The Melting Season

by Jami Attenberg

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  Chapter 1.

  Chapter 2.

  Chapter 3.

  Chapter 4.

  Chapter 5.

  Chapter 6.

  Chapter 7.

  Chapter 8.

  Part Two

  Chapter 9.

  Chapter 10.

  Chapter 11.

  Chapter 12.

  Chapter 13.

  Chapter 14.

  Chapter 15.

  Chapter 16.

  Chapter 17.

  Chapter 18.

  Chapter 19.

  Part Three

  Chapter 20.

  Chapter 21.

  Chapter 22.

  Chapter 23.

  Chapter 24.

  Chapter 25.

  Epilogue

  ALSO BY JAMI ATTENBERG

  Instant Love

  The Kept Man

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014,

  USA • Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,

  Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England • Penguin Ireland,

  25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books

  Ltd) • Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell,

  Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

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  New Delhi-110 017, India • Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale,

  North Shore 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue,

  Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices:

  80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Copyright © 2010 by Jami Attenberg

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned,

  or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do

  not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation

  of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Published simultaneously in Canada

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Attenberg, Jami.

  The melting season / Jami Attenberg.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-18463-9

  1. Young women—Fiction. 2. Separated women—Fiction.

  3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Sisters—Fiction. 5. Self-actualization

  (Psychology)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3601.T784M

  813’.6—dc22

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  for my friends

  Part One

  1.

  I did not mean to take the money. Well, not all of it.

  At first it was only a tiny amount, a little cream off the top. I was just trying to store away for the winter. Winters were long in Nebraska. We lived on chicken broth and whiskey and tired-looking vegetables from the grocery store. The wind leveled the cornfields, and the snow skimmed the land like a current across a giant lake. Roads were blocked for weeks. Icicles like enormous daggers gathered on roof-tops. We wrapped ourselves in scarves and hats so thick all you could see when you passed your neighbor on the street was another set of eyes peeping back at you. If we left the house at all. Some people slept all day long.

  There was a comfort to it, but it made me nervous, too. I needed something to warm myself with. A little bit of money would help.

  Every week I took a little bit more and I stacked up the bills in the oven of the apartment I was renting. It was not enough that my husband would be missing it, just enough to keep me happy. Or at least not so miserable.

  But then my husband kept on betraying me, and suddenly the little stacks of money were not enough anymore. This feeling rolled all over me on the outside and then it dug itself deep inside me. It was a desperate thing, and I hacked on it, coughing like it was a bitter virus attacking my air. It went on like that for months, my lungs full of a crazy kind of dusty illness. I was on the edge of something dire. All it took was a little push. That was when I realized what needed to happen.

  I can take it all and no one can stop me.

  And there was nothing left to do afterward but get the hell out of town.

  I HAD BEEN DRIVING all day on 80, making my way straight through to Cheyenne, when my phone rang for the first time since I had left town. All around me the air was littered with snowflakes, chunky ones that stuck to the earth and piled up high in every direction. The driving was rough. I took the roads careful and slow. I was the only one out there for hours, further proof that I was out of my mind. I thought about nothing but staying straight and not driving off the road. My truck had snow tires, but still I was terrified. I skidded every few minutes. Whenever that happened I cursed my husband. I would growl his name: Thomas Madison. And then I would skid some more. I could crash at any moment. Sometimes I would fiddle with the radio. There was static, and then country music, and then static again. Jesus talk, here and there. I did this for eight hours. Eight hours of feeling like something bad was going to happen. Something worse than all of the bad stuff that had already happened. And then the phone rang. I guess they finally noticed I was gone.

  It was my mother calling. First on the scene, no surprise there. She had always had a special sense for trouble, like some hound dog sniffing for game, only she hunted down misery. I let it ring. I did not have a thing to say to anybody, except maybe to Jenny. Poor Jenny, who I had left behind in her own mess. If there was anything I wished I could change it was leaving that girl. The phone went to voice mail. That goddamn deluxe cell phone with video and Internet and all that crap I did not need but my husband had bought for me anyway. Because he had to buy everything fancy and new. It rang again. It went on like that for twenty miles or so, me driving slow, snow beating down, phone ringing on repeat, until finally I picked it up.

  “I told you to watch it,” she said. “I told you not to go there, but you didn’t listen. Twenty-five years old and you’ve already ruined the rest of your life. Nice work.”

  I bet there was a can of beer in front of her, halfway down to empty. And a new pack of cigarettes, the plastic wrap crumpled next to it. Still, her lipstick would match her housedress. She was just getting her afternoon buzz on, is all. By the time my father got home from work she would look just like anyone else.

