The Melting Season

by Jami Attenberg

  All of this she said to me on the cab ride home, and all of it I agreed to consider. Maybe it was what I needed. A fresh start, a real career, a friend to call my own. Maybe if I kept going, if I pushed west, I could leave the mess I had made back home behind me.

  “I get into trouble sometimes,” said Valka. “I’m sorry. I shoot my mouth off and I can’t stop. That’s what you’ve got to put up with if you know me. Peter Dingle used to love it though. He thought I was the funniest woman he had ever met. Even now when I run into him back home I can make him laugh.” She sighed. “I’m just scared I’ll never find anyone. I’m too old to start over, and yet here I am, starting over. I was happy having a man to call my own. And now, I have nothing. I am sad.” She paused. “Now I am sad.”

  I loved her so much in that moment. For being able to holler out her feelings. It made me feel better just knowing it was possible.

  6.

  The next morning Jenny sent me another video of herself. Valka and I were still in bed, laughing about those bald assholes from the night before. I rolled my eyes at Valka before I checked the phone and she said, “Well, if you feel that way about it, don’t answer it. There’s no pick-up-your-cell-phone law. Especially not in Vegas.” She was right, of course, but I could not stop myself from checking. In this video Jenny had her arm in a sling. She mouthed “Mom” at me.

  I choked. Thinking again about Mom hovering over the bed when I was a kid. If I fell asleep during her story, she would pinch me to wake me up. Sometimes she would just let her fingers hang close to my arm. Or just move them slowly, so slowly, toward me, while she whispered. I never knew when she was going to strike. That was the worst part. No wonder I rushed into Thomas’s arms so quick. He was my steady. I remember seeing bruises on Jenny also, but she went the other way. She craved things out-of-sorts and hectic. Now she was getting it something good. But I was too far away to help.

  “Aw, crap,” I said.

  “What’s going on over there?” said Valka.

  “Oh, nothing but my family’s white trash roots starting to show,” I said. I went to the bathroom, locked the door, and called Jenny.

  “You would not believe the bathroom I’m in right now,” I said when she picked up. I was trying to make things light, to cheer her up. “There’s a phone. And a TV. And I think it’s made of gold.”

  “I am so happy for you,” said Jenny, but of course she was not. She did not have time for bragging, or any games at all.

  “Are you okay?” I said. “Can you handle this?”

  “I can’t tell,” she said. “I can’t tell if it was just an accident because we were arguing and she grabbed me the wrong way or if it was for real, and Mom’s going crazy and is going to like, stab me in my sleep.”

  I thought about it for a second. “No, she would not do it while you were sleeping. She would definitely want you to be awake for it.”

  “That’s comforting,” she said.

  “Well, how else would you get the point?”

  We both started laughing, but it was a little moan of a laugh that drained out of our throats quick.

  “Call someone,” I said. “Go somewhere. Go stay in my old apartment. Timber would let you in.”

  “I feel like I can handle it,” said Jenny. “And anyway we’re all snowed in. Dad’s completely checked out at this point, and won’t dig us out of the driveway.”

  “Will you just call Timber?”

  “If I need to, I will. I’m not that worried though. I’m pretty sure I can take her. She’s so lit all the time I probably could knock her over quick.”

  She laughed, and I strained my ear to see if she was faking it. Oh, I guess I wanted to believe her. I wanted to carry on with what I was doing at that moment. Sitting close to Valka in bed and giggling like real girlfriends. Breaking free from the cold Nebraska winter. On my way to the new me. So I wished her well and made her promise to call me the minute anything happened. But secretly I hoped that phone did not ring. Because I still wanted to have some fun.

  Back in bed, Valka gave me her best impression of a worried look, considering her forehead did not move a lick.

  “You want to talk about it, Cathy?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I do not want to talk about anything ever.”

  Valka took in a deep breath. “All rightie, then,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said. I instantly regretted it. But I was not ready to spill my soul to the world. I loved Valka but it was so tight inside me. It still hurt to breathe.

  Then she said, “Oh well, new day, new year.” She paused. “That’s right, it is a new year! Tonight, oh tonight. I am taking you to see the best show on earth, Hot Stars in the City. Two lady friends out on the town again. And then at midnight, champagne cocktails!”

  “I don’t know if my head can handle it.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just take some more aspirin. Or I’ve got some Valium.”

  “Valium!” I said.

  “I have lots of drugs. I’m a regular old medicine cabinet. I AM A CANCER SURVIVOR.” She said it so seriously I could not argue with her.

  Valka got up and went to the bathroom and said, “This is magnificent.” Then she started puking.

  “Are you okay in there?” I said.

  “Fine,” she said. “Just getting it all out.”

  “Do you want me to hold your hair?” I said. Isn’t that what girlfriends did for each other? That was how it was in high school anyway. Then I remembered she did not have any hair. She did not bother to reply.

  I sat back and thought for a moment as Valka retched in the bathroom. She had been through so much. She lost her breasts. She lost her insides. She lost her man. There she was throwing everything up from last night. But still she had a positive attitude. She should have had a heart of stone but she was so much warmer than I would ever be. And I had not even bothered to tell her my secrets. She had not asked, but still, I could have offered something up in the name of friendship. I was the one who was wrong.

