Hooked (Hooked #1)(16)

“Spreadsheet?” Langston asked me.

I nodded vehemently. “Yes! Spreadsheet,” I sighed. “I am going to get those payments in on time. Don’t you worry about it.”

“Right,” Langston said. He started scratching at his graying, black hair. “Listen, Molly. I really like you. You know I like you. I like all my tenants, but you’re my favorite. You have so much talent. I’ve seen you dance—saw you dance at Butler, since my daughter was going there at the time.” He shook his head for a moment. “She got kicked out after that, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway. We’re in a bit of a pickle, my wife and I. We don’t have a ton of money coming in.”

“Like I said,” I piped in then. “I have some money coming in. It’s going to be totally fine. I’m going to send the checks to you immediately. You and your wife won’t have any problems anymore. I promise.”

Langston nodded. His eyes were red. I wondered if he was drunk; it wouldn’t have been the first time I had seen him drunk. Behind me, I heard the coffee pot begun to grunt. It was finished making the coffee. I poured us two cups and brought his steaming cup to him, offering it to his shaking hand. “Langston. Are you sick?” I asked him, looking concerned. I bobbed my head to the right, allowing my eyebrows to filter down over my eyes.

Langston shook his head. “In my heart, yes,” he said. He looked up at me, blinking wildly. “I had to sell the building.” He took a deep sip of his coffee, closing his eyes. “I had to sell it. Some big-wig buyer. I don’t know.” He shook his head, over and over. “You know how popular Wicker Park is getting these days. People—people want this real estate.”


I put my mug down, feeling panicked. My heart was beating rapidly, like a rabbit’s. I put my finger up. “Yeah. I mean. I want this real estate. That’s why I’m leasing from you,” I said, my voice almost choked. “You can’t do this to me. This is the only place I can—I can work. This is where the kids live. This is where the older moms live. This is the furthest people will go to take dance lessons—a purely underrated form of exercise and entertainment. And now you’re taking that away from them?”

Langston didn’t know what to do with his hands. He put them first on his hips, second against his brain. He held his coffee mug with his last three fingers on his right hand, and it bobbed up and down as he got upset. “You can get loans,” he whispered. “You can get loans to get a different place, somewhere around here. If you really have money coming in—“

But I stomped my foot. I didn’t actually have money coming in; it was just the easy lie I turned to whenever I needed it. I turned my eyebrows toward him, humming with anger and resentment and sadness. “What am I supposed to do?”

Langston shook his head. “You have to be out of this place in the next several weeks.” He shrugged. “They didn’t tell me a whole lot other than that. You just have to be out. Along with the people who live upstairs—the people who pay their rent on time.” He positioned his free finger on his nose, tapping it.

“Go to hell,” I told him, whispering it. I didn’t want to be made a mockery of, not now that this was happening to me. Not now.

Langston spun around, walking slowly back toward the door. I yelled at him. “Leave the mug!”

And he dropped it on the ground, forcing it to shatter everywhere. He didn’t look back at me as he exited, allowing the bell to jingle jingle jingle. Instead, he went on his merry way, unable to comprehend life beyond the paycheck he had received from whatever rich bastard was ultimately ruining my life.

“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.