Just Breathe (4 page)

She talked Lucy through standing poses before easing her down to the floor for lower body stretches.

‘You have no idea how relieved I am you’re doing the ad.’ Lucy’s voice was muffled as she tried to press her face onto her outstretched leg. ‘John was so angry when I came back to sort out the Health Life drama. I’m meant to be up at the Lake now, relaxing and conceiving. I’m never going to get pregnant at this rate.’

Six months ago, Lucy let Dee in on the big secret to expand the Roxburgh dynasty. With a private life that was frequently public, Lucy had few people she could talk to about the personal stuff. Dee knew nothing about babies, hadn’t even considered the idea for herself, but was pleased Lucy trusted her enough to share the excitement. So far there’d been no call for celebrations.

‘So you can go back to the Lake now?’ Dee stretched her arms wide, urging Lucy to do the same, glad getting her shit together might help Lucy too.

‘I’m going back tonight but it’s not really sorted until the board gives the go-ahead,’ Lucy said as she moved. ‘But Ethan’s reaction is a positive sign.’

‘Does Ethan work for Roxburgh Advertising, too?’

Lucy looked insulted. ‘No, RA is
my
business. He runs Roxburgh Holdings, the parent company, and has assorted other interests, including sitting on the Health Life board. He had to declare a conflict of interest when Health Life voted to give us the advertising contract last year.’ She reached over her shoulder to grasp her other hand behind her back. ‘He gets a say in the decision about you, though, and he seemed pretty impressed.’

‘That was impressed?’

Lucy shrugged. ‘To be honest, I didn’t think he’d go for you. He tends to favour the straight-out-of-a-fashion-spread type. But if you can win Ethan over, it might sway the rest.’

Dee swallowed hard. She didn’t come close to the fashion-spread type and she couldn’t
even win her mother over. Maybe starving was still an option.

Dee hitched her carry-everything basket over her arm, ran down the hill, shoulder-tackled her way through the front door of the yoga school and ran up the stairs calling, ‘Arianne, I’m here!’ She sprinted into the studio, tossing her bag behind the sign-in desk and started stripping off clothes. ‘I’m so sorry I’m late. Are you okay?’

‘No problem. No one’s here yet and I’ve had a good day. Only puked five times.’ Arianne and her partner Howard owned the yoga school and lived in the apartment upstairs. She’d been laid low with morning sickness for weeks and Dee hated asking her to cover when the photo shoot ran over time.

‘Remind me never to have a baby.’ Dee ran a concerned eye over her friend from across the large, empty room. On better days, Arianne was the image of an Amazon – tall, athletic and incredibly strong in the upper body – and it was awful to see her so washed out and unwell.

‘What’s wrong with your face?’ Arianne asked as she pulled a shade over a window to block out the afternoon heat.

‘It’s make-up. I didn’t have time to take it off. It feels like a mask.’

‘Why is it so thick?’

‘Apparently, that’s how much you need to look natural,’ Dee said as she dragged on a pair of black leggings.

‘How did it go?’

‘They didn’t have a clue about yoga. They kept asking me to look at the camera and smile. Like you can do that with your leg wrapped around your head. Lucy wasn’t there. She just left me in the hands of Sam the Photographer and Sam the Assistant. The Assistant Sam put the
make-up on then wanted me to leave my hair out so it would look long and swirly in the photos. I had to explain about a hundred times how hard it is to do twists and turns with your hair all over your face and getting tangled around your arms and legs.’ She rummaged in her bag, found the Polaroid she’d been given. ‘What do you think?’

Arianne stood next to her and examined the photo. ‘Well, it’s … nice. Your posture’s not exactly correct, looking up at the camera like that, and it doesn’t really look like you with all that make-up. You’d think they’d want to see your freckles. But it’s nice. What’s wrong with your back? It’s all wrong.’

Dee groaned. ‘I was so nervous, it locked up. I think the make-up makes me look weird. They’ll probably want a real model.’

‘When will you know?’

‘A couple of days, Lucy said.’ She pulled her ponytail out and shook her head upside down, trying to loosen the cap of hairspray. ‘I half hope they don’t want me. I felt like an idiot posing and smiling and pouting to have my lip gloss touched up. Maybe starving wouldn’t be so bad.’

