by Ava Dellaira
As if on cue, he steps out the front door, carrying two bath towels and a boogie board. He pauses when he sees Marilyn, gives her a sidelong glance. “What’s up?”
Before she can respond, Justin chimes in, “Can she come?”
Marilyn smiles nervously. James raises his eyebrows, and turns to face her.
“We’re leaving now. You ready?”
“Just one sec.” She runs back up the steps and hurries into her room, quickly digging through her dresser until she finds her only swimsuit—an old black bikini whose elastic is starting to give out. She puts it on and throws a pair of overalls over the top, grabbing her shower towel off its hook on the way out.
James’s eyes follow Marilyn as she rushes down the steps, but his gaze is a closed door and she can’t tell what he’s thinking. She follows him and Justin to an old red Dodge, dented on the side. Justin moves to jump into the front seat, but James stops him.
“Where’s your manners. Let her get shotgun.”
Justin pouts.
“It’s okay—” Marilyn starts, but Justin gets in back as James opens the door for her.
She turns in her seat to offer Justin a smile, hoping he’s not regretting inviting her along. He punches her lightly on the arm. “Slug bug,” he says, and points to an old Beetle parked up the street.
James turns “California Love” up loud on the radio, eliminating the need for conversation, and they speed down the 10 freeway, the windows down, her hair blowing around her wildly, sweat collecting under her thighs. James is a sexy driver, she thinks. He goes fast, weaving around other cars, but not too fast; he’s focused, in control. Marilyn tries not to stare. Instead she searches the road, and when she finally finds another Beetle she turns around and taps Justin on the shoulder. “Slug bug,” she shouts over the music.
* * *
As they get closer to the ocean, the sky goes white, a layer of marine clouds blocking the sun. By the time they park, fog rolls off the water. Bodies move, ghost-like, in the near distance. Justin jumps out and tears across the sand, disappearing into the fog. Marilyn and James follow, set their towels out on the crowded beach. A moment later, Justin reemerges, dripping water.
“Are you coming in?” he asks Marilyn, not waiting for her answer as he grabs her hand and pulls her toward the sea. She laughs and struggles out of her overalls, throwing them down on the sand behind her.
A shot of electric happiness overtakes her as she dives under a wave and rides it, Justin beside her, to the shore. They do this over and over until she’s finally exhausted and shivering, having forgotten completely the feeling of heat that’s overwhelmed her for the past few days.
When they walk back to James, who’s lying on one of the towels, eyes closed, Justin jumps on him and they wrestle until James has Justin pinned, but he quickly lets him up. Justin grabs the boogie board and heads back out. Marilyn stays beside James, her towel wrapped around her body, strands of long wet hair sticking to her face.
“He’s so cute,” Marilyn says, and then thinks the word sounds stupid. Cute is too inconsequential—Justin’s wide-open charm is more than that.
“He likes you,” James says. “He’s not like this with everyone.”
Marilyn smiles and for a while they’re just quiet, James looking outward, seemingly hardly aware of her presence, though his body beside hers causes a rush of warmth to run under her goose-bumped skin.
Eventually he turns to her and says, “So tell me something about yourself.”
“Um. I don’t know. Like what?”
“Whatever you got.”
“I was born in Amarillo, but I barely remember it. We came here when I was six. My full name is Marilyn Mack Miller.”
James cocks his head at her.
“I know, it’s odd. Apparently, my dad had been hoping for a boy. He was so sure I’d be one, he’d already picked out the name. Mack seems a little unfortunate even for a guy, but it was my great-grandfather’s name. When I came out a girl, my mom let him use it as a middle name—a sort of consolation prize. She got her way and named me Marilyn after Marilyn Monroe, who she was—well, still is—basically obsessed with. She forgets about the tragic death, and uses Marilyn as proof that anyone, from anywhere, can be beautiful and famous…”
Marilyn trails off, worried that she’s in danger of saying too much, but James is still looking at her, as if waiting for more. “Anyway, since the commercials aren’t working out anymore, my mom wants me to do modeling now. She’ll be like, ‘Marilyn started as a model, and it helped her get discovered.’ My mother isn’t exactly stable. She believes in fairy tales.”
