The Norma Gene

by M. E. Roufa

  “You can’t just stay under a rock like this, you know,” Harold said, gesturing with a fry, as if the restaurant were the rock in question. “The world deserves to know about you. You owe it to them.”

  “Who’s them? What do you mean I owe it?” Abe was immediately put off again. The moment of wanting to be appreciated passed as quickly as it had come. It was one thing to want to be recognized, just once, by someone who understood. But it was another thing entirely for that recognition to come with any sort of responsibilities, let alone obligations. “I’m an anomaly, but I’m hardly important. Clones aren’t news anymore.”

  “Yeah but you would be—you would be HUGE! Abraham Lincoln! You were one of our most popular presidents! You wrote the Gettysburg Address! You freed the slaves! Honest Abe—I cannot tell a lie!”

  “That was Washington.”

  “What?”

  “’I cannot tell a lie.’ That wasn’t Lincoln, it was Washington. And he never said it either. It’s a myth. Plus I didn’t do any of that. President Lincoln did. Well over a century and a half ago. Look at me. Do I look like I freed any slaves?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “That’s because I didn’t. I just share some DNA. It’s no big deal. Except for that, I’m nothing like Abraham Lincoln.”

  “Right, of course not. I hear you.”

  Abe returned to his sandwich. It was getting more rubbery each time he put it down, but he was determined to finish it. But he could feel the texture of the chicken resisting his teeth with every bite. Swallowing was going to be a chore. He longed for this lunch to be over.

  “You could wear a hat.” Harold pounded the table jubilantly.

  “Excuse me?” Abe swallowed the piece of chicken much faster than he would have thought possible. He wheezed with the effort of reclaiming his tongue from his throat, still dry from the whiplash. The crazy man banging the table across from him was once again making no sense.

  “A stovepipe hat. Nothing says Lincoln faster than a stovepipe hat. Trust me on this, Abe. When I have to send boys out for headshots on short notice, sometimes that’s all they need. White shirt, dark jacket, Stove. Pipe. Hat. ” He pointed his finger back at Abe. The finger point again. “I’ve got a great supplier over in Kissimmee. I can get you one by Friday, maybe Thursday if we’re lucky.”

  “Harold,” Abe said. “I’m not going to start wearing a top hat just so people will think I look like Abraham Lincoln. I already look way too much like Abraham Lincoln. That’s my problem.”

  “Not a top hat. A stovepipe hat. A top hat won’t do you any good at all. You’d look like an idiot.”

  “I’m pretty sure I’d look like an idiot in either of them. Harold, I appreciate your interest in me. But I don’t want anyone to know. I don’t know why my parents chose to have me the way they did, but I know they didn’t do it for the general public’s sake, or I would be out there already. But thank God they didn’t, and I got to grow up like every other normal kid and have a real life. Not screwed up and robbing convenience stores or appearing on reality shows or in and out of rehab like all those other firsts. Maybe if I wanted to come out on my own a decade ago it would have been interesting to a few people, but now I’d just be a novelty act. I agreed to meet with you again, and I met with you again. I’m not interested. But thanks for lunch.”

  Abe got up and started to leave. Harold got up too, and half-touched, half grabbed his arm. “Any time, Abe. My pleasure. But I really think you should think about this. I’ll be in touch, okay?”

  “That’s all right,” Abe said as he left, meaning no.

  “All right then!” Harold called after him, meaning he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  19

  Hey, lady, I got something for ya.” The voice, as always, grated like a rusty hinge in a Buddhist temple. Two years of working with Shosha, and Norma still hadn’t reached the point where she could hear her jovial bray without cringing slightly. But this time, along with the just-too-loud tone and the ever-present clomp of those polished meta-army boots (metal-studded today), was the additional thump of something large and cardboard, almost but not quite making contact with Norma’s rear end. Norma whirled around, shocked, but still keeping her “I know you’re my boss” smile not far from lips’ reach.

