Read Online Hooked by Catherine Greenman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Catherine Greenman
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was
my
period? I quickly calculated the dates in my head and realized I was a few days—maybe even a week—late. How could it be? I was a sophisticated, sexually active teenager on the pill. But then I remembered the Friday night a few weeks earlier, whenI’d told Mom I was staying at Vanessa’s and instead I’d stayed at Will’s. I hadn’t brought my stuff with me. I’d told myself not to worry and to just forget it and had done a good job of it, until then.
I obsessed over whether or not to test when I got to Dad’s apartment that afternoon. Mom was away at a spa in France, and I didn’t think I could handle all those days in a row with Dad if the results were positive, so I decided to wait, wishing the weekend were already over. Will was leaving with his family to spend Thanksgiving at his aunt’s in New Jersey, and Vanessa was going upstate somewhere. Dad and I were having Thanksgiving dinner at home. A trader who worked for him was coming with his wife.
I went into my bedroom, found my crochet hook and yarn and curled up on Dad’s stiff canvas couch, grateful for a tactile distraction. I’d kept the project by my bed at home and I picked it up sometimes when I was on the phone late at night with Will, but after a while it hurt to crochet and hold the phone in my neck, and the phone always won, which meant I never got very far. But I liked having it by my bed, marking time, waiting to be finished.
Dad’s apartment was silent except for the noise from my grandmother’s antique clock on his desk. I looked up at the slats of dark wood, the old warehouse ceiling that was Dad’s favorite thing about the apartment. Sitting there reminded me of all the nights I used to stay up late, reading his old photography books, waiting for him to come home so I could say goodnight and go to bed. He’d been in that apartment on West Twelfth Street a while, two years maybe, and it was so much better than the dump on Twenty-Third Street he went to right after he moved out. Nothing was more depressing than that.The elevator buttons were the really old kind that lit up when you touched them, but they were so dirty and disgusting I’d only touch them with my elbow, which was hard when I had a coat on. A never-ending hallway with grassy, dentist-office wallpaper led to his scuffed-up metal door. He’d open it on Friday nights, his living room a murky brown hole behind him, and hug me and my knapsack with some strange kind of desperation, like he was drowning.
He came home that night at around seven, his phone jammed to his ear. “A Maserati’s a fine car, as long as you drive it in a straight line.” He chuckled. “That’s right. Well, enjoy. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He took off his coat and smiled at me, slipping his shoes under the chair in the foyer. “How was school? Any homework?” He kissed me on the forehead and headed toward his bedroom. He did that all the time—asked a question and walked away or asked a question and looked down and read something. It drove Mom crazy. I try to look at it as some form of adult attention disorder. It could hurt your feelings if you let it.
“It’s Wednesday night,” I called after him.
He came out of his room, still in his suit pants and a brand-new white undershirt. His undershirts and socks and towels always looked brand-spanking-new. It was a complete mystery to me. He either bought new ones all the time or it was some secret of Rula’s, our longtime housekeeper who Mom and Dad shared after they split. It was his one fashion statement. “Why not get it over with, that way you’ll have the whole weekend free in front of you.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, unwinding some more yarn from the ball.
“What are you doing?”
“Crocheting,” I said.
“Crocheting what?” He went toward the cluster of plants in the corner, arranged as precisely as a landscaped garden, and stood over each with his brass watering can.
“A scarf, it’s just practice. I just
my
period? I quickly calculated the dates in my head and realized I was a few days—maybe even a week—late. How could it be? I was a sophisticated, sexually active teenager on the pill. But then I remembered the Friday night a few weeks earlier, whenI’d told Mom I was staying at Vanessa’s and instead I’d stayed at Will’s. I hadn’t brought my stuff with me. I’d told myself not to worry and to just forget it and had done a good job of it, until then.
I obsessed over whether or not to test when I got to Dad’s apartment that afternoon. Mom was away at a spa in France, and I didn’t think I could handle all those days in a row with Dad if the results were positive, so I decided to wait, wishing the weekend were already over. Will was leaving with his family to spend Thanksgiving at his aunt’s in New Jersey, and Vanessa was going upstate somewhere. Dad and I were having Thanksgiving dinner at home. A trader who worked for him was coming with his wife.
I went into my bedroom, found my crochet hook and yarn and curled up on Dad’s stiff canvas couch, grateful for a tactile distraction. I’d kept the project by my bed at home and I picked it up sometimes when I was on the phone late at night with Will, but after a while it hurt to crochet and hold the phone in my neck, and the phone always won, which meant I never got very far. But I liked having it by my bed, marking time, waiting to be finished.
Dad’s apartment was silent except for the noise from my grandmother’s antique clock on his desk. I looked up at the slats of dark wood, the old warehouse ceiling that was Dad’s favorite thing about the apartment. Sitting there reminded me of all the nights I used to stay up late, reading his old photography books, waiting for him to come home so I could say goodnight and go to bed. He’d been in that apartment on West Twelfth Street a while, two years maybe, and it was so much better than the dump on Twenty-Third Street he went to right after he moved out. Nothing was more depressing than that.The elevator buttons were the really old kind that lit up when you touched them, but they were so dirty and disgusting I’d only touch them with my elbow, which was hard when I had a coat on. A never-ending hallway with grassy, dentist-office wallpaper led to his scuffed-up metal door. He’d open it on Friday nights, his living room a murky brown hole behind him, and hug me and my knapsack with some strange kind of desperation, like he was drowning.
He came home that night at around seven, his phone jammed to his ear. “A Maserati’s a fine car, as long as you drive it in a straight line.” He chuckled. “That’s right. Well, enjoy. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” He took off his coat and smiled at me, slipping his shoes under the chair in the foyer. “How was school? Any homework?” He kissed me on the forehead and headed toward his bedroom. He did that all the time—asked a question and walked away or asked a question and looked down and read something. It drove Mom crazy. I try to look at it as some form of adult attention disorder. It could hurt your feelings if you let it.
“It’s Wednesday night,” I called after him.
He came out of his room, still in his suit pants and a brand-new white undershirt. His undershirts and socks and towels always looked brand-spanking-new. It was a complete mystery to me. He either bought new ones all the time or it was some secret of Rula’s, our longtime housekeeper who Mom and Dad shared after they split. It was his one fashion statement. “Why not get it over with, that way you’ll have the whole weekend free in front of you.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, unwinding some more yarn from the ball.
“What are you doing?”
“Crocheting,” I said.
“Crocheting what?” He went toward the cluster of plants in the corner, arranged as precisely as a landscaped garden, and stood over each with his brass watering can.
“A scarf, it’s just practice. I just
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