by Joey Bush
Jangling all the way home I walked slowly, serenely, feeling at one with the spinning earth. Everything bad that had happened in the past couldn’t affect me anymore. Once, I had been a dancer, the finest at Butler University—and one of the finest in the country. I remembered the way my arms had pivoted through the air, the way my face had looked upwards toward my slender hand during the final pose. I remembered the way they had risen in Clowes Hall, the auditorium, and cheered for me with resounding applause. I remembered my mother, finally proud, spewing over and over again that I—and I alone—was her daughter.
But it all couldn’t go on. A busted knee had happened; a bad audition had happened. Nobody had wanted me, after all those years of continual pirouettes, days of starving myself. Nobody had wanted me—not even myself.
And yet in these past few weeks, I had thought things were starting to look up. This brilliant man—this Drew—had wanted me. He had taken me bungee jumping, and I had been able to feel the serene power of flying, of jumping to a sure death and coming up strong and energized. I had been able to enjoy a beautiful dinner with my best friend, her husband, and this new man—Drew—who seemed to fit in the equation perfectly. Never had anything come together so perfectly before. Never had my heart beat so perfectly in tune with another’s.
Finally, I arrived at my apartment building. It had started to rain in the cold October air, and I felt the ice-like pellets along my cheek as I opened the great apartment door. I stomped up the steps, two at a time, feeling the anger fuel me all the way to the top. I tore into my apartment, feeling the tears already brimming.
Boomer was stationed at the coffee table, blinking up at me. He meowed in that way; like he knew something was wrong, like he knew the world was ending. I collapsed next to him, allowing him to bounce up on my lap and nuzzle my cheek.
“It’s just you and me, Boomer,” I whispered to him. “It’s just you and me.”
That night, I spent a long and heavy sob-session with myself. I poured wine glass after wine glass; I ate ice cream from the carton. I cried with Meg Ryan as she lost her own, privatized bookshop in New York City because of Tom Hanks’s dumb, large, Fox Books. I hated Tom Hanks, American hero, more in that moment than I hated Drew. Why were the attractive men in the world trying to ruin the dreams and the beautiful lives of American women?
The wine continued to almost pour itself, streaming from the bottle like water. Boomer kept meowing at me, worried. I felt like I was becoming a part of the couch in those moments, and I remembered Kevin, my very first and last boyfriend—the pot smoker from Indiana. He had become a part of the couch, a part of the pot world, because he had felt he didn’t have a place in the regular world anymore. I hadn’t been able to understand it.
Every little thing he did had an element of “I don’t care” to it. When we went to Mexican restaurants, he scarfed down burrito after burrito without even saying a word to me. I patted his back, always, telling him to slow down; but there was a hunger in him that could not be quelled by anything in the world. He had dissatisfaction, and he knew it. So he sought to replace that dissatisfaction with something else.
Every time we had hung out at his apartment, he had wanted only to sit and watch television. I had tried to engage him in anything, like board games or sex. But he had wanted only to rest there, smoking casually from a bowl, and watching whatever was on television.
When he had told me he was dropping out, I had been relieved. This was the perfect time to dump him, to replace my dissatisfaction with our relationship with something else; with more dancing, perhaps, or more studying. He had told me he had wanted to give up for a long time, and he wanted me to tell him he was free.
And so I told him. “Kevin. You’re allowed to do whatever you want. You’re allowed to give up if you want. You shouldn’t; I should add there’s so much the world has to offer you.” I had been so hopeful, so sure of myself.
But now, laying there, drinking my sixth glass of wine, I was no longer so sure of myself. I understood that the world had nothing to offer me. It didn’t want to offer me sex, at least without taking something eternally important away from me. It didn’t want to offer me success. It didn’t want to offer me love.
Instead, it wanted me here—so much like Kevin—engaging with television shows, with a depressive alcoholic substance, and with as many Cheetos as I could find at the local convenience store.
And this was how the loathing commenced the next several days. I wondered; what I could have done wrong, how I could have proceeded differently. But, beyond anything else, I simply wondered how I was going to survive the following few days.
