"Breathe in for four. Hold for two. Out for six. Anya, you're holding for ten. Stop showing off."
Anya Petrov laughed without opening her eyes, the laugh round and warm and exactly the shape of her eight-month belly. She was lying on her side on the studio floor with a pillow under her hip, and the four other pregnant women in the class were lying around her like a constellation of round-bellied stars. Outside the studio's tall window, Hidalgo Avenue was still grey with early light. Inside, the wood floor smelled like lemon cleaner and lavender oil, and the only sound was breathing.
Elena loved this hour. She loved it more than she loved most things.
When the timer chimed, the women rolled themselves up slowly — Tomás moving between them in his quiet way, offering hands, offering pillows. Anya rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling.
"Coach,"
she said.
"Are you going today?"
"I'm going."
"You'll wait three hours just to talk for two minutes."
"I'm going."
"And he'll say no."
Elena pulled the green dress from the hook by the office door and held it up to the light. There was a faint stain on the hem from the last meeting. She would have to sponge it out.
"Maybe he'll say yes,"
she said.
Anya snorted.
"Honey. You believe that?"
"I believe in showing up."
Tomás appeared in the office doorway with two mugs. He passed one to her. He didn't say anything, but his eyes said the same thing Anya's mouth had said, and Elena ignored him too.
She had the folder ready. Three years of grant denials, two structural surveys of the empty lot next door, the photographs she had taken herself of the kids who used to play basketball in front of the closed community center and who now stood on the corners trying to look like they weren't waiting for trouble.
Three years. Today she would be polite for the fourth time.
Her brother was outside the gym at eight-thirty in his truck, leaning against the hood. He looked up when she came out. He had not shaved.
"Ready?"
Diego said.
Elena tucked the folder under her arm and pulled the office door shut behind her.
"Drive."