  “Open it, open it!” Shosha practically jumped up and down, making it almost impossible to continue mentally filing for sexual harassment. She had placed a large wrapped box on the counter in front of Norma. Bigger than a breadbox, too large for even their most expansive gift collection, the box was just the wrong size to be anything that could remotely considered casual or nonthreatening when given by a coworker, let alone a superior who thinks she’s your best friend. If it weren’t for the fact that the wrapping paper had the word “Illusions” repeated in tasteful matte platinum on shiny black moiré paper, with only a small metallic cord in place of a ribbon (who stoops to decorate with elastic cord outside the retail industry?), Norma would have been truly concerned. But since whatever it was must have come from their parent division in some way, whether as part of a special promotion or some sort of outright freebie swag, then whatever it was, if Shosha wanted to unload it on her and call it a gift, she wouldn’t go looking it in the mouth.

  On a scale of one to ten, with ten being the best gift she had ever received, and one being a regifted pair of mismatched men’s socks, the items contained within the box were a solid 5. In their workmanship and beauty, they could qualify for a good 10, though with 2 points lost for their complete lack of originality, leaving them at a solid 8. But in terms of being the sort of present Norma would have desired to receive, they might as well have been made out of three-day-old cat poop. While she feared this day would probably come eventually, she still was living under the impression that Shosha was giving her a choice. Not to mention that the choice would be a long time in coming—certainly not within a week, forced upon her, gift-wrapped no less.

  Inside the box was a pile of platinum blonde waves, dancing on top of a rhinestone-covered evening gown the color of her naked flesh. It was indecent what they were trying to do to her. Even without trying the gown on, she felt completely exposed. There before her, snuggled into the box like a glowing jewel, was Marilyn Monroe’s birthday suit.

  “So, you gonna try it on?” Shosha insisted.

  “Now?” Norma hedged. “It’s a lousy time. You know you really need me on the floor.”

  “What, now?” Shosha countered, her voice practically echoing off the decidedly empty floor. “It’s deader than dead. C’mon—try it on.”

  Norma tried again, “I don’t think it’s going to fit…” She was clawing at excuses desperately, like a kitten fighting to stay out of the bathtub, dreading the almost inevitable drowning.

  Shosha’s eyes locked with hers. “It’s going to fit. I made sure of it.” For an instant Norma was almost sure there was something deeper than banter contained in the comment, but then it passed. Sighing, she gathered the box in her arms and headed to the dressing room.

  From the day when Eve first discovered the meaning of the word “naked” and simultaneously discovered the perfect fig-leaf ensemble, there have been times in every woman’s life when she tries on a piece of clothing that she simply has to have. Sometimes it comes from necessity; Eve’s case, for example, and the first woman astronaut’s, not to mention ordinary snow- and rain-gear. But even when it comes to fashion-for-fashion’s sake, sometimes clothes demand to be owned. When Norma had tried on the Dress, she had existed within one such moment. Now, just a handful of hours later, that coveted red gown—for all its trouble—had become just a wadded up ball in the back of her memory closet.

  The Jean Louis dress Marilyn Monroe wore on the occasion of John F. Kennedy’s forty-fifth birthday salute at Madison Square Garden was literally breathtaking. As in, breathe in and hold it for the rest of the evening, lady, because there’s not enough room in it for both you and your lungs. So form-fitting that Marilyn had had
to be sewn into it—and cut out of it—the flesh-colored floor-length gown was a liquid chiffon embrace that somehow managed to convey both sexiness and class. Not Grace Kelly class, admittedly, but the kind of class of that could grant a woman who everyone suspected had slept with the President of the United States an enhanced status rather than one which diminished them both. It was the color of unashamed nudity, freckled with 6000 hand-sewn beads that sparkled in the spotlights in a rosette pattern, which no one even noticed, they were so busy looking up. The Grucci Brothers couldn’t have designed it better. When it was put on the auction block thirty-seven years later, it sold for 1.2 million dollars. And the buyers thought they got a bargain.

