"I am so stiff!!" the New Girl continues.

"I used to be able to get a Mack truck through my legs. Now look at me!"

Women are tilting their Warrior Ones in her direction. One or two sly smirks break out. Gaia shoots the New Girl a warning look, then closes her eyes, to draw our focus back and inward.

New Girl punctures Gaia's spiritual aura with a nasal groan. "Aaawwww!"

"Moving on to Lion's Breath. Inhale!" Gaia snaps.

Sitting on my knees, toes tucked under me, I extend my tongue out as far as it will go, roll my eyes back into my head, and tighten every muscle in my face. Then I hiss noisily.

"Hey, uh, excuse me?"

Gaia looks up with dismay. "Can you explain exactly how this is supposed to help my baby?" the New Girl asks. "Cause, right now, it's making me feel like a nut job!" She looks around the room and giggles. Even her giggle sounds like Queens Boulevard.

Our Lion's Breath expressions dissolve into laughter as the rest of us giggle back.

"I feel like a nut job these days too!" says the petite redhead. "After work, all I do is sleep and eat, sleep and eat."

"I wish that I could sleep," chimes in the Spanish model. "Every time I lie down, my baby starts to kick me. Boom, boom, boom! I am going to have a party girl on my hands!"

I hear myself adding, "I hope mine doesn't come out doing Lion's Breath!"

We all laugh some more. Suddenly it is our class, and we take it over. We twitter merrily, comparing bellies and mocking our pregnancy symptoms, until Gaia sighs and shakes her head, as though resigning herself to the cruel fact that the sacred knowledge of the ancients is wasted on twenty-first-century philistines.

After class, we roll up our yoga mats and head back for the changing room. The designer blond and a few other, less pregnant women scurry off. The rest of us linger, waiting to see what will come of our newfound camaraderie. Susan pops two yellow pills, then tries wrapping her Balinese sarong in a dozen different ways. I loiter indecisively. Then the  New Girl goes to work.

She pours herself into skintight jeans that leave her tumescent belly exposed and rolls over to the Spanish model, who is sliding into a flounced red skirt and tight black tank top that reveals every inch of her tan-colored midriff. Although I have been walking around town in the kind of extra-large T-shirts that leave people guessing whether I am pregnant or just dieting unsuccessfully, I find myself thinking, why not?

"I'm Gigi," New Girl whispers loudly, grabbing her classmate's arm conspiratorially. "Let's go to lunch!"

The Spanish model smiles in agreement and introduces herself as "Isla."

Then Gigi rolls over to Susan and picks up her hand.

"How do you do?" Susan says, as if it's a peculiar kind of handshake.

"That ring is beyond!" Gigi shrieks. She holds it up to the light, admiring the stone - a large, square-cut sapphire set in finely worked platinum. I notice that Gigi herself is hefting a forklift-grade diamond.

Susan is definitely in on the lunch.

A cell-phone ring cuts through the room. The petite redhead fishes her phone out of a black Birkin bag and flips it open. "Yeah, this is Margaret. Who else do you think is going to answer my phone? No, I did not tell that insect that the brief was complete. Subsection 2-A-3 is bullshit..."

A corporate lawyer, I conclude.

Gigi shouts at her, "We're going to lunch!" and Margaret's mouth drops open in amazement at the interruption. Then, after a pause, she says, "OK," and gets rid of her call.

I am sure I have not made the cut. I curse my Old Navy sweats and start to leave.

"Hey, Laura, where ya goin'?"

I turn around, stunned. She learned my name? Gigi was looking at me, seeming almost hurt. "Ain't you comin', hon?"

That was the beginning of my yoga mama summer.