Jane pushed her hands away from her. She tried to focus on the instructor’s soft soothing, carefully timed voice and exhaled noisily. She pushed her butt in the air. Fucking Boss (FB) kept her in a few hours after 5 so she missed the advanced class and was stuck in beginners. Fucking beginners. She wanted to walk over to each one and straighten their arms, push their heads up and make them breath. Her job stress was making her a violent, angry, woman. Tell her something she didn’t know!

Finally she jumped her legs through her hands- maybe you had to be there- and lay flat for Corpse Pose. This was her favorite. No matter how many times during the day she had envisioned the bloody death of her boss, she lost it all in this pose. Her instructor turned off the lights then made the rounds- pushing down each student’s shoulders and rubbing lavender oil over their faces. With a simple push and a smell, Jane felt her mood reset.

Her instructor broke the silence and they all sat, Namaste’d, and then left the workout room. Soon she was in the cold air, bundled up in fleece and pounding up Russian Hill again. She walked on the other side of the street from the playground.

After showering, she logged into Socializr and checked the details on the Opera club’s mingler. Tony & Nik’s- supposedly talk about Opera but usually it was avoiding Opera Man, the self-appointed Don Juan of the Bravo Club. She got into her favorite designer jeans, dangly earrings and heels and trotted back down the hill to the bar.

It was dark and she had to “walk the gauntlet:” gray-haired (or recently dyed from gray) men leaning back checking her out. Made a girl want to put her nubby fleece right back on. Then, she saw one passable guy. His dark hair was cut shorter, and he had a motorcycle jacket, and, more improtantly, seemed totally uninterested in her. She parked herself in between his stool and a grey-haired’s.

“Oooh, what’s that?” She said. She hoped he had a job.

“7 and 7. You want one?” He had a nice smile, dark eyes, good skin.

“Sure.” She hoped he wasn’t a player.

They talked for 10 minutes or so about nothing she remembered later on, and then she went to the back, to the mingler. Near the end of the evening- she was dead tired after yoga and no dinner- she stopped by his stool. “You should let me buy you one, so we’re even.”

He looked at her, “That would be great.”

A few fifteen minutes of forgetful conversation they stumbled out into the cold North Beach air and he gave her a squeeze. “You need me to walk you home?”

She giggled drunkenly into his shoulder. “I’m OK. Taking a cab.”

They stumbled over to Columbus and then they saw it. In the gutter, near Cafe DeLucchi. Another hand.

Next Chapter: Drunk & Happy –>