Marilyn's Daughter

by John Rechy

  Mildred rose from her chair and drew all the drapes apart.

  “What a lovely, lovely garden you have, Mildred,” Enid complimented.

  Mildred closed her eyes for moments to let nothing intrude on the suddenly recaptured past.

  When Enid prepared to leave—she touched her hat, and the veil floated over her face—she promised, “Of course, I’ll call you to inform you the exact date.”

  “And the time,” Mildred extended.

  “Of course,” Enid agreed. “But you do know, Mildred, the enormous secrecy involved at the D’Arcy House. You will not be allowed; certainly you understand that.”

  “I understand, but you, my dear, must understand that I have ways of verifying . . . everything and absolutely.” Mildred kept her warning mysterious.

  “We counted on that, Mildred,” Enid said, her tongue poised on her lips as if searching more sweetness. “No one could deceive you. It would be foolish to try.”

  “Very foolish,” Mildred agreed in her most civilized tone of threat.

  “And afterwards”—Enid smiled beautifully at Mildred—“afterwards, when you have your own verification—afterwards, Mildred, when you are convinced—Marilyn Monroe will apologize to you for not heeding your advice in the past. I’m sure she will long to thank you for saving her from a scandal not even she could survive—and from the dangerous birth of a child.”

  Mildred Meadows felt as if she had been holding her breath for years. Now she could exhale: “Yes!”

  Thirty-Three

  Smothered in waves of silent expectation aroused by the epic audition within the Thrice-Blessed Church was a reaction only Normalyn, attuned, was aware of: At the reference to Mildred’s dead daughter, the older woman in the audience was not able to muffle a sob.

  During this hiatus in the drama, as the expertly coached players relocated, Normalyn tried to collate important information from the contender’s determined search through the entangled lives: Enid had admitted giving birth to a child, and there had followed a reference to “vengeance.” That was a refrain now, asserting its reality, and Normalyn had come to disbelieve Stan’s words about a boy. How better to deny the existence of a living daughter? . . .

  The supporting player in the gray wig had moved much too quickly past the matter of Tarah’s child-bearing at the D’Arcy House, with Mildred in chilling attendance. That would mean that the source of such information—Mildred, of course—had moved just as evasively, pulling back when she blurted an unwanted name—“the despised Dr. Janus.”

  Normalyn’s feelings contained strong loyalty to Enid, even as evidence mounted that Enid had to some extent “joined” Mildred. There had to be more. . . . There is more, dearheart! . . . Normalyn reminded herself that she had learned from Mark Poe that the morning after Mildred’s raid, Enid and Marilyn had gone out together. That was to seek Alberta Holland’s counsel—on a spring day of jacaranda-snow when Miss Bertha offered them a cup of her chamomile tea— . . . Oh, she was inserting that information from Miss Bertha’s ruminations! Normalyn was thrilled to discover how well it fit—and she knew that soon she would return to Long Beach. . . . It would follow that Enid was armed with Alberta Holland’s advice when she proceeded to Mildred’s mansion, only seeming to join her. Yes. Normalyn welcomed that at times she and Enid had acted similarly with the old woman, both asking for iced tea. Or—this occurred to Normalyn—had that similarity been inserted as yet another goad to her participation in these auditions, to arouse her loyalty to the point that she would protest with knowledge of her own? After all, Mildred admitted coding her column with “secret messages” to elicit telling responses from the objects of her scrutiny. Was Mildred sending similar signals to her—guiding her to what she was expected to explore?

  Was the contender only a messenger!

  The contender rushed ahead: “On the appointed day, at the determined time, Mildred Meadows was at—”

  * * *

  —the D’Arcy House!

  Mildred worked on two main levels of perception, instinctive suspicion and commanded suspicion, the latter when there seemed to be nothing to suspect. When Enid left after that afternoon of sweet sherry, Mildred filtered through a sieve of suspicion everything that had occurred.

  She began with a given: Deceit must be assumed. By prohibiting her presence at the D’Arcy House, Enid had increased Mildred’s determination to be there. Because they wanted her there! Enid’s reference to the necessity of Monroe’s being in disguise had ample logic, of course; but she had been too eager to remind Mildred of a certain photograph of Marilyn in the same disguise. To lead her to it!

