Marilyn's Daughter

by John Rechy

  “Yes. When we discussed it, and she became sure—almost sure”—again Teresa’s eyes held Normalyn’s for any significant reaction—“that you were the girl we waited for. And you read my signals well, Normalyn, the decay in some blossoms.”

  She looked out the window, a white sheet of desert light. “Marilyn Monroe was fascinated by the beautiful jacaranda— she saw them as herself. She told your Miss Bertha that they didn’t last because they couldn’t last. Alberta said all she was sure of: ‘But they’re unforgettable.’ That’s when she asked me to make a bouquet of them for the great star. . . . Marilyn Monroe,” Teresa de Pilar uttered the magical name. “That artificial flower became much more beautiful than her antecedent; and she became confused as to which she really was.”

  She meant Norma Jeane. “You made some flowers for Enid, too,” Normalyn reminded.

  “While I cared for Marilyn in the days of her pregnancy.”

  Normalyn saw Enid’s hands reaching out to touch the bouquet of jacarandas next to the chipped angel. This room in Phoenix suddenly glowed in amber light, like Enid’s.

  Gathering her strength, Teresa rested on the tangerine-colored couch; it had only appeared beige earlier, when it was swept by early sun. What memory was stirring? . . . A memory of Kirk! Troja had given him a tangerine shirt he loved, which revealed every muscle he had created, Normalyn remembered.

  With her eyes closed as if to separate Normalyn from these words, Teresa de Pilar said; “They’ve called it blackmail, those jackals! Let them! For years I’ve kept their guilts alive—I and Alberta—until”—the voice softened—“until Alberta grew . . . tired, confused by so many memories of struggle,” she glided over Miss Bertha’s disorientations. “And so it was left to me only. What the jackals, so fearful of exposure, did not realize— what only that reporter knows—”

  She was hurrying past David Lange! Normalyn felt a hint of alarm at what that omission might signal, a possible alliance that would cloud—

  “—what they did not realize was that my ‘blackmail’ had lost its real power, that it was now given power only by them, their belief that they were still important. But the world had passed them by. Alberta knew it—because it had passed her by, without her regretting it; she invited the soothing obscurity. But the others! Why, even if I truly cared to expose them, the world would merely ask, ‘Who were they?’” She sat up erectly. “Did they confess everything they had to, Normalyn?”

  Normalyn detected indomitability in the strong voice. “I’m sure of it,” she answered. She hated to roam through the ugly confrontations, but she was sure now that was what she was here to tell—David had not lied! And so she told Teresa de Pilar about Mildred Meadows facing that she had been deceived; about her terrible hiding of Sandra, her own granddaughter; about how she, Normalyn, had managed finally to crack the steely composure.

  “Mildred admitted her fascist ‘patriots’ duped her?” Teresa leaned forward with delight. “She admitted Alberta used her? You made her quiver by telling her the truth of what she had done to her own daughter?”

  “Yes!” Normalyn could not hide the triumph in her voice. She went on to tell Teresa about Dr. and Mrs. Crouch—his deadly call to Marilyn Monroe in attempting to extricate himself and his wife from guilty association; his claiming the child was dead—

  Teresa de Pilar shut her eyes tightly as if to reject their presence even in her mind.

  “But they’re still terrified—especially by your blossoms. Still cowardly, always hiding, afraid and threatened every moment of their lives,” Normalyn extended.

  “They deserve their hell,” Teresa said.

  Normalyn told her about the day of white heat in the desert, about Ellen—sadly—“condemning herself for what she had allowed—”

  “But she agreed,” Teresa reminded quickly.

  Because that judgment might touch Alberta? Normalyn allowed silence to ask. Then she told about the judgment Jason had added, discovering the horror he had only sensed before. “I know he’ll become stronger from it,” she assured. Now she was glad to tell Teresa about Mark Poe: “He truly loved Enid and she went on loving him.”

  “It was inevitable you would turn to him,” Teresa said. “And so I sent him the perfect bouquet. A good man—and his friend, too. So abused by that evil woman, and by the evil times, but so courageous and triumphant.”

