by Joey Bush
I clapped my hands three times as I spun around to acknowledge the girls. “All right, ladies. Let’s start in plié.”
And so we did.
CHAPTER NINE
The class got my mind off my problems, which was wonderful. I was able to laugh with a few of the girls, to bring myself into a sort of emotionless happiness in which I was continually smiling and joking. I had often wondered if all of the great comedians were like that, as well; always in a state of unhappiness but able to make people laugh on a dime. I smiled at the girls as they gathered up their things.
“Don’t get any F’s at school, all of you,” I warned them like a crazy aunt. “And don’t you dare go running off with any boys.” I mostly said this to the youngest girl, Bernice, who was an eight-year-old Chinese girl already reaching the height of her ballet career. I would have to ultimately send her to a better ballet soon. Her talents were useless in my place, where I could only get people to a certain point.
Mel had already wrapped herself up in her coat when all of the girls had left. I began humming as I put things away. I found all of my spreadsheets there, on the desk, and started running them through the shredder, taking deep pleasure as every 9, every 5, every personable number was ripped in half.
“Do you think that’s necessary?” Mel asked me, rubbing her hands together. “I mean. What if we need those later.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “In a few weeks, I won’t be a ballerina teacher anymore. Who even knows where I’ll be, you know? But I certainly won’t be here, with these documents, for the rest of my life. And I’d just assume get rid of these documents immediately, to quell my aching mind. Do you have a problem with that?”
Melissa stepped back, her eyes wide at me. She had never seen me speak so forcefully. “I see,” she said. “Listen, Molly. I know you don’t have a lot of people to talk to in the city.”
Was it that obvious? Did I reek of loser?
“But I want you to know that you can come to me for advice on anything, at any time. Even if that piece of advice is—well—you know. Rooted in your sexual encounters with this rich guy.” She winked at me, then, trying to remind me that there was something to live for, after all. The words seemed hollow in my ears.
Mel left not long after that, noting that she had to pick her son up from the babysitter. I thanked her for being there today, reminding her that the following day’s schedule was a bit different. She nodded; she had never forgotten anything about Molly Says Dance, anyway. I didn’t know why I doubted her.
When I finished shredding the last of the pieces of paper, I tossed them in the recycling, pushed my arms through my coat, and rushed out into the windy city. I locked the building behind me, although I didn’t know why. It wasn’t mine anymore. I had nothing to protect. It was like my heart; I was locking it, but it was ultimately going to be raped by someone or something.
The red brick of the building that rose into the sky was so ancient, so beautiful. I rubbed my fingers against the harsh material and then began the short walk back to my apartment. The air felt shriller than it had the previous evening, when I had been out with Drew. The autumn was folding into the September month, although I didn’t want it to. I wanted to retain the sweetness of the summer. I sighed, thinking about Drew once more, how perfect our bodies had been together!
I arrived at my apartment when the city began to erupt into its evening lights. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud, and there was something ancient, something mystical about the evening. I felt no brightness, only a sense of evil lurking beneath every shadow.
I shuffled up the four floors to my apartment, feeling my heart beating heavy in my chest. I pulled out my keys and had to stare at them for several moments before realizing—ah ha—which one was actually my house key. I felt strange, soft, as if I was drunk.
I hustled into my apartment, hearing the burdened meows from the corner. Shit. I had forgotten to come home earlier in the day to feed Boomer. I hadn’t been home in over twenty-four hours, and I was certain he was so hungry. I hurried toward him, picking him up in my arms. He looked at me with bright, yellow eyes. Was he angry? I felt his fur, the soft kind around his face, and kissed the top of his head. He smelled comforting, like home. He meowed in my ear, then, and I rushed to the kitchen to fill his bowl. He ate heartily, bringing each of the kibble bits into his mouth and chomping away with tiny, rodent-like teeth.