  Mildred consulted her files of photographs of actors and actresses fleeing the cameras of the photographers she employed; all were taken at times of intrigue, when stars did not want to be photographed. She looked closely at several pictures of Monroe—“incognito in black wig,” taken in response to tips of her whereabouts. She studied several pictures under a magnifying glass. She moved to a different light. With electrified excitement, she pulled out a photograph, another— Could it be? Some of the pictures might . . . just . . . possibly . . . be . . . of Enid pretending to be Monroe in a dark wig, Enid’s own black hair seeming to conceal! Mildred had observed that the two women looked alike in a startling way, alike opposites, as if in artifice Monroe had tried to match— or outdo—Enid’s natural beauty, to paint it, sculpt it on herself.

  Mildred located the photograph taken when, from her parked limousine, she had watched the “disguised Monroe—fleeing” being photographed by one of the men the columnist employed. The star had backed up against the gray car, then turned to face into the window in shock. Pretended shock! To assure that she—Enid!—was seen in this “disguise” and assumed to be Marilyn Monroe!

  Mildred riffled through more photographs of Monroe. That one might be of Enid in a blonde wig, posing as Monroe! They had interlocked two images into one—and succeeded even with her. Until now. Whatever their original purpose— foolish prankishness, a way to camouflage little intrigues common to all great stars—or preparation for more important subterfuges—whatever their initial purpose, now they clearly wanted her to carry with her into the heightened moments at the D’Arcy House that cleverly established single image. Enid, in the disguise they thought they had perfected, would be playing Monroe in an elaborately staged abortion. But why not Monroe herself in the pretense? Impossible to expose her delicate pregnancy to the risks of realistic charade.

  It was so clear! They were trying to trap her—Mildred Meadows!—into the essential announcement of a miscarriage, to allow the secret pregnancy to proceed!

  In all of this, Mildred now detected, like the wafting of a noxious odor, the dominating presence of Alberta Holland. Of course, the creature’s trusted friend, that betrayer of her own class, would be in intimate attendance at the simulation. It pleased Mildred to sweep the Spanish exile into the scandal. Too bad that Enid had to be included. She had shown charming potential. With a certain rue, Mildred allowed herself to observe that Enid’s presence brought even to Alberta Holland’s clumsy intrigue a certain aura of style, like that in the melodramas of the time that Tarah had so enjoyed.

  As agreed, Enid telephoned ahead to inform Mildred of the date and exact time when “the event fulfilling our mutual interests” would occur.

  At the tall gates of the D’Arcy House were guards pretending to be caretakers. Mildred’s limousine sailed past them. She had made arrangements to put the head guard temporarily in her employ, just as she knew Holland had counted on her doing.

  Over the entrance of the house was an enormous stained-glass window duplicating in exact detail the corner in Algiers where Frank Lloyd Wright had met the notorious Dominque D’Arcy, who lived here in luxuriant squalor until her death. At the door two other attendants—predictable!—pretended to attempt to stop Mildred.

  “Remove your ugly hands at once, do you know who I am?” Mildred was delighted to play in the subterfuge she would soon
uncover. Past the retreating attendants, she entered the hall of the disguised hospital in this Mexican desert town. The corridor gleamed in watery streaks of colored sunlight created by the dyed panes of the windows. Mildred heard a familiar voice, agitated. It was Enid’s, of course. So naive, my dear, she prepared to scold; you thought you could disguise even your voice?

  But—

  She saw Enid run out of one of the rooms ahead. Enid’s face looked livid with horror as she passed Mildred and rushed out of the great house. Mildred stopped in the corridor. All her conclusions were wrong! She had been sure Enid would be in the room pretending to be Monroe—that’s how certain they were that the two images they had interlocked would be powerful enough to deceive her during the tense and bloody seconds.

  Mildred was deeply baffled. She reexamined the matter. Of course! At the last moment Enid had realized the impossibility of this deceit and had fled in panic. Mildred might consider that in extenuation later. Now she could proceed down the hushed hallway to the vacated room. A woman hurried to lock it. Yes, there would be new instructions to really keep her out because, instead of what they had intended her to see, there would be abandoned instruments for the simulated operation, a vacant bed, whatever else they had contrived for “authenticity.”

