Misfit (11 page)

A moist evening air blows off a horizon that's starting to wilt into the haze. For the first time all week she doesn't think about being watched. They move up the strip without speaking, until they reach the European restaurant and are greeted at the door by a host named Henri who speaks to them only in French. The European restaurant is even more ridiculous than she made it sound, with its piped-in cabaret music and an interior meant to replicate a street café. But she doesn't say anything, other than how safe she feels to be there with him.

 

The restlessness returns the next morning, once he's gone. The car will be arriving shortly at the Chateau Marmont to take her to the set. She's already dressed, her hair tied back under a scarf. For once ahead of schedule. Paula Strasberg waits in the room next door. They agreed to meet out front when the car arrived.

She sits on the bed, smoothing out the wrinkles in the bedspread. Then turns on the radio, adjusting the volume to a whisper. And she faces the wall and tries to breathe in. Hoping to fill her chest. When he left, Arthur told her he would see about returning next week; meanwhile, they both need to focus on their work to get through this phase. She promised she would try to save her pills for when she really needs them.

 

They talk that night. She tells Arthur they don't need to worry. They'll make it through this waiting period.
And then they can move into a whole new life. It's not hard to start over, she assures him. Trust me. She says it into the phone, a hand cupped over the receiver, with her voice lowered and hushed, but speaking so quickly she can barely keep the words in order.

Although she didn't want him to go to jail, she always encouraged Arthur not to cooperate with the committee, even if it meant contempt of Congress charges. The night before they left for Arthur's testimony in Washington, Spyros Skouras, the president of Twentieth Century-Fox, came by their apartment, hoping to convince Arthur to cooperate. He offered Arthur a way out, saying he could persuade some of the congressmen he had relationships with to relent if Arthur compromised by making a statement that thanked the committee for giving him the opportunity to realize he'd made mistakes, and to testify before Chairman Walter that he was glad for the chance to reconstitute his love for America, and was now fearful of people he'd once admired. She'd watched the whole thing from their bar, drinking scotch and running cognac out to Skouras.

Arthur fumed.

She understood full well that the only reason Skouras cared was because of her impending marriage
to Arthur and the effect his political stance might have on the salability of Marilyn and her movies. Maybe Skouras understood he wasn't going to succeed, because he suddenly stopped talking, grabbed his coat, and let Arthur see him to the elevator. Alone, Marilyn poured herself another scotch. She sipped it quickly before Arthur returned. It burned all the way down. She poured another. Hoping for the same.

 

After his hearing, Arthur didn't say much to her. He and his lawyer, Joe Rauh, came back to the Rauhs' apartment, where Marilyn had spent the day with Joe's wife, Olie, sequestered, out of sight of the Washington, D.C., media, and away from what Arthur perceived as unnecessary pressure. Once they walked in, it was as though the hearing had never happened, as if it had been only an inconvenience preceding her and Arthur's upcoming trip to England at the end of the week. What Marilyn did glean of the committee hearing was indirect—interrogations about petitions Arthur had signed, the rights of Ezra Pound to write his poetry, and his invocation of the Fifth Amendment when asked to confirm the Communist leanings of fellow writers. The only thing concrete was when Joe Rauh laughed, saying how this all could've been avoided if Arthur had just allowed Marilyn into the Capitol to pose for photos with Chairman Walter. But she was glad Arthur wasn't laughing. Even more glad he would never concede the fight. He burned so much
energy trying to protect her from his battles, was so busy looking out for her that he hadn't stopped to notice how hard she'd been cheering. Like a fanatic sitting ringside, yelling,
Hit him again, put him down for good.

Rabbi Goldburg wants to meet with you on his own, commuting from Congregation Mishkan Israel in New Haven down to your Sutton Place apartment. At your front door, on the eighth floor, he stands, slightly winded, a satchel in one hand and a stack of books cradled under his arm—
What Is a Jew?
,
History of the Jews
,
A Partisan Guide to the Jewish Problem
, and the Conversion Manual of the CCAR—the texts, you'll learn, that he requires anybody who wants to convert to read. You bring him tea, then settle in the living room, the rabbi on the couch and you in the brown armchair. The window is cracked open; the apartment gets stuffy in summer. He's looking at you, nodding with a faint smile, and it's impossible to guess how he sees you. It feels a bit like an audition, one for which you haven't been given a script, and it's not exactly clear how you're being measured. You've never sat one-on-one with a rabbi before, and your first impression is that his demeanor is more like that of a professional man than you might have imagined, all
business. You shift, uncrossing your legs, then crossing them again. Finally, you break the quiet. “Well,” you say, “welcome.” “Yes,” he says, “welcome.” And you say, “Shall we get started?” He leans back, spreading his arms along the top of the couch back; they span almost the entire length. He says he wants you to be comfortable, that
we're just going to have a little initial chat
. “So let's start with the most basic of questions,” he begins. “Why do you want to convert?” You straighten yourself up, this one you know, and you explain it's because you're going to marry Arthur, and he's, well, you know. Rabbi Goldburg considers, then tells you that, traditionally, marriage can never be considered as the sole reason for a conversion; the true reason needs to be a compelling desire to have a Jewish identity and to be part of a shared future, and he wants to know what you understand of that desire. Now
you're
nodding, sirens screaming as they round the corner on East Fifty-Seventh Street, not quite sure of how to answer, because you haven't really thought about it in those terms. The rabbi must see your confusion, because he walks back his question and says, “Allow me to ask you this, Miss Monroe. What are you converting from?” and you say, “From?” and he says, “If you're converting, then you have to be going
from
something
to
something.” And you remember your great-aunt Mrs. Martin taking you to her fundamentalist church in Compton, but you were only a child, and it was something forced upon you, something you
never even accepted enough to reject. So you look at Rabbi Goldburg, patiently waiting for your response, and all you can do is answer with another question: “Can
nothing
be
something
?”