  “And David Lange—” Normalyn spoke the name abruptly, and this time she watched to see whether Teresa’s eyes would avert hers.

  “David Lange.” Teresa pronounced the name with gravity. “Who else to contact first and to enlist but the man who had once had a conscience?”

  Without flinching, she had confirmed what Normalyn had already inferred. “He did love her,” Normalyn surprised herself by saying after she told of his treasured moments of closeness to the movie star on the beach. Normalyn remembered then the sorrowing, possessed eyes, the bleeding within the commanding voice. “It still torments him—but he wrote that letter!” She pulled away from sadness for him.

  “Does it torment him?” Teresa de Pilar insisted. “He may be the most evil because he recognizes evil. He has a pursuit of his own. Perhaps he will redeem himself. Withhold your total trust of him,” she warned.

  Normalyn knew she did not have to—because he had no more power over her. He had become too vulnerable in his confession.

  “Tell me more, Normalyn.”

  Still testing her? Normalyn would disarm any lingering mistrust with irrefutable candor: “Before they finally believed me, they intended to use me as their ‘best candidate’ to deceive you—and so, Teresa, they only ended up by giving me even more information than they had intended to!” Normalyn laughed, expecting that Teresa would, too, with new delight.

  Instead, the woman said seriously, “I would see through any such foolish attempt—and I would withhold everything! Now tell me more, Normalyn.”

  Normalyn attempted to conquer panic. She had misjudged. Instead of ensuring confidence, she had aroused doubts. Teresa had waited for these moments so long that she needed to extend them. . . . Normalyn saw Teresa’s eyes studying her anew, tracing her features against the memory of others. Quickly, Normalyn told her about Mrs. Travers, Miss Kline. About Sandra.

  “I knew she would find you, and so I sent them the bouquet.” Teresa spoke more slowly, cautiously. “Please tell me more, Normalyn.”

  Normalyn felt tense, hot; even the tea seemed warm. “Lady Star—” she began, uncertain how much she must convey.

  “They used her cleverly, but she’s cunning, too,” Teresa dismissed. “Tell me more, please.”

  Normalyn knew she would soon begin to sound frantic. Teresa must not withdraw from her! But what exactly did she want to hear now? Normalyn told her about her own isolated life in Gibson, and—she heard herself speaking it—about the ugliness by the river, her confusions finally resolved about Ted.

  “You were right to end it!” Teresa said emphatically. And she coaxed for more information.

  Normalyn rushed on now to tell her everything, because she had to convince her or— . . . She told her about Enid, the constant memories of Norma Jeane clashing with others of Marilyn Monroe; told about the time Enid “became” Marilyn on the shoreline—expressing multiplied love—and about the uncanniness of certain incidents in one life recurring exactly in the other—

  “They were so close they forgot what belonged to whom. It became one background—theirs.”

  No, it was Norma Jeane’s, but Normalyn did not correct. Now, as the unrelenting gaze of the woman’s green eyes held her, Normalyn poured out even matters that had nothing to do with her purpose for being here. And yet, despite her growing alarm, she felt relief to speak all this aloud! . . . About Troja!

  “A perfect creation!” Teresa de Pilar admired. “So exotic.” She pointed to an orchid that was a shade of deep, deep gold brushed with scarlet at the edges. “The rarest orchid—like your friend.”

  Then Normalyn told her, sadly, ab
out Kirk.

  “One of those who have to die young,” Teresa accepted. On her lap her fingers moved carefully as if fashioning another flower, and her gaze seemed to release its questioning. “Tell me more, Normalyn.”

  Still more! What did she want to hear? Why didn’t she ask? Normalyn floundered. She told her . . . About Michael Farrell!—what he had told her about her being the only one who could free herself from the terrible fear—and that she believed it now, that she could—would! Then she tried to explain a warming feeling: “I think that Michael feels about Mark Poe like a father and Mark looks at him like a son—I’m sure of it; and Enid loved Mark— . . .” Her words slowed. “I think that I . . . like . . . Michael Farrell . . . very much. I think—” She felt suddenly shy, but the woman’s beautiful, radiant smile allowed her to finish: “I think that with him I can stop being afraid of . . . being close.” She marveled that she had spoken that aloud, and not only to ensure Teresa’s trust by sharing intimate confidences—and she could tell that that was working by the way the old woman listened so caringly—but because she wanted to speak about all this.

