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Chapter 1
Fiona
“Dripping with pleasure, relaxing into all the sensations, allowing your limbs, your nervous system, your heart to just melt into the floor and go. Let it all go…that’s it. Remember to breathe. Keep breathing…good.”
Does the fact that Celeste’s sickly-sweet baby-doll voice makes me want to jolt my naked ass up off this paint-puddle floor, and smack her upside the head mid sentence, mean I’m an inherently bad person? And whatever in this world does ‘remember to breathe’ mean?
“Breathing in openness and exhaling restriction, tension, obstacles…now I want you to feel, some of you for the very first time, your true relationship to yourself as you nurture, nourish, and allow all the holding in your body to drop down through the floorboards, saturating and swirling in and around your colors…ebbing and flowing with the tides of your breath and your heartbeat. Remember to breathe… good work Fiona!” Clearly Celeste misinterpreted the sound of deep disgust that just escaped from my chest cavity.
But at least, thank goodness, it was a sign that I’m remembering to breathe. I mean, God forbid what might happen were Celeste to forget to remind us to breathe! Lord… all dozen of us dying in a miserable, sticky, rainbow-slicked heap right here in the middle of Om Wellness Sanctuary. Can you envision how that headline would read? Twelve Middle-Aged Ninnies Collectively Forget How to Breathe During Tragic Art Movement Therapy Session.
I really don’t know why I let Quade talk me into this stuff. He seems to think that somehow, someday, if I have just the right moment of truth in the perfect setting, I’ll come to my senses and see that we should never have divorced in the first place. And he’s such a pathetically selfless sweetheart…with all that money he puts forth for my greater good. I only wish I knew how to tell him I’m a fraud and a fake.
After thirty minutes of slithering around with a room full of women of multiple ages, shapes, and sizes, I’m supposed to have mystically arrived at full body acceptance, holistic centeredness, and embodied mindfulness…all while having created my own unique ‘color imprint’ on the thickly paper-covered floor beneath me.
“How was it for you?” My beautiful bi-racial friend, Holly, asks exuberantly as she approaches me after the session.
“Oh I guess it was alright, if you don’t mind having to fully shower and shampoo paint out of your cracks in the middle of a Wednesday evening.”
“Come on Fiona…didn’t you at least enjoy it a little bit?” she asks, still smiling and looking like she just had the time of her freaking life.
“Sure. It was great. It was everything I ever imagined wallowing in paint could be,” I reply, attempting to sound more whimsical than negative.
“Fiona! You’re the worst,” she responds with a weak laugh and a tiny slap to my forearm. “Well I thought it was fab, and I expect the aftermath to move mountains of obstacles out of the way of my joyful life. So there. See you Saturday,” she adds before giving me a quick hug and bouncing out the door.
I do look forward to my Saturday lunch dates with Holly. She seems to have an unending capacity for being used as my verbal dumping ground on all matters Fiona…ex-boyfriends, ex-husbands, issues at work like that new little fink I hired who thinks she can run the place. She’s the best sounding-board I have, and is capable of handling the kind of brutal honesty that would get Quade’s panties all in a bunch.
I drive through the Whippy Dip to grab a little soft serve, my idea of therapy, on my way back to the store.
“Hello.” I answer a call from Quade, who’s undoubtedly checking to see how things went at the Om.
“Hey Cookie, how did it go?”
“Okay.”
“Just okay?” It instantly breaks my heart to hear him sound so disappointed.
“Pretty good actually. Really good. I feel much better now. Thanks so much for that, sweetie,” I answer almost honestly as I slurp in the flavors of my butterscotch vanilla twist cone.
“Ah…well that’s a relief. It wasn’t cheap.” Why is it that Quade, a bankruptcy lawyer and virtual bottomless pit of money, always finds it necessary to let me know how much he’s spent on me?
“So…did you not really wanna spend a few bucks for me to go to a holistic art therapy mindfulness movement class? Cause you know, you didn’t have to spend it, and I didn’t have to go.” Now he’s got me bristling.
“No, Cookie, honey…listen. I want you to go. I want what’s best for you and I know how much you need this.”
“Well we don’t have to keep—”
“No, I’m sorry I said anything. I’m so happy for you doing this.” A dysfunctional silence falls between us until he changes the subject. “So how’s everything going with your new flower girl?”
“Good. I think. Really good maybe.”
“You sound hesitant.”
“No, it’s just that she’s actually more qualified than what I was initially looking for.”
“Really? I thought you said she was new at this.”
“Well she is. That’s the thing…she’s like, really fast or something. She’s already better than Laura and Faye put together, and you know how experienced they are.”