I searched my refrigerator for something to eat for myself, but I came up empty. I realized I had been neglecting much of my life in the wake of this Drew realization. In the back of the freezer, I found whiskey, and I poured it languidly into my short glass. I felt like my grandfather once more—drinking whiskey like an old man of the west.
My balcony was positioned directly off from my living room. I pushed the door open, feeling the absurd wind wash over me initially before filtering away—as if it were a warning. I looked back toward my cat who continued to eat ravenously, grabbed a blanket from the couch, and curled up on the floor of the balcony—on the stone, leaning heavy against the railings. I reached into my coat pocket, where I kept a half a pack of cigarettes, always. I opened it, noting that the pack still had the same hearty number it had had the previous month; 10 cigarettes. I hadn’t smoked in over thirty days. But I needed one, in that moment. I lit the end of it, sticking it in the side of my mouth and inhaling. I felt the fire in my throat, down in my lungs. But I liked the pain. It forced my brain away from the issue at hand.
I was fucked.
It was true. I inhaled the smoke and exhaled it in intricate smoke rings—something I had learned as a ballerina at Butler, when eating was no option but smoking was the ultimate lunch break. I curled back against the railings, further and further, hearing the spattering of horns, of traffic beneath me. God, I loved this neighborhood. God, I loved cigarettes. I peered up above me at the stars. I could hardly see them, given the intensity of the lights below. But there they were, like small bits of salt in a greater sea of pepper. Orion. That bright, North star. I pumped a few more smoke rings into the world, remembering how I hadn’t eaten a single morsel of solid food for an entire winter, only turning toward cigarettes and protein shakes for life-fulfillment.
“Maybe if I just had never started eating again, I could have become a real ballerina,” I muttered to myself, tapping my feet against the stone. But it couldn’t be that way. It was too late. I was going to be twenty-five in the next year. It was over.
And now, I was losing my Molly Says Dance studio. I was losing my last chance. I would have no money to pay for this apartment, for anything. Perhaps I would have to divert to no-eating. But I would look ragged, enraged, and homeless in that stunning portrayal of my future.
I felt like crying. I was the exact opposite of the woman I had been the previous evening, when Drew had me up against the window, all of the city beneath my naked frame.
I was muttering to myself when I heard further murmurings, a bit of raucous laughter on the other side of my balcony, around the corner. Someone else was outside. I twitched to the right to try to hear them more clearly. I certainly saw their cigarette smoke as it emanated over the balcony and into the city.
I had never really seen any of my neighbors before, and I couldn’t align the voice I heard with any given face. I remembered the Indian man who lived a floor down (who always cooked such delicious-smelling food). I remembered the college students down the hall who had several raucous parties. But this voice. This was a man’s voice. I listened more closely.
“Yeah. I mean. You should have seen these breasts. Just. Bang, bang, bang—in my face. I fucked her lights out.” The voice was saying.
I rolled my eyes. Another group of males discussing the women they had banged recently. Great. I had come across the liveliest of all conversations; the dick measuring kind.
But I continued to listen.
Another guy chimed in. “Is that that bitch you screwed a few weeks ago? The one with the tattoo?”
; “That girl was weeks ago,” the first voice said, washing the other comment away, as if resentful that the other man would even consider it.
I raised my eyebrows in great judgment. This man seemed to really enjoy screwing a lot of women. In my heart, I felt terrible for all of them—all the women he wooed, all the women he convinced to go to bed with him. I felt that there had to be a sort of sincerity in bed. Otherwise, what the hell did it even mean?
“All right, all right,” the second guy said. “How do you get so much pussy, anyway? You drug them?’’
The first voice started laughing. The laugh wasn’t riddled with any compassion, with any humor. Instead, it seemed rooted in anger. “Yeah. A lesser man would think it was drugs,” the first man said sarcastically. Suddenly, I heard tapping feet and the screen door slam. The pair of men had obviously gone back inside. I felt alone, then, even as I knew that the two men hadn’t been privy to my presence.
