Hooked 3 (Hooked #3)(3)
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 *, 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.”
Mel reached toward me and put her slim hand on my knee. “You know he really cared for you, right?”
I felt a stirring in my stomach, as if this information—spoken directly from my only friend in the city—was ill-formed, false. I wanted to laugh it off, even as I remembered the targeted way his eyes had looked toward mine as we f*cked each other, my body moving over his, my breasts bouncing onto his chest. In those moments, we had been one.
I slammed my fist on the table. My eyes burned like wildfire. “Mel. You know. This morning I was so strong. I walked through this city looking for new spaces to rent. There are places open all over Wicker. I just have to be strong, be selective. I have to be more like Drew, in a way. More like a shark. I can get through this f*cking—injustice.” I cleared my throat, standing tall next to the table. Mel stood up as well, a bit shaky on her feet. “This is all I’ve worked for; it’s all I have.”
“It’s all I have, as well,” Mel whispered toward me. She cleared her throat. “I’ll help you in any way I can.”
CHAPTER TWO
Mel waited for me to put on my coat and scarf. We skirted out the doorway once more, feeling the cold whip across our faces from the streets below. We grinned at each other, feeling a sense of excitement in this strange new chapter. “Where have you looked already?” Mel asked, turning her head left and right when we reached the main road.
I pointed to the left, noting that many of the business people from the day had scurried into their businesses and offices; they had left these tired streets behind and found solace behind boredom and glass windows. “Let’s try over there,” I murmured.
Mel and I walked quickly down the street, peering into the coffee shops and bustling restaurants. Wicker Park was a continuous flurry of activity, of song. I stopped sharp before a restaurant that was called “The Goat,” peering into the window to see a young woman drinking a pint at the bar, a cell phone in her hand. I looked up at the top of the kitsch-y pub, noting that the building had a FOR RENT sign. I peered toward Mel, scratching at my head for a moment—feeling the strange cleanliness of my hair after so many days of wallowing. Mel shrugged, sensing my interest. “Why not try it?”
I entered the pub door. The smell of greasy food, of musty beer entered my nose, and the comfort made my head spin. Mel and I sat down at the bar, a few seats away from the woman on the telephone. She was speaking with such exactness, with such fortitude, that I understood; she owned this place. I peered around me, feeling the striking masculinity, the power of the cute place. How had she done this on her own? What could I learn from her?
A young man—a bartender about my age—walked toward us languidly, drying a pint glass in his left hand. “Can I get you ladies something to drink?” he asked us. His smile skirted to the left, then to the right. His black curly hair was wrapped in a handkerchief. I thought about him at home, wrapped in the calamity of guitar music and marijuana.
“Two pints. The dark—the porter,” I nodded toward the tap system. He nodded back, swiping two glasses from the top shelf.
Mel shuffled a bit on her seat, looking toward me with a small bit of earnestness. What was my plan? Her eyes wondered.
The woman on the phone finally said her very loud good byes, huffing a bit as she exerted her finger to the OFF button. She sighed, looking up at the bartender. “Those lunatics,” she said, shaking her head. She turned toward us, raising her left eyebrow. “I’m so sorry about that, ladies. Sometimes working out rent issues can be a bit of a bitch. Chicago rents, you know.” She laughed, showing all of her teeth.
Mel elbowed me in the side as the bartender set the drinks before us. I felt my heart beating fast in my chest; I had to act now. I took a slow, steady sip, feeling my eyelids dip languidly over my eyes. I cleared my throat, turning back toward the woman. “You know. I saw you had a place open upstairs.”
The woman laughed for a moment, not taking me seriously. I was, after all, no older than the bartender cleaning her barstools. “Yes. Well, you see. That’s mostly my problem. It’s a wide-open space, one that I can’t seem to do much with. I thought about making it an area for dancing, maybe karaoke on certain nights.” She waved her hand back and forth. “But we’re not really the scene for that, you know. It wouldn’t really work.”