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* * *
Just as dawn was breaking Lisa strolled down the beach to the yoga palapa, people said it was the best yoga class in town. And apparently the teacher was hot.
Lisa walked in and almost dropped her mat when she saw Victor standing at the front of the room ready to give the class.
"Morning Lisa, good to have you with us, take a spot, we're just about to start," Victor looked over just in time to see the surprise on her face and he grinned from ear to ear.
Lisa felt her heart flutter and she trembled a little as she bent forward to lay out her mat. What next? This town sure is full of surprises. Or maybe it's just the Victor Factor. Yeah, that's it, he's always got one more surprise up his fine linen sleeve.
The class was grueling but immensely satisfying. By the end of the session the room was full of rosy cheeked twenty something girls, all beaming at Victor. Lisa felt jealous for some reason, and a little angry.
When the class ended, a small group of yoga chicks swarmed around Victor and Lisa stormed out the door. She marched down the beach and stopped to take off her sandals when she felt a firm hand on her shoulder.
"Lisa, what's the hurry? I wanted to talk to you," Victor whispered in her ear.
Lisa turned and tried to hide her anger, "Oh, hi Victor, great class, I was going to catch you at the bar later on tonight."
"I won't be at the bar tonight so I wanted to talk to you at some point today."
Lisa's heart flipped a somersault. What was wrong with her today? She felt like she'd completely lost control of herself. Maybe too much yoga wasn't such a good thing after all.
"Okay, what is it?" Lisa snapped.
Victor took a step back, his shoulders slumped and the smile left his face, "I'm sorry, maybe I got the wrong impression. Look, you're obviously in a hurry, I better let you go. See you later."
With that Victor slowly turned to walk away. Lisa watched as he made his way back to the yoga palapa and her heart sank, she wished she could calm down when she saw Victor with other women, she wished she could swallow her pride and run after him. And above all else, she wished she didn't feel so alone without him.
* * *
The next morning Lisa showered before eating breakfast in the hotel restaurant. She read a magazine while she ate, pretending to be fascinated by the article on whale preservation, while fuming inside. Honestly, she could care less right now about the plight of those marvelous mammals. She ate and glared at the magazine until she could eat no more.
Now what was she going to do for the rest of the day? On the way out of the lobby she bumped into Karl sitting on a sofa by the window, one of the many snow birds she had met during the week. As usual, he was smiling and high on life, "Good morning Lisa, what a beautiful day! Oh, what's up? Did something happen?"
Lisa gritted her teeth. What was it with this town? Why is everyone so annoyingly happy all the time? Can't they just leave me alone to be angry for a bit? Please!
Lisa joined Karl on the sofa and told him her sorry story. She told him about getting fired, about how much she wanted to finally be happy and find someone special. Then, throwing caution to the wind she told him about Victor, how he used to be gay, in her mind, and now wasn't, for real, thankfully. The more she talked about Victor the lighter she felt, her agitation faded and she relaxed into the sofa while Karl patiently listened to every word, without saying a thing. When she finished talking, Karl spoke up, "Lisa, it sounds like everything is working out just fine."
"But how can that be? Victor has girls flocking to him at his yoga classes. I'm telling you it was like bees to honey. It was scary. I couldn't stand it. And I have no chance whatsoever. I can't compete with those girls. Anyhow, he'd have asked me out days ago if he really liked me. So there."
"Lisa, dear, you're forgetting one thing. Until yesterday you were only planning on staying here for a matter of days on vacation. Victor meets vacation girls day in and day out. Everyone does in this town. Even I do," Karl smiled.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right. There must be some reason why he ran after me. Why did he leave that girl mob to run down the beach after me?"
"Good question Lisa. Maybe you need to go see him and find out."
"It's funny, I finally meet a great guy and what do I do? I walk away from him, more like, I run away from him."
"Don't be so hard on yourself young lady. See that beautiful woman out there by the pool, that's Linda, my bride of 42 years. And I love her more today than the day I met her. She makes my heart sing. I can't imagine even one day without her. And it almost never happened. Our marriage that is."
"Why? What happened?" Lisa leaned closer.
"When I first met her I thought she would never go out with someone like me. You see, I was quite shy when I was a young man and I couldn't impress her like the other boys could with their singing and dancing. So, I decided, well, at least we can be good friends and she seemed to enjoy my company so we'd meet for coffee and talk for hours about our dreams, our worries and the new books we were reading, the new movies everyone was talking about.
"Over time we got to know each other very well and everyone else assumed we were dating because we spent so much time together. But nothing happened because we were just friends, very good friends.
"I thought she would never look at me as anything other than a friend but little did I know that she had in fact, slowly but surely, started to look at me differently. Then one time I was out of town for two weeks on company training and when I got back we talked. We had both missed each other terribly. We had been in love with one another for quiet a while but not even noticed because we were so happy and comfortable with each other. Had I not been away for those two weeks I don't think we'd be married today. That caused us to finally talk, really talk, about how much we cared about each other."
"Oh my God, that's beautiful. And I hear what you're saying. And I know what I need to do now," Lisa kissed Karl on the cheek much to his delight and skipped out of the lobby, down the stairs and out to the beach.
