At twenty-six, Marjorie lived alone on Husband Street in an old house subdivided into five apartments, one on the bottom, one on the top, and three studios sandwiched together on the second floor. Marjorie lived on the middle floor in the middle apartment so at night she could practice her yoga while the house pulsated with the energy of young couples making love.
At first, this distracted her practice. She lowered from Headstand and went to crouch against the west-facing wall. She unwound from Lotus and instead, laid spread-eagled on the plush carpet while the couple that lived below howled in unison. Every Wednesday and sometimes twice on Sundays, she took a cold shower, locking and releasing her Bandhas, below the bed of the couple who did it in rhythm with the Clash. Afterwards, Marjorie always slipped on her bathrobe, wrapped her wet hair in a towel and went on the porch to smoke a cigarette.
But after the first couple of weeks, it became predictable. Don't stop, Mr. East-Facing pleaded to his boyfriend.
Poor thing, Marjorie would whisper to herself, standing in Tree Pose and leisurely picking apart a peanut butter and banana sandwich. One Mahatma Gandhi. Two Mahatma Gandhi. Three Mahatma Gandhi. Now.
And sure enough, Mr. East Facing would moan in disappointment while his boyfriend moaned in simultaneous pleasure.
She could hear Mr. and Mrs. Top Floor, a.k.a. Mr. and Mrs. Sex Toy, Dear, are you sure this is dishwasher safe? Remember how the last one melted?
At which point Mrs. Top Floor would call back, No, sweetheart, you're mistaken. The last one the dog got.
Unable to practice her yoga without interruption, Marjorie took to watching late night cable television and bought a fish, a bird, and a cat from the local pet store.
She hung the birdcage from the ceiling above the fish bowl and scolded the bird halfheartedly when it squawked at the fish or the cat halfheartedly when it batted at the bird. It somehow pleased her to have a frustrated food chain within the confines of her apartment.
She retired her cigarettes and joined an online dating service, though her social life did not improve as she only received messages from members with food fetishes, in part, she supposed, because for her profile picture she posted a photograph of a half-finished peanut butter and banana sandwich.
It wasn't that Marjorie was ugly, she certainly was not. In fact, people said she had become better looking since high school, which wasn't really the truth, she recognized, only that she had become more flexible.
Simply it was that parties, bars, and closing times depressed her immeasurably. She practiced Pranayama, breathing inconspicuously through one nostril, while listening to her friends tell once-witty, now-tired, stories. She pretended not to notice the girls bat their lonely eyes and the guys check themselves out in the mirror behind the bar that reflected bottles of liquor and their own anxious faces. Struggling to tell some horse-faced guy her name while he leered close enough for her to smell his sour breath, she felt trapped in a pose she couldn't commit to.
So she excused herself to the bathroom, left out the backdoor, and went home to listen to Ms. West and her newest conquest grunting and breaking things while she held Triangle, the fishbowl balanced in the palm of her outstretched arm, the bird flapping wildly in its cage, and the overexcited cat pacing heatedly. Even after chanting her Oms, which nearly always relaxed her, Marjorie still felt utterly neurotic.
The following Sunday, with hopes of releasing her tension, she dressed for a yoga class. Her skin was sallow so channeling that she chose a sleeveless, pale orange body suit. She also wore a pink cloth headband, which, spindly as she was, made her look remarkably like a school issued pencil.
Once in the studio, Marjorie noticed with some degree of irritation, she had mistakenly shown up for a partner yoga class. She had no choice, but to be partnered with the only other partner-less yogi, an artsy boy who looked decidedly like every other artsy boy in the universe, nondescript except for the black glasses hiked up on his nose and a visible collection of bad tattoos. Clearly, this was a man with a past or she suspected, a man who wanted to look like such, and this was permissible to Marjorie so long as he came without STDs.
They struggled together in silent misery and Marjorie noticed he smelled good, manly, like the kitchen floor just after she had mopped it. They hung together in the ropes, spread their legs, linked arms, and drew each others' noses into each others' crotches. It was, after all, quite romantic.
Afterwards, as he was pulling up his athletic socks, she approached him. Do you want to come home with me? I make a killer peanut butter and banana.
This was how Marjorie came to be bent over, looking at Artsy Boy from between her legs, while the cat purred and rubbed against her legwarmers. Artsy Boy took her then and they moved together through Raised Cock Pose, Shoulderstand, Plough, Bridge, Cobra, Bow, Fish, Crow, Lion, and finally, as dawn broke, The Sun Salutation.
Artsy Boy let himself out without so much as a goodbye. The cat meowed, the bird squawked, and the fish floated lifeless at the top of its bowl. Though tempted by a smoke on the porch, Marjorie allowed herself to relax into Corpse Pose. Everything was right in her world. There were always more fish in the sea and tomorrow she'd buy a new one at the pet store.