  While the duplication carefully unfurled in Norma’s arms couldn’t possibly be as exquisite (or as expensive) as the original, in some ways she suspected it might have surpassed it. For one thing, the advent of stretch fabrics now made it possible to make a dress that could be every bit as closely attached to the body without any surgery. For another, the far less elaborate beadwork weighed much less than the original must have, allowing for even more sinuous movement. This wasn’t a chintzy reproduction, either—knowing that their sales force would be wearing the gowns for days at a time, and would be selling an image of glamour to women who would be leaning in within a hairsbreadth of them in order to capture their scent, the billion-dollar fragrance industry refused to take half measures. It was entirely possible that the other Illusions saleswomen were being forced to surrender a percentage of their commissions for the privilege of owning their attire, and only her obvious resistance to the entire idea had kept her paycheck intact—Shosha had probably picked up the tab herself. Were it not immediately recognizable to any student of pop culture history, no one would ever know this dress was a costume at all.

  Faced with the fact of it, even alone in the dressing room, Norma was almost terrified to try it on. She could find a way to keep from leaving the cubicle somehow, she could figure out a way around Shosha and the whole Illusions business strategy in general; those fears were suddenly inconsequential next to the reality of what she found herself about to do. Standing half naked in front of the mirror, holding the dress that—even if it hadn’t been a part of her ancestral history—would have still drawn her in by its own magic, Norma was hesitating because she already knew what she would see. It was one thing to not want to parade her secret in front of others. That had always been her personal phobia. But she had also never faced up to her hidden dread—and longing—to reveal her secret to herself. Never played dress-up. Never did the voice. Never even lightened her hair—almost a class 2 misdemeanor in Florida, alongside minor parking violations and wearing sandals with socks under the age of 60. And now here she was, with one of Marilyn’s most famous dresses draped sensuously in her arms. And more suggestively, a platinum blonde wig waiting patiently on the dressing room bench to complete the transformation. Like Marilyn herself, the costume wanted nothing less than total commitment. And like Marilyn herself, Norma wasn’t sure if she wanted to commit and was sure she really really wanted a drink.

  Carefully, even reverently, she started to slide the gown over her head and raised arms, then stopped. If she was going to do this, she was going to do it all the way. Marilyn’s dress was sewn onto her for a reason—there wasn’t any room inside for anything else but Marilyn. So Norma removed her undergarments and slid the dress on the way Marilyn wore hers—with nothing on underneath but what God gave her. Just as she suspected (or just as the marketing genius behind the promotion had made certain), the dress fit her like a coat of paint. Without even glancing in the mirror, not yet, she turned and picked up the wig. Figuring out the back from the front took a little work before she realized there was a small tag inside, and then it took a little longer to tuck all of her own auburn hair underneath. But finally the transformation was complete. Norma took a step backwards and finally looked at herself in the full-length mirror to see what she had done.

  Standing in the tall glass rectangle in front of her was Marilyn Monroe. Norma covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

  20

  It had started, as lousy decisions always do, after a bad day at work.

  A new standardized test had been implemented, and Abe was mandated to spend the week’s class hours teaching his incredibly gifted students the right way to color in preprinted ovals. His bid to coach the debate team had been rejected yet again in favor of the faculty advisor to the student newspaper, a narrow-waisted, narrow-minded woman whose English courses were consistently ranked on students’ webpages at the very bottom. Below even the mind-numbingly useless class his school syllabus called Safe Social Networking, but students called Nudes for Prudes. Abe wasn’t particularly worked up over missing the opportunity to drill this year’s crop of future personal injury lawyers and advertising copywriters in the finer points of avoiding equivocation and shifting the burden of proof. But he could have used the extra cash. Fixing his car’s busted headlamp had proved to be more expensive than he reckoned, and he still hadn’t lined up a summer job.

  Then there was the Lincoln Incident. Caricatures of Abe as Abraham Lincoln had begun cropping up in more and more places. What started as a mildly amusing prank had snowballed into a hallway and internet meme, occasionally amusing, but most often simply profane. It had finally reached the point where school administrators could no longer ignore the postings, and Abe was called in to the Dean’s office.

