I shook my head. “I have so many student loans that I still haven’t paid back. I’m backed up, so they say, in pretty much every capacity. And.” I paused, swallowing deeply. “And I don’t feel comfortable asking for money. Not from Drew. Not from anyone.”
“Then we’ll go under,” Mel whispered.
I nodded into my hands.
Suddenly, the bell started jangling. A few of the girls had begun to filter in from the cold street, waving good-bye to their mothers and fathers who had walked them there on the Monday morning. Frightened I would be deemed as “off my rocker,” I bounced up from my seat and called to the girls. “Don’t step on any of the shards, ladies! I had a little accident. Not to worry, not to worry.” I began to brush all the precise, simple shards into the dustbin.
“Miss Atwood, are you crying?” one of the girls asked me.
I looked up at the angelic face, at the slim body of the tiny, blonde ballerina who often reminded me so much of myself. I swept another shard into the dust pan, remembering the golden days of ballet; when all I had wanted to do was wear my leotard every day, to stretch, to feel my body’s great strength.
I hadn’t realized that the body’s strength doesn’t communicate in the real world. You have to have inner strength; strength of mind and strength of heart in order to truly get along in this world. I shook my head at the young girl. “No, Laurie. Of course not. I mean. You know how I get about old mugs.” I sniffed, explaining the tears to her. “Why don’t we all start in First Position!” I called out to the girls who were prepared, already laced up. Ready. They lined up on the bar in first position, dutifully looking at me for their next instructions. They were like my warriors, my army. I longed to hold each one of them in my arms. They were my girls!
I took the full dust pan to the large trashcan in the back and dumped the shards into the wastebasket. Mel came up behind me and whispered something in my ear. “It’s going to be okay. Do you need me to run class today?”
A sense of coolness had overtaken my heart. I shook my head quickly, thinking of all the strength, all the power I had felt the evening before, naked on that Four Seasons’ bed. I thought of all the joy I had felt. And yet here I was, in the dumps, in the grey area of my life once more.
I clapped my hands three times as I spun around to acknowledge the girls. “All right, ladies. Let’s start in plié.”
And so we did.
CHAPTER NINE
The class got my mind off my problems, which was wonderful. I was able to laugh with a few of the girls, to bring myself into a sort of emotionless happiness in which I was continually smiling and joking. I had often wondered if all of the great comedians were like that, as well; always in a state of unhappiness but able to make people laugh on a dime. I smiled at the girls as they gathered up their things.
“Don’t get any F’s at school, all of you,” I warned them like a crazy aunt. “And don’t you dare go running off with any boys.” I mostly said this to the youngest girl, Bernice, who was an eight-year-old Chinese girl already reaching the height of her ballet career. I would have to ultimately send her to a better ballet soon. Her talents were useless in my place, where I could only get people to a certain point.
Mel had already wrapped herself up in her coat when all of the girls had left. I began humming as I put things away. I found all of my spreadsheets there, on the desk, and started running them through the shredder, taking deep pleasure as every 9, every 5, every personable number was ripped in half.
“Do you think that’s necessary?” Mel asked me, rubbing her hands together. “I mean. What if we need those later.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “In a few weeks, I won’t be a ballerina teacher anymore. Who even knows where I’ll be, you know? But I certainly won’t be here, with these documents, for the rest of my life. And I’d just assume get rid of these documents immediately, to quell my aching mind. Do you have a problem with that?”
Melissa stepped back, her eyes wide at me. She had never seen me speak so forcefully. “I see,” she said. “Listen, Molly. I know you don’t have a lot of people to talk to in the city.”
Was it that obvious? Did I reek of loser?
“But I want you to know that you can come to me for advice on anything, at any time. Even if that piece of advice is—well—you know. Rooted in your sexual encounters with this rich guy.” She winked at me, then, trying to remind me that there was something to live for, after all. The words seemed hollow in my ears.
Mel left not long after that, noting that she had to pick her son up from the babysitter. I thanked her for being there today, reminding her that the following day’s schedule was a bit different. She nodded; she had never forgotten anything about Molly Says Dance, anyway. I didn’t know why I doubted her.