It occurs to Marilyn that it’s been a long time since she’s talked to someone like this. Even with Tiffany, she hardly divulged anything about her family life.
“What about you? What’s your full name?” she asks James.
“I’m James Alan Bell. Alan’s my grandpa’s name. My mom named me after James Brown, who was her favorite.”
Marilyn thinks of the picture of James and Justin with the beautiful woman in red hanging on their wall.
“So we’re both named after famous people. But yours is cooler,” she says.
James gives her only a half smile in response. Marilyn thinks of the voice that drifted through her window the first night at Woody’s, and retroactively recognizes it as James Brown. Try me, try me …
She wants to touch James. Instead, she studies the patterns of tattoos on his arms—roses winding around each other, flames morphing into ocean waves, the hummingbird on his shoulder, the name “Angela” on his bicep surrounded by stars.
As she’s considering asking who Angela is, Justin dashes back toward them, boogie board under his arm. Without thinking Marilyn lifts her hands into a frame, and in a blink she snaps a mind-photo of the grinning boy emerging from the fog. James turns to her before Justin’s on top of him, tackling him once again.
“Come on! Race you!” Justin exclaims, trying to pull his big brother up. James puts him in a playful headlock, which Justin squirms free from.
“He’s afraid of the water,” Justin tells Marilyn gloatingly.
“I’m not afraid of it.”
“He can’t swim. Not like me.”
James gives in. “True. Not like you.”
Justin smiles back, dashes off.
“What’s that thing you do?” James asks. “With your hands?”
Marilyn feels her cheeks burn. “Um, it’s just, like I’m taking a mind-picture.… That sounds stupid. I love photography, but I don’t have a camera to use anymore. So I practice just framing moments, and snapping the shutter at the perfect second…”
James’s gaze is now fixed on her in his impossible-to-read way. She’s never told anyone about her imaginary photos before, and she begins to wonder if it was better that way.
But then, he breaks into a smile. She realizes that this is the first time he’s smiled at her—really smiled with teeth and all—and it has to be one of the most beautiful things she’s ever seen. His whole face comes alive, bright enough to burn through the fog.
“That’s really cool,” he says. “I admire that.”
Marilyn feels herself beaming at his approval.
“If you want to be any good at anything, the only way is to practice,” he continues.
“Yeah. I’ve always been in front of cameras, for commercials or auditions or whatever, and I’ve always felt like … I don’t know. Like I wasn’t really there. When I started taking my own pictures, it was like I was getting these pieces of myself back.”
“Because you’re looking instead of being looked at. Because you’re in control.”
“Yes.” She hadn’t known how to say it so plainly, but that was exactly right.
* * *
When they pull up to the apartment hours later, the smell of salt water still in her hair, sand stuck between her thighs, shades of electric pink across the sky, Marilyn does not want to get out of the car. She does not want the day to end, doe
s not want to go back inside to the reality of her life.
“Where have you been?” Sylvie asks when she walks through the door.
“At the beach with the neighbors.”
Sylvie frowns.
“You know, the boy who helped us?” Marilyn prompts.
“Yes, I remember.” Sylvie pauses. “I didn’t know you were socializing with him.”
“Okay, well, I guess I am, as of today.”
Sylvie is silent. Woody’s still at the casino, so they don’t cook, instead eating cold cuts for dinner.
Marilyn doesn’t shower before bed, doesn’t want to wash the ocean from her, the quiet proof that, at least for the afternoon, she had belonged somewhere.
Sunday afternoon Sylvie drives herself and Marilyn up into the hills. They get lost, Marilyn fumbling with the map in the passenger seat, before they arrive back at the house with the miniature Davids on the lawn.
“There’s our friends!” Sylvie says as she parks the old Buick in the long driveway. The real estate agent, Rod Peeler, greets them with a white-toothed smile.
“Howdy, folks,” Rod says, in what Marilyn thinks sounds like a faux Southern accent.
