The Melting Season by Jami Attenberg

idea what she was talking about but I was excited to see them. “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah,” she sang. She drummed her hands on her lap. She stopped being a lady in a nice dress for a second. She was a kid. She told me Peter Dingle had grown up loving the rock-and-roll life back East. (It was neat the way Valka said “back East” so casually, like it was a real place to her in her head.) Bon Jovi was one of his favorites from the show, but he liked all the imitation heavy metal acts, too.
    “There’s an Ozzy Osbourne imitator who rips the head off a bird with his teeth,” said Valka.
    “That’s not legal,” I said.
    “Legal or not, it looks real to me,” said Valka. She took a sip of her rum and Diet Coke and raised her eyebrows. “Looks as real as you sitting here before me.”
    “It sounds like a great show,” I said. “I’d like to see that.”
    “I was hoping you’d say that,” she said. “Because I have an extra ticket for tomorrow night. So what do you say? You want to be my New Year’s Eve date?”
    I was touched like I had not been in a while. Here she was, knowing me only for a few hours, and she was handing over a golden ticket to me. Sure we got along like gangbusters, but still I found myself welling up a bit.
    “That is just the sweetest thing ever,” I said. “What do I wear?”
    “I’ll loan you something!” she said.
    We drank all night, and I felt the hangover before it was over. I did not mind it. I was caught up in the magic of Vegas. We had spent the night walking from casino to casino, through the crowds of drunks, drunk just like us. It was bitter cold out there, and there was a strong wind blowing, but Valka and I faced it. She loaned me a wrap of hers that matched the one she was carrying. “That’s pashmina, you be careful with that now,” she said. It was soft, and I cradled it around my arms like I was getting a hug. Oh, how I needed a hug. I stopped Valka on the street and said that to her. She threw her arms around me and said, “Oh, honey, I need one, too. All the time. Every day.”
    By the time we got to the Bellagio we were a mess. We were spilling drinks and secrets. I tried not to lie too much. I told her my marriage had fallen apart. “It was just the fighting,” I said. “We were like two wild dogs fighting over a piece of meat. Our marriage was the meat. Do you know what I mean? The meat!”
    “That’s not healthy,” said Valka. “That’s un healthy.” She thought she had it all figured out now. She had been trying to get the truth out of me for a while.
    I held my tongue pretty well, but I was new at having someone to talk to. My secrets still felt important to me. Valka was ready to spill all of hers and I wanted her to feel better. It would make her feel closer to me, to tell her story to me. But then I was afraid I would have to do the same. I was trying to hold off. Telling the truth would hurt. I had been holding onto these secrets so long it almost felt like it all had happened to somebody else. And I would have to reach down pretty far inside to dig them all out. I was not sure if I was ready to do that.
    Valka told me the Bellagio was where all the rich men were, but also the women looking for them. “Not that I need anyone else’s money,” she said. Valka was an independent businesswoman, with her very own flower shop. “I own prom season,” she said. “It’s mine, and I’d like to see someone take it from me.” She straightened her wig and plumped up the top of her dress. “I don’t know how to talk to teenagers though. Or kids. Or whatever. I just want to shake them. Prom. Those kids think it’s the most important night of their life. I want to tell them there’s so much more out there, they have a whole life of mistakes to make ahead of them.”
    I thought of my own prom, me staring in the bathroom mirror in the lobby of a Best Western near Lincoln, putting on lipstick. All of the other girls—the girlfriends of