Free The Melting Season by Jami Attenberg Page B

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.
    L ater—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 other 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