Hooked (8 page)

“UGH!” I yelled in frustration. The shards of coffee
cup had to be cleaned up immediately. The kids would be coming soon. They would
be stepping all over it. I couldn’t afford a lawsuit on top of everything else.
I wandered toward the corner in a sort of daydream, picking up the broom. I
started sweeping the shards away, allowing my mind to run pell-mell. What the
hell was I going to do?

I would never find a better place than this one, I
knew. I looked around at the mirrors, the bars. I had skipped several monthly
payments, and still Langston had kept me here, believing in me. And now; he had
cut me off, just like that—at the very beginning of the fall, when I could have
made serious money from people interested in dancing for the Nutcracker
performance I wanted to put on. I shook with ready anger. Something had to be
done.

I heard the bell jangle once more and I looked up,
my eyes looking like owl orb eyes; scary and yellow. Mel had entered through the
door, carrying a large sack of groceries; fruits, vegetables. Some grains, some
breads. She was a vegetarian, and she went shopping often. She said the
vegetables were never as good the next day.

“Darling.
What’s wrong with you?” Mel wailed, rushing toward me at my seat on the floor.
She grabbed the tops of my knees and looked into my troubling eyes. “Is it that
bastard man who took you on a date?”

I shook my head vehemently, thinking of the evening
before. “No, no, Mel. Drew is everything. He is so goddamned hot.” I put my
hands over my face, tossing my face left to right. “No. Drew is perfect. You
should have seen the sorts of positions he put me through last night.” My
insides shuddered. I could hardly think for a moment.

But Mel pulled me out of it. “Then what’s gotten
into you?” she asked.

I pulled my head up, tugging at my bright, blonde
hair. “Langston came.
The guy who owns the building.”

Mel nodded. “Does he need his payments? We can’t pay
them yet. We haven’t generated enough revenue this month.”

I interrupted her.
“No, honey.
He has decided to—to—to sell the building.”

Mel’s eyes grew wide. “He can’t do that,” she
hissed. “This building is a historic landmark. It was built at the end of the
19
^th
century! He can’t just sell it; he has a responsibility to it!
To us!”
She was breathing rapidly. She stood up and began
pacing.

I shook my head, positioning my face back in my
hands. “What am I going to do,” I murmured. “I had already given up on my
dream. But then I found this new dream. I
thought maybe this
one could work,
you know. That this one was it for me.”

Mel leaned back down and kissed my head.
“Now.
Don’t despair,” she said. “Please. We’ll find a way
out of this mess.”

“In the next few weeks?”
I screeched at her.

“Did you say that that guy—that Drew—is a very rich
man?” Mel asked.

I pulled my head up, blinking brightly. “He is, Mel.
But what are you saying? Are you saying I should ask him for money? Like I’m a
gold-digger?”

Mel held up her hands. “No. Just.
Just
a loan.
Or. Or you could get a loan, like—from a real bank. What do you
think?”

I shook my head. “I have so many student loans that
I still haven’t paid back. I’m backed up, so they say, in pretty much every
capacity.
And.”
I paused, swallowing deeply. “And I
don’t feel comfortable asking for money. Not from Drew. Not from anyone.”

“Then we’ll go under,” Mel whispered.

I nodded into my hands.

Suddenly, the bell started jangling. A few of the
girls had begun to filter in from the cold street, waving good-bye to their
mothers and fathers who had walked them there on the Monday morning. Frightened
I would be deemed as “off my rocker,” I bounced up from my seat and called to
the girls. “Don’t step on any of the shards, ladies! I had a little accident.
Not to worry, not to worry.” I began to brush all the precise, simple shards
into the dustbin.

“Miss Atwood, are you crying?” one of the girls
asked me.

I looked up at the angelic face, at the slim body of
the tiny, blonde ballerina who often reminded me so much of myself. I swept
another shard into the dust pan, remembering the golden days of ballet; when
all I had wanted to do was wear my leotard every day, to stretch, to feel my
body’s great strength.

I hadn’t realized that the body’s strength doesn’t
communicate in the real world. You have to have inner strength; strength of
mind and strength of heart in order to truly get along in this world. I shook
my head at the young girl. “No, Laurie.
Of course not.
I mean. You know how I get about old mugs.” I sniffed, explaining the tears to
her. “Why don’t we all start in First Position!” I called out to the girls who
were prepared, already laced up. Ready. They lined up on the bar in first
position, dutifully looking at me for their next instructions. They were like
my warriors, my army. I longed to hold each one of them in my arms. They were
my girls!

I took the full dust pan to the large trashcan in
the back and dumped the shards into the wastebasket. Mel came up behind me and
whispered something in my ear. “It’s going to be okay. Do you need me to run
class today?”

A sense of coolness had overtaken my heart. I shook
my head quickly, thinking of all the strength, all the power I had felt the
evening before, naked on that Four Seasons’ bed. I thought of all the joy I had
felt. And yet here I was, in the dumps, in the grey area of my life once more.

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.