by Joey Bush
“It is one of the best views in all of Chicago,” the host stated as he pulled the chair out for me. I sat, thanking him.
Drew sat on the other side of the small table by the window, and he ordered wine right away—an aged Italian red. The host said, “Right away sir,” with a little bow, and then he left us alone, a large flickering candle between us.
“You know. I’ve actually never been to this restaurant,” Drew began. “I remember when my mother and father used to go out for their anniversary, they used to go here.”
I swallowed, looking around me. What a beautiful place it truly was, and what joy it had held in this young man’s past life. “What a memory that must be.”
Drew nodded. “Yes, of course. I never was able to get a great sense for their love, you know. Just because back then, everything was very formal. And also, they were trying to just raise a son or whatever. They got married so young.”
“Which is why Mel is your aunt, for some reason,” I chimed in, smiling. “Yeah.”
The host came back with two wine glasses and poured a small amount into mine, allowing me to taste it and approve it first. I nodded subtly, remembering what I’d seen in the movies. And then he poured the rest of the wine for me. I drank the first drink too quickly, allowing it to coat my tongue. I grew embarrassed when I remembered that the wine was several years old; that it had taken much longer to make this wine than it took to make a baby.
I looked up, blinking at Drew. I tried to re-orient myself. This had been the one place where Drew’s parents had been able to be alone, to enjoy each other’s company. They were able to fall away from the chaos of family raising, of the city, of money problems in order to eat pasta and drink wine and love.
But it had only lasted so long.
The waiter came and spoke to us with great, elaborate strokes of his hand. He described the menu and what would pair best with the wine. He plopped a great plate of olive-oiled bread between us, and it took all my concentration not to inhale it immediately. I realized I was completely famished. I wondered if it was the deep fear that tonight would go wrong; I wondered if it was the deep fear that tonight would go completely right.
Drew ordered the chicken Parmesan, and I ordered the vegetarian lasagna. We ordered a few appetizers, as well. “I want it to be special,” Drew spoke shyly, smiling. His wide eyes met mine, and I felt oddly naked there in the restaurant.
I dipped a small piece of bread in the oil and ate it, closing my eyes.
“You know. It’s really sexy when you eat,” Drew whispered, leaning toward me.
I grinned, feeling my face grow warm. “I don’t know what you mean,” I said, trying to chew as politely as possible. As sexily as possible.
Drew grabbed a breadstick as well and started eating. “I don’t know. I just like doing normal things with you. Ordering pizza. Making fun of things. And all the other things, of course.” He winked at me.
I wasn’t sure what to say next. I placed my hands on the table and watched as the lights glittered off my nails. “I think I’m going to have another class tomorrow. The over-fifties are bringing a few of their friends in to try it out. I might have more clients. Which is really wonderful, given the fact that I need to start making rent money.” I smiled at him, trying to make a joke.
But suddenly, Drew’s businessman face took over. He frowned for a moment. “Are you really in over your head, Molly?” he asked me. I felt like I was being asked something horrific, like I had an STD or something.
I shook my head, frowning back to him. I started looking for our food. What was taking it so long? I cleared my throat. “I’m definitely all right. I can afford everything, I just need. You know. Not to have my place bought up before I can make something of myself.”
I knew I’d gone too far referencing this. Drew hadn’t known it was my dance studio, and I had a new dance studio—perhaps one I could make into a better one (over a period of many months, and several thousand dollars). “I mean. It’s fine,” I murmured, trying to make up for it. “I have everything I need, you know. I have a place. They come to me for me, not for—not for a nice-looking dance studio. And at least I’m in the neighborhood—“
Drew had placed his half-eaten breadstick on the plate before him. He chewed slowly, waiting. And then he spoke: “And the loan? How did you pay for it already?”
My jaw dropped, suddenly. My heart started beating hard in my chest. I felt like I was going to explode. “I’m sorry—” I whispered.
“The loan. How did you pay for it already?”