I looked down at my palms, shaking a bit as I neared the end of my cigarette. The nicotine was coursing through my veins quickly, changing me. My brain was rushing from topic to topic. I was thinking, all at once, about the grand fucking I had done the evening before—how it had immediately cleared up everything that had been wrong inside me for many, many years.
And then; just hours after I left the naked arms of that most beautiful man, my world had come crashing around me. I thought again about what Mel had said to me—that I could ask Drew for the money. But the thought of it actually killed me. I knew I couldn’t; I knew I wouldn’t.
I was too proud.
Suddenly, my phone started buzzing in my coat pocket. I stabbed the cigarette down on the ground and reached into my pocket to retrieve the phone. It was a text message. I grinned as the name DREW popped up in the bright light. For a moment, I could see nothing but the sheer fire of my own passion for him, for his body. For our bodies coming together.
I read the text, then;
“Hey. You rushed out on me this morning. I want to see you again. Up for a quick drink this evening?”
But I shut the light from my phone, my heart beating too fast in my throat. I knew—if I saw him—I would immediately ask him about the money, tell him all of my problems. He was the only person I knew in the goddamned city (except for Mel and my cat, of course), and therefore I was vulnerable to him. I would tell him anything he wanted to hear—probably more than he wanted to hear. And as such, I would ruin anything that we might have ultimately built.
Plus, I knew; if he found out how truly poor I was—after I had spouted all that about being a PR major with an assistant—he would immediately run away. Rich guys were made, truly, for rich girls. To treat them. To trade money with them, really. I thought of the constant exchange; this jewelry for this tie. This fucking for these shoes. I shivered, thinking about the world that I would never be a part of.
I turned my phone off, certain that I couldn’t go out with Drew. That I could never see him again. I wouldn’t be a part of Wicker Park much longer; therefore, when his bookstore went up, I wouldn’t see it every day. I wouldn’t know that he was successful, or that he crashed and burned. I wouldn’t know anything about him.
I tried to imagine what I should do, how I could work myself out of the situation. But all I could do, really, was light another cigarette and pulse small smoke rings into the air. All I could do was watch as my cat sauntered from this way to that on the inside of my apartment, on the other side of the glass.
All I could do was live in the dismal notion of the moment, hoping that nothing else got worse.
HOOKED #2
CHAPTER ONE
The next morning I woke up, feeling nearly hung-over with the terrible news of the dance studio. I walked toward my kitchen table, where small scraps of paper outlined my entire would-be week ahead; the older ladies class on Tuesday, the younger girls every day at seven in the morning. I looked at the clock on the wall and noted it was still five in the morning. I could get out of it. What was the point, anyway? I would ultimately have to tell them the studio was going to close; they would find other, better places to learn to dance. Perhaps they would even make it in the wicked world without me.
I sent a short, succinct text message to all of their mothers and fathers, hoping they would receive it before sending their daughters off with toe shoes into the brimming late-September cold of the morning. “No Dance Today. Love, Ms. Molly.”
I nodded at it, satisfied. What was I going to do?
I called my dance assistant, Melanie. I listened to the phone buzz over the city as the sun began to cast long shadows through the Wicker Park buildings. I longed to see Lake Michigan in that moment, to see how the morning cold was manipulating it, changing it. The coffee bubbled into the pot behind me.
Finally, Melanie answered her phone. Her voice was chipper, as if she had been awake for hours.
“Mel?” I whispered, finally hearing my voice for the first time. I poured myself a cup of coffee and allowed the steam to waft up over my face.
“Molly!” Melanie called to me. Her voice was high-pitched, strained. “I’ve been awake for hours. Little Jackson has a cold. Don’t you, Jackson?” She was cooing to her small baby; the bundle of joy that had been her acceptance of her failed dance career.
“Poor baby,” I whispered, hanging my head. “Listen. Mel. I need to talk to you.”