  “I did not do anything wrong,” I said.

  My mother laughed, and it was mean.

  “Here’s a question for you. Do you think what you did was right?”

  I hung up the phone, and then I turned off the power because I knew she would just keep calling. She had all the time in the world.

  BY THE TIME I hit Cheyenne all
I wanted to do was drink whiskey and eat a cheeseburger. I missed the cheeseburgers from the diner downstairs below my apartment, the ones Papi made for me. I ate there practically every day for months, after my husband kicked me out of the house. Papi made them rare and red for me. I wondered if I would ever have one again.

  I found a motel a few exits after the one for downtown Cheyenne. It was cheap and family-owned. Family-owned would have been a comfort in my own town, but on the road it was questionable. I did not know this family, after all. What were they like? I could not drive any farther though. There were some trailers parked out front. Everyone was hiding from the storm. There was a bar next to the hotel that served food, and the girl who checked me in reminded me of Jenny, how she could be so excited and sullen at the same time, like she was just ready to burst. I felt like I would be safe for the night. I filled out some paperwork. I used my married name, then stopped myself, but it was too late. It would look weird if I crossed out my own name and started over so I kept it. Then the girl asked me for my credit card.

  “I want to pay in cash,” I said. I knew enough not to leave a credit card trail behind me. Every cop show I had ever watched since I was a kid had taught me that.

  “You won’t get charged,” she said. “It’s just for incidentals.”

  Incidental, I liked that word. Something could happen at any moment. An incident.

  “What kind of incidentals?” I said.

  “Well, we’ve got microwave popcorn if you get the snackers after the bar is closed, and there’s dirty movies on channel eighteen if you’re into that.” She sneered a little bit.

  “Good to know,” I said coolly. I would not be cowed by a child.

  In the room I shoved the suitcase of cash under the bed. The suitcase was made of red leather. I had only used it once before, on my honeymoon. After that, there was no reason to. We had never left town again. I spent my whole life in the same place, with the same people. I never thought I needed to go anywhere. And yet there I was, getting away as fast as I could.

  I collapsed on the bed and turned on the TV. To just not have to think for a while, that was what I wanted.

  I flipped to an entertainment news show. There was always one on for me, no matter what time of day. There were two hosts, one with dark spiky hair, and one with blond spiky hair. The one with blond spiky hair was break-dancing. The one with dark spiky hair said, “You sure love to pop and lock, don’t you?” The one with blond spiky hair yelled, “You know it.” The dark-haired man grinned, turned to another camera, and said, “And now it’s time for rehab watch!”

  The two hosts talked for a while about who was in and out of rehab. There was a tiny image of a revolving door whipping around on the bottom right corner of the screen. They were being funny, but they were assholes, too.

  “And finally, we’ve got an off-the-wagon alert,” said the dark-haired host. A swirling police light went off in the back of the studio and an alarm started to ring.

  The blond guy covered his ears and grinned.

  And there was footage of my all-time favorite TV-movie-of-the-week star, Rio DeCarlo, stumbling out of a limousine and into a security guard’s arms. A whirlwind of flashbulbs went off and she covered her eyes with her hands and rushed through the crowd and into a hotel.

  “Her rep says seasickness,” said the dark-haired host.

  “Seasickness?”

  “And Dramamine.”

  “Dramamine.” The blond host smiled slyly.

  “She was on a yacht all day.”

  “You know, she’s just two visits shy of our Rehab Hall of Fame.”

  “That’s going to be an exciting day.”

  I threw the remote control at the TV set. I hoped it was Dramamine. I hoped she was going to make it. I wanted someone in this world to make it. I was not sure right then if it could be me.

  Then I took a shower for the first time in a week. All I had been doing was sitting around being mad at the world. There had been a lot going on, but it had all been in my head. A shower had not occurred to me the entire time.

  The hot water ran out quickly. The radiator near the window banged and moaned. The windows steamed up. It reminded me of nothing in particular but still it felt familiar. I wiped the steam off the mirror with the towel and stared at myself. My hair in damp tangles all over my shoulders, the pink puffed-out rims of my eyes, a jag of tiny red pimples across my nose.

  I needed sleep.

