Downtown North Bay consists of exactly one street. It’s a tiny waterfront peninsula which boasts almost every business in this town. Most of the storefronts do double-duty, like Brew-Ha-Ha, the coffee house/comedy club/karaoke bar. We park outside a building with vinyl letters on the window that read, “Fringe. Hair & Yoga.” I shake my head and follow as Danielle leads us inside. The bottom floor is a beauty salon with three adjustable chairs situated in front of mirrors. We go up a set of wooden stairs to the yoga space, which I’ve been informed also doubles as a meeting room for Honey’s spicy book club twice a month, and we spread our mats on the floor. It isn’t long before some familiar faces join us, along with a few more people I don’t know.
Our instructor is a tall woman with wild, red hair and a jade necklace. She introduces herself as “Samantha around town, but here in our shared space, please call me Anthem.” She greets us each individually with a tiny bow before she presses play on an old boom box, which sits atop a wooden stool in the corner. The sound of an acoustic guitar drifts into the air, but the music is so low it almost feels like I need to close my eyes to hear it.
Anthem invites us to borrow pillows, bolsters, and blankets from her stash and demonstrates our first position. I’ve taken yoga classes before at my gym back home, but this one is different. She explains, probably for my benefit as the only newbie, that this is a restorative yoga class that focuses on gentle stretching, relaxation, and stress relief.
“That sounds like exactly what I need,” I whisper to Danielle before I tuck a bolster pillow at the end of my mat. As reluctant as I was to come this morning, I find I’m really enjoying myself. I don’t usually have a chance to focus on nothing but relaxation. Law school is a lot of things, but a chill environment is not one of them. The yoga class ends up being a welcome break. I think I even fell asleep for a little while when we were doing Savasana. I didn’t realize how much I’ve been craving girl time without having my sisters nearby, and Alice and Danielle seem happy to stand in. Emily is adorable trying to hold her balance in tree pose.
When the class is over, I’m so relaxed I feel slightly hungover. I will definitely need to find a yoga studio when I return to D.C. Alice quickly excuses herself to head back to Just Art. It’s cute that she and Jake thought they were hiding their feelings for each other for so long when it’s obvious she can’t stand being away from him for more than an hour at a time. I wonder if she can tell Jordan and I are doing the same thing now?
After we wave goodbye to her friends, Danielle turns to me. “Should the two of us do a sisters’ brunch over at Brew-Ha-Ha? They have the raspberry white chocolate scones on Mondays. And I feel like I never get to see you while you’re at school. I know it’s old hat to you, but I’ve never had a sister before, and I’m excited!”
“Welcome to the club. My treat, since you’re driving me around today.” Unlike Jordan, Danielle takes me up on the offer immediately.
We head over to the coffee shop and I buy a chai latte and a scone for each of us, then we sit down to catch up. I make a mental note to ask for a job application before we leave. Maybe I could get a summer job here and start paying down some of my loans. Danielle tells me about the challenges of building her new book delivery business, and how tough it’s been to share Mike’s time with the new team, and I offer a few stories about school. I want to tell her what’s going on with Jordan, but there’s no way to guarantee she won’t take the information back to my brother.
When a new text from Jordan comes through, I can’t stop myself from looking.
Danielle’s eyes scan my face, then she points to my phone. “Is that a guy, perhaps?”
“It’s nothing.” I shrug and try to play it cool, but her knowing nod tells me she’s forming her own theories.
“Doesn’t look like nothing to me. That’s anI like himface.”
Danielle and Alice are the only people in this town I could talk to about what’s happening, but Alice isn’t here, and I don’t want to ask Danielle to hide this from her husband.
“Okay, fine. But it’s just a little crush.”
She leans in, setting her elbows on the table and resting her chin on her hand. “Oooh, care to share?”
I shake my head and raise my cup to take a long sip. “Never mind me. Tell me about married life.”
“I know you know this, but Mike’s so great,” she gushes, launching into a story about how he put out a small kitchen fire when Honey got distracted gossiping on the phone with her friend Edna and left an oven mitt too close to an open flame.
“Wow. Yeah. Good thing he was there,” I agree.
“I know, right? I don’t know what I would do without him.”
Even when he’s not here, I can always count on my brother to suck up all the attention in a room. This time I’m grateful for it.
Chapter 27
Shelley
"Is Jake eating with us?” I ask. Jake’s old bulldog, Hazel, is lounging on her bed in the corner. She raises her head when she hears her owner’s name, but then she flops right back down again. Jordan invited me over for dinner. He’s making a huge bowl of Greek salad, which will be topped with grilled chicken.
“Nah. He offered to drive Alice’s dad to an appointment. Mr. Caulfield had some health issues recently. Jake’s been helping their family. We’ve got the place to ourselves.” Jordan wags his eyebrows, causing me to laugh.
“What’s that for?” I point at the container of plain yogurt sitting out on the counter.
“We’re making tzatziki.”
“We’re making it? Like, from scratch?” I eye the cucumber and lemon laid out next to the yogurt. “Okay, it’s official. This is the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen.”
He shakes his head. “That’s sad. It’s like five ingredients. We’re not solving differential equations over here. Can you hand me that microplane?”
“If I knew what a microplane looked like, I would surely do that for you.”
Jordan points to a device on the other side of the counter and I stretch to reach for it. The metal contraption looks like something the nail techs use to scrape off dead skin when mysisters take me for pedicures. I hand it over, and Jordan starts sliding a tiny piece of garlic against the metal. It smells amazing in here.
