I pray for Marilyn Monroe's soul every night before I go to bed. They say that the Kennedys killed her but I'm not so sure about that. Even if she didn't actually commit suicide, I know she wanted to. She thought about it. Sleeping with a married man will do that to you.
Marilyn made it to thirty-six but I don't know if I can last that long. Twenty-four feels old, and I am tired.
The last time I saw Joe was exactly two weeks ago: June 2nd. We had fallen asleep in my bed, and I woke to the fluorescence of the street lamp outside. It slipped in through my blinds and painted streaks on his back. The air was sticky, and a thin layer of sweat glistened on his skin. He was turned slightly away from me, and I curled towards him to trace the small picture on his bicep. My index finger outlined the green dye. He stirred as I leaned over and kissed the image.
"I kissed the dragon," I whispered.
I felt giddy and very young. Almost innocent.
He twisted a bit, and the sheets wrapped tightly around my ankles.
"What?" he mumbled.
"I kissed the dragon."
"It isn't a dragon." His voice was drowsy and agitated, "It's a snake."
I giggled and tickled the spot just behind his knee with my painted toes. He turned to me with his lips in a straight tight line, but after a couple of seconds he broke into a grin. His teeth looked like pearls. I swear, just like pearls in that fluorescent light.
In our nine months together I always just assumed that his tattoo was a dragon head. That's what it looked like with its mouth wide open and its pointy tongue stuck out. Joe never liked to talk about it because it was an immature thing he did many years ago when he was in college at NYU. He pretended that it wasn't there. I was amazed at my mistake. I mean, it's strange to feel so sure about something and then to realize that you are totally wrong.
"Oh shit. What time is it?" He sat straight up. I glanced at my clock and realized that he was way off schedule. The blue numbers glowed "9:00" and the "p.m." dot was brightly lit. Part of me was glad because I liked having him for as long as possible, but part of me hated for him to worry. His wife would be expecting him. I know what it's like to have a tight schedule and lots of obligations. My agent sometimes schedules me for auditions that are too close together, and I hate catching the subways from one to another with different outfits folded in my satchel so I can change on the spot. Every now and then I feel exhilarated, as if I have multiple characters inside me just waiting to come out, but usually it just leaves me frazzled. It is a price I have to pay if I want to make it in this town.
Joe jumped out of bed and fumbled for the clothes folded neatly on my dresser. I watched him move through the strange shadows, his toned body catching the slats of street light. He was adept at getting himself together in the darkness. He had done it many times. He tucked his shirt neatly into his pants, adjusted his tie, and pried on a shiny pair of shoes. I liked him better in jeans and a sweatshirt, but he usually came straight from Wall Street where he is a stockbroker. He had to look polished.
He grabbed his wedding band from the china dish on my night stand and slipped it on his finger. He always took it off when we were together because it gave me a sick feeling in my stomach when it touched my skin. He leaned over to tousle my dark curls and kiss my forehead; then he left.
That was the last time I saw him. The very next day I received two dozen red roses and a card saying we couldn't continue our relationship because his wife was pregnant. I should move on with my life.
"I realize that I had no right," the last lines were precise and neat. "I hope that you can forgive me somehow. Let's part in peace." He wrote in pencil. He did not sign his name.
After reading his note, I punched my fist into the full length mirror on my bedroom door and watched the glass chips fall to the floor like diamonds. On my way to the bathroom to wash my hands, I accidentally dripped blood on the beige carpet. Even though I tried and tried to scrub the spot away, it wouldn't budge.
I know it was difficult for him to write those words. I used to tell him it could never last but he always argued that it was "just a matter of time." We both knew our timing was bad.
"Where were you ten years ago?" He teased one evening, early in our relationship. We were tucked into the muted corner of a Sheraton Hotel lounge across the river in Weehawken, New Jersey. His blue eyes danced in the light of the small candle on the table between us.
I giggled and waited a moment before answering, for dramatic effect.
"Middle School," I finally said, pushing a loose curl under my baseball cap.
That became kind of a joke between us, to smooth out the edges.
"You've got spunk, Meg," he would grin and say. He promised me that our future was worth the wait.
I know that I will go to Hell.
The snake haunts me. I wake up sweaty in the middle of the night and feel it twisting in the sheets. Ready to curl around my body.
Marilyn stares down at me from her posters tacked to my walls. I have four of them. They remind me of how you can become anything you want to be if you know the right things to change. My favorite poster is the one where she is wearing a white terry cloth bathrobe and gazing out of a window. She looks pure as soap.