But I hadn’t told him about the loan being paid off. I hadn’t told anyone except Mel. I thought for a moment. If Drew hadn’t found out about my loan being paid through anyone else, that meant. That meant he paid for it. Himself. With his own charity money. My face started to burn as I thought about it. I thought about all the burritos he had Hector make every single week for the poor people of Chicago, and then I realized that I was one of those very poor people. He was helping me with my loan payments; he was giving me money for my dance studio.
I stood up abruptly, nearly toppling the table to the floor. This was supposed to have been a beautiful time together; this was supposed to be a beautiful date. But I felt so angry, so betrayed. “I have to go,” I whispered, not wanting to make any more of a scene than I already had. I scurried away from the table and out into the foyer. Instead of the entrance I’d take, I went out the other way, onto the beach. I began to walk tall, haughtily, through the sand. But my shoes couldn’t take it. It was slow-going.
I could hear him behind me, running. I could hear his heavy breathing, so familiar to his heavy breathing when we made love to each other. What a beautiful time that had been! But never again. It couldn’t be. Too much had happened.
“Molly! Wait!” he called to me. But I didn’t turn.
Finally he grabbed my shoulder, spinning me around. I blinked at him. His face looked so ruddy, upset. I pictured us on the beach: me in that tight, beautiful 80’s dress of my mother’s, he in his handsome, shining tux. “Don’t do this,” he cried to me.
But I couldn’t hear the desperation in his voice. I felt such anger, such resentment. “You paid my loan for me,” I finally said, my voice shaking.
He hung his head. “I’m sorry, Molly. I am. But I knew you needed it. Remember—remember your blackjack money? I used that. It wasn’t a big deal. That was your money, after all!”
I shook my head, blinking at him with such exasperation. “No. That was your money. It was your money that created it, and thusly that is your money.” I pointed at him, at his chest. At his heart. “You had absolutely no right to pay my loan back. I was going to work hard for that money. It was going to come from me.” I knew I was acting so prideful, but I didn’t care.
“Please. Let me explain—” Drew spouted. His eyes were nearly brimming with pain, with fear that he would never see me again.
“No. No, I won’t allow it. Just leave me the hell alone. I don’t need your charity.” I spun back around, removed my shoes and rushed through the cold, hard sand, all the way into the darkness. I ran until I was certain that Drew was out of sight. When I turned around, something like three hundred yards later, I peered into the darkness and discovered that I had done what I wanted in that moment: I had made him disappear.
CHAPTER SIX
I made it back home, finally, after a long night of walking toward the L in my heels and finding the right stop, even in my haze of anger and alcohol. I sat on the train feeling so silly in my beautiful dress. I felt something stick, collected from the seat, on my leg, and I allowed my head to fall back in exasperation. It seemed nothing was going right.
I collapsed into the chair at my kitchen table when I arrived home, throwing my heels into the corner and pouting toward my cat. He sauntered toward me, meowing. He leaped up on my lap and tapped his nose onto mine. “I know, I know, cat. I liked him, too.”
I removed the dress and walked naked through my apartment, feel
ing the dead weight of disappointment on my shoulders. I hadn’t fallen in love with anyone maybe ever, but this had been the closest time. I had felt like I could actually know him, maybe. I had felt like maybe I could change him, make him into a boyfriend—rather than a player. But I had been wrong, just as I’d been wrong so many, many times over the years.
I poured myself a glass of wine, feeling sad for myself. I sipped it, wondering what had happened after I’d left the nice restaurant. I wondered if Drew had allowed the food to rot on the table, if he’d run home as well. Back to his empty hotel. I wondered if he’d found another woman, a nobody to sleep with that night, even as I slept alone in my apartment.
As I sat there, feeling sorry for myself, I dove into many, countless other things—other things to feel sad about. I felt so many things at once, so certain I was that I was about to lose my home in Chicago. No matter what, there would be another bill. No matter what, there would be another asshole to walk all over me.
I had another glass of wine and felt my head spin around, over and over, as I listened to the beeping and traffic from the street. I dialed the number almost without thinking, and placed the phone against my temple.