When I finished shredding the last of the pieces of paper, I tossed them in the recycling, pushed my arms through my coat, and rushed out into the windy city. I locked the building behind me, although I didn’t know why. It wasn’t mine anymore. I had nothing to protect. It was like my heart; I was locking it, but it was ultimately going to be raped by someone or something.
The red brick of the building that rose into the sky was so ancient, so beautiful. I rubbed my fingers against the harsh material and then began the short walk back to my apartment. The air felt shriller than it had the previous evening, when I had been out with Drew. The autumn was folding into the September month, although I didn’t want it to. I wanted to retain the sweetness of the summer. I sighed, thinking about Drew once more, how perfect our bodies had been together!
I arrived at my apartment when the city began to erupt into its evening lights. The moon had disappeared behind a cloud, and there was something ancient, something mystical about the evening. I felt no brightness, only a sense of evil lurking beneath every shadow.
I shuffled up the four floors to my apartment, feeling my heart beating heavy in my chest. I pulled out my keys and had to stare at them for several moments before realizing—ah ha—which one was actually my house key. I felt strange, soft, as if I was drunk.
I hustled into my apartment, hearing the burdened meows from the corner. Shit. I had forgotten to come home earlier in the day to feed Boomer. I hadn’t been home in over twenty-four hours, and I was certain he was so hungry. I hurried toward him, picking him up in my arms. He looked at me with bright, yellow eyes. Was he angry? I felt his fur, the soft kind around his face, and kissed the top of his head. He smelled comforting, like home. He meowed in my ear, then, and I rushed to the kitchen to fill his bowl. He ate heartily, bringing each of the kibble bits into his mouth and chomping away with tiny, rodent-like teeth.
I searched my refrigerator for something to eat for myself, but I came up empty. I realized I had been neglecting much of my life in the wake of this Drew realization. In the back of the freezer, I found whiskey, and I poured it languidly into my short glass. I felt like my grandfather once more—drinking whiskey like an old man of the west.
My balcony was positioned directly off from my living room. I pushed the door open, feeling the absurd wind wash over me initially before filtering away—as if it were a warning. I looked back toward my cat who continued to eat ravenously, grabbed a blanket from the couch, and curled up on the floor of the balcony—on the stone, leaning heavy against the railings. I reached into my coat pocket, where I kept a half a pack of cigarettes, always. I opened it, noting that the pack still had the same hearty number it had had the previous month; 10 cigarettes. I hadn’t smoked in over thirty days. But I needed one, in that moment. I lit the end of it, sticking it in the side of my mouth and inhaling. I felt the fire in my throat, down in my lungs. But I liked the pain. It forced my brain away from the issue at hand.
I was fucked.
It was true. I inhaled the smoke and exhaled it in intricate smoke rings—something I had learned as a ballerina at Butler, when eating was no option but smoking was the ultimate lunch break. I curled back against the railings, further and further, hearing the spatter
ing of horns, of traffic beneath me. God, I loved this neighborhood. God, I loved cigarettes. I peered up above me at the stars. I could hardly see them, given the intensity of the lights below. But there they were, like small bits of salt in a greater sea of pepper. Orion. That bright, North star. I pumped a few more smoke rings into the world, remembering how I hadn’t eaten a single morsel of solid food for an entire winter, only turning toward cigarettes and protein shakes for life-fulfillment.
“Maybe if I just had never started eating again, I could have become a real ballerina,” I muttered to myself, tapping my feet against the stone. But it couldn’t be that way. It was too late. I was going to be twenty-five in the next year. It was over.
And now, I was losing my Molly Says Dance studio. I was losing my last chance. I would have no money to pay for this apartment, for anything. Perhaps I would have to divert to no-eating. But I would look ragged, enraged, and homeless in that stunning portrayal of my future.
I felt like crying. I was the exact opposite of the woman I had been the previous evening, when Drew had me up against the window, all of the city beneath my naked frame.