The next day, I left the apartment only once. I took a long, long walk out to the lake, not even bothering to walk through Wicker Park to see what had been done to my beautiful corner.
On the beach I stood in the sunlight, trying to feel hope again. I listened as the lake swarmed up on the rock, then the sand. It was brilliant, the way the sun lit the tops of each wave. But to me, it all felt the same as it ever had been before. Usually, this sameness of nature is a comfort for people. “We live, and we die—and the earth goes on.” That sort of spiel.
However, this time, I understood the sameness of the waves as a sort of knowledge that nothing in this world would ever go well or change for me.
I watched as small children played along the boardwalk, their parents rushing up behind them to capture them in their arms. I watched as old men walked somberly down the boardwalk, making a strange juxtaposition between the fresh-faced boys and girls running this way, then that on the boards.
I tried not to focus on the lovers, both young and old. One lover of my life had given up on the world, had retreated to the darkness of the living room. Another lover of my life had pushed headfirst into everything the world could give him—even taking things that didn’t belong to him.
I didn’t know which was worse. I stood, uncertain, as the waves crashed. Where was the world going to take me next?
HOOKED #3
CHAPTER ONE
Days passed, and I hardly saw the sun. The October days were growing shorter, and I could feel the cold emanating from the lake through the glass of my windows. I placed my fingers on the cold and leaned into it, as if it was a fresh breath of air.
Since the destruction of my beautiful building, my mother had called several times wondering about me. About my dance studio. About how I was making it. But I hadn’t answered. My insides felt crumpled, hopeless. I watched my phone buzz and buzz and buzz each time until it shook itself from the table and onto the clattering wooden floor.
Mel called as well. I remembered the joy I had felt at her apartment, such a sense of family for the first time in my life. She had grown up with Drew; she was his aunt, although because of their parents’ age differences, they had grown up together. It was so insane to think about; that this woman I had known for two years had always had Drew in the back of her mind—as if he were waiting for me.
Mel’s messages were anxious, worried. She didn’t know what was going on, and she certainly didn’t know Drew had been the one to swoop the dance studio out from underneath us. It had been our only solace from the surrounding world, the only place we could actually dance—be ourselves—in the wake of all that had come before. I had failed as a dancer, and she had given up, gotten married, and had a baby. She had done so many, many decent things in her life. Why wasn’t she allowed a single pleasure?
“Molly? Molly? You need to call me back, okay. I don’t know where you disappeared to. I had such a wonderful time with you last week, but Drew’s telling me you won’t talk to him. I can’t understand it. Did we do something wrong? Please let me know if there’s anything I can do, Mol. I want you guys to work. You are the best girl that Drew’s ever brought home, and I mean that seriously.”
I rolled my eyes listening to the message. So even Mel knew about Drew’s womanizing? I sighed, tossing the phone to the couch, serious about not calling her back. Perhaps I coul
d start over on my own, without strings attached to Drew. I reached toward my coat hanging on the coat rack. Boomer, to my left, meowed at me, confused about my strange off-kilter attitude the past few days. I had forgotten to feed him the day before, leaving him to jump on my head and rustle my hair in the morning.
I pushed my hands through my jacket, thinking about Mel and Drew once more. I was sure they hadn’t been talking this entire time; or had they? I chewed on the side of my mouth, considering. Perhaps Mel had known the entire time that Drew was in the city, that Drew was the one I’d been seeing. Perhaps she’d known the entire time that Drew was planning to buy the dance studio? My heart leaped in my chest; I felt like I was bungee jumping once more. The city around me felt dark and dismal, churning with a sense of foreboding. Was anyone here my friend?
I couldn’t mope anymore, and I couldn’t consider such thoughts. I shook my head back and forth, trying to cleanse it. If Mel had known, then screw it. It had all happened; it was done. I couldn’t roll over now; not yet. If I went back to Indianapolis because Drew had taken all I had ever known, I would ultimately show Drew I was weak—that I couldn’t handle his prowess, his money. I cleared my throat and stomped to the doorway, thinking about his sleeping form just a few doors down. His incredible body, his furrowed eyebrows. I shuddered. I would go into the world and find a new dance studio. I couldn’t mope anymore; this was the world I was meant to have. And screw Drew for letting him take it away from me—if only momentarily.