Her voice on the other end of the line was strained, perhaps drunk, as well.
“Hello?”
I paused before I answered. I heard so many things in her hello. I heard panic; I heard sadness. I heard the image of the woman I would ultimately be unless I worked hard for a different life.
“Hello?” she tried again. She sounded like she’d been crying.
“Mom?” I whispered back. I hadn’t heard her voice in months.
“Molly,” my mother said. Her voice felt comfortable then. Like something I’d known my entire life. Like the way you know what pop tarts taste like before you taste them; like the way you know what your home smells like before you enter.
“How are you?” I tried. I wasn’t going to tell her I was going to fail in Chicago. I wasn’t ready to hear her disdain.
“I’m—I’m fine, darling. Just fine.” She sniffed, making me worried.
“Mom. What’s going on? You sound upset.”
“No, no. Honey. It’s just that me and Brett broke up, is all.” Brett had been her boyfriend of the previous two years. I had met him a few times, but I’d never liked him a great deal. A beer belly and a raucous laugh.
“When did this happen?”
“Two weeks ago. I know. It’s pathetic, me crying at home every night. I just feel like my life is over, you know? I mean. You probably can’t imagine. You’re up in Chicago, living the life of your dreams.” My mother sniffed. “You are okay, aren’t you honey? You don’t normally call this late.”
At the end of her sentence, I could almost hear her say the words: “You never even call at all.” But she didn’t. I could have used this against her as well. Neither of us dialed the phone. It was the way we worked. Too much had happened.
“You’re not pathetic, mom. I was just calling to say hi.” I felt all the strain, all the terror in my heart begin to dissipate as I spoke to her, listening to her voice. “Sometimes, I just have to hear my mother’s voice. Sometimes, that’s the only thing that I need.”
“Well,” my mother spoke. She was dumbfounded, I knew. “It’s good to hear your voice, as well.” Her cries had begun to dissipate. There was nothing for us to discuss. We just sat on the line, listening to each other breathe.
“I opened up a different dance studio,” I told her. Just to fill the air with words.
“Did you, honey? That’s wonderful. Is it still in your—“
“Wicker Park. Yeah. It’s right by my apartment.”
“Oh, darling. You don’t still live in that dreadful apartment.”
“I do, mom. But Boomer keeps me company.”
“You’re seeing someone?”
“Sort of. A few different guys,” I answered, lying. It was always the lies between us. I felt us falling away from the honesty that had been at the beginning of our conversation. I swallowed.
“That’s the way to live, isn’t it?” my mother answered. “When your father and I were dating, though. I just knew. Instantly.” She sniffed.
I thought about that; how she’d never told me that part of the story before. All she’d ever told me was that my father had forced her to stay, when she could have been anyone, she could have been anything. She, like me, was so beautiful; she wore her heart on her sleeve. But she got that sleeve caught on something in Indianapolis, Indiana. And now, she was going to die there.
“Do you ever think about what would have happened if you hadn’t met dad?” I asked. It was an outrageous question, one I never should have versed. I bit my lip while I waited.
My mother sighed. “I think about it all the time. But in an off-hand way. Like, would my skin be more wrinkled if I’d lived in Florida? What if I’d never had a baby? Would I have better sex?” My mother cackled. I’d never heard her speak in such a way. I closed my eyes and tried not to giggle. “But no. I couldn’t imagine my life without him, actually. He was the love of my life. And then we produced you. And you, Molly Atwood. You are the love of my life now.”
I swallowed, feeling the weight in my chest once more. I peered out into the night, wondering about all the lost souls out there, all of them living alone, without anyone to care for. “I love you too, mom.”
We hung up the phone not long after that. I suggested she have a few of her old friends over, but she said she wanted to get caught up with some Dr. Oz shows she hadn’t seen yet. I nodded into the phone, feeling assured. Feeling so happy, really. I felt, in those moments, that whatever I did, however I messed up, my mother would be by my side. There wasn’t anything to worry about, really. I had a support system, just down south.
