The Blonde

by Anna Godbersen

  Even Arthur—who was taking a road trip through the Southwest with his photographer friend—no longer troubled her. They had mistaken each other, that was all, and she hoped that his life would be better now, as she knew hers would be. She figured it would be better to remain married until after the picture premiered—there would be fewer messy scenes that way, and she was less likely to encounter emotions that might dim her euphoria—and he had agreed to go along with the charade. On her last day in California she stopped in at a jeweler on Rodeo she liked, to buy Clark an engraved cigarette case, a thank-you gift for the patience he had shown her during those frustrating months when she had tried to make a movie and seduce a busy man at the same time. Later she was going to send a telegram—she didn’t want the jeweler to read her private note—with the message: Who needs a daddy when I’ve got you? Love, Marilyn. She had called the ranch last night, and Kay had said he wasn’t feeling well enough to come to the phone. A little gesture was the least she could do. But when she saw how beautiful and sleek the cases were, she knew she’d order two.

  “And will you have it sent to the Carlyle Hotel in New York? Just mark for the penthouse, they’ll know. As quickly as possible, please.”

  “What initials shall I have engraved?”

  “Oh.” The election was less than a week away, and she didn’t think that anybody in America could see the name Jack, or the initials JFK, without thinking instantly of Kennedy the candidate. “Will you just have it inscribed To Johnny?”

  At the hotel she went to thank Sal, who insisted on accompanying her out to her car, and she kissed him on either cheek and said, “I might be gone awhile, but don’t forget me, promise?” He made a sad, earnest face and told her she could come back anytime. And as she rose through the clouds and drifted in and out of sleep, she knew from the way the other passengers kept glancing at her that even when she nodded off she was beaming. Ordinarily, strangers stared at her in curiosity or jealousy or desire, but now they just beamed back, as people do when they see a woman who glows.

  “Isn’t it wonderful?” she asked, gazing at New York from the backseat of a cab.

  “What is?” The driver glanced at her in the rearview.

  “Seasons,” she said, as the East Side, in its crisp, autumn wholesomeness, flew by.

  “And right you are.”

  For a few days this seemed to be all she needed. She walked alone in Central Park examining the leaves, the garnet and the ochre and other shades she’d never noticed leaves could turn, and listened to Ella Fitzgerald albums at home on Sutton Place, and smoked a single cigarette at dusk. She had never felt less lonely, and anyway, Jack was everywhere—she could find him in the newspaper or on the television whenever she wanted.

  Watching the debates back in October, the day after she had gone up to his Carlyle suite on the flimsy pretext of helping him prepare, she had known already what this feeling was. She had known, too, that it was inconvenient, but the notion that she was in love with Jack had by then become fixed, bringing with it a pleasant gust of delirium, and she was certain that no matter what happened everything would be all right. It was good to know this feeling, even if it couldn’t last. The way he had prodded Nixon into saying that an invasion of Cuba was not tenable, that the United States government could not support the overthrow of a Latin American government even if its leader was communist, seemed almost like a private joke between them. That was how he had told it to her, and she was glad that it was a confidence she had not betrayed, even if it had meant cutting ties with Alexei. Even though it had meant giving up her old, best dream. If she thought about that, she began to wonder how it might have gone differently. What would have happened if she’d called Pilar and ordered the irises, if that might not have given her sudden advantage, if Alexei wouldn’t have finally rewarded her subterfuge. But she didn’t think about it much—she tried not to, and anyway her pining for a father had lost much of its power when there was the promise of Jack on the line.

  A delicate snow fell on Election Day, and she walked aimlessly just to feel snowflakes melting on the tip of her tongue. As she descended into the school basement, she thought only of Jack. How his every gesture seemed to say Oh, what the hell. Of Jack handsome in his suit across a room, of Jack’s carnal gaze as he watched her through a car window and pronounced her both fox and hound dog, of Jack lying down in the hotel room wearing boxer shorts and his funny corset, looking like the prep school student he must once have been, dreamy in his weakness, yearning and a little goofy for everything there is to know. She imagined him like that, eating toast in bed, leaving crumbs in the sheets, and she loved them both, the sick boy and his vibrant creation; she even loved him for choosing a woman of such rigid sophistication and relentless chic to play his wife. Like a hundred million others she went into the booth to make her secret choice, and when she pulled the lever she thought for Johnny. The phone was ringing as she came through the front door, and she felt sure it was him.

  “I’ve missed you,” she said straight away, not wanting to waste breath on hello.

  “Miss you, too,” Jack replied. “Thanks for the case.”

  “It’s a good-luck charm! For today.”

  “Boy, did I want to bawl when I saw it.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to …”

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s just that nobody’s called me Johnny in a long time. Not since Kick.”

  “Kick?”

  “My sister, Kathleen. She’s dead now, but she was my—everybody’s favorite, I suppose.”

  “How did she—?”

  “In a dinky little airplane, trying to get to Cannes. Right after the war. They were in a hurry, because they knew they were going to have to rush back to see the old man. She wanted his approval, you see. The fellow she was going to marry was divorced. Or would’ve been if he’d lived. Anyway, I’m sure you know pretty well we’re all Irish Catholics here, and what does any of it matter now—she always knew how to make me laugh, is the main thing. If she were here now—” He interrupted himself with a sound that was like laughing but which held no humor. “Goddamn, am I nervous about this thing.”

