Hooked 2 (Hooked #2)
by Claire Adams
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 some 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.