by Joey Bush
Life was bleak. The sun had never really escalated in the sky beside my apartment, and thus the day was grey, crowded with a sort of angry fear. Every person I saw on the train, every person I saw on the street seemed to frown eternally.
The days sort of filtered on like this, as well. I sent out a message to all of my students, from the over-fifties to the youngsters, to tell them what had happened; that I would ultimately need to close. Some of them hadn’t yet paid for their sessions. (I had never quite gotten around to nagging them hard enough, so grateful I was that they had even signed up for MY class over everyone else’s.) They wouldn’t be paying; I was out several hundred. But I didn’t care.
My diet of macaroni and cheese and wine at noon continued on into the week. Drew continued to text me, but I felt like I read all of his words in a clouded haze of depression. I had already begun to think about moving back to Indiana. What would my life be like? Would I have to admit to everyone that I had failed, that I had done nothing with my life? Would I have to admit that Molly—prima ballerina—was really just a dumpy woman who ate too much macaroni?
I called Melanie a few days later on Thursday. She seemed forlorn, nearly afraid of me on the phone. “Have you gone in to get your stuff?” I asked her. My eyes blinked heavily as I spoke. I wondered if I would ever feel normal again.
Melanie sighed. “So. There’s really no convincing you to fight this, is there?”
“I don’t really see the point,” I told her.
“Come on. Meet me out. You need a drink more than anyone I’ve ever known.”
I looked down at my nearly empty wine bottle and noted I had several others lined up on the counter. I was perfectly fine on my own. “I can’t, Mel. There’s too much to do here.” My voice was lined with sincerity. I hummed my apologies. She knew I was lying; of course she did. But there was nothing she could do.
“At least call that Drew fellow. At least go sleep with someone. I know it was doing you wonders before this all—happened,” Melanie said impatiently.
But I shook my head. “No, no. I just lied to him the entire time. He thinks I’m looking for PR work. I can’t imagine dating anyone right now with all this in my head. You know?”
Melanie couldn’t understand. Why would she, anyway? She was happily married, a baby eternally on her hip. I longed to be with her, to hold her baby, to laugh with her in her brightly-lit kitchen. But I couldn’t. All the happiness I had once had seemed far away from me, unreachable.
CHAPTER TWO
On Friday night, the Chicago air ripped up a few degrees in temperature—enough to allow me to take my drinking outside. At around five in the afternoon, I dragged myself out to my balcony, looking up at the still sunlit day. I sighed, feeling the sun as it rippled across my face. I had showered that day, feeling a sense of hope as I did so, as I smeared away the grease and the grime. I took a long sip from my wine and allowed my head to lean back between the posts.
My phone began to buzz on my lap. I picked it up languidly and looked at the number. I saw it was Drew once more. I wasn’t surprised, of course. He had been ringing me almost every day since I hadn’t responded to him nearly four days ago. I wasn’t sure why such an attractive, confident man like that had continued to pursue me. At this rate, it all seemed a little cartoony—like he wasn’t actually real, just an enigma I had created in my head to get me through the “tough times.”
The phone began to ring again. I looked at it, noting how strange the buzz felt against my leg—almost like the buzz created in my head from the wine. Suddenly, I heard a squeal, a squeak. Somebody from the nearby balcony around the corner was coming outside. I hadn’t had any human interaction in days, and I heard the tremors of their male voices. I relished them, even though I knew they would create their ravenous dick-measuring conversation about fucking women. Whatever.
But then the voice began. It was the same voice as before; the same voice that had mentioned he had fucked several different women in the past few weeks. But the voice seemed frustrated, this time. Constrained. “God!” the voice called into the wind.
His buddy was right there. “Hey. Calm down, man. You seem stressed. Have a beer.”
I heard him pop the top from his bottle. “I can’t believe she hasn’t been answering my calls, my messages. Nothing.”
“Man. Bitches are crazy. You know that.”
“She just seemed different, you know. Well. The sex was incredible, certainly.” He laughed off the seriousness of the initial sentence. His friend joined in, as well.