I was muttering to myself when I heard further murmurings, a bit of raucous laughter on the other side of my balcony, around the corner. Someone else was outside. I twitched to the right to try to hear them more clearly. I certainly saw their cigarette smoke as it emanated over the balcony and into the city.
I had never really seen any of my neighbors before, and I couldn’t align the voice I heard with any given face. I remembered the Indian man who lived a floor down (who always cooked such delicious-smelling food). I remembered the college students down the hall who had several raucous parties. But this voice. This was a man’s voice. I listened more closely.
“Yeah. I mean. You should have seen these breasts. Just. Bang, bang, bang—in my face. I fucked her lights out.” The voice was saying.
I rolled my eyes. Another group of males discussing the women they had banged recently. Great. I had come across the liveliest of all conversations; the dick measuring kind.
But I continued to listen.
Another guy chimed in. “Is that that bitch you screwed a few weeks ago? The one with the tattoo?”
“That girl was weeks ago,” the first voice said, washing the other comment away, as if resentful that the other man would even consider it.
I raised my eyebrows in great judgment. This man seemed to really enjoy screwing a lot of women. In my heart, I felt terrible for all of them—all the women he wooed, all the women he convinced to go to bed with him. I felt that there had to be a sort of sincerity in bed. Otherwise, what the hell did it even mean?
“All right, all right,” the second guy said. “How do you get so much pussy, anyway? You drug them?’’
The first voice started laughing. The laugh wasn’t riddled with any compassion, with any humor. Instead, it seemed rooted in anger. “Yeah. A lesser man would think it was drugs,” the first man said sarcastically. Suddenly, I heard tapping feet and the screen door slam. The pair of men had obviously gone back inside. I felt alone, then, even as I knew that the two men hadn’t been privy to my presence.
I looked down at my palms, shaking a bit as I neared the end of my cigarette. The nicotine was coursing through my veins quickly, changing me. My brain was rushing from topic to topic. I was thinking, all at once, about the grand fucking I had done the evening before—how it had immediately cleared up everything that had been wrong inside me for many, many years.
And then; just hours after I left the naked arms of that most beautiful man, my world had come crashing around me. I thought again about what Mel had said to me—that I could ask Drew for the money. But the thought of it actually killed me. I knew I couldn’t; I knew I wouldn’t.
I was too proud.
Suddenly, my phone started buzzing in my coat pocket. I stabbed the cigarette down on the ground and reached into my pocket to retrieve the phone. It was a text message. I grinned as the name DREW popped up in the bright light. For a moment, I could see nothing but the sheer fire of my own passion for him, for his body. For our bodies coming together.
I read the text, then;
“Hey. You rushed out on me this morning. I want to see you again. Up for a quick drink this evening?”
But I shut the light from my phone, my heart beating too fast in my throat. I knew—if I saw him—I would immediately ask him about the money, tell him all of my problems. He was the only person I knew in the goddamned city (except for Mel and my cat, of course), and therefore I was vulnerable to him. I would tell him anything he wanted to hear—probably more than he wanted to hear. And as such, I would ruin anything that we might have ultimately built.
Plus, I knew; if he found out how truly poor I was—after I had spouted all that about being a PR major with an assistant—he would immediately run away. Rich guys were made, truly, for rich girls. To treat them. To trade money with them, really. I thought of the constant exchange; this jewelry for this tie. This fucking for these shoes. I shivered, thinking about the world that I would never be a part of.
I turned my phone off, certain that I couldn’t go out with Drew. That I could never see him again. I wouldn’t be a part of Wicker Park much longer; therefore, when his bookstore went up, I wouldn’t see it every day. I wouldn’t know that he was successful, or that he crashed and burned. I wouldn’t know anything about him.
I tried to imagine what I should do, how I could work myself out of the situation. But all I could do, really, was light another cigarette and pulse small smoke rings into the air. All I could do was watch as my cat sauntered from this way to that on the inside of my apartment, on the other side of the glass.
All I could do was live in the dismal notion of the moment, hoping that nothing else got worse.
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2014 Claire Adams
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