  Valka turned on the shower and came back into the bedroom. She was naked. Her breasts really were in a perfect location on her chest. There were tiny pinkish scars on the undersides of them and around the nipples. She opened the closet door and pulled out a robe. “Ooh, these are nice,” she said. “They’re softer than the robes in my room.” She wrapped one around herself and came over to the bed. She sat down on it and faced me. “Do you want to see what I look like without the wig?” She put her hand on top of her head.

  I did not want to see it, but I could not figure out how to say no.

  “I don’t show just everyone,” she said.

  Okay, it was a bonding thing. I wanted to bond.

  “Show me,” I said.

  She pulled off her wig. Underneath she was still pretty. Her hair was growing back in weird spurts, sure, like there was a strange map of the world on her head. But there were no scars on her head (I do not know why I thought there would be, it was not like she had had brain surgery) and the skin was still smooth. She had washed off her makeup the night before so all that was left was her, just her, just Valka. I put my hand out and touched her head.

  “It’s fuzzy,” I said.

  “Soft,” she said. “Yes. Sometimes I rub myself for good luck.”

  We both laughed at that one.

  “Not that I need it,” she said. “I’m the luckiest girl in the world.”

  EIGHT HOURS LATER VALKA AND I were both done up in dresses and waiting in line at the show. I thought she looked prettier than I did. She had brought a special outfit for the occasion, a white dress with red and black rectangles on it, and black stockings with seams running down the back of her thighs. Her wig was puffed up on top, and she wore a wide band across the bangs. The ends of the wig curled up like the edge of a smile.

  “Do you get it?” she said to me. “I’m a mod.”

  I did not know what that was but I told her she looked just perfect, which she did. She looked like she was from another era.
If that was what she wanted, to be somewhere else—anywhere else—but here, then I supported it.

  I wished I looked as classy. Valka had loaned me one of her party dresses, a strappy gown that swooped down low on the chest, and was shredded at the bottom and covered with sequins so that it looked like my legs were covered with shiny feathers. On her I was sure the dress would look glamorous, but on me it looked like I was trying to grow up fast. Valka helped me tease out my hair and told me I looked like I could be in a Bon Jovi video. “You’re a vixen,” she said.

  I did not want to be a vixen. I did not know what I wanted to be, but a vixen did not seem like the kind of thing that would come natural to me. I missed my flip-flops the minute I slipped on Valka’s patent leather high heels. “They’re fuck-me shoes,” said Valka. She scared me sometimes. I stared down and wondered how I was going to last in them all night, and if I really was required to have sex with someone when I was wearing them. Maybe I was a fraud if I wore these shoes. I had been with my husband for so long. And things had never been right in that area anyway. I had thought about what it would be like to have sex with someone else, sure. To see if it could be better. Or different anyway. But to fuck? That was a real particular kind of act. Fucking was like howling at the moon, and I was no stray. Or had not been one in my past. I suddenly wanted to rip the shoes off my feet and throw them across the room. Who knew there could be so much trouble with just one pair of shoes?

  But there she was, so happy to see me like that, so then there I was, a rock-and-roll vixen for the night. And later on we were going to an after-party where all the stars would be; Valka had found out about it from some fan club mailing list she was on. She was going to get to meet the Beatles at last.

  But first, the show! Oh, what a show that was! All of the performers really sounded and looked just like who they were pretending to be. I thought it would be creepy, but I really got caught up in it, like everyone around me. Lots of people were dressed up like me and Valka, like we all could have been extras in a music video for all the different bands, or in the bands themselves. Even before the show started it was fun pointing at all the different costumes, the Elton Johns with crazy disco suits and big sunglasses, and Michael Jacksons made up to look like they were zombies from that ancient “Thriller” video, and Dolly Partons, big blondes with big fake inflatable chests (both men and women were dressed as Dolly), and Tina Turners in short skirts and high heels and big spiky wigs. The grossest and weirdest were all the older women dressed up like Cher, wearing these see-through body suits with ribbons covering their private areas just like in that video where she was dancing around on top of a huge boat in front of a bunch of soldiers. There was a huge crowd of them that had all come together. Their bodies bulged in all different directions out of their suits and they were drunk as skunks and cackling loudly. “Icky,” said Valka, when I pointed them out. She had become a real lady in that outfit of hers.

  And then the show started, and we sat back with some cocktails. What a ride. From the minute the curtain came up, you did not have a moment to think, they would not let you. There were lights and the music coming from the stereo was so loud it was like a fire engine right next to your head. The sets kept changing every time there was a different performer so there was always something new to look at. First there was just an explosion of girl performers all at once: Joan Jett and Pat Benatar and Gwen Stefani and Mariah Carey, all howling out their greatest hits in under three minutes each. The risers looked like city buildings, and they moved up and down when each performer was beginning. Then the city lights turned out, and all of a sudden there was a sunset with real ripples of water for the Beach Boys, and what looked like real sand, too. “How did they do that?” I said to Valka. I had smelled the ocean, I was sure of it, even though I had never even been to one before.

