Marilyn's Daughter

by John Rechy

  “Love you,” he said back.

  3

  When the Mustang pushed into the concrete and steel network of the freeways, Normalyn wondered what Troja would do while she spoke to Mark Poe.

  Away from Kirk, Troja seemed instantly rejuvenated. Hearing her laughter, Normalyn realized it didn’t usually sound happy, the way it did now.

  “I read in a magazine that Marilyn dreamt once that she went into a church—naked!—and everyone applauded! I love that story,” Troja said. She asked seriously, “You coming to believe that letter, hon?”

  “No.” That’s all Normalyn said.

  The desert parted before a long corridor of palmtrees. Tanned men and women of all ages wandered the purified streets of Palm Springs, its polished shops, hotels, restaurants. “Had some high-priced dates here,” Troja remembered with tarnished pride.

  Up a gracious road with a magnificent Spanish villa. Bougainvillea splashed balconies and tiled paths. A pool glistened in a patio of shrubs bursting with flowers.

  “Pick you up in approximately—?” Troja consulted her watch. “I’ll call before I come over—”

  “Please stay!” It was an impulse. She was not sure how much she wanted to discover here, and she could use Troja’s presence to control that. They could leave at any time. Too, she had experienced with David Lange and Mildred—and with Miss Bertha!—an altered perception once she left their rarefied atmospheres. Troja’s view might allow a steadied perspective about what would occur. She already knew about the letter. And Normalyn was suddenly afraid. “Please!” She did not mind the anxiety in her exhortation.

  Troja parked the Mustang in the shadow of a huge tree piled high in layers of branches.

  “Over here!” A good-looking athletic man moved down the tiled steps of the house toward them. He wore tan slacks and a light blue shirt.

  Instantly Normalyn wanted to flee the whole situation. Too late! “Mr. Poe—” she managed to say.

  “Oh, I’m not Mark. I’m his lover, Robert Kunitz.”

  “And I’m Normalyn Morgan, and this is my best friend, my very best friend”—Normalyn was extending her introduction because she did not know her “very best friend’s” full name, just the made-up first name—“my best friend, Troja O’Hara.” Normalyn looked in horror at Troja when she heard the name she had given her.

  But Troja accepted it with a gracious smile.

  “Troja O’Hara? A dazzling name!” Robert Kunitz complimented.

  Troja recognized the man’s features, redrawn with more lines by the years. “I’ve admired your films, Mr. Kunitz.” She did not remember a single one.

  “I’m surprised you remember, such awful trash.” Robert laughed. He guided them down a path formed by the parting of flowers and shrubs. At the end of the walk stood another man.

  He was taller, slender. He wore emphatic glasses, as if to underplay his exceptional lean attractiveness. “Mark Poe,” he introduced himself.

  “Normalyn Morgan and Troja O’Hara,” Robert introduced.

  Normalyn faced Mark Poe. How had he looked when Enid first met him? Was he the man she had talked about with regret?

  Robert Kunitz broke the tense stasis by leading them to an alcove created by an umbrella of flowered vines. There was a white iron table, chairs with backs like white peacock tails, a bowl of Technicolored fruit.

  Nearby, about ten energetic youngmen and women swam in the pool.

  “A charming house,” Troja said in a meticulous tone. “Spanish, with a touch of Moroccan, isn’t it?” She tilted her summer hat, rejecting the stare of the rude sun.

  So poised, so elegant! Normalyn felt slightly amazed—and even clumsier by contrast. She almost missed the chair Robert pulled out for her.

  “It was my mother’s home,” Mark Poe said. “We’ve converted it into an arts school for talented young people. Robert teaches acting and drawing.”

  “And Mark teaches writing and directing.” Robert held the other man’s hand. “Mark’s mother made all this possible—the house, a trust fund for scholarships.” He glanced at the young people in the pool. “They study very hard, work very hard . . . and swim very hard on Sundays. After they’re through here”— he sighed at the disconcerting prospect—“it’s hello, damn world!”

  This is what Mildred Meadows had tried to besmirch with lies. These men had triumphed over her. Normalyn thought that soon she might be able to relax with them.

  “What may we offer you?” Robert Kunitz asked.

