Almost Famous Women Read Free Page A

kissed me on my mouth. Not then, not ever.

    During the day, Violet and I worked the industrial mixer at a bakery. We shaped baguettes in the afternoons. Nights, we sang at McHale’s. I began drinking. Ed and Martin sipped scotch at a corner table, escorted us back to our efficiency in the thin morning light.
    We primped for our performances like starlets. In the shower, we rotated in and out of the water. Lather, turn, rinse, repeat.
    Let’s go for a natural look tonight, Violet said, sitting down at the secondhand bureau we’d turned into our vanity table.
    I was thinking Jezebel, I said. Red lipstick and eyes like Dietrich.
    It looks better when we coordinate, Violet said.
    I painted a thick, black line across my eyelid.
    Let me do yours, I said, turning to her.
    Some nights I felt like a woman—the warm stage lights on my face, the right kind of lipstick on, the sound of my voice filling the room, Violet singing harmony. Some nights I felt like two women. Some nights I felt like a two-headed monster. That’s what some drunk had shouted as Violet and I took the stage. Ed had come out from behind his table swinging.
    We were the kind of women that started fights. Not the kind of women that launched ships.

    It took one year and a bottle of Johnnie Walker for Ed to confess his love to Violet.
    Can you, um, read a newspaper or look away? he asked me.
    I folded the newspaper to the crossword puzzle and chewed a pencil.
    I been thinking, Ed said. You are a kind woman. A good woman.
    Violet touched his cheek.
    Does anyone know a four-letter word for Great Lake? I asked.
    I watch you sing every night, and every night I decide that one day I’m going to kiss you, he said.
    Violet cupped the back of his neck with her hands.
    Erie, I said. The word is Erie.
    An hour later and they had moved to the bed. I watched the clock on the wall, recited Byron in my head.
    Ed cried afterward, laid his mangled face on Violet’s chest.
    I cried too.

    When the agent comes, I said to Violet, let me do the talking.
    We were taking a sponge bath in front of the kitchen sink, naked as blue jays. It was too hard getting in and out of a shower these days.
    A cicada hummed somewhere in the windowsill.
    Do you need more soap? Violet asked.
    This is my plan to get us out of here, I said. We’ll offer him the rights to our life story. We can get by on a few thousand.
    I dipped my washcloth into the cool water and held it between my breasts.
    Violet touched the skin between us.
    We’ll be okay, she said. I don’t want you to worry.

    Martin had never stayed the night. He had a wife. I wondered what she was like, what she’d think of the things we did.
    Normal people don’t do what you do in bed, Violet said.
    Since when are we normal? I asked.
    You could keep your eyes closed, I said.
    And my ears, Violet said, blushing.
    Martin is a man’s man, I told her. He knew what he wanted.
    He was rough, sometimes clutching my neck or grabbing my hair. Afterward he’d talk about the movies we’d get into, how he’d be our agent.
    The Philadelphia Story , he said, but instead of Hepburn, there’s Daisy and Violet.
    Then he’d wash his hands, rinse his mouth, wet his hair down, and leave.
    One month my period was late.
    Jesusfuckingchrist was all Martin would say.
    In bed at night I asked myself what I would do with a baby. What Violet and I would do. I convinced myself we could handle it. We had many hands.
    Ed slept over those days. I watched Violet stroke his hair, trace the shape of his strange ears with her fingertip. She slept soundly on his chest.
    One night Martin dragged us to an empty apartment around the corner from McHale’s.
    Stay here, he said, backing out of the door.
    A man came in—my body aches when I think of it. He opened a bag of surgical instruments, spread a mat onto the floor.
    Lie down, he said. Put your legs up like this.
    I wanted to do right by Violet, keep