Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

Lena had texted her about seeing Andrew at EVOLVEment. Elizabeth was right — the whole thing seemed super shady, not to mention sad. Lena said that she’d seen Andrew and Dave talking, and Andrew seemed kind of weird. OH, she said, I REMEMBERED HIS ACTOR NAME — DAVE WOLFE. LOOK HIM UP — YOU’LL TOTALLY RECOGNIZE HIM. Ruby opened her laptop and typed the name into IMDb.

The photo in the corner looked like an ad for body spray — Dave was shirtless, with a chunky beaded necklace at his clavicle. Instead of showing off his full, dark beard, his cheeks were freshly shaved, leaving only a small triangle of hair beneath his lower lip. “Not a soul patch,” Ruby said, groaning. “That is the worst.”

“What’s going on?” Harry said. He rolled and stretched and reached for her. Ruby picked up her laptop and climbed back into bed.

“This is your dad’s yoga guy,” Ruby said.

“Oh, God,” Harry said. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Wait a minute — isn’t he from that movie, you know, the one where the juvenile delinquents get sent to prison? From the eighties? And they lead a revolt?” Harry rubbed his eyes. “I swear that’s him.”

Ruby clicked on his filmography. “ Bunk 6 ? That was him all right.”

“And he teaches yoga?”

“And makes juice?” Ruby chewed on a fingernail.

“Huh,” Harry said.

“Do I have something in my teeth?” Ruby said. She leaned over him, her hair falling in his face. Harry pushed it aside and looked.

“No,” he said. “But that reminds me. I got you something.”

“Is it a bacon, egg, and cheese? I really hope so.” Ruby flopped over onto her back. “What do you want to eat? There’s a shitload of pesto in the fridge, I think Jane is preparing for the apocalypse. Want some pasta? It’s sort of lunchtime.”

Harry was digging around in his pants pocket, his body half on and half off the bed. “Here,” he said, wiggling backward until he was sitting cross-legged in front of her.

All jewelry boxes looked scary. This one was a small, white rectangle, which was better than a black velvet square, but still, Ruby recoiled.

“What is that?” She pointed at it.

“It’s just a present, Ruby.” Harry lifted the lid of the box with his other hand.

Sitting inside, on a bed of cotton fluff, was a tiny, perfect ring. No one except her mum and grandma, maybe Chloe or Paloma, had ever given Ruby jewelry before, and those were usually made out of string or little vintage things her mum found at a flea market. Nothing from a boy. Nothing from a boyfriend.

“What is it?” she asked.

“It’s a ring.” Harry’s cheeks were pink, but he was smiling. It wasn’t nerves; it was excitement. “Go on, look at it. It’s like a poppy seed, like you said.”

Ruby reached in with her thumb and pointer finger and plucked it out. A thread of cotton stuck to it, and Harry pulled it off. It did look like a poppy seed, sort of. Had she said that out loud?

“I think he’s a total fraud, and that he’s trying to steal your dad’s money,” Ruby said, holding the ring in front of her face. She slipped it on her middle finger, where it slid easily down to the knuckle and then, with a little nudge, down the rest of the way.

“Why do you think that? Also, I was thinking maybe about that finger,” Harry said. He touched her ring finger.

“What are you talking about?” Ruby scrunched up her forehead.

“Marry me?” Harry was kneeling now, on the bed, his bare legs sinking into her comforter. Harry, who had never had a job. Harry, whom she’d bathed with as a child. Ruby imagined Thanksgiving again, this time with herself as Harry’s wife, wearing pearls and a twinset and a puffy headband. It was like the last scene of The Wizard of Oz , where Dorothy looks around and realizes that her friends are still her friends, no matter if they’re people or lions or made out of tin. It was supposed to be comforting, like, oh, yes, they’ve been there all along, but Ruby thought it made the whole world look tiny and claustrophobic, like you could go to a whole other dimension and just see the same people you’ve seen your whole life, and she wanted more faces than that.

“I’m going to sail a boat to Mexico,” Ruby said, and just like that, she was.

It was almost noon, and Elizabeth still wasn’t back. Andrew wasn’t sure what to do with himself. He’d cleaned the entire house, and cooked a lasagna, even though it was too hot to eat it. It was something to have in the fridge, a bona fide meal that Harry could pick at whenever he wanted. There was a yoga class at EVOLVEment, but Andrew felt weird about going back. He sat on the couch for a few minutes, bouncing on his heels, and finally decided to just go. The lawyer was expecting him to return the signed contracts, the pieces of paper that said how much money Andrew had given Dave, and why, and for now Andrew had no idea if any of his money would ever reappear again. But he wasn’t sure what else to do, and so he walked the three blocks and unrolled his yoga mat in the only available spot, right next to the door, so that anyone else who came in would have to climb over him.

Dave was teaching. It was Thursday, which meant that the class was a mix of dharma talk and asana, with a focus on maintaining energy. Other studios focused on different things — Bikram was all about sweat, and Iyengar was all about precision, or that’s what Dave said — but Dave was all about energy. He was shirtless, as usual, and bowed to Andrew when they finally made eye contact. The class was full of people Andrew had never seen before — young, flexible bodies. Andrew was doing better than he had been at the beginning of the summer, though, and he could keep up. Every now and then, he felt someone looking at him, and he’d swivel around just in time to see one of Dave’s minions turning away.

“Draw your breath in through your rib cage,” Dave said, “and then exhale through your toes.”

All around him people were doing what Dave said. Andrew was trying, but every time he tried to breathe through his ribs, he felt like something was in the way — his liver? his heart? You couldn’t breathe through your ribs, you just couldn’t. And you definitely couldn’t breathe through your toes. Andrew opened his eyes.

From his spot by the door, Andrew could see through the foyer and onto the porch, where there were two uniformed policemen peering through the glass. They knocked, but Dave never answered the door during class. Andrew stood up and walked to the door.

“May I help you?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, we’ve had some reports that we’d like to follow up on, some illegal activity. Is this your place of business? Do you live here?” Andrew recognized one of the policemen from when he and Elizabeth had gone to fetch their delinquent son.

“Well, yes and no,” Andrew said. “I don’t live here.”

“May we come in?” A walkie-talkie on the cop’s hip blared out something indecipherable.

Andrew turned back to face the room. In the hall leading to the kitchen, several of the EVOLVErs were scurrying around, several holding large buckets.

“Um,” Andrew said, and the cops pushed past him into the house.

Everyone was in downward dog, their bottoms poking into the air. Most people were peeking through their legs, watching the action unfold upside down, but some had decided it was going to be worth seeing right side up and had come out of the pose to sit and watch. The two policemen stood on the side of the room, as if they were about to play a game of Frogger and hop across the yogis to the other side but didn’t know how to start.

“May I help you, Officers? We’re in the middle of a class.” Dave was as cool as a lake in Maine, with nary a ripple of anxiety.