  Troja brushed away a strand of bougainvillea that was flirting with her hat in a feathery breeze. “Ms. Morgan?” She grandly relinquished the decision to Normalyn.

  Her irritation growing at the ostentatious display of poise, Normalyn needed to match Troja’s sophistication. She blurted, “Champagne! It’s never too late for champagne!”

  Troja and Robert looked at her in surprise. Mark Poe removed his glasses, seeing her without barrier.

  Pushing on although she was about to crash into embarrassment—and her elbow slipped from the armrest—Normalyn corrected, “Never too early for champagne—that’s what I meant, of course.” She had spoken words Enid had once addressed gaily to Mayor Hughes.

  Mark Poe’s look drifted away, as if he had been summoned by an echo.

  “Well, I don’t see why not champagne,” Robert rescued Normalyn. “After all,” he teased Mark, “we’ve never claimed to be austere socialists.” He went to arrange for the champagne.

  In the glaring silence that contained Mark’s open stare at her, Normalyn was glad that a dark-haired youngman had extricated himself from the others in the pool and was idling nearby, pretending merely to be drying himself.

  “I think Michael wants to meet you two,” Robert remarked when he returned with an ice bucket, champagne. “He’s one, of Mark’s best directing students. And he’s barely twenty-one.”

  “Very talented, has challenging ideas,” Mark said proudly. “I wish these were better times for creative minds.”

  Robert looked at Mark with a slightly sad smile. “Mark would have made a wonderful father.” He said quickly, “May I motion Michael over for a moment?” He already had. “He’s the oddest combination of shyness and boldness,” he whispered.

  The youngman had intent dark eyes, a taut body. “Michael Farrell,” he introduced himself. “I hope you stay over.”

  Why should he ever be shy, as handsome as he was? Normalyn wondered. He had rushed his very direct invitation. To whom? She did that, rushed words, when she wasn’t sure her breathing would survive her voice. She was amazed at how easily she had smiled at him. Immediately, she felt hideously plain, especially next to Troja, so glamorous! Normalyn turned away from the youngman.

  He reacted instantly: “I have to go prepare for my classes tomorrow.” He yanked back his earlier boldness: “I hope I’ll see you later,” he said before he walked away.

  Troja kicked Normalyn under the table for not responding.

  Robert poured the champagne into tall, slim glasses.

  “Baccarat flutes. Charming!” Troja trilled. She held one up so that it captured just one sunbeam.

  Trying to surpass her, Normalyn tilted her glass and gulped from its tingly contents. “It’s lovely, oh, just lovely.” The echo of her words made her blush.

  Then they were all silent.

  4

  Mark placed his hands firmly on the table. “Miss Morgan, you’re here for a purpose.” The soft tone of his words tempered their bluntness. “Now you—we—seem to be avoiding it. Perhaps you decided that earlier, and that’s why you brought your lovely friend with you.”

  “Y’all don’t concern yourselves about me," said Troja, turning shanty. “Got important business of my own!” She was about to get up, paused only to take another sip of champagne. “And if Normalyn decides to stay, you watch how you talk to her!”

  Normalyn tamed Troja’s reaction by holding her hand in reassurance. What Mark Poe had said was true, but what she said now was equa
lly true in this tense moment. “I trust her, Mr. Poe.” And she did—staunchly—for having defended her.

  “Mark doesn’t mean to be rude or suspicious.” Robert seemed to be used to explaining a familiar misunderstanding. “He’s just very forthright. That’s why he never got along in Hollywood.”

  “Well, Normalyn is forthright, too,” Troja encouraged her.

  “I apologize for how I sounded. Robert is right: I didn’t intend rudeness.” Mark Poe closed his eyes briefly as if he were tired of explaining this. “We have nothing to hide. For us the scandals are over.”

  Robert sighed. “Yes!”

  “I’m certain that’s how you found us, Miss Morgan, by tracing the public scandals?” There was a note of bitterness in his words.

  Normalyn nodded.

  “But I do have memories I’ve protected. You’ve come to learn about those. I’m sorry to ask that you convince me that there’s good reason why I should share them with you.”

  Robert explained Mark’s new bluntness: “There was another youngwoman who came here not long ago, pretending to inquire about a scholarship. She really wanted to know intimate details about our pasts, and those of others—for that dreadful cult group.”