  “I wish I were there. To make you laugh.”

  “Will you call tomorrow? When it’s all over, I mean.”

  “Yes.”

  “I should go—I only had a minute.”

  “I know. Jack, I—”

  “Yes?”

  “Nothing, I … I just wanted to wish you all the luck in the world.”

  “Thanks.” His throat had been worn down by the speeches and the late nights, and even through that, or maybe because of it, she heard emotion in even his blandest words. “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  November ninth woke Marilyn to the soft hiss of a radiator and a flood of anxiety not her own. When she’d gone to bed the night before, the election had been too close to call, and the newsmen on the television had gone back and forth. At first it had seemed Nixon would win easily, but she had reminded herself how most people lived—that they had to wrench themselves from bed too early, that their days belonged to someone else, that they had to wait until the workday was done to exercise their own will. Those were her people, and she knew their votes would pour in for Jack as the night rolled on. The back-and-forth on the television made her nauseous—they seemed almost to be saying that nothing could ever be known for sure, and she was confused and annoyed by the numbers they kept repeating without meaning. So she’d gone to bed and slept a long time, but in the morning she was as nervous for Jack as she had been the night before, and didn’t want to leave her warm sheets.

  Then she heard footsteps in the kitchen, and went toward the sound. She hadn’t heard from Alexei since the night he’d taken her to his studio, and this made her believe a little more each day that he really had let her go. But her faith could slip late at night or early in the morning, or after her maid had gone home, when every noise from the apartment above, every groan of the radiator, made
her brittle with fear that he had come to mete out punishment for disobeying him.

  “Arthur.” She leaned against the doorframe, relieved, and pushed her unkempt hair away from her face. “What are you doing here?”

  He glanced up from the kitchen table where he sat, legs crossed and absorbed in the Times, and she thought how though he was barely older than Jack, he seemed of another generation. “Just came to bring you the paper, and some coffee, and to get a few things from my study. I’ll be driving up to Roxbury this afternoon.”

  She suspected that when he said I he meant we, but even this could not unsettle her, with her heart so otherwise occupied.

  “I hope that’s all right,” he added indifferently as he returned to reading.

  “Of course.” She crossed to the table, picked up the Post and one of the two steaming paper cups. “They still don’t know, huh?”

  “No. It’s going to be very close, but I’m sure that crook Joe Kennedy paid off the right people—enough of them, anyway—to get his boy into the White House.”

  “But you must have voted for him?”

  Without moving any other part of his body, Arthur let his eyeballs roll upward, assessing her. “It didn’t seem to matter much this year,” he replied eventually.

  “You can’t want Nixon.” She wasn’t sure why she cared, but she heard herself going on: “When Nixon would have hung Dr. King out to dry, and it was Kennedy who lobbied for him, got those ridiculous charges dismissed? He would have gone to the penitentiary otherwise, just for exercising his rights as a man.”

  “And John Kennedy saved the day?” Arthur sighed tiredly and switched the cross of his legs. “If that’s true—if—I’m sure he’d already tallied how many Negro votes it would net him, long before he acted.”

  “Does it matter why he did it? Dr. King might have been lynched if he went to prison down there….”

  Arthur folded the paper, put his chin on his knuckles, and narrowed his eyes at her. “Don’t tell me you have a crush on him.”

  “A crush on Kennedy?” A murmured laugh escaped her lips, and her body softened. “So what if I do. I mean, what woman in America doesn’t?”

  “Are you done with that?” He indicated the Post and, without looking at her, took it from her hand. “Well, my money’s on him, so you’ll probably get plenty more of that matinee idol face on your television. But he’s a political animal, a real chameleon—he’ll say or do whatever garners the most votes, so don’t get it into your pretty head that he stands for something now.”

  She nodded, but Arthur’s focus was on the paper, so he wouldn’t have noticed how this affected her, anyway.

  “Perhaps he stands for himself,” Arthur allowed. “Perhaps.”

  “Maybe you need some time alone here.” She stepped away from the wall as she changed the subject. “I’ll give you a little time,” she went on briskly. “Enjoy the drive up to the country.”

  “Good-bye, Marilyn,” he said as she whisked down the hall.

  “Good-bye,” she called. But already she was busy getting dressed, in a clinging black sweater dress and a fur coat.

  She went to the Joy Tavern, because it held pleasant associations, and though she knew Jack’s man Bill would not be there waiting, she still found herself rather disappointed that he never materialized. There were many reasons to feel agitated that day, and when she came home after two drinks she was glad to find Arthur gone, because there was no one to look disappointed when she poured herself a double scotch and sat down next to the phone to dial the answering service number her fingers had learned to do automatically some time ago. It did not matter that Alexei would not introduce her to her father now, she told herself—not when the thing she had gained was so much greater. She left the usual cryptic message—that he should call Miss Green at the New York office—and tried in vain to sit still. She crossed to the window and watched the street, expecting to see Alexei in his trench coat, or some associate not yet known to her, loitering on the sidewalk or peering through binoculars across the way. But there was no one—only a family eating breakfast in the apartment opposite, and housekeepers walking dogs in the late morning. A half hour passed, maybe a full one, and by then the scotch had slowed her pulse. She went to pour herself another and put the needle on the Ella record, which was the only music she had listened to in days.