  “You need to stop these,” he told Abe, waving a particularly egregious poster showing Abe Lincoln (the Lincoln Memorial version) with a caption inviting the cheerleading squad to “sit on my lap and play with my Lincoln Log.”

  Abe nodded, solemnly. “I’m not really sure how,” he responded. “If I show I’m annoyed, they’ll just get worse. You know that.”

  “I know,” the Dean agreed. “And if we catch the people responsible, we’ll discipline them. But it’s your headache, not ours. If you can’t keep the students’ respect, I’m not sure we can keep you on staff.”

  Abe promised to do what he could, but what would that be? If there were only a couple of perpetrators, he might stand a chance. But judging from the number and range of originality of the various insults, it seemed far more likely to be a class-wide if not a school-wide endeavor. He’d almost have an easier time figuring out which students were not responsible.

  Abe hoped the threat to his job stability wasn’t serious, but the Dean had a point. If the students disrespected him to such a degree that he had become a laughingstock, what good would his job be? It seemed as though it would only be a matter of weeks, not even months, before someone attempted a similar joke inside his classroom, during his teaching hours. Abe had seen what happened when a teacher couldn’t control his class. It never ended well.

  Abe headed home in a deep funk, trying to weigh his options but having an increasingly hard time focusing on how to hoist them onto his invisible scale, considering he had no clue what those options were. He could quit, he supposed, but it was the wrong time in the school year to look for another job. He could feel his back up against the wall when Harold called.

  Harold had an idea. It was guaranteed to make them rich.

  Rich was a word Abe could understand, even if he had no personal frame of reference in which to fit it. Rich could be a very nice thing. In light of his present non-rich circumstances, saying yes to Harold’s idiotic scheme suddenly seemed a lot less crazy.

  The next morning, Abe woke in a panic, common sense and regret mingling in his mind to form only one word: No. He called Harold immediately and repeatedly, but the call kept going straight to voicemail. Abe sent message after message, all with the same communication: He had changed his mind. He wasn’t interested. He was backing out.

  Harold never checked his messages. He found long ago that the best way to create the reality you want is to ignore all other potential realities that might intervene. Abe had said yes, and it was on. Abe would be famous. He would be rich.


  Interlude

  In the latter end of the last century, a Brahman bull named Chance became an unlikely celebrity. Milky white and big as a meat freezer, with a massive span of curved horns and a cheery glint in his eye, Chance would have been worth a special trip even if he had the personality of a cow. But where a normal bull would gore a nearby stranger faster than you could say “you idiot, get away from that fence,” Chance was all heart. Docile and sweet-natured, Chance would allow children to ride on his back and political candidates to pose alongside him and boost their virile American male bona-fides. From Ronald Reagan to Mother Teresa, any celebrity passing through the rolling hills of Swiss Alp, Texas was treated to a photo op with the congenial bull. A celebrity in his own right, Chance starred in movies and on late-night TV. So when, at the ripe old age of 21, Chance started showing his age, it seemed a natural solution for his owners to have him cloned.

  It took 189 attempts, but eventually the cloning procedure was successful, and Second Chance was born. A beautiful calf who seemed to instinctively recognize his owners and who immediately claimed his predecessor’s favorite shady resting spot under a tree behind the ranch house. Second Chance ate his feed in the same slowly contemplative manner, and showed the same cheery glint when you caught his eye. In fact, Second Chance was identical to Chance in every way. Well, nearly every way. There was the tiny matter of his personality. The first time he threw his owner, dislocating his shoulder and nearly goring him through, it barely gave him pause. Just some youthful spirits, no doubt, he would be sweet as a lamb once he matured. The next time Second Chance sent him to the hospital, this time goring him several times and nearly detaching his scrotum, he was equally sanguine. After all, the ranch had only acquired Chance when he was 7 years old, so clearly anything Second Chance did before reaching that age didn’t count.