  The Dead Movie Stars! A youngwoman like that had invaded Miss Bertha’s house, Normalyn remembered . . . Then, like the others, Mark, too, was testing her.

  “You told me on the telephone that you wanted to find out who you are,” Mark reminded Normalyn; his voice was not unkind.

  “It’s true. I want to find out— . . .” Normalyn couldn’t ask. “—what Enid was like.” She couldn’t ask what she had really come to find out. Spoken aloud, those words would commit her to doubts she refused about her origin.

  “Oh, is that all?” Mark said with a tinge of irritation. “She was brave, loyal, determined. She said she was cunning, but she was also vulnerable, and she was very beautiful.” His voice softened. “And she said she would die in spring . . . Now you know how I saw her.” He terminated his peremptory recollecdon.

  “Miss Morgan—Normalyn,” Robert said quietly. “After you called Mark, I urged him to telephone you back. If you would only be . . . direct . . . about your intentions for coming here.”

  Now even Troja seemed to encourage that. She put her hand over Normalyn’s as if to buffer all difficulty.

  Then there was no need to play the games she had played with Mildred and David, the games Miss Bertha had rehearsed her for—no need of that because she had located these men. David Lange, with his powerful voice—echoing at unexpected times, mournful, commanding—had not guided her here . . . And Robert was her ally. Perhaps at the same time he wanted to discover something of his own within Mark’s recollections. Normalyn shaped the necessary words: “I know that before Enid left this city—”

  The angels’ city, Normalyn, the city of lost angels, she heard Enid’s voice.

  “—there was much . . . intrigue involving—”

  Say it, dearheart, say it, Miss Bertha spoke unexpectedly.

  “—involving her and Marilyn Monroe, and Mildred Meadows.” And perhaps it involved me—she could not say that. “Enid trusted you,” she said with the certainty of this moment. “That’s why I’ve turned to you, Mark.” She paused, wondering whether she could continue now. “And to find out, really, what Enid was like then. And what Marilyn Monroe was like. The way you saw them.” Finally she had extended the territory of her search for identity into the life of Marilyn Monroe.

  Mark Poe sipped his champagne, slowly. He smiled at Normalyn—a slightly saddened smile that accepted the reasons she had given him for being here.

  “Marilyn gave Mark a job when nobody else would hire him.” Robert guided Mark’s loyalty.

  “It was Enid who hired me,” Mark said.

  “It was brave of both of them,” Robert said, “because the vile Meadows had made him unemployable in Hollywood with her ugly lies.”

  Normalyn looked away now, for moments, from the past she was about to roam again. She was aware that at a garden table nearby Michael Farrell, dressed, was studying intently from a book. Other swimmers had scattered away. Michael flipped a page loudly, to alert her attention. When she looked, he smiled at her. Caught, she stared away. Would there be time enough for matters like that? Not just for exploring the lives of ghosts?

  Instant rage poured out Mark’s denunciation: “Meadows is the most amoral person I’ve ever known. Her great evil is propelled by tiny petulance. When her daughter died in a car crash with her child, Mildred wouldn’t allow the child to be buried in the same cemetery—because, she said, the child was ‘ugly’!”

  “She’s obsessed with beauty to the point of illness,” Robert said. “She despised Marilyn because Marilyn was the symbol of beauty and dared to ignore her,” he continued, goading Mark’s memories, “and Marilyn survived all her attacks.”

  “Except . . . perhaps . . . one,” Mark said to Normalyn. Then he said to Robert, “Why don’t you tell us how you saw Marilyn, and then I’ll join your narrative.”

  “Oh, she was so hurt.” Robert remembered that as foremost about the movie star. “She transformed her pain into defiant sexuality.”

  “That can happen,” Troja said, “but the pain just changes; sometimes that’s all.”

  Mark Poe encouraged Robert: “But tell us how you first saw her.” As he said that, his eyes were gentle on Normalyn.

  There was a man who loved me— . . . Normalyn thought she heard Enid’s voice in this flowered alcove.

  Robert Kunitz whispered to them all in mock secrecy, “You must promise first not to tell this part to anyone.” He announced dramatically, “Before I became Nash McHugh, I . . . was . . . a chorus boy for Twentieth Century-Fox!”

