“You know it.”
“I’m so proud of you!” I said, throwing my arms up into the air and performing a stretch. Patricia mimicked my movements, but she was far more graceful. “What about your little furry friends?”
“Oh my God, don’t get me started,” she said. “My heart feels warm just thinking about it.”
“Did you rescue any more dogs?”
“Seventeen of them, actually. Can you believe it? So many stray dogs just stumbling around New York..”
“Were they in good health?” I asked her.
“Not at all. One of them was actually a lost puppy not used to being on the streets. When we found him, he had gotten into a fight with all the other dogs, the poor guy was a complete mess.”
I dove down and touched my toes. “Did you nurse him back to health?”
“We sure did. Dad called up our most skilled vet, this guy called Andy, and he helped the little doggy get better in no time.”
Patricia’s life impressed me. At twenty-six she had already accomplished so much, and I had accomplished so little compared to her. But even though I looked up to Patricia, I couldn’t imagine running a pet shelter, or walking in animal rights marches, or nursing a sick puppy back to health. The truth was, I was a corporate girl who rocked a plaid blazer, and that pretty much summed up who I was.
“You know what, I’d love to make a donation,” I said finally. Our instructor switched to a downward dog pose, and we went down with her. She often mumbled things to us as she posed, her body moving like water and mine struggling to keep up. I fell down a bunch of times, and Patricia couldn’t help but burst into laughter. We pretty much did this every day, and as much as I envied my yoga partner for her grace, I still wouldn’t have had it any other way.
“You would?” she asked, turning her neck towards me. The sweat trickled down my forehead and before I knew it, my body was glistening with moisture. “You know, we’re holding another banquet later this month, it would mean a lot to me if you could come.”
“Will do,” I beamed, feeling all the blood rush to my head. Rashmika repeated the same poses, over and over again, occasionally introducing a new one, and we were expected to follow. At one point they all did a headstand, and I remained stagnant, watching them all wobble around me like grass blades in the wind. Patricia was especially good at this. Her body was steady like it was stuck in time, and I was just there, observing her and everyone else. A few moments later, she got down on her knees and looked at me.
“So, tell me about you. How’s work?” She was panting and so was I.
“Work’s good, oh… I saw your brother yesterday.”
“What, Ryan? I thought the two of you met before,” she told me.
“We did, but we were never properly introduced, which strikes me as weird since you and I have known each other for ages.”
“I didn’t think you and Ryan would get along,” she said, flipping her ponytail to the side and stretching her arms out in front of her.
“Well, we didn’t.”
Suddenly she turned to me, her eyes wide. “Why, what happened?”
“Nothing, nothing happened,” I said. “God, you’re such a gossip.”
“Spill the tea, girl. What did he do this time?”
“Nothing, he’s just a bit… edgy, that’s all,” I said. I really didn’t want to get into this whole thing with her; Ryan was her brother, after all. “Did he talk about me at all?” For some reason, I felt inclined to ask, but I regretted it straight away because Patricia was looking at me like I had done something scandalous.
“No, he really didn’t,” she said. “These days all he can talk about is his dad, they’ve been having a lot of issues lately.”
“But you know what, Ryan has a whole bunch of crazy ideas for the company, but they’re not all great.”
“Oh.” Patricia raised an eyebrow at me like she was onto something. “So you’re the girl he was telling me about.”
“What did he say about me?” I asked, rolling my eyes.
“Nothing, he just said that dad has a favorite employee at the office and that he’s consulting her on his every move.”
“He says that like it’s a bad thing.”
“I mean, he is the CEO’s son, maybe he’s a little bit jealous?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” I thought a little about what she said. If Ryan was jealous of me, then why didn’t he work harder to prove himself? I wondered if he was just spoiled if he was used to getting everything handed to him on a silver platter. I wondered just how much he disliked me if he disliked me at all. My brain was spinning with a lot of possibilities, none of which made any sense. “You know I just don’t like the way he treated me the other day,” I said.
“Well, you wanna tell me what he did?” she asked again.
“It’s not anything that he did, it’s just the way he was looking at me like I was beneath him like I didn’t deserve to be standing in the same office as him.”
“Oh, girl, you don’t know Ryan. He’ll be standing there wondering what pizza he’s gonna order for dinner.”
I giggled. “He didn’t seem dumb to me.”
“Oh, he’s not dumb,” she was quick to note. “He’s actually one of the smartest people I know, but he’s not as spiteful as you think. If anything he’s probably impressed by how intelligent you are, after all, dad never really stops talking about you.”
A warmth radiated through me. If it was one thing I was addicted to, it was the boss’s attention. Any boss. Ever since I was eighteen and working at Starbucks, I would go that extra mile to get recognized; I became a workaholic, I guess. Years later, I was still doing the same thing, and even though I was overworking myself, I couldn’t help but feel proud of how far I’d come. Frederick loved me like a daughter, and perhaps that was why his own son was jealous. I wondered if Patricia felt the same, but then I would remember that I was Frederick’s work daughter, not his real daughter. “God, you should’ve seen the way Ryan was eyeing me when I said the merger wasn’t a good idea.”
Patricia chuckled. “He really wants this, you know. He would kill to work with, whats-her-face, Samantha.”
I looked around me and everyone was rolling their yoga mats and heading for the door. Personally, I liked to stick around after hours, maybe ask my yoga instructor a question or two. “You go ahead, think I’m gonna stick around for a bit,” I told Patricia.
“I’m gonna go shower,” she said, looking at me with a glimmer in her eyes. “I love how some post-workouts feel.” She paused for a moment, clearing her throat. “About Ryan, I really don’t want you to think he’s a bad person, he’s just hotheaded like that.”
“I get it,” I said, shaking my head from side to side. “Hey, do you really think I would diss your brother?”
“But it’s not just because he’s my brother,” she said, her eyes locked on mine. “Ryan is probably one of the purest people you’ll ever meet, and you can take my word for this one.”
I nodded and smiled, but a part of me felt uneasy. Even though I knew Frederick was a good man, and that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, I still didn’t trust Ryan, and neither did I think he was a good person. Patricia didn’t even talk about him that much, which led to me to think that they weren’t close, but boy, was I wrong. She eyed me for a second before turning around and heading for the locker room, and I picked up my things and went to badger Rashmika about her indisputable grace.