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PROLOGUE
Clearyourmind.Focus.Be centered.
Two muscular legs, bent above a strong, upturned body.
As Esmeralda breathed, her legs quivered. Right now, they were covered in pastel pink and mint-green tie-dye Lycra. The toenails were painted — each a different, vibrant color — and there was a cowrie-shell anklet around the right foot.
She cradled her head in her hands, supporting her weight on her elbows, as she visualized the pose she was aiming for. An elegant, tall, inversion. Feet to the sky, head and forearms firmly rooted to the earth. It was a position she hadn’t been able to pull off for months.
“Come on, Esme… you can do this.” Her voice was strained, full of effort.
Breathe.
Esme tried to be mindful. To smell the sandalwood and sage incense that was burning in the corner. To listen to the hypnotic sound of the Tibetan singing bowls playing through her speakers.
She felt the reassuring texture of her cork yoga mat under her arms as she started to lift her feet, to move towardshirshasana: a yogic headstand. Her eyes were closed, she was fully present, and she was almost there.
She could feel her form stretching out, taking up more space as her bent legs began to straighten. Blood flowed from toes to her head and back again. She felt each heartbeat as her body elongated, as she got closer to realizing the pose.
Suddenly, the quivering grew more severe, more pronounced. For a moment, it felt like her whole body was about to topple. There was a burn in her core, a sign of weakness, but she tried to fight through it.
Visualize it. Stay peaceful.
She imagined herself on a cool, shaded riverbank. The sound of a stream, and the tweeting of nearby birds. But there was another sound, too. She felt a spike of anxiety. Losing control of her subconscious, she imagined the chatter of people, all around.
Watching her. Mouths open with shock. Judging her.
Her breath became shallow. Jagged. She felt weakness in her arms, pain in her shoulders.
She screwed up her eyes and shouted, “Stop looking at me!”
Esme tried to use the anger and shame to spur her on, but as she did, her body buckled, and with a hard, dull thump, she tumbled down to the ground.
Sitting on the mat, hands on the ground, she sighed and opened her eyes.
She wasn’t beside a gorgeous mountain stream. She wasn’t surrounded by gentle grassland or tweeting birds. No. Esme was sitting in the middle of her crowded Hunts Point apartment. It was like a physical representation of her brain.
Cluttered.
Messy.
Unfocused.
On top of a pile of dried laundry was Esme’s stuffie: Om Baby.
“Om Baby,” she said, crawling over to it. “Why am I so messed up?” Om Baby was a posable bunny-rabbit stuffie with closed eyes and a little pink paci in her mouth. Esme liked to pose Om Baby into whatever position she was working on.
She squeezed her stuffie’s tummy, and the speaker in her tummy played a smug-sounding “Om” chant.
Esme was lucky not to have hurt herself in the fall. There was a little pain at the nape of her neck where she’d fallen, but other than that, she was okay.
“What do you think? Should I try again, my yoga bunny friend?” she asked Om Baby, but she already knew the answer. She crossed over to her incense burner and rubbed the red-hot tip of the stick against the cedar-wood case, stubbing it out.
An alarm sounded from her computer. “Time to work, I guess.”
Being a yoga instructor took time, patience, and a particular skill that Esmeralda Adams would never, ever have. In order to teach, you have to be comfortable to have a crowd of people look at you.
And that was never, ever going to happen.