  Troja applauded the courageous confession.

  “It was my first movie,” Robert Kunitz said. “We were rehearsing the big musical number. And then there she was!” He paused, preparing with silent moments for her grand entrance into his thoughts. As if she had sprung to life before him, Robert said, “Yes, there she was! Marilyn—”

  Seventeen

  —Monroe walked on the set of the musical There’s No Business Like Show Business. She was wearing everything white, everything glittering, everything revealing. Two hidden slits at the bottom of her dress added the surprise of more flesh in unexpected glimpses as she moved. The dress was so sheer her skin tinted it a lighter shade of gold than her naked legs.

  Robert Kunitz, then only eighteen years old, was so awed to see her—in person—that he tripped on a circular stair. “You stupid fool!” The dance director screamed. “Get out and don’t ever—!”

  “But I’m not ready yet,” Marilyn challenged the choreographer. She went to Robert, who was rubbing his ankle. “Did you hurt yourself?” she asked him. He couldn’t answer, not because of pain but because Marilyn was so close to him. “I’ve stumbled a lot,” she told him. “And I-I-I stutter wh-wh-when I’m n-n-nervous.” She exaggerated her stutter, for him. “That’s what makes my voice so . . . b-b-breathy. And do you know the reason I walk like I do, so sexy? Because,” she whispered only to him, “I have weak ankles!”

  Robert could still not bring himself to speak to her. Even though she was not yet the greatest movie star, she was a magical presence. “Do you know how to drive?” she asked him.

  He was able to gasp, “Yes!”

  “I have a car, but I don’t drive very well. Will you go to the beach with me, after the scene?”

  Of course she knew he was gay; most of the chorus boys were. She just felt he needed company, and so did she. “Yes,” he repeated the only word he thought he would be able, ever, to say to her.

  Even with a hurt ankle, he was able to dance.

  They drove to Malibu. It was almost sundown on the beach. A giant orange sun floated on violet mist. Fishermen cast their nets into the hungry ocean, inspected the retrieved catch, and rejected fish too small to sell.

  When Marilyn saw the discarded fish on the s
and, she yelled at the fishermen: “Bastards, fucking cruel bastards!” The rejected fish thrashed on the shore. She gave a desperate cry and began throwing them back into the frothing water. “They’re still alive!” she insisted. In panic, she bent down, digging into sand in order not to miss one. She was tossing everything into the water—fish, seaweed, shells.

  Robert joined her, although he knew the fish were dead. “You saved them all,” he assured her.

  Marilyn linked her arm through his and said, “We saved them. Now they’ll live out their full lives.”

  Robert drove her home in her car. At her apartment, she said, “Thank you very much.”

  The youngman did not mind walking home, because he didn’t want to distance himself too quickly from Marilyn Monroe. He knew why he had instantly loved her. Like him, she had to keep her real self hidden, create herself constantly, hide her wounds, decorate them—in order to survive.

  Robert was fired from the studio soon after by the choreographer, who became head of Musical Production. When Robert returned to claim his last check, he saw Marilyn alone outside a sound stage. He watched her from the distance. She knelt, throwing pieces of bread at a few pigeons. That was the last time he saw her in person.

  On his way to apply for a clerk’s job at Bullock’s-Wilshire to tide him over a difficult time, Robert accepted a ride from powerful agent Henry Wilson. Made over into a deep-voiced movie hero, Nash drew thousands of letters and marriage proposals from women. Hollywood was even more closeted then than now; a whisper about homosexuality destroyed. Nash dated many Hollywood beauties.

  Mark Poe—that was his real name—was a serious stage actor with solid theatrical training. His mother was Charlotte Poe, one of the few screen actresses who managed the transition from silent films to talking motion pictures. Disgusted with Hollywood mediocrity, she married and became one of the first women to retain her own last name. When she divorced the cool, aloof millionaire, Mark chose to adopt his mother’s surname. Two daughters, Allana and Michele, ostentatiously opted for their wealthy father’s name. Charlotte adored Mark and came to detest the other siblings because of their lack of wit and sensitivity, their courtship of banality. Mark left a promising stage career in New York and returned to Hollywood only because Charlotte had a stroke that left her partially paralyzed.