Downstairs a door banged and voices wafted up to the studio. Dee refastened her hair, closed her eyes a moment to slow the adrenalin and anxiety that’d been on overdrive all day and pulled out the attendance book. She waved – a farewell to Arianne and a welcome to the first two students as they walked through the door. She hated starting class rushed and stressed and over-coiffed. How was she going to talk them through a relaxation when she couldn’t unclench her teeth? ‘Hey, Vicki. How was Rome?’

Vicki came to three of Dee’s classes a week. ‘Cold but the coffee was great.’ She lifted a paper bag from under her yoga mat. ‘I brought you some real Italian brew.’

‘That’s so nice. Thank you.’

‘What’s with the make-up?’

‘Just an experiment.’

As people filed in, Dee tried to find a mental hidey-hole for her tension.

‘Hey, Gill, how was your New Year?’

‘I’m Dee. Let me know if you have any questions during the class.’

‘Penny, good to see you.’

Penny’s face lit up with eagerness. She was still in the throes of a teacher crush. Lots of new students got it, looked all doe-eyed and hung off every word as though any minute they’d hear the meaning of life. It would pass. Penny would figure out soon enough Dee wasn’t a sage. She was just doing her best like everyone else. More anxious than most, which according to the psychologists was normal if you’d watched a truck drive through your windscreen. But she worked hard, paid bills, ate too much chocolate, hoped for love, worried about her weight (keeping it on, not taking it off – she looked like a stick insect when it dropped too low). She didn’t know the meaning of life. She only knew that if you did yoga, worked on the postures and meditated, you found your own interpretation.

‘Penny, do you think you could make some room for others in the front row?’

Dee turned back to the queue of students and found a warm smile for the man in front of her. ‘Nice to see you again, Tom.’

He was sweet, serious, uncomplicated and the kind of guy she wanted to fall for. He was the dead-spit of a Hollywood Jesus – soft girlie hair, piercing blue eyes, gentle face – and a genuine, environmentally responsible, hemp-bag-carrying hippie. They’d had coffee a couple of times before Christmas, which was the closest she’d come to a date in about a year. There were
no sparks flying but who said these things couldn’t grow on you?

‘Maybe we can catch up later?’ she said.

‘Love to,’ he said with a Hollywood flash of his teeth.

Still no sparks but nice anyway.

She turned back to the line of students. ‘Hey, Ros.’ She took her money and ticked off her name. ‘And how’s Emily doing?’

‘Not good. She was really well over Christmas and had a lovely time with the girls but she’s gone downhill since then.’

Emily and Ros started class together five years ago when Emily was recovering from her first episode of breast cancer. It had returned twice since then and now there were tumours in her lungs and brain.

Dee handed Ros her change. ‘Mike rang me yesterday to book some private lessons for her. He didn’t say much, just that she wasn’t up to coming to the school.’

‘She’s in a lot of pain. I think the meditation really helps.’

Dee saw the sadness on Ros’s face and felt tears in her own eyes. ‘Say hi from me next time you see her. And the girls. I’m looking forward to seeing them again.’

Dee signed in the last two students, took a minute to gather herself. She counted the students waiting quietly on their mats. Better than she’d expected but still not enough to pay the electricity bill. She shook her head. Now was not the time to be thinking about money.

A noise made her turn. A late student. A new, late student. Nice. The girl breezed in, a cloud of curly blonde hair and perfume Dee could smell from across the room.

‘Hi, am I late? Oops.’ Her hand flew to her mouth as she realised her enthusiastic volume had broken the quiet of the room.

‘It’s fine. We haven’t started yet,’ Dee said softly, hoping her hushed tone would encourage the girl to stop bustling about with the shopping bags she was stacking noisily against a wall.

‘Oh, great,’ she said, not taking the hint. ‘This is my first time. Not my first yoga class, just my first time here. I was teaching down in Melbourne before I left. You’re Dee, aren’t you?’

Dee raised her eyebrows. ‘Yes.’

‘I knew you were. Leon told me all about you. You’re the best teacher in Sydney, apparently, so I
had
to come to your class.’ She paid her money, continued talking as though she had no sound control. ‘I’ve just moved here, completely new in town. I’m working on the soapie with Leon and you’re just like he said you were, only much more glamorous. I love your lipstick. Us glam yoga girls have gotta stick together, right?’

Dee forced herself not to make a face as she steered her into the studio. ‘Roll your yoga mat out here and we can get started.’