I thought Joe would call me so I waited by the phone for a couple of days. When it didn't ring, I decided to tell his wife the truth. I wanted to ruin her life and their unborn baby's life. I left my apartment and headed for their place on the upper West Side. I stayed there one weekend when his wife was out of town at a legal convention. It is an airy apartment in a building where lots of other prospering couples live. I spent a lot of time in their bathroom looking through the medicine cabinet and touching her plush ivory towels. I sudsed in the claw-footed tub and let the hot bubbles engulf my skin. I even tried on her perfume, Beautiful, but it didn't smell good on me. It smelled tacky like in a dime store. Cheap.
On the way to tell Joe's wife the truth about us, I stopped at a side street diner and sat in an orange vinyl booth. I was wearing a white cotton sundress that kept slipping off my shoulder. I ate sweaty french fries and drank black coffee and watched the families file in and out of seats. I stayed there for a couple of hours until the caffeine started to make my veins pulse, and I wanted to scream out to all of the wives, "Your husband is cheating on you!"
I knew that it was probably true. I could see it in the men's marionette movements, the way they poured the ketchup into precise puddles and flipped through the New York Times. I watched their cardboard faces, and I hated them and their families. I especially hated their wives for being so dumb.
After that I couldn't go through with it. Not that day. It was too soon. I went into the bathroom and threw up, and then I went back to my apartment.
My apartment is on Tenth Street in the East Village. It is on the second floor, and there are iron bars on the windows. I love to look through the bars and watch the heads of people below. An ancient lady rocks in a wooden chair on the stoop just under my apartment. Her hair is silver, and her bony hands grip the arm rests like she is holding on for dear life. She is always there, rocking back and forth, but we have never spoken.
A prostitute lives across the street. She leaves her place at exactly midnight every night and slinks down to the corner of Tenth and Avenue A. She always wears pointy stiletto heels and halter tops that make her boobs stick way out. One early morning, I bumped into her on my way to the subway, and I got a good look at her face. Behind the matted platinum hair, she looked old. Her face was lined and tired.
I called Joe's house early this morning and his wife answered. I tried to speak, to tell her about us, but my mouth felt like it was full of dust. I hung up. I think that the only fair way for both of us is to tell her in person.
Shortly after calling his wife, I baked Joe's favorite oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. They made my apartment smell sort of like a real home. I creamed the butter and eggs by hand in the blue ceramic bowl that my Grandmother gave me. I never use a mixer. I prefer the way the cold dough feels all stuck between my fingers. After I took the cookies out of the oven I ate a couple of bites and then dumped the rest in the trash. I know that there are children starving in Ethiopia or somewhere like that, and it bothers me, but I still throw food away all the time. Sometimes I stick it in my mouth just long enough to taste; then I spit it into the sink.
Joe loved to watch me bake. Sometimes I would wear just an apron, nothing else, and we would make love pressed up against the kitchen counter. He said it suited me to be there instead of out in the crazy city.
"I'm not going to be just some housewife," I teased him. "I'm going to be a famous actress someday."
"I know you are." His right dimple punctuated his smile, like a comma. I think he really believed in me.
I went to the market earlier today and I bought some bleach for my hair. I want to be like Marilyn. I want to become her, to understand her. The peroxide stung my scalp and made my eyes water and burn. The pain seemed appropriate somehow.
I am now a blonde. White blonde, as blonde as you can get. My hair looks like cotton or an angel. I can't figure out which. I thought I would look like Marilyn but I don't.
My tight green shirt accentuates my new hair color. I'm ready to leave my apartment and tell Joe's wife. I think she will be pleased to know the truth and to have a female companion to confide in, someone who she can trust and share her pregnancy with. We will become friends, and Joe will be out in the cold. As I turn the doorknob, I hear Marilyn's breathy voice, "Don't do it," she says.
"What?" I turn and stare at the poster nearest me, the one with her leaning forward in a swooping ballet skirt. I watch for her mouth to move. It doesn't.
The phone rings. I close the door. The answering machine picks up.
"Hi, gorgeous, where the hell are you?" It's my agent, Lou. "I hope you're over that flu bug. I've got a Pepsi commercial audition for you tomorrow that you're perfect for. They're looking for bubbly brunettes. Call me back, doll, and I'll give you your call time. Oh, I dropped a residual check in the mail to you today. Ciao." Suddenly, I feel very tired. I take off my shirt and lie on the couch to rest.