  Mildred slapped the key from the woman’s hand. She thrust open the door and saw—

  From the bleeding woman, the doctor had pulled— The doctor was Dr. Janus! No, he was Dr. Crouch. And it was Tarah in bloody childbirth and Dr. Janus held out to Mildred the triumphant living child she had hoped would die and— . . . No! It was Tarah after the car crash—bleeding, still holding the hated, ugly child—

  Mildred leaned against the door, pulling herself out of past and present images, mixing. Only twice before did she remember having perspired: when she had sat with Tarah—in this very room—and in the hospital after the crash. Now, years later, she felt cold perspiration as Dr. Crouch—not Janus this time—held out to her . . . the mangled proof that the demanded abortion had, beyond a doubt, occurred. Mildred was certain who the pained woman was. She saw an unmistakable face, the face of— . . . Marilyn Monroe! Mildred’s eyes yanked away to . . . sequins! . . . on the floor, among blood! Even to this, Monroe had worn glitter. No, what she saw were beads of gleaming perspiration.

  Mildred closed the door. She considered . . . vomiting.

  In her important Friday column, as agreed, Mildred Meadows conveyed to her millions of readers the “sad news” that Marilyn Monroe had, once again, miscarried after a “sweet attempt at reconciliation with the most loving of her husbands.”

  On Monday, there was a front-page announcement that Mildred Meadows was terminating her “vastly popular, internationally syndicated column.”

  * * *

  In the church basement, the girl wearing the imperturbable gray wig moved solemnly into the shadows of self-imposed seclusion. Before the hypnotized audience, the Contender for Marilyn Monroe stood for silent moments of adulation.

  Then no child had been born. That was Normalyn’s first thought. Again, relief was followed by sadness for the great movie star.

  But something essential was missing!

  Normalyn reacted now against the account of Mildred’s invasion of the D’Arcy House—and this version clearly came from Mildred. The telling had been much too carefully manipulated, too calculated in its fragmentary yet emphatic presentation, seeming to invite, with selective phrasing, conclusions only suggested by adhering to a rigorously tightened point of view. Mildred’s firm belief that she had seen Marilyn Monroe in a real abortion had been declared from the controlled perspective of years later. . . . The motivation for Mildred’s abrupt termination of her column had again been left glaringly unexplored. Only a real abortion could have disoriented the woman to the indicated extent at the D’Arcy House, and only a real abortion would have convinced her to announce “the miscarriage.”

  Yet not even to thwart the vast evil of Mildred Meadows would Miss Bertha have sacrificed a child in order to deceive. But would Alberta Holland? Now Miss Bertha’s benign presence separated itself from Alberta Holland. No, it was Normalyn who was separating her, because she heard the persevering voice: Dearheart, remember carefully all you’ve gathered . . . Yes! Even today Mildred was questioning what she had seen at the secret hospital . . . The interlocked image of the two women—

  Suddenly the memory of the distant shoreline swept over Normalyn. Enid removed a black wig from the blonde woman. She had only remembered her as being blonde from the first. No, it was the other woman who—. . . The memory jumbled before it melted and flowed away. Still, as distance extended between Normalyn and the origin of that memory, its prolonged clarity was convincing her of its reality.

  “Then my life came crashing!” the Contender for Marilyn Monroe flung words into the spell: “Strange that today people forget the sadness with which I ended my life. I was broke, I had to borrow money, my production company had failed. There was talk I would be fired, sued by the studio. I couldn’t sleep without pills. I thought I saw myself becoming old, discarded. I felt isolated, abandoned, alone—”

  Sighs hinted the possibility of tears from the moved audience. Lady Star saw Billy Jack lean forward, taut with excitement, preparing to suggest unanimous approval of the contender. For a horrifying second Lady Star thought he might break into applause. She clamped her hand on his. Next to her, Veronica Lake was about to speak out approval—Lady Star felt it! She thrust her elbow against Veronica’s. This could all lead to the first time Dead Movie Stardom was bestowed before an audition was officially over, that’s how much dangerous power the contender was amassing.