I ripped into the cold Wicker Park morning, looking at my watch for a moment to discover that it was only nine in the morning. Rush hour. People swarmed around me, dressed in business attire and huffing with a sense of seriousness. My eyes were wide as I pushed through them, exerting my stance in their world. I parsed through the Wicker Park streets, knocking on my leasing agents’ doors. “You have a moment?” I asked the secretary each time with my smile gleaming, my teeth white. They always had exactly one moment, and I always asked them detailed information about their properties and their rents. I wrote everything down in a notebook and nodded with a sense of importance as I placed the information on the pad. “Thank you for your time,” I murmured after each conversation before scurrying out into the world, my heart beating fast and my brain knowing that I could never—ever—afford whichever place I’d just been offered.
After a rough morning, I decided to march back to my apartment and take a hot shower. I thought of the tea bags in the corner, the leftover cinnamon roll from a previous morning. I could have a nice early afternoon with myself, regroup. Catch up on some moping time. I deserved it, after all. I grabbed my keys and flung through my apartment door, inhaling the unique, personal smell of my apartment. Boomer meowed at me with a bit of resentment, and I held him close, allowing him to lick my salty finger.
I placed a kettle on the stove and walked aimlessly, side-to-side, peering down at my notepad. I tapped my pen against my lip, considering rents and loans. I didn’t know much about that world. In my head, my first instinct was to ask Drew about it. Surely, he knew all about loans, about the unique process behind the dark shades of the bank. But then, I remembered to hate him. I shuddered deep in my stomach.
The pot of water was finished, and I poured it earnestly into my teacup, allowing the tea to steep for a moment. I had been in contact with a few of my dance students in the recent days, trying to feel out whether or not they’d be interested in more dance classes. Only a few of them—mostly the all-too-serious high school girls, had continued on with other dancers throughout the park. “But the expenses, Molly,” their mothers told me over the phone. “You tell me if you ever get back up and running.” They seemed to assure me like they would assure their own daughters; they would keep me in business if they could.
I sipped at the tea, feeling the aroma from the herbs emanate over my face. I inhaled, exhaled, allowing my eyes to dip closed. A quick nap, perhaps, before I exerted myself into that world once more?
Suddenly, there was a tremendous bang on the door. My heart jumped into my throat, and I nearly spilled the tea down my dress. I set it on the counter and looked toward Boomer with furrowed eyebrows, as if to complain.
My soft feet led me toward the door and I peered through the peephole. There, on the other side of the wooden slate, stood Drew. Tall, stoic; with that hint of a smile peppered on his lips. My heart was pounding faster and faster in my chest, and I felt a strange passion in my body, a tingling in my breasts. Something sexual stirred in me. I cleared my throat and pulled at the handle.
He stood in his pleasing grey suit. His hands hung at his sides, and his chin was high in the air. “Hello, Molly,” he nearly whispered, gazing at my eyes, at my cheeks, at my breasts.
I felt so strange, as if I were being assessed at a county fair. Why had he come here? I kept my eyes closed, remembering how he’d looked in that hard hat next to my building, pausing before destroying the eternity of my dreams.
“Molly. I wanted to say I’m sorry. I wanted to come by here because—” He paused and slapped the back of his neck nervously, gliding his hands over the sweat that brimmed over his skin. “You were the only thing that made me smile, you know? I thought we really started to have something here.”
My stomach was completely empty. I could feel its sides scraping up against each other in my body. I longed for him to leave, to leave me in my squalor. I could figure everything out myself. I wanted to spit at him. I could do this all on my own, if only he’d just leave me the hell alone.
A pause occurred between us, our eyes meeting in the center of our heated bodies.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” he asked. His voice had lowered an octave; he had broken out of his sentimentality; he had leaned toward a sense of hostility, a sense of regret.