Cal Neva Lodge, Crystal Bay, NV

Set in no particular order, plastic bottles, some clear and some green, line the desktop:

She replays the conversation with Frank. Turns it into a version that doesn't end with him walking out the door, still advising her to relax, and assuring her that everything will be smooth on his watch. A version in which she isn't so cautious and she just comes clean about her need to disappear for a while. Explaining how
The Misfits
had seemed as though it would be an escape from Marilyn Monroe, but just a year later here she is again, dumped back into her old self in this latest production,
Something's Got to Give
, with her old life (including Joe) falling into a regular pattern as though the time away was nothing more than an adolescent girl's sophomoric escapade. She should've told Frank that sometimes it feels like this is it—her last chance, because it's become near impossible to control Marilyn Monroe the way she used to—that she's becoming her. And how regardless of one's family history or stature, we're all prone to falling apart; all of us, at some moment, end up standing on an edge, unsure we can keep from toppling over, forced to deal with our fragility then and there. That's where she is. And she'd tell him that she read something in the paper about how a major earthquake could knock the earth off its axis, and while the earth would continue to spin just fine, as a result of the disaster, each day would be shortened by a little more than a millionth of a second, and how for nearly everybody that would mean nothing except for those for whom a millionth of a second means everything. And for her that one-millionth could tip the
scales. In the replayed conversation, she says that's why she came up here, that disappearing even for a weekend might let her hold on to that millionth of a second. Riding the earth bareback, clutching the reins, trying to steer clear of even the slightest bump.

 

Glancing at the lake reminds her how small she is. The reminder that you're only a sliver of something larger than you could ever be.

As she steps toward the railing, the door closes on its own behind her. She walks in a side step, working her way off the porch, feet never crossing over each other, her eyes fixed on the lake at all times. It looks a little greener through her sunglasses. Even when the porch curves, changing direction toward the lodge, she still watches Lake Tahoe. It's just a matter of twisting her body.

She'd like to go to the hill across the highway, just to the base, where the wildflowers grow. Maybe pick some poppies and bring them back to the cabin. Put them in a water glass. Bring new life into the room.

She steps off the porch onto the macadam, feeling the last wooden slat bend. The road is hard and solid. Blankets of flowers slope down to the lakeshore, sometimes hidden and shaded by manzanita and other
shrubs, but mostly sharp and distinct. They look impossible to reach.

She can't even see the hill.

 

“Miss Monroe?”

A big man in dark slacks and a crisp short-sleeved shirt takes off his sunglasses. He sticks them in his breast pocket, leaving one silver temple hanging out. He says he works for the Cal Neva. His face is wide and flat. He smells of cigarettes. Personal security, he tells her, for Mr. Sinatra's guests.

“You're charged with watching over me?”

“In a manner of speaking.”

“Frank's told you to make sure I'm safe?”

He asks, “Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” she nods. “Just fine. It's all okay.” Behind him is the lodge, the back side, where the Circle Bar comes out. She lowers her sunglasses, squinting. “I thought you could see the hill from here,” she says.

“The hill?”

“The one across the street. I saw it when I came in.”

“The hill across 28? You'd have to be around the side of the building to see it clearly. Almost in the front.”

“Really? I could swear I saw it from my porch earlier.”

He scans the grounds. On guard, almost as though anticipating something. “Nope,” he says. “Just from the side.”

She looks around, but there are no flowers that catch her interest. “Maybe you could help me up there. To the side, then. Just to look at the hill. I'd like to look at it. There's something I'm looking for.”

“There might be people there.”

“They seem to be everywhere. People.”

He tells her okay, but in a way that seems to suggest it's against his better judgment. Stalling, he puts his sunglasses back on. He coughs into his hand, then wipes his palm against his pant leg. His understanding, he explains, was that she wasn't to be disturbed, but if this is what she wants . . .

She says she's not disturbed. And it's what she wants.

 

It was warm when she left Los Angeles this morning, but it's even a little hotter here. Still, the air feels tighter, a bit more brisk, as though cutting across her instead of enveloping her. The smell of the pines takes over, and when the breeze blows from the south she can smell the lake water, pure and clear, because, oddly enough, pure and clear has its own smell.

She feels as though she is a stalk, and her petals are waiting to fall.

She tilts her chin up, trying to gauge the wind. The right gust could take her down.

 

The giant Cal Neva parking lot extends to the road. And from there she can make out the crest of the hill.
The bodyguard was wrong. Nobody is out. She takes a few steps, thinking she sees flowers dotting the hill. She considers going forward, but then stops. “Do you see anyone up there?” she asks.

“On the hill?”

“Yes, in line with us.”

He fingers the sunglasses down to the tip of his nose. Peers over the top. Scans. “No,” he says. “I don't see anything. But even if there was something to see, I'm not sure I could. It's pretty far away.”

“I saw something earlier. When I first arrived.”

“The wind blows the trees around, bending them into funny positions. It can make you do a double take out the corner of your eye.”