Megan Bergman: Almost Famous Women: Stories

The agent will be back tomorrow, I said to Violet.

I can’t read this if you’re going to keep pacing, she said, trying to get through an old copy of Reader’s Digest while I bustled about the bedroom.

Our bed in the grocer’s trailer had one set of threadbare sheets and a pale pink quilt. I picked at the frayed edges when I couldn’t sleep.

Are you eating another cookie? I asked.

Old stock, Violet said, crumbs on her mouth. Someone has to eat them. Grocer was going to throw them out.

Our cupboard was filled with dented soup cans and out-of-date beans. The grocer let us take a bag of expired food home at the end of each week.

I noticed the lines around Violet’s eyes. I guessed they were around mine too. Our skin was getting thinner, our bones fragile.

Help me get this suitcase on the bed, I said.

Violet used one hand to help.

Between us we had one brown leather suitcase full of custom clothes. There were dresses, bathing suits, pants, and nightgowns. Those we’d had for decades were moth-eaten and thin.

We’ve gotta mend these, I said. And not get fat.

No one’s looking, she said, her mouth full of stale oatmeal cookie.

The agent is looking, I said.

This wasn’t the first time Violet had tried to sabotage our success. Once, she’d dyed her hair blond. Then she tried to get fat. Every time I turned around in the forties she was eating red velvet cupcakes.

Your teeth are gonna go blood red from all that food coloring, I warned.

We had enough strikes against us in the looks department. One of Violet’s eyes sloped downward, as if it might slide off her face. I hated that eye. I felt like we could have been more without it. Like Virginia Mayo or Eve Arden or someone with a good wardrobe and a contract or two.

Give me the cookies, I said. We can’t show up naked. We can’t show up in grocery aprons.

Violet held the cookie box in her right arm. I could let her have it, tackle her, or run in a circle. I was too tired for the game. We’d played it enough as kids.

Fine, I said. Eat your damn cookies.

We each had talents. Violet could disappear inside her imaginary shell. I could go without food for days.

Martin Lambert had intended to take us to his sister’s house that first night in New York.

I can’t have you home with me, he said. We’ll figure something out.

He flagged down a cab.

I can’t feel my feet, Violet whispered.

I wasn’t sure we’d ever been up so late before. The lights of the Brooklyn Bridge pooled in the East River. The people on the sidewalks wore beautiful jackets. Soldiers were home with girls on their arms, cigarettes on their lips. Restaurants kept serving past midnight.

I hoped Violet wouldn’t tell him it was our first cab ride. The stale smell of tobacco oozed from the upholstery. Martin lit another cigarette and rubbed his palms on his pants. He kept looking at us out of the corner of his eye. Staring without staring. Disbelief. Curiosity.

I wanted to be close to him. I wanted to smell his aftershave, touch the hair under his cap.

We sing, I said. We can swim and roller-skate, or play saxophone if you like.

Well I’ll be, he said. Showbiz twins. Working gals.

Martin shook his head and chewed his lip. One thing I’d learned — people saw different things when they looked at us. Some saw freaks, some saw love. Some saw opportunity.

Violet was quiet.

We want to be in the movies, I said.

How old are you? he asked.

Eighteen, I lied.

I pulled the hem of my dress above my knees.

Violet jabbed me in the ribs.

Honest, I said.

Violet placed a hand over her mouth and giggled.

Cabbie, Martin said. Stop at McHale’s. Looks like we’re going to grab ourselves a few drinks.

Our hats were out of style and out of season, but we were used to standing out in a crowd.

Martin rushed over to a stocky man standing by the bar.

Ed, he said. I want you to meet Daisy and Violet.

Ed nodded but didn’t speak. The two men turned to lean over their beers and talk quietly.

I felt a hundred eyes burning my back.

Look at the bodies, not the faces, I told myself.

Miss Hadley had said: Learn to love the attention. You don’t have a choice.

There is no one in the world like you , I said to myself.

The spotlight is on, Violet said.

There is no one in the world like you .

We should find a hotel, Violet said. Then go back south tomorrow. If we leave early, we could get to Richmond. Even Atlanta. Somewhere nice .

With what money? I asked her.

One gin and tonic later I pulled Violet onto the stage. The band was warming up. We could be seen and gawked at, or we could be appreciated, marveled over. I knew which I preferred.

The first night Martin and I slept together, Violet said the Lord’s Prayer eighteen times.

… hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done…

Violet!

On Earth as it is in Heaven.

Just keep going, I said.

Are you sure? Martin asked.

Violet had her hand over her eyes, a halfhearted attempt not to watch. She kept her clothes on, even her shoes.

Yes, I told him.

The room was dark but Martin kept his eyes closed. He never 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.