  “When that youngman calls again—because you know of course that he will—will you say ‘yes’ to seeing him,” Teresa’s smiling voice inquired as she refreshed Normalyn’s tea and her own, “without contradicting it?”

  “I think so.” Normalyn wished she could have said that with more certainty. Oh, would she be able to say “yes” immediately?

  Teresa de Pilar said firmly, “Of course he will have to understand—won’t he, Normalyn?—that you must have a life of your own.”

  “Yes!” Normalyn was astonished by this woman’s understanding. Then, why, even now, was she still demanding— “Tell me more, Normalyn.”

  “Goddammit, I’ve told you everything!”

  Teresa leaned toward Normalyn. “Do you ever wonder . . . about your father?”

  “I don’t want a father!” Normalyn said quickly.

  “But what you learn today,” Teresa de Pilar spoke even more softly, “must reveal that.”

  Normalyn realized that she had not told Teresa about Stanley Smith! That was what she had been waiting to hear. Quickly, Normalyn told her about the man “driven by deserved guilts, constant nightmares.” She said, “Of all of them I hate that bastard the most.”

  Teresa touched the perfect jacarandas. Eternal moments passed. “Now please show me the letter.”

  Normalyn sighed in relief, release. She brought from out of her purse, where they had remained throughout her journey from Texas to Los Angeles to here, the letter and the other papers.

  With steady fingers, the woman took them. She looked first at the dual birth certificates—and she only smiled. Then she looked at the photograph of “Monroe in disguise.” “You know that this is Enid,” Teresa said, “of course.”

  “Yes.” And she knew, too, that it was Enid on David’s wall, in the blowup of the figure pursued by photographers. Placed there to test her? Normalyn wondered, and then was certain of that, too.

  Teresa read aloud Enid’s note about “lavender snow.” “A memento of precious moments she wanted to share with you, Normalyn,” Teresa evaluated. “So much beauty, so much hurt—in both women.” Now she looked at the marked newsclipping. “Of course, Enid would leave this as guide! Her planning was complex, Normalyn, only until one understood it—and then it was exact.”

  And soon, very soon—Normalyn was sure of it now—she would understand exactly why Enid had shaped the mystery as she had.

  Teresa de Pilar studied the letter carefully, the note from Marilyn Monroe, the postscript from Enid—the doubled assertion of love. “Enid added what I knew she would add.” Teresa returned the letter and the papers gently to Normalyn.

  Normalyn felt cold, cold, waiting—

  Teresa said somberly, “What happens to you with the information I will give you, only you can decide. If you ask me not to, I will not reveal to them what I tell you—what they long to learn, the answer to the mystery they helped to create. They have lived with lies, let them continue being haunted by mystery—and my accusations! I will continue to pursue their guilts! I owe them nothing, nor do you. What I will speak is for you to hear, to do with what you will.”

  Then she recited words as if they had always been on her mind: “When Marilyn was returned to her home after the birth, it was essential that I depart as soon as the transition to a hired housekeeper was accomplished. Marilyn received one call—I know now it was the deadly call from that evil man. When I went to her bedroom before I left, she gave me a letter to give to Enid: ‘Make sure please!’ she said. I promised. I placed the telephone on her bed—she indicated she wanted it there. Then I kissed her goodbye.” Teresa de Pilar’s words slowed as if to keep fate at a distance. “Near dawn, Alberta called me at my home. Marilyn Monroe was dead.” Her words slowed, stopped. She continued: “I learned only then of the new developments about to crush us all. I had to return to Marilyn’s house—to prove that what I had heard was not true. There, I saw Enid running toward the body being carried out. I held her as she screamed. Then I gave her the letter you now hold.” Teresa’s hands trembled slightly. “It was then, between sobs, that Enid told me what I would confirm.”

  Normalyn waited a million seconds of panic.