“Come on in. Are you with an agent?”
“No, we’re just starting to browse,” Sylvie says. “My daughter’s a model, and she’s just booked a big job, so we’re looking to upgrade.”
Marilyn thinks he must see through the lie, but Rod Peeler continues to smile and ushers them into the living room with a glass wall looking onto the city. Rod tells them he’s an expert in the area and hands over his business card, tells them to “make yourselves at home.” Sylvie puts on a show of inspecting the rooms where others mill about—a young couple in expensive-looking sweats with expensive-looking haircuts, a man in his fifties with a sullen toddler in tow.
The kitchen is filled with the kind of golden California light that feels cleansing. There are cookies and lemonade laid out on a silver tray on an oak dining table. Sylvie pours them both cups from the glass pitcher, but shoots Marilyn a warning glance as she takes a chocolate chip cookie and nibbles. They step out through the open double glass doors to the backyard, the majority of which is taken up by a small crystal-blue pool, its oblong shape cut out of the concrete and surrounded by well-kept greenery.
Sylvie squeezes Marilyn’s hand and whispers, “Just imagine, baby. A pool of our own.”
Marilyn nods and eats the rest of her cookie, biding her time until Sylvie finally bids farewell to Rod, telling him how much they love the house, that they’ll “be in touch.”
Rod winks. “Please do.”
When they’re back in the car, descending from the hills, Sylvie turns to Marilyn and asks, “What’d you think?”
“Why do you do that?” Marilyn replies.
“Do what?”
“Lie like that. That I got a job and whatever.”
“I’m not lying,” Sylvie answers. “I’m willing that truth into existence.”
“Mom…”
“That’s your problem. You’re a cynic. Sometimes, you have to believe in something, you have to act as if it’s true, in order to make it so.”
Marilyn sighs and stares out the window.
“Try it. Say it, Marilyn—I’m a successful actress. I live in the beautiful home that I deserve.”
“Mom, I can’t say that. It isn’t true.”
“Say it, Marilyn! Say it. It’s important.”
“No!” she spits out.
Sylvie abruptly pulls the car over on Hollywood Boulevard, causing the driver behind her to honk. “We’re not going anywhere until you say it,” she says, her voice wavering like a flame.
“I’ll walk.” Marilyn opens the door as abruptly as Sylvie pulled over and gets out. She moves to the sidewalk, doesn’t look back at her mom’s car.
A man with a Kangol cap hands her a tape with his face printed on the cardboard sleeve.
“My debut,” he says.
“Thanks,” Marilyn answers, and takes it, hurrying on.
He catches up to her. “It’s ten dollars. Support the artists?”
“Oh, sorry, I don’t have ten dollars,” she says, and tries to hand the tape back.
“You know what, keep it. If you like it, spread the word.”
“Okay,” she says, and offers a fleeting smile before continuing down the block. She pauses at the crosswalk without letting herself look back to see if Sylvie’s still parked behind her. A woman at the bus stop holds a crying baby. A truck makes a left turn, nearly hitting a Range Rover that speeds through the yellow light. She continues for three more blocks, reaching the beginning of the Walk of Fame, where her footsteps punch down against the dirty stars. She’s just passing Liza Minnelli’s when Sylvie pulls up to the curb in front of her. The passenger-side window rolls down, revealing her mom’s face covered in tears. Marilyn forces a deep breath. She gets back in the car.
“Marilyn, say it, please. It’s so important.”
Marilyn swallows, shuts her eyes. She lets herself leave her body, focuses on the promise of next year, when she’ll be a student at a university, living her own life. She says in a near whisper, “I’m a successful actress. I live in a beautiful home.”
Sylvie stares back at her for a moment, then wipes her eyes. “See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
* * *
Woody’s drunk when they get back. Marilyn can tell by the way he eyes her when she walks into the house. That and the several bottles of beer piled around him. He sits slumped back on the couch, cleaning his nails with his switchblade.
“Wherey’allbeen?”
Sylvie ignores the slur in his question. “We had an appointment.”