I could tell his voice was strained, that he seriously missed this girl. That he wanted her beyond the physical sense. But I knew his friend couldn’t comprehend this. I brought my ear further toward them, trying to catch their words in the rush of the evening wind. (The Windy City, I thought, grinning.)
“You know where she lives?” the other guy asked. “Why not do a romantic gesture? Head to her apartment and surprise her, something like that?”
“She lives somewhere around here,” the man said. He sipped his beer. I could hear his lips come away from the top with a squelch. “But there are things she doesn’t know about me, yet.”
“You are a secretive guy, man. It usually works for you, yeah. But if you really like this girl, you need to come clean about it all.”
“I’ve just never had to before,” the man continued. “I’ve always been here or there. New York or California. Never caught here in the middle of the country, in my hometown, thinking about a girl in a—whatever. A serious way.”
My heart was beating fast in my chest. I had begun to link this voice with someone else; someone quite close to me. Was this man—who was complaining about a girl not answering his phone calls—Drew?
I clutched my wine glass tightly between my fingers and sipped at it ravenously. What the hell was going on? Certainly, this couldn’t be Drew. I tried to laugh it off, almost. Certainly it couldn’t be Drew because Drew was many miles away, at that beautiful Four Seasons Hotel. Certainly, he had already taken up with another poor Wicker Park slut, like myself. Certainly they were banging against the window; she was telling him her all-too-real story about how she actually WAS a PR major, instead of just pretending to be one, like me.
But what if—?
“Why don’t you just call her? Right now. And leave her a message,” the other man said. He was clearly bogged down with the conversation, bored with it. “You being who you are. You can have whatever you want. And you know that.”
My heart quickened. This was it. This was the moment I could discover, truly, if I was as crazy as I thought.
“All right; all right. I’ll call her one more time. But I’ll look desperate.”
“That’s the chance you’ll have to take.”
The man laughed as he dialed. I looked down at my leg, where my phone was positioned easily on my legging. My legs were still tight; still like dancer legs. I wondered what they would look like as I aged, as I turned away from my dreams. I wondered if you always ended up looking the same as you were meant to, regardless of the choices or the careers you had in your life.
The phone started buzzing. I looked at it, dumbfounded. Could it be a coincidence? The name blared across in bright, white letters; DREW.
My heart was racing. I allowed the phone to ring and ring, to buzz against my leg. The man on the balcony kicked his foot against the balcony railing. I could hear it; bang, bang, bang in the coming nighttime.
Finally, the phone stopped ringing. “See?” he sputtered. He was angry at being put up to it, I could tell.
My mind was racing. Why did he live here, in my building, if he also had a hotel room at the Four Seasons? Why was he here, in a wonky apartment in Wicker Park, when he could be eating room service lobster while living the life of eternal luxury? He was rich, wasn’t he? Why had he lied about where he lived?
Suddenly erupting with eternal drama, I decided to head to the hallway and knock on the door. The door was just down the hall, I k
new. It seemed strange that I hadn’t run into any of the people who lived there. For a long time, I had thought that apartment had been empty. I tidied my hair as I crept toward the door, hoping I didn’t look too much like I had been drinking wine, eating macaroni, and feeling depressed about my life for the past week. I wanted to look sexy, sultry; even if this man wasn’t for some reason, Drew.
I put my hand against the wood and I knocked three times, decisively. I stepped back, waiting.
I heard loud footfalls behind the door. I heard the CLUNK as the deadbolt opened, as the person swooped the door open to reveal a rather grey, ordinary apartment. I looked up at the man—this man that was so very much NOT Drew, and I felt my heart float down to my stomach. He had curly, black hair, and his face was a bit round, a bit burly. He looked mean.
“I’m so sorry—“ I sputtered. I wanted to rush back into my apartment. Why had I thought Drew had been outside? Had I imagined the entire thing? Perhaps I was drunker than I thought.