  Teresa de Pilar held Normalyn’s hands in both of hers, warming them. “Normalyn, you must know by now that you are Marilyn’s daughter and that your father is Robert Kennedy.”

  No!

  Normalyn thought of Enid, who had raised her, remembered in a flood of recollection the early years of kindness, love, birthday celebrations, songs—the moments on the shoreline when—as both women—she had asserted her love so urgently. And she thought she could cherish now even the years of anger, madness, because always—yes, always!—there had been bursts of love. Normalyn closed her eyes. She said aloud—firmly, “Normalyn, you are Enid’s daughter and your father is—”

  * * *

  As Normalyn stood on Sunset Boulevard—only moments after leaving David Lange’s office—the sound of her own voice thrust her out of the imaginary encounter she had just shaped with someone named Teresa de Pilar in Phoenix. The imaginary meeting had begun to form in her mind as soon as she’d stepped into the street brushed by evening shadows.

  After she had acknowledged having the letter he knew of, she had told David she would have to go get it—said that even as she touched it in her purse. She needed to be away from him in order to— . . . What? . . . He had designated an exact time for her return with the letter to his office. “Three hours— I’ll wait only till then,” he emphasized. “And if not—” His eyes had looked darker than she had ever seen them.

  As dusk had faded into early night on the glossy street, Normalyn had allowed herself to imagine it all—the woman who would come with kind answers into her life, the house furnished from cherished associations— . . .

  Now as she hurried along the street, she knew her elaborate imagined meeting had had firm purposes. Within it, she had fitted essential pieces in the puzzle, had found logical motivations. She had glimpsed a reason, a strange, haunting reason, for the timing of Enid’s suicide within her careful plotting: to free her, Normalyn, when she, Enid, had felt free, at age eighteen. . . . She had located surviving doubts about David Lange. For the real meeting he was this very moment preparing for her, she had rehearsed what to say, what not to say. She had anticipated critical moments of apprehension she must overcome—yes—and explored her own feelings about . . . so much. . . . And she had tested what she might finally hear.

  She passed the restaurant where she had seen Michael and his friends. She wished they were there now, would invite her to sit with them—and she would, easily. They would talk, easily, about serious things—about books, about movies—writing books, making movies. And they would be able to laugh, too, so easily.

  Instead, her life was still in abeyance—but poised to resolve itself in three hours.

  Who was the
person David Lange would lead her to? Why in three hours?

  Normalyn crossed the street to catch the approaching bus, to go home, to talk to Troja about what had occurred, to sort it all out. Oh, please let Troja be all right!

  On the bench at the bus stop was a picture of Marilyn Monroe—triumphant with life!

  Fifty-One

  In the bus, Normalyn felt the weight of David Lange’s confession—the love that had contorted into vengeance, obsession, guilt, leaving a wake of turbulence he now sought to end. And he did, he did, Normalyn told herself. His tense composure when she’d left him, the darkening eyes—had they been misted over as if with undecided tears?—she remembered these belatedly, because after leaving, her mind had reached needfully for the palliative imaginary meeting.

  When she got off the bus, Normalyn ran to her house. Would Troja be—?

  Troja had made herself up fully again! In a lustrous blue dress, she looked like the Troja Normalyn had first known. Beautiful, glamorous, vibrant. Herself.

  Trying unsuccessfully to conceal her excitement, Troja announced quickly, “I’m performing this weekend, at a new club. Just two performances, that’s all—kind of a try-out before an audience. It could extend.” Terror flickered within the excitement. “A number of my own—”

  “As you?” Normalyn wanted to hear that.

  “As me,” Troja said pensively.

  Normalyn hugged her in congratulation.

  When the telephone rang, Normalyn was jerked back into an awareness of what she had to do—return to David Lange— and an awareness of what would then follow— . . . She felt her blood pulse in instant panic. “Hello!” she shouted into the telephone.

  “It’s Michael—Michael Farrell. Is that you, Normalyn? Should I call another time?”

  “No!” she said quickly. “Now’s just fine.” This was the right time to hear from him, a welcome reminder of life possible away from unburied mysteries. It was exactly the right time.