I clambered into bed, feeling my consciousness falling away. I wrapped my arms around myself and daydreamed until I couldn’t think anymore. And then I fell asleep.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The next morning, I prepared myself for the young girls’ first dance class. It was going to be at four o‘clock in the afternoon. These younger girls were five and six years old, and they were dizzy, lost little girls who couldn’t quite plié yet. But we would get there. After all, I’d started when I was four. And my mother stated I’d looked more like a spinning turtle than anything else, until my legs grew in.
I went to the studio and looked around at it sadly, spinning in a circle, looking at the broken mirror I’d strapped to the large wall; eyeing the awards I’d brought over from the previous studio—my awards from high school and college. It all wasn’t so far away, but it seemed like a few lifetimes ago.
I orchestrated a beautiful technique for the girls to learn that evening. I did an initial plié and then I spun into a leap, landing softly on my toes. I felt the strain for a moment in my bum knee—the knee that I’d hurt after college. But then the twang went away and I smiled at myself in the mirror. It was going to be all right.
I got a call mid-routine and I rushed to my bag, which was splayed by the door. Mel was on the other line. I answered the phone, breathing heavily. “Mel? Hey. What’s up? Are you coming in for the little girls tonight?”
I hadn’t received word yet if Mel was heading in to help me teach the class. I was certain she would, of course. She had been eager to train the children, especially as she became a better and better mother. But then, her voice on the other line sounded strained. “I’m so sorry, Molly. I have been called away by something. I can meet you immediately after? I’ll need to go over something in the books with you, okay?”
“Okay, okay. The class lasts an hour. You’ll be here by then?” I tipped my hip to the right, watching as the sun began its descent over the city.
“Yeah. Again, I’m so sorry, Mol—“
“It’s okay, of course! I can handle the five year olds by myself. But hey. Listen. Your—your nephew or whatever. He was the one who paid for my fucking loan.” I sounded so huffy, so angry. I knew it wasn’t c
oming across correctly. I sighed.
“Molly, I’m so sorry. Can we talk about this later?”
“Of course.”
Already, I could hear the pitter-patter of little feet as they ascended from the pub to the dance studio. Their mothers strode up with them, forcing the stairs to creak beneath their weight. They all smiled at me in greeting. “It’s been a while, Molly,” they said. The little girls reached toward me and wrapped their sticky hands around my waist. “Miss Molly!”
“Not ideal that it’s above a pub, is it?” one mother murmured to the other in the corner. The other mother shook her head, frowning. I felt the weight of their comments on my chest. I wanted to scream at them that I was doing the best I could. But there wasn’t time for such things.
I turned back toward the girls and flipped on the music. “Who wants to stretch!”
And they leaped into the air like excited monkeys. We waved our hands first this way, then that. We touched our toes. After a few moments of warm up, we dove into the choreography I’d outlined for them. They jumped, chaotically, making the room shake. They were giggling loudly over the music. I stopped them every few moments to orient them into a better move, to make them do each movement with better form. Their arms were so slim, so tender as I worked to mold them into perfect ballerinas.
At the end of an hour I was exhausted. I led them out the door, allowing each one to hug me on her way out. I waved goodbye to the mothers. Each of them had been impressed with the way I’d handled the chaotic little girls, and they gave me smiles of approval. I only got paid once a month, of course, which meant that I would be receiving their checks at the end of the month. I would have to hold out.
I sighed, walking toward the office. I had stocked all of my financial reports there, and I looked at it beneath the lights, wondering how I was going to ever organize everything. The lights had begun to dissipate outside, and I knew I needed to walk home soon, before it got too cold. I looked at the calendar and realized, suddenly, that it was Halloween. I rushed to the window, where I could still see the little girls exiting the pub below. One of the mothers had begun placing silly costume hats on the girls; another one handed her daughter a small chocolate bar. I remembered how my own mother and I used to go trick-or-treating together, at least during the younger years. I’d been a princess or a ballerina during each one, and I hadn’t regretted it. Not once.