The man looked at me, confused. Suddenly, I heard the voice—the voice I had heard outside—call from the back room. “Is it the pizza?” the voice asked.
The man at the door shook his head, his eyes still centered on mine. Why hadn’t he said hello yet? My mind was rushing to come up with an excuse, anything. But I felt frozen in place, in time.
“Naw. Some girl,” the man said. “Can I help you with something?”
I sputtered once more. “No—No. I just thought. I thought this was someplace else—“
I saw a shadow pass over the room behind the man positioned before me. The man with the curly black hair seemed to take up the entire doorway, leaving me no room to see beyond.
But I heard the voice again. “Marty. Who’s at the door?” The voice was so familiar, so dear. In my head, I pictured him; Drew, there at the baseball game, his mouth over mine. My body seemed to melt.
Marty, the man with black hair, wheeled around, revealing him to me; Drew. Drew Thompson.
He looked so casual, standing there in the subtle darkness of the living room. He was wearing a baseball jersey, Cubs of course, and he held a beer in his left hand. He looked at me sheepishly, as if he had never been surprised in his life. “Molly?” he asked. He held his phone in the air. “I was just—I was just calling you. How did you find me?”
I put my hands on my hips, nearly gasping for air. What was happening? “I live down the hall. I heard you guys talking on the balcony.”
Marty and Drew made eye contact with each other. I watched as Drew brought his hand up to his neck and massaged it. He was nervous. “I’m sorry. I guess I thought—I thought your building was a few down the street. All these apartment buildings look so similar. I didn’t even know which one you lived in since I just dropped you off before.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Crazy world, yeah?”
But I felt the wine bubbling in my stomach. I felt sassy, nearly angry. Why had this man conned me by taking me to a Four Seasons and pretending that was his home? Why had he told me he so rarely slept with other women, and yet I had heard him tell his friend here—this Marty—that he had slept with some tattooed woman only weeks before?
“Crazy world indeed.” I narrowed my eyebrows over my eyes. “Listen, Drew. I heard what you said about everything. I’ve been listening to you for days, thinking you were just some dumb guy.”
“You’ve been eavesdropping on me?” Drew’s eyes lit up. “Wow. That’s incredible! And you only just figured out it was me?” He laughed at me. I wasn’t sure if I should be more offended or not.
But I continued. “You know, Drew. I thought you were a really good guy when I first met you.”
“That’s a first,” Marty interjected.
I cleared my throat. “But then I hear you talking about sleeping with some other girl mere weeks ago—even when you told me that I was your first in so long! I thought we had something special in that hotel—” I swallowed, noting only that Drew was trying not to grin. I knew I was having a sort of breakdown, there in the doorway. “And now I find out that you don’t live in the Four Seasons at all! You live in my dank apartment building!” I stomped my foot.
Marty, next to him, had begun to laugh even harder.
“Molly.” Drew crept closer to me, his eyes centered on mine. In spite of myself, I felt a stirring, a sexual need for him. I wanted to grab him and take him back to my apartment immediately. But I held my ground. “You know I’ve been calling you every single day, multiple times, since I last saw you—since I last woke up without you?”
I didn’t give him a nod; I didn’t give him a smile.
“I can’t get you out of my head. That’s why I have to unwind by talking to this guy, my best friend from childhood, Marty—“
Marty held up his hand in greeting.
“About our sex life. It’s the only way I have to unwind. Seriously.” Drew nervously laughed, showing his wolf-like teeth. “I think about you constantly. And now that I know where you live, I’m going to come and knock on your door every single night if you don’t go on another date with me.” He stood proud, haughty in the doorway now. I felt small and meek.
I held my ground, my mind racing. It was true that I had been bogged down with my own strained thoughts about the dance studio the past several days, that I had hardly given this man before me a single thought. He was allowed to live wherever he wanted; he was allowed to do whatever he wanted. But the fact remained; I didn’t want to get bogged down by an obvious player.
My left eyebrow arched high in the air. “Every night you’ll come to my door?” I asked him. My mind raced.