  They all just kept coming, one after the other. All of the performers appeared as their younger selves, as bright young stars—except for Aretha Franklin and Barbra Streisand, they were both older and fat. There was an army of Britney Spearses, all dressed like schoolgirls. Right then my cell phone buzzed, and I looked down at it—it was a video of my sister wearing a stupid New Year’s hat, a noisemaker dangling from her frowning lips. Then it was the Beatles. Valka went nuts: she jumped up and hollered, her big headband sliding halfway down her bangs. Valka was not the only Beatles fan. There were a hundred other Valkas in the audience, some dressed like her, more of them hippies, and a few Yoko Onos in the crowd. They were pretty good, I had to admit, even though I did not know much about their music. My dad sang along to their songs when they played on the easy listening station in the car. I suddenly remembered John had been shot. That was all I could recall, that and Paul being married to the one-legged lady. But I could see why the girls had gone crazy for them when they were still a band. Their songs were really catchy and sweet and hopeful, plus the members of the band—the fake band anyway—had cute haircuts and big soulful eyes. Valka’s voice ran out halfway through their performance, she had been screaming so hard. “I love you,” is what she had been saying over and over. “I love you.”

  At the end of the show Prince came driving out in an actual little red Corvette and the whole crowd shot up from their seats, cheering so loud it was hard to hear the music. Valka’s headband fell off completely and she didn’t even care. Everyone could agree on that one. We all loved Prince. The entire room of people swayed back and forth to “Purple Rain.” Lots of folks had brought lighters and I was jealous because I did not have one. Then Valka reached into her purse and pulled out a few matchbooks from the Bellagio. She was so smart. So we kept lighting match after match and letting them run down to our fingertips. It was dumb but it made us laugh. It was one of the best times of my life. I was grateful to Valka. I could feel myself giving over to the possibility of hope. There was still so much of me that was aching and angry and unwell, but I just wanted to let it go for a second. Just go already.

  7.

  Later—three drinks later—we were standing in line outside another bar, getting bumped by strangers, though I did not think it was meant to be mean. It was hard to tell. It was like everyone had marbles in their mouth they were so drunk and it was not even midnight. But there we stood in a parking lot, waiting for the celebrity impersonators. It was just a nothing kind of bar from the outside, with mismatched parts where they had added on to it over the years. The bar was sitting right off the end of a strip mall, and we could have gotten Chinese to go if we had wanted, like a few other people in line who were shoveling fried rice into their mouths.

  “This is kind of gross,” said Valka. “Do you care? I don’t care. Do you?”

  She was talking real fast. I wondered if she had been diving into her medicine cabinet. Her purse rattled with all the pill bottles every time she picked it up. But it was okay for her to have a little fun, especially what with what she had been through in her life.

  “It is fine,” I said. “It has already been a much different night than I ever dreamed I would have. It was like they were all really real.”

  “They are real,” Valka insisted. “It was good, right? That show? And now this. Except it’s gross. And what if I mess it all up? When I meet them. The Beatles.”

  I did not know how she could do anything wrong. Even if she did not get along with the Beatles, and got into it with them like she had the night before with those men at the bar, she still would have had her say. I did not know how important it was before I met her. Being heard.

  We were not the only ones with the same idea, tracking down the stars of the show. I noticed there were a few Chers farther behind us holding gigantic drinks in fluorescent cups with curly straws coming out the top. They did not stop talking the entire time. I think they might have been from Germany. And right up front, two Mariah Careys, dressed in skimpy little dresses that cut all the way up to the top of their thighs. They looked like hookers, and I said as much to Valka.

  “Women are always meanest to ot
her women,” said Valka. “My mother told me that once.”

  “Is that true?” I said. I guess I was being mean for no reason. I did not like that they were first in line, though, and that they were younger than Valka. She was gorgeous but time had already started drawing away the softness of youth from her. She had had a bad year though. It was not her fault.

  “But that doesn’t mean you’re not right,” said Valka. “Trash with a capital T.”

  And then came the celebrity impersonators, a dozen of them. They walked to the front of the line. They were in their street clothes, so for a few it was hard to tell who they were. But Prince still looked like Prince with puffed-up hair and pretty cheeks, Tina Turner was still a real knockout no matter what time of day, and the Beatles—God bless them, I thought—all had the same haircuts in real life as they did onstage.

  Valka touched Paul on the shoulder as he passed.

  “I really loved the show,” she said. “You are seriously the best Paul I have ever seen. Fucking brilliant.”

  He stopped and turned toward her. He looked at her in her dark wig and rectangle dress, he looked at me in my video vixen dress and my too-much makeup, and he smiled this bashful smile.

  “Thanks, love,” he said in a British accent. It was not a pretty, dainty one like people usually had in the movies. It was a bit thicker. I held onto Valka’s arm. I thought maybe she might pass out. I was feeling a little funny and I did not even care about the Beatles at all. “You coming inside, then?”

  “When we can get in there, we will,” said Valka.

  “Aw, you can get in with me,” he said. “We’ll take care of you.”