|
|
Karen Matthew’s rear, pressed against a yoga mat, cried out for mercy. She ignored it and continued to sit on the back lawn of the Novocorp main offices, with the six people who worked under her supervision on the J-10 team. They were all sitting in a circle holding hands, their legs out in V’s in the air, each bare foot pushing against the foot of the person on either side. She tried not to push her left foot too hard. First off, because Myron’s right foot had a bunion, but also because his toenails were horny and yellowish. How contagious was toenail fungus anyway? They, along with four other circles of teams, were participating in the “Stress Buster Power Team Builder.” A young, male yoga teacher stood in the center of the groups of circles and called out, “Synchronize our breathing. In and out. Always through the nose.” He had shoulder-length dark hair and black wire-rims, which made him look like a 70's poster she’d seen of that Beatle who got killed. Yoga, The Beatles. “Hello-oh. The 60's are so over,” she wanted to tell him. Even retro 60's was almost over. He had them lower their legs and put their shoes and socks back on, then led them to the empty lot next door, which was dotted with fuzzy-topped dandelions. “Everyone pick themselves a dandelion.” He picked several and handed them out. “Pretend each white tuft is a stressful area in your life. Let your stress leach into the tufts. Breathe with me. Let it leach. Let it leeeeeach.” He offered Karen a dandelion. The next moment took place in slow motion. Him, crooking his head, smiling, fingertips brushing as the flower flowed from his hand to hers. Her, cupping her other hand around the lacy circle of white, drawing it toward her beating heart –- Whoa, what just happened here? Karen blinked. Okay, snap out of it. She looked away. Chelsey, the female half of Karen’s Systems geeks, was muttering, “I feel like an idiot.” Rory, the male Systems geek, muttered back, “But we’re feeling like idiots as a team.” Karen whispered to them sweetly, “Your feelings have been noted. Now. I want you to pretend that this is really important. Because it is. Vice President Westland talks about team building in very glowing terms. So it’s important to me. Because I want to keep my job. Just like you want to keep yours.” As she spoke, milky sap from her dandelion was “leeeeaching” onto her fingers. She decided to leach doing pointless team building exercises into her tufts. Their guru held up another dandelion. “Now we’re going to blow all the tufts away and you will be free of them.” He turned in an arc as he blew. The snowy tufts floated off in a line. “Free of your stress. It’s floating away. Into the breeze and the sunshine.” Before Karen could blow on her dandelion, her cell phone rang. The yoga teacher’s blissful smile hardened at the edges. Karen shrugged her shoulders at him and pulled the phone from the pocket of her faded sweatshirt. “Karen? It’s Reed. Did you get a chance to look over my projections?” “Yeah, I think they’re in line. We may need a little more for R&D --” When she got off the phone, the dandelion derby was apparently over. People were peeling off in little groups toward the Novocorp building. Karen carried her dandelion between her thumb and index finger up the elevator, past the cubicles, back to her office. She stuck it into the plexiglass cylinder she kept her paper clips in. Then she changed into her pin-striped pants suit, stuffing her baggy sweat pants and shirt into a gym bag beside her briefcase. She opened the window blinds and went back to work. When she looked at her watch later, an hour had passed. She stretched, which gave her a view out her window. Mr. John-Lennon-look-alike was conducting his noontime yoga class. Suddenly the moment from that morning played over and over in her mind. Crooking his head slightly, handing her the dandelion. On her PC, she went to the Stress Besters link on the company website, scrolling through a load of crap about meditation and a schedule of classes at the yoga teacher's home studio. There was an announcement in bold type: This Saturday Classes Cancelled, Remodeling, Spending the Morning at Home Depot. Then below that, his name and picture. Dillon Oglethorpe. Dillon, what a beautiful name. She glanced past the monitor to the paper clip container. Two seed tufts had fallen off her dandelion. She picked them up one at a time and threw them into the wastebasket. “He loves me, he loves me not.” She was glad no one had heard her. She wondered if Dillon would be embarrassed to date someone who made a middle manager’s salary. What does a yoga instructor make? She herself never worried about salary or ranking when it came to relationships. Of course the last time she’d seriously seen anyone, they’d both been just out of college. My God, that was ten years ago. You know, it would be good for her to get more exercise. Even if she did have to put up with this Stress Bester nonsense. But she needed to shop for the right clothes first. No point doing this if you didn’t do it right.
Stoplight. She looked over at the bag of exercise clothing she had just bought. The tank top with attached bra had seemed particularly flattering. Green light. Wasn’t there some kind of sex yoga? Kama Sutra? No, that was something else. Tantric. Weird positions, maybe with scented oils.
She pulled into a parking space. Karen Oglethorpe. Boy, that was
really jumping the gun. But still -- Karen Oglethorpe. No. No
way. She hoped he was all right with women keeping their last
names. Would he want to be involved with a Karen? Maybe he’d
call her Karr-in, that sounded more New Agey. She could learn
to like that. Yeah, she liked it already. Karrin. |