  “I locked the door of my bedroom. I swallowed a handful of sleeping pills . . . more . . .” the contender continued. She began to crumble onto the quilted padding on the floor.

  Lady Star had not one moment to lose. She moved off the platform in a few determined strides and stood over the expiring contender. “Get off the goddamned floor this instant, contender!” she demanded.

  Startled, the contender stood up.

  Lady Star tried to pull the quilt from under the contender. “You’re rushing your death scene much too fast!”

  The contender stumbled on the rumpled quilt. “Huh?”

  Lady Star heard angered mumbles in the audience—aimed at her and growing.

  “What the hell!” Billy Jack stood up to protest. Veronica Lake planted a defiant hand on her hip. James Dean pushed up an angered collar on his red jacket. Lady Star had to smash the spell, but the situation demanded she proceed exactly, not too fast, allowing adjustment, then fast enough to let it all settle, then swiftly riding on momentum. She was careful to compliment the contender—the popular contender, she reminded herself: “You’ve told your story somewhat well, created some suspense, aroused our expectations. But—as others on the panel and the attentive in the audience must have recognized”—her cold look judged the impetuosity that had made them all so reckless—“you’ve left out quite a lot, contender!”

  At Lady Star’s words, Veronica Lake restored the waning wave over her eye, reorienting herself. Billy Jack sat down, slouched. Whispers sprouted among the panel. In the audience one biker turned to another and nodded—“Yeah!”—in grave agreement with Lady Star’s evaluation.

  The time was right! Lady Star bombarded: “Now answer this, contender. Why did Mildred stop writing her column? Why didn’t she expose the promised scandal about the brothers? How does Dr. Crouch fit in? And why was Enid running away in horror from, the D’Arcy House? But most important, what about Marilyn’s daughter? Why have you left out what you claimed to be your secret scandal?”

  “Because . . . uh . . .” Shifting her stance uncomfortably, the contender was silent.

  Currents stirred, swayed, shifted. Hedy Lamarr observed, “She was too eager to get to the suicide.”

  “She did leave out a lot.” Billy Jack pondered and reconsidered.

  “That’s the damn truth.” Veroni
ca Lake was testy.

  “I always thought her hair was all wrong,” Rita Hayworth offered.

  “Give her a damn chance, you guys,” said a tiny voice from the panel. It was Verna La Maye.

  That was still enough to create factions! “Yeah, give her a damn, uh, chance,” James Dean joined the new opposition, which just might include Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn. Betty Grable waited. “Yeahs” echoed among petitioners.

  A picture of fair play, Lady Star opened beneficent arms. In syrupy tones, she addressed the contender: “You promised to tell us—all of us” she reminded the panel and the audience, “everything that happened. You simply haven’t, darling, have you?”

  Silence from the contender.

  More silence.

  “We’re waiting,” Lady Star reminded. “Perhaps it may help if I guide you. Now. You told us Mildred saw a real abortion. You told us Enid ran out of the D’Arcy House. You told us Marilyn had a daughter. What! Is! The! Truth!”

  “I don’t know!”

  I’m Enid Morgan’s daughter and I have no father! Normalyn supplied her own truth.

  “You don’t know!” Lady Star repeated the contender’s startling admission. “You don’t know!”

  “The nerve of her!” Betty Grable denounced.

  “She told us all that stuff like it was really happening,” Tyrone Power accused.

  “She made us believe we were really seeing it,” Rita Hayworth complained.

  “Now she says she doesn’t know!” Errol Flynn condemned.

  In her own small voice, the contender said, “I tried real hard to find out everything—from Mildred Meadows, Dr. Dambert, lots and lots of people. But the Crouches stopped speaking to me when the old woman said I wasn’t right, and a guy at Nash McHugh’s school stopped a girl from telling me about Mark Poe—and I couldn’t locate Dr. Janus. And a batty old woman in Long Beach just babbled on before she chased me out—”

  “Long Beach!”

  Miss Bertha! Normalyn felt soothed by her memories of the old woman—who had given her information, even if in cautious code.