  She closed her eyes and let her shoulders keep time with “Mack the Knife,” and danced with an invisible partner. Moving felt good, and it shut out thoughts of old hopes she’d let go forever. The music swelled, and Ella’s voice with it. Marilyn didn’t hear the telephone until its third ring, and she stopped dancing suddenly and glanced around as though someone might have caught her acting strange.

  “Hello?”

  “I have Hyannis Port for you,” the girl said.

  “Oh, thank goodness.” She curled into the armchair and closed her eyes.

  “Is this Miss Monroe?” She was startled to hear Jack’s voice like that, so formal after everything they’d done together, but then she thought he probably couldn’t find a moment alone, yet hadn’t been able to resist calling her even if it meant pretending.

  “Hey there,” she whispered, her words like melted sugar.

  On the other end of the line, the sound of a throat clearing. “Miss Monroe, this is Robert Kennedy. Do you remember me?”

  Her back got stiff as she comprehended that the voice had only been very like Jack’s. “Well, yes, of course I do …”

  “As of this morning the Secret Service assumed responsibility for the safety and protection of my brother John. Do you know what that means?”

  “Yes.”

  “That means he is the next president of the United States. Any number of security precautions have been, are being, implemented. Certain ties, certain activities, must be severed forever. Do you understand?”

  Her head bobbed helplessly, though of course he wouldn’t hear that.

  “You’re not to call anymore, Marilyn. He can’t see you anymore. Good-bye.”

  Before she managed to say anything the line went dead. Very slowly, because she didn’t trust her fingers to do as she instructed, she replaced the receiver. The white walls closed in around her, and her arms and legs were too heavy to move. There was nothing to do but sit, and reflect on the utter predictability of this denouement. The only thing that surprised her was how stupid she could be, after so much living, and how prone to believing in things she could not see.

  TWENTY-TWO

  New York, November 1960

  A long day passed in which Marilyn did not bother getting dressed in anything more than her old bathrobe, and the whole world seemed to forget her. Then the telephone did ring, and she was so relieved by this proof that somebody out there knew she existed that she picked up straight away.

  “It’s me,” Alexei said. When she heard his voice so brusque like that, she knew she hadn’t ever really believed he’d stay away. But her mind was too sluggish with sorrow to register a threat. “Are you ready? To put this foolishness behind you, and get back to work?”

  “No. I’m sorry,” she replied, with as much emotion as she might have given an encyclopedia salesman, and put the receiver back in its cradle.

  Another day passed in much the same way, except she thought a great deal about what she might say to Alexei when he called back—messages for her father, questions about where he was located. If her father was as Alexei had described him, if he was worth meeting, he must have some power, and surely he would eventually come looking for her. But none of that really mattered. Even if Jack didn’t care anymore, still her heart wouldn’t let her spy on him, although that seemed too tender to share with the member of a shadow organization, whose real name she might not even know. But when he did call back, she felt no desire to explain herself, and hung up the moment she heard his voice.

  Then it occurred to her that, while Jack’s victory meant he would no longer see her, it had at least put the rest of the country in a
jubilant mood, with an infinite appetite for news about the magnificent Kennedys, and how they’d pulled this miracle off, and what it portended for all America’s futures. Nobody cared particularly about an aging movie star, and she might as well get the divorce announcement over with now, while the world’s attention was elsewhere.

  So she called her friend Earl at the Post and gave him the scoop, and then sent a telegram to Arthur that read:

  Happy Armistice Day. Best of luck with your German. She certainly knows how to take a picture. Love, Marilyn

  Afterward, she closed the blinds and poured herself the last of the scotch and got back into bed. She did little, and ate nothing, over the weekend, and might have gone on that way had her maid Lena not arrived with groceries on Monday morning. By then Marilyn had remembered how it was—falling in love will slim a girl down, but nothing finishes the job like getting dumped. Lena stood in the doorway, matronly forearms crossed over her cotton housedress, and sniffed the room—which did, by then, have the ripe odor of depression—and declared that she was going to make egg salad sandwiches.

  “You know you got company downstairs, don’t you?” she called as she retreated to the kitchen.

  “What kind of company?” Marilyn pulled the sheet from her face and shivered, even though the radiator had been going for days.

  “Bunch of reporters and photographers. They want a statement, about your divorce.”

  Marilyn drew her hands down her face, pulling the skin. Of course. Now she saw how badly she’d misstepped, how uncharacteristically witless she’d been. Love and shrewdness rarely go together; at any other time she would have known better than to make the statement before she was ready to put on a happy face, for the press never passed up an opportunity to see her sad. And then she realized something else.

  “Lena?” She threw back the sheet, and tied the robe over her nakedness. “Never mind about the sandwiches. I’m going out to lunch. Can you help me with my hair? After that, you can take the afternoon off.”