I think that answering machines are one of the greatest inventions ever. I just sit and listen to the voices come through that little box. They don't seem like real people's voices at all. They sound like they belong to those dolls that talk when you pull the string. I wonder how long it would take for someone to get worried enough to come to my apartment. I think my voice on the machine is enough for them. When they hear it, they figure I still exist.
I have copies of Marilyn's movies and three books about her life. People think that she was just a sex symbol, just a brainless goddess, but that's not true. I have watched her closely, and I can see beneath her shell. The way I figure it, Marilyn understood about sex. She knew that it is always there, even if you don't want it to be. Like at that independent film audition in May when the director asked me to take off my blouse.
"There is a very tasteful scene with partial nudity, and I need to see what you look like," he had explained in a crisp hollow tone. His eyebrows knitted together as he spoke, and his hand rested on his crotch.
Afterwards, I stumbled down Broadway crying, mascara stinging my eyes. I called my older sister in Atlanta from a pay phone in front of Penn Station.
"Well, you didn't do it, did you?" She jumped in before I could even finish my story. Her voice was panicked and accusatory at the same time.
"No," I stammered. "I mean, no, of course not."
"Well, thank God you had enough sense." I could hear the relax. "Some girls are so desperate for jobs that they'll do anything."
Marilyn's big break was a naked photo for a calendar. Her hair was light brown, since they hadn't completely changed her yet. I saw a copy of the calendar picture one time in a movie star memorabilia place. She is stretched out on a red background and her breasts are perky and youthful. I understand how she felt. She had to pay her dues just like the rest of us.
Not too long ago, my acting coach, a distinguished gray-haired man who used to hobnob with celebrities back in the studio system days, told me a story about Marilyn. Years ago, he attended a party at Fox Studios in Hollywood and overheard a conversation between Marilyn and a director. The director asked her, "How has becoming a celebrity changed you?"
Marilyn thought a minute, then said, "I don't have to go down on photographers anymore."
I'm not completely sure why my coach told me this story and what he thinks I should do with such information, but the way I figure it Marilyn knew what she had to do, and at least she wasn't ashamed to admit it.
I have become fixated with the prostitute. I watch her step into the street every night, and I wonder if there is really any difference between us. I know that the only things that separate any of us are our choices. The very smallest choices can make all the difference. I feel close to her just like I feel close to Marilyn.
I pick up the receiver and stare at it. It's after dinnertime now. They will both be home. I punch the number into the phone.
"Hello?" It's Joe's voice.
"Joe?" I say.
There is a pause. He clears his throat.
"Don't ever call here again," he says.
The line goes dead.
It's midnight. My fishnet stockings feel tingly on my thighs. My spandex dress pushes my boobs up high. My lips are very red. I will walk down to that corner. I will do this, I will do this, I will do this. I deserve this.
I touch the doorknob. The room begins to spin. I open the door; my heels click on the hallway's cheap cement; I head downstairs. Out on the street, I walk towards the corner. A greasy guy smoking a cigarette whistles. I strut past him. "Hey baby," he says. "Hows about a little action?" I turn towards him, seductive and ready, then stumble to the curb, holding my stomach and gagging. Nothing comes out. "Thanks anyway," he cackles.
I wash my face over and over in my bathroom sink to get all the makeup off. When I look into the mirror, I don't recognize myself.
I don't feel angry anymore, just empty. I lie naked on the floor and stare at the posters on my wall. I watch Marilyn watch me. I want to join her wherever she is.
I imagine Joe reading the obituaries and seeing my name, and I wonder how it would make him feel. I have a bottle of Vicodin that I got after my wisdom tooth operation. The fat pills lay on the floor beside me, mixed with some Tylenol PM and Motrin, and curved on the carpet like an exotic snake. I want to take them all at once and get it over with.
I get on my knees in front of the bathrobe poster and clasp my hands together, "Please, Marilyn, please tell me what to do."
She doesn't answer.
I flip through one of her books, whizzing past photo after photo. I stop on the picture of her in her coffin and study it for a long time. Her face is gray, and her hair frizzes like thin wire. Not my Marilyn at all. I think I hear a whisper, a voice. I look up at the bathrobe poster, luminescent and ripe, and her eyes tell me to hang on for one more day. She smiles, all powdery-blonde like an angel.