Hooked 3 (Hooked #3)(7)

“Can I help you?” one of the tellers asked. She was a young, rather chubby woman wearing a blue dress.

“I’d like to ask for a loan,” I murmured, sending the financial information her way across the counter.

She paused, peering down at the intricate spreadsheets. “All right,” she said hesitantly. “Everything seems in order. We’ll send you to the loan offices down the hall.” She stamped a particular piece of paper and asked me to sign it with all of my information. I nodded at her and accepted the crisp sheet, turning toward the back room and following my shaking feet.


At the loan offices I sat with my leg crossed over the other, nodding and shaking my head at questions the loan officer asked me. I felt so earnestly nervous, so certain that the loan wouldn’t go through. I tried to explain my predicament to him. “So. I found this wonderful new dance studio. I just need a bit more money to get the ball rolling. But after that, I know exactly how much to charge, how many people I need to have in order to break even, and also to make a profit. Which would be really incredible.” I nodded, tapping at the paper before me.

But this was uninteresting to the loan officer before me. He simply explained the intricacies of what would happen if I didn’t pay for the bills, if I didn’t ultimately pay back the loan. He explained how the interest racked up over the months, making it even more difficult to pay it back. My heart felt desolate in my chest as I listened to his words strumming across my brain. Why was it so difficult to do everything? Why was it so difficult to be a real person?

But I grinned. I gripped hard to my hope that everything would be okay. I signed papers that day for a loan—one that allowed me to make a down payment on the new studio. I looked down at the paper—at this beacon of hope, at this representation of my dreams—and nearly felt tears fall down my face. I looked at the loan officer as if there had been some sort of mistake. “Are you sure? Are you sure you want to approve me?”

But the loan officer simply yelled out to his secretary, a rather pudgy woman whose legs forced her body to waddle as she churned from his office to her chair, over and over again throughout the day. “NEXT.”

I scurried from the office, eager to tell someone—anyone—about the loan. I called Mel. On the other line, she seemed distracted but eager to listen. She was holding Jackson, and I could hear the way his lips bumbled together as he spoke nonsensical, one-year-old words. “That’s so great, Molly! I always knew you could do it!” I pictured her with spit-up on her shoulder, and I grinned—knowing always that this was what she wanted. This was the life she had chosen.

I hopped along to my apartment, feeling like everything was coming together. As I walked down the hall, I yearned for Drew to come bursting out of his apartment, to say sorry once more. But I knew I needed to wait to see him until Saturday. I realized that I missed simply having someone to talk to—someone around. My tireless existence in my sad-sack apartment was getting rather lonely.



CHAPTER SIX

The next few days went rather smoothly. I made the appropriate calls to the woman, Carol, who owned the studio above The Goat Pub. I couldn’t wait to get into the studio and get my hands dirty, make it what it needed to be. It was October, and with the loan money I had received I assumed I wouldn’t have to rush into anything. I could wait until the end of the holiday season to begin having dance classes again, if I wanted to. Start at a good time, a good place. A new year. I hummed as I worked over the spreadsheets, thinking about all the new routines I could show the girls. Maybe I could even introduce a hip hop class? A tap class? Burst beyond the realms of ballet, of old-fashioned Tchaikovsky?

The morning of the benefit, I woke early and went running by the lake. I had felt my muscles begin to tone up during the previous few weeks. I assumed it was my serious distraction. I hadn’t been eating as much; I’d been so focused on my future, on making my life work. I looked at myself naked in the mirror, admiring the feminine way my body arched, my waist cinched. I admired my still-large breasts as they sat, pearly-white, atop my chest.

I parsed through my outfits, attempting to find the perfect dress for the evening. I felt the fabrics; I tried on several in front of the mirror, noting the way my slim shoulders arced in all the right ways as I turned this way, then that. I was going to look good out on that dance floor that evening, I knew. I was going to look fabulous.

Finally, I decided upon a dark maroon dress—one I hadn’t worn in years, one I had hardly ever worn. The neckline lurched down over my breasts, and the back was lace, allowing my taut back muscles to be seen. I stepped into high heels, attempting to practice dancing in them a bit over my sad wooden floor. Boomer looked at me with vague curiosity. What the hell was I doing?

I prepared my make-up perfectly, smearing rouge over my face, and giving myself a bit of lipstick—just enough to make me look sophisticated, fit for a benefit. I imagined the types of people who attended benefits; old women and men with millions, their sons and daughters with millions in equal measure. I had to look like them, to seem like them. I would never be like them, of course; I had too much passion, too much love for art, for dance, to ever sell my soul to any sort of money god.


Five minutes before he was meant to, Drew knocked on my door. I was staring at myself in the mirror, and I watched as my face took on a sort of stressed expression. I sighed deeply, attempting to release my anxiety. It was going to be fine, I told myself. Drew and I were simply going as friends, and certainly he would respect that. He had to. I wouldn’t let him accept anything else.