Jami Attenberg - The Melting Season

Table of Contents

ALSO BY JAMI ATTENBERG

for my friends

.

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 didnt listen. Twenty-five years old and youve 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.

Heres 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 wont get charged, she said. Its just for incidentals.

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

What kind of incidentals? I said.

Well, weve got microwave popcorn if you get the snackers after the bar is closed, and theres dirty movies on channel eighteen if youre 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, dont you? The one with blond spiky hair yelled, You know it. The dark-haired man grinned, turned to another camera, and said, And now its 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, weve 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.