“What is it?” she asked. Her voice was still raspy. “I can make it for the second class today, by the way. Probably not the first. I need to drop Jack off at the babysitter. Second one at ten, yeah?”
“Don’t worry about it, Mel,” I whispered again. My heart was beating so fast. “I think I’m going to just close the studio right away.”
Mel sputtered. “What?”
“I already canceled the first class today, the young high school girls.”
“Don’t cancel your classes already,” Mel pleaded. “They need you for as long as they can have you. You’re a perfect dance instructor; can’t you see that? Don’t. Don’t give up on this,” Mel whispered. I could hear the baby cooing in the background, and I longed to be there with them. My apartment was bleak around me. My coffee was decreasing at an alarming rate. Would I be alone for the rest of my life?
“I just have to figure out what comes next. That’s all,” I answered her. I hung up, after telling her I loved her, my only good friend in the city. Mel was dumbfounded, sure; but perhaps she would understand, through the next few weeks, that this dance thing was actually holding her back, that other things, other organizations waited for her in the rest of the world.
I sighed and stood up, knowing that nothing waited for me. Nothing.
The sun was higher now in Wicker Park. Across some of the buildings, I could see the Four Seasons hotel in which I knew Drew was sleeping. I wondered if he was hunting around for his new bookstore location; I wondered if he was thinking about me.
I took the train out to the lake that crisp morning and put my tennis shoes to the pavement along the pulsing water, hoping to pound an inch of energy, of life back into my brain. My phone played loud music into my ear, and I felt small tears streamline down my face. I remembered my mother, back home in Indiana, telling me that Chicago would never work for me. At twenty-four years old, I knew, in my heart, that she was right; perhaps nothing I truly wanted would work.
But where did that leave me?
I didn’t know.
I huffed and puffed back to the train. Before entering, I bought a large pastry at a side bakery, where the crescent rolls, the donuts, the pain au chocolats gleamed in the bright light. The woman who handed the pastry to me had sagging skin and a cragged smile. “You have a nice day, dear,” she yammered to me as she handed me several hundred calories, wrapped in a simple brown package. As I removed the monstrous jelly pastry, I remembered all the years I had watched my weight for dance purposes. Now that dance had kicked me to the curb in every arena of the world, I found myself on the side of the road, eating a jelly pastry. And som
e small part of me didn’t care at all.
In my pocket, my phone began to buzz. Irritated, I wiped my hand on my jacket and picked it up. The name DREW blasted across the screen. Shit. Now, not only had I lied to Drew about being a PR major looking for work throughout the great city—with an assistant, to boot—I had also lied to him about myself on a few other levels. I had built a sense of confidence, a sense of sexual prowess with him that I knew I couldn’t match in my current state. I had built a small notion of love for him inside my soul. And I was further certain that if I saw him, I would become gooey, off-center.
Which is why his text message, which said; “Meet for Lunch in the Park?” was ignored easily. I stuck my phone back in my pocket and caught the train back home. Netflix, a bottle of afternoon wine, and some serious cat cuddling was in my future. This, ladies and gentleman, was a twenty-four-year-old woman without hope, without a plan.
Drew texted me later that day, around lunchtime. “Wish you were here. Couldn’t decide between a burrito and a sandwich, so I went with a pretzel. This was a big mistake, only avoided with your assistance.”
I imagined him typing this with great care in line at some dumb deli, and I shivered as I ate day-old macaroni and cheese from a yellow bowl. Melanie had called me a few times to try to pound me with hope. “We can fight this! We can!”
But I had already moved on. Between Netflix movies, each with a sappy ending, I had looked up receptionist jobs throughout Chicago. I had looked up waitressing jobs in my hometown, dismal Indianapolis. I had read eight blogs about the Peace Corps, because options for my life were unending—and also seriously unappealing. I wanted to dance. That was all I had ever wanted. But, because it was no longer in the cards for my life, picturing myself in a tiny hut on the coast of Africa, trying to restore a sense of world peace was my next option.