Free The Melting Season by Jami Attenberg

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