The girl put her hand on Dee wrist. ‘And Leon says you’re looking for a flatmate. I’m house-sitting now but I’m going to need a new place in a week or so.’

Dee looked at her in horror. She didn’t want a glam yoga student with no volume control for a flatmate. She wanted everything back the way it was – pre-TV-ad-stress, pre-financial-destitution. Everything was fine back then. She took a deep breath, pleaded with the powers that be to pick her for the ad so she could have her old life back.

When Dee’s only weekend private student who wasn’t already on holiday called to cancel, she knew that even if the board approved her for the ad, she’d run out of money before it was shot. So she rang Jo, her caterer friend, and silently thanked the regular staffer for getting gastro and needing Thursday night off.

Now, four days since the publicity shots were taken, still waiting to hear from Lucy and working the shift for Jo, Dee collected a drinks order – champers for the lady in purple, mineral water for the guy with the stiff neck – and was walking on tip-toe, scanning the room for her targets when a body backed into her. She lurched forward, just saving the drinks from a premature exit over a woman’s naked back.

‘Nice catch.’

Dee turned and saw Ethan Roxburgh mirror her in a double-take.

‘Dee the Yoga Teacher.’

She smiled, noting how much nicer he looked in his casual shirt, how his dark eyes lit up when he laughed – and how the tall, elegant blonde beside him draped herself over his shoulder.

‘You’re here with Lucy, are you?’ he asked. ‘Good idea. Has she introduced you to Leonard yet?’

‘Well, ah …’

‘He’s definitely interested in having a real yoga aficionado doing the ad instead of a model. I think the idea of a professional with her own successful business for their well-being promotion appeals to him. Gives it credibility.’

‘Oh.’ She glanced at the drinks order she was holding and smiled apprehensively. Oh, dear.

‘Has Lucy spoken to you about the possibility of some extra PR?’

Extra PR. What did that mean? And who the hell was Leonard? For all she knew, it could be her stiff neck guy still waiting for his drink. She looked distractedly about the room. She couldn’t let Lucy see her serving food and drinks. How stupid would it make her look if her yoga professional turned out to be a caterer’s lackey? She turned back to Ethan. He seemed to be backing her too, so she couldn’t let him find out either. She’d make both Roxburghs look stupid.
And herself. They’d all look stupid together – and that wouldn’t be good. In fact, it might be so
not
good, they would decide she was the wrong person for the ad after all.

‘I’m, ah, not here with Lucy,’ she said.

‘Then let me introduce you to Leonard.’ Ethan scanned the room.

Dee began edging away. ‘Maybe later. I have to, you know …’ She held up the drinks, as though getting back to a friend.

‘Yes, of course. Oh, and cheers. A pleasure to see you again.’ He clinked his red wine glass against the champagne flute in her hand.

She considered the expensive bubbly for a moment. One shouldn’t be rude when one is a guest and party to a toast. ‘Yes, cheers.’ She took a guilty mouthful before slipping into the crowd.

She doubled back to the bar, careful to avoid Ethan’s line of sight while she got another glass of champagne. She’d have to pretend to be a guest and a professional yoga aficionado while working her arse off as a kitchen hand. That should be easy. Skirting the room in search of Purple Lady and Stiff Neck Guy, she thought how, in other circumstances, she might enjoy chatting with Ethan Roxburgh. Now she’d not only have to avoid him but check for his whereabouts whenever she left the kitchen and look for cover before exposing herself with an incriminating platter. Should be real easy.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ Jo was harried and cross when Dee got back to the kitchen. ‘You’re meant to be working not drinking with the guests.’ She pulled open the oven door with an angry thud, moved trays in and out as she spoke. ‘Shit, Dee, I can’t believe you’ve been drinking. I gave you this job as a favour. The client would have a fit if she knew my staff was drinking her booze.’

‘I’m so sorry. It’s not like that. It’s that job I was telling–’

‘I don’t want to hear it. Just get this tray out there and don’t fuck around.’

Dee felt like she had a screw-top neck the way her head swivelled back and forth between the guests she was feeding and the guests she was scanning. She hadn’t spotted Lucy, had no idea what Leonard looked like, but she’d managed to keep an eye on Ethan. He was hard to miss – tall, confident, casual. He’d worked the room with the elegant blonde, chatting, shaking hands, making introductions, moving towards the balcony and the cool breeze that had turned the evening into a mild summer night.