“What kind of appointment?”
Marilyn knows Sylvie won’t mention the house in front of him. Instead, she says, “Your niece had a winning meeting at one of the biggest talent agencies last week. She’s steps away from becoming a successful print model, so we’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”
Woody raises his eyebrows. “Is that so?” he asks as Sylvie picks up the empty bottles around him. “Get me another, would you?”
Marilyn goes into her room and shuts the door. She’s quickly become accustomed to reading Woody’s signs: when he’s like this, it means he’s lost money at cards that day.
Moments later the shouting starts. “The goddamn drain is clogged up! It’s all her fucking blond hair!”
Marilyn steps out of her room, not wanting to leave her mother alone with the mess of the bathroom, and especially not with Woody, but the moment Sylvie sees her, she waves Marilyn away.
So Marilyn puts on her Walkman, trying not to hear Woody’s lumbering footsteps, trying not to anticipate his next outburst. She inserts the tape from the man in the Kangol cap. As he sings, Can’t afford to lose myself … in a pretty falsetto, she does her best to focus on The American Pageant. The AP US history textbook reports on the Dutch ship that arrived off the coast of Virginia and sold the colony its first slaves in 1619. When the colony established a parliament, representative self-government was born in Virginia “in the same cradle with slavery and in the same year,” the book states, with a cool distance that makes Marilyn furious. She tries her best to imagine her way into the reality evoked by the short sentences, and by ten o’clock she’s only made it twenty pages into the forty-page chapter. As she’s in the middle of flipping the tape over, she hears a door open downstairs and then slam closed. The particular footsteps, accompanied by a jangling of keys, that she knows belong to James. Marilyn peeks into the living room to find Woody now passed out on the couch and Sylvie’s bedroom door closed—hopefully she’s also asleep. Before Marilyn can talk herself out of it, she rushes outside.
“James!”
He’s already halfway down the block, unlocking the red Dodge with the dent. As he turns to face her, she feels suddenly foolish. Stupidly, she thinks, she waves, just now registering the fact that she’s in sweats.
He stands lookin
g at her, as if trying to discover what she’ll do next.
Finally, she walks toward him. “Where are you going?” she asks.
“To the store.”
“Can I come?”
He shrugs and walks around to the passenger side to key open the door.
A silence descends as he starts the engine. She stares out the window as they roll down their block, onto Washington, up Vermont. You are on my mind, Soul for Real sings on the radio. James changes the station, scrolling through restless snippets of songs that move in and out of their frequency.
“Sorry, I just needed to get out of the house,” Marilyn says finally.
“That’s cool,” he answers. “That uncle of yours seems like he might be a tough dude to live with,” he adds after a moment.
“Yeah.”
James pulls into Vons, the nearest supermarket. “Anyway, I get needing to get out. Sometimes it feels like it’s so small in our apartment, it’s like there’s literally not enough air.”
Like no matter how deep I try to breathe in, I can’t fill up my lungs, Marilyn thinks, but stops herself from saying out loud.
“This is your car?” she asks.
“Yeah. Well, actually, it used to be my mom’s. My grandma used it for a while, but she doesn’t drive much anymore. So I guess it’s mine now.”
“It’s embarrassing, but I don’t know how to drive yet,” Marilyn says. “I mean, I took the class at school last year, so I did the whole going-around-cones thing. But the one and only time I got behind the wheel with my mom, it was a disaster. I don’t think she even wants me to learn. She’d rather drive me around to all these stupid meetings and stuff.”
James parks. “What about you?” he asks. “You wanna learn?”
Marilyn shrugs. “Yeah. But I’m leaving next year for college, so it doesn’t really matter.”
“Where?”
“New York would be the dream—Columbia. But it’s almost impossible to get into. NYU doesn’t offer much in the way of scholarships or financial aid, which I’ll definitely need. I might try Barnard or Sarah Lawrence, but I want somewhere big enough that I don’t feel like I’m being watched. I could also see myself in Boston, or Chicago. Maybe the U of C, and then there’s Boston University, Emerson…”