I didn’t open my lips, choosing only to look at him with my large, orb-like eyes. I couldn’t speak. I felt like if I did, the world would crack open. I had to get back to my work; I had to find my own place for Molly Says Dance. I couldn’t rely on my sexual passions, the feeling in my gut that this man before me was so much more—so much more!
I couldn’t rely on anyone.
“You really aren’t going to say anything?” Drew sputtered. He was growing angry. I assumed he wasn’t used to begin ignored. “I come down here, soak up all my confidence to do it, and you won’t even talk to me? You know you’re really putting me through the ringer here. Come on, Mol. Just one word. One syllable, even. Just give me something to go off of, so I can move forward. So I can try to make amends.”
There was no making amends, I wanted to tell him. There was nothing. I shook my head simply, as if I were speaking with a child who hadn’t gotten his way. He nearly stomped his foot. I could feel the anger brimming in him; it was about to burst.
Until, finally, he turned on his heel and walked away down the hall. I watched as his neck curved down, leaving his back a bit crooked, a bit aged. The shadow of his body lurked across the wall. I stood in the doorway, watching him until he entered the apartment he shared with Marty—that dismal apartment in which we had fucked on nearly every surface, feeling the tremors of our bodies in such a way that made me squirm.
It couldn’t be so anymore. Not anymore.
I backed up into my apartment as well, feeling safe in the shell of my own smell, of the herbal tea. I crashed into the dining room chair and leaned my chin on my knuckles, allowing myself to pause at the strangeness of the situation. I, a poor nothing, was ignoring the most beautiful, the most brilliant man in all of Chicago. And yet, in so many ways, I couldn’t care.
Thirty minutes passed before I heard another knock on the door. Frowning, I looked down at my empty tea cup and prepared myself for another Drew altercation. Would I speak this time? I bit my lip and peered through the peephole. This time, I didn’t see the tidy smirk of a businessman; instead, I saw the beautiful, timid smile of Mel—my beautiful dance assistant who hadn’t given up on me. My stomach stirred as I remembered, however; pe
rhaps she had known all along that this would happen. Perhaps she had been the root of the problem.
No one could be trusted.
I pulled open the door, biting my lip mid-smile. Mel flung her long, ballerina arms around me and held me close to her chest. “My darling, Molly,” she murmured. I felt myself pour into a fit of tears. “Please. Please. Don’t cry.” She pulled her fingers over my hair, allowing me to fall into sadness, into comfort. I felt the morning’s strain pull at my chest.
I led her into my apartment and pushed the door closed. My face was red, splotched. Mel looked at me, gripping her hands together, her eyebrows high on her face. “Darling. What’s going on over here?” she asked. “I haven’t heard from you in days—not since I saw you and Drew at our place. Darling, what’s going on? Is it that bastard’s fault? I mean. I know how he can be with women.” She punched her hips for a moment lightly, as if deep in thought.
I shook my head. “It’s not the womanizing thing, Mel,” I murmured. I collapsed into a chair once more. “It’s the—it’s the dance studio. Drew bought the building. That’s why we’re out of business.”
Mel sat down quietly in the stool next to me. I could feel the worry emanating from her core. She sighed, tapping her fingers against the wood. “Shit,” she murmured. “I have to say, I didn’t see this coming. An affair, sure. Being an asshole, sure. But ruining your entire business? Now. That’s a new low.”
My throat sputtered with a short burst of laughter. I gazed at my friend—at the tired wrinkles beneath her eyes from her brand new baby. I shook my head. “You know. It doesn’t matter. I knew he was a womanizer, that he shouldn’t have ever cared for me. He was far too rich, anyway. And I—I mean. I live like this.” I gestured around my apartment, at the broken toaster, at the vase in the corner that was filled with dead flowers. “I’m trying to make a dance studio work to my advantage, while he’s able to just scoop it up—eat it, like a big corporate monster—and do whatever he pleases.” I shrugged. “Perhaps that doesn’t make him a bad person. But it makes him my own personal demon, or something.”