He nodded, leaning his nose so close to mine, I thought he was going to kiss me. “Every night.”
“And if I go on one single date with you, you won’t bother me anymore?” I asked him. I knew that I would be leaving soon, anyway; I knew my days in Wicker Park were numbered. I could get through these final days with a sense of passion, with a sense of wonder, and then scurry back to Indiana for a certain dull future. I could carry these memories with me, even if they were alongside a very real player.
“That’s right,” Drew answered. His breath was hot on my neck. “Tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Saturday. 3 p.m.” He considered for a moment, looking at my body up and down, up and down. I felt exposed. “Wear tight clothes. Black. You can manage that, can’t you?”
I took a step back toward my apartment door. “All right. All right. One single date,” I said. I held my finger high in the air. “And that’s all you get.” What did he mean, tight clothes? He was looking at me ravenously, as if he were about to strike.
“That’s all I need,” Drew said confidently, his head leaning out the door of his apartment—just down the hall. I shuddered. “That’s all I need.”
I couldn’t sleep that night. Bundled up in my blankets in the chill of the late September evening, I thought only of my dance business—of all I had lost. And now, in these last few weeks before I was forced to leave Chicago, I was going to date this player—Drew—this man who had made me feel more womanly, more sexual than I had felt in my entire life.
My body burned with the memory of his body over mine, fucking on that fabulous bed in the Four Seasons. Had it all been a lie? Had he cared for me at all?
And now, I was going on another date with him. I was going to see him again, become another notch on his belt. For some reason, I wasn’t sure that I cared. Maybe he could be a notch on my belt—just another memory from this raucous, beautiful time when I lived in Chicago and really pursued my dreams. (Before I had to assuredly rush back home, no money to my name, begging my mother for forgiveness.) I sighed into my pillow.
CHAPTER THREE
The next morning, I rolled out of bed early—ever ready to head back to the dance studio and teach little girls to twirl, teach old women to love their bodies again. But then, as I ever did, I remembered the situation once more. I knew I had to go back to the studio and clear out my stuff. And so, a
round eleven in the morning, that’s what I did. I looked down the hallway of my apartment building, a bit worried that I would see Drew. But he was nowhere to be found. I was certain he was at whichever building he had so recently bought; I was certain he was planning his beautiful, new Femme Fatale bookstore. I imagined him hovering over a big sheet of building plans, pointing at this and that. Looking effortlessly masculine, strong. I shuddered.
I walked to my old work, pausing to look at all the old sights, noting the way every person looked as I passed. I felt like I was in a dream.
Finally, I arrived at the studio. My key fit into the lock perfectly, and I ducked in from the now-bitter wind. Shaking my body off, I noted the way the shadows held themselves so long across the wooden floor; I noted how different everything looked in the wake of non-usage. It seemed so bizarre. A layer of dust had begun its descent over one of the mirrors. I wiped it away with my fingers, trying to remember a time when I had felt so desolate, so sad.
I gathered my things in a small cardboard box. My photographs, my many papers. I threw all the bank statements away, knowing they didn’t matter anymore. I hadn’t been able to pay for this beautiful space, and now I was paying for it in emotion, in sadness. Melanie had already come and taken her things away. I tried to imagine her there, Jackson bobbing in his little travel crib. Her life was so different than mine; she could move on to other things, when I had nothing.
I locked up the building about forty-five minutes later, after saying a short, sweet goodbye to the empty space. “All the good I could have done here,” I murmured, my head shaking back and forth. “Gone.”
I stopped to grab something to eat at the corner deli, where I had initially met Drew. The acned boy recognized me, but we said nothing to each other. I wanted to duck in and duck out without consequence. I grabbed a roast beef sandwich, heaping with far too much mayonnaise, and nibbled on it on my long walk home. The spiced meat was so savory in my mouth, and I rolled my head back, finally eating something that gave me power, that gave me life, beyond the realms of macaroni and cheese and wine.