  The comforter on the bed was brown and there were tiny cartoon trains all over it. It itched my skin when I slid underneath it. I put my head down and slept for an hour. When I woke my hair was dry and clean. I felt rested. I still had the same feeling as when I was driving, that something was going to happen, but now it could go either way. I thought about playing hide-and-seek with my sister, Jenny, when we were still kids, her barely reading her storybooks by herself, me on the verge of being a teenager. I would always hide from her. This was how I babysat. Nothing too fancy. I hid, she ran around the house yelling my name. Boy, could she hustle. But she loved it, it was her favorite game to play, and I guess I did not mind it that much either. I remember sitting in the closet, her about to open the door. I never knew what I was going to do. I could pounce or I could scream or I could jump in the air and laugh. But something had to happen next.

  I put on a few layers of clothes. I missed my summertime tan, and my short skirts, and how happy and free the air on my skin made me feel. I brushed my hair. It was blond and thick and spread out over my shoulders and down my back to my waist. My crown of glory, just as it had been for years. I looked at myself in the mirror. I was thinner, like a scrawny child now, tiny bones, my flesh lost to stress and misery. But I had the same face, and my beloved hair. I still looked like me. Only I was not Moonie Madison anymore.

  I had been Moonie since high school. When Thomas first fell in love with me, he named me that. I was his moon, and he was my stars, that is the way it was right from the beginning. Just like that I was Moonie. No one else. During our wedding Thomas even said, “I take you, Moonie—I mean Catherine,” and everyone laughed. But it was all true. I did not even remember who I was before I met him.

  And now I was not Moonie anymore. Catherine did not feel too right either. I had already stopped being Catherine. I was going to have to sort out a whole new me.

  I left the room and locked the door behind me. The door next to mine cracked open, and I saw a woman watching me. I thought maybe she was like me for a second, traveling alone. But then the door swung open and a little boy came running out. He was a toddler, wearing just diapers on his bottom half and a sweater on top. The woman plucked him up and clutched him to her chest. I could not decide how old she was. Everything about her looked the same as me, except for her forehead. There were lines carved into it like rivers in the earth. I wondered what it would feel like, to rub my hands along those lines. This is how we are different, I thought. I am still smooth, and you are lined. I wondered if she hated having them, or even if she noticed them at all. I wondered if that little boy was why she had those lines, if the love she felt for him was so strong and deep that her face had changed forever. She smiled at me, and then the baby started crying, and she closed the door.

  I went to the bar. I could not remember ever going to a bar by myself. That seemed like a thing a girl who was looking for trouble would do, and I had never once looked for trouble in my life. The bar was full of men, a few guys younger than me, but most of them were in their forties or older. In the back I saw a couple of women with their husbands, and there was a little girl running around who had sparkly barrettes crooked in her hair. I was sure that everyone knew everyone else. Most people were smoking. In certain parts of the bar the air was so thick with it you could not see people’s faces clearly. I did not want to eat there, but I was starving.

  I sat at the bar. The stool had a tear in it. The men to the right of me were laughing and seemed harmless enough. They were not any different from the men who came i
nto the diner back home, men who had known me since I was a kid. My father did not take me into bars when I was growing up, but he was not the kind to go out and socialize. Working all day at the pharmacy was enough people time for him. He was not a snob, though, and he did not raise one either. I sat down and ordered a Southern Comfort and Diet Coke from the bartender, a short woman with breasts so big it was like there was no stomach left. They just took over everything. Her lipstick stained the skin around her mouth where age was fading her. She had the same eyes as the girl who had checked me in at the motel. She could be complaining one minute, she could make you laugh the next. You just didn’t know what you would get from her.

  I turned around on my stool and faced the room. Most people nodded at me; a few smiled. I smiled back. I watched as a young guy with sloppy lips made his way around the room. Every few minutes, he would lean in too close to someone and yell, “Head butt.” Then he would do just that, slam his head against someone else’s. There would be this loud crack, and people would turn and stare, then go back to their talking. This was his thing, I guessed.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart, he won’t do it to you,” said the man next to me. He had long feathery hair that was brittle on the edges. He wore a leather vest and his skin was pitted and rotting, but he had a nice light in his eyes. I liked looking at him. “He only does it to people he knows. Especially he’s not going to do it to a girl like you.” He blew smoke from his cigarette away from my face. “You just passing through or you’re staying awhile or . . .”

  “I just came to get some food,” I said. “It’s been a long day of driving.”

  “Oh yeah? Where you headed?”

  “West,” I said. And then I added, “Los Angeles,” because it was as far west as I could think to go. It sounded like a place you moved to when you needed to start over. It was a lie, but there was no way I could tell the truth. And maybe it could become the truth. There were a lot of options. The world was wide open in front of me. I would have to trust myself to find the way.