by Luca Grainger
“Marilyn Monroe died,” Martin says when Evelyn closes the door.
“Died? Isn’t she in her 30’s?” She asks, struggling to carry the paper bags to the kitchen. Martin doesn’t look away from the wood box television.
“That’s what they’re saying,” he says.
Evelyn unloads the bags onto the counter, her feet dragging against the linoleum as she puts things away.
“My goodness, what happened?” She asks.
“Don’t know. Don’t know if it’s even true.”
“How tragic.”
Evelyn’s hands sink into an old rhythm, the thunk and swish of potatoes being washed and peeled. This is the part of her day where everything pulses at a calculated tempo, where her mind can turn off while her hands move on memories that live deep in the marrow of her bones. It is not a fast dance. It’s morose.
“Can I get a martini?” Martin calls.
A potato bounces in the sink when he shatters her rhythm. She mixes, pours, and delivers the drink to Martin, whose eyes are still hollow on the television.
“This has vermouth,” He says, swallowing the first sip.
“It’s a martini,” Evelyn replies, and time slows as she begins cooking. They haven’t been married long, but to Evelyn, the ten years have stretched into a hundred. Every second languishes into a minute, an hour, only for the eternal second to be cracked by the tick of a clock, starting the next eternal second. It didn’t feel like this before they married, she remembers. The winds of early love ran through those months like a tornado as it stripped the walls of their individual lives away and rebuilt this new life in the whirlwind. Maybe it was love, in the earlier days, that made time feel like short, quick breaths, but now resentment distorts the passing years.
“I’m going to wash up,” Martin says as Evelyn sets their plates on the dining table. “Can you get me another?”
“The news has shaken Hollywood, and the nation at large, reminding all of us that we never truly know someone, no matter how much we think we do,” The anchor’s voice still laments through their living room as Evelyn muscles the cork out of a bottle of pinot noir and makes Martin another martini. It wasn’t long after their wedding that He became obsessed with Marilyn, and now even the idea of her grates across Evelyn’s mind, another torment in the constant oven of her marriage.
“I don’t think I’ll miss you, Marilyn,” She says, clicking off the tv.
Martin doesn’t return until Evelyn has finished a glass and a half of wine.
“Meatloaf,” He says.
“Meatloaf,” Evelyn confirms. Martin cuts into the meat, but Evelyn stands.
“I’m going to wash up, too,” She says.
“This is good, Ev,” He says with his mouth full.
In the bathroom, Evelyn stares into the mirror. She presses the handle of a comb into her hair, taming the few dark curls that have strayed from their correct position. Martin had called the style “voluptuous” once. Since then, she curled and pinned her hair every night, then sculpted her own Van Gogh style of waves into the exact same place every morning.
A sob chokes out when every hair lands where she wants it. Her shoulders cave forward, and she lets her body collapse in on itself. Her ribs contract, forcing all of her air out, and her face goes bright red as her dam of will holds everything back.
Her lungs fill when she swishes her hand under the icy stream of the tap. Time stretches again as her heels click slowly against the white tile floor, to the linen closet. Her ragged breath slows to something more balanced. She reaches to the top shelf, searching for a hand towel, but she grabs something made of silk.
She pulls the fabric and a slip that unravels from her hand. The intricately woven lace straps melt into a soft champagne color; it’s nicer than anything she’s owned, and nicer than anything Martin has bought for her. A crack stretches and shatters in her chest, and she finds the word to describe the unknown source of heat that has been boiling her alive for nearly ten years. She thought Martin may have been depressed, or grieving, or fading, or hurting. No. Martin has been hiding.
She throws the slip back into the closet.
At the table, she abandons her glass and drinks from the bottle. She sparks a match, sulfur dioxide soaking the air, and lights a cigarette. Martin watches her as she leans back and crosses her legs. She takes a hungry drag from the cigarette.
“What?” Martin asks, another mouthful of meatloaf.
“Did you only marry me because I was pregnant?” She asks.
“I don’t want to talk about the pregnancy,” Martin says, swallowing the last of his martini.
“You didn’t want to talk about the pregnancy, didn’t want to talk about the miscarriage, what do you want to talk about, Martin?”
“What is wrong with you?” Martin snaps.
Evelyn can’t hold back her smile, while a long exhale of smoke slides between her teeth.
“What’s wrong with me?” She laughs, takes another long drink, and slams the bottle down, rattling the table. Wine sloshes out leaving a blood splatter on the checkered tablecloth.
“What’s wrong with me?” She asks, again.
“Yes, Evelyn, What is wrong with you?” Martin snaps again, dropping his fork and knife into the remaining pile of food.
“Who are you bringing into my house?” She asks.
“What?”
“I think I could stand it, Martin, if you were like Barry, and spent your time at spas, or in bathhouses. God knows you’ve never wanted me. I could be silent. I could be discreet. I don’t think I would have cared what you needed to do outside, but to bring someone into my house. Presumably into my bed? Martin, it’s just…” She flicks her cigarette, seasoning the mashed potatoes with ash. “I don’t even know what it is.”
“I don’t understand what you’re even trying to say right now, Ev,” He rubs the palms of his hands into his eyes.
“I have given you everything I have. I gave you my word. My vows. My commitment. My life,” Martin lets out his own laugh, “I can’t believe you think I would do something like that.”
“What a life you’ve given me!” She exclaims. “Ten years full of cold distance, abject loneliness, and complete dishonesty.”
“Ev, I-”
“I feel like I’ve never even known you,” She says.
“Obviously, you don’t know me, if you think I would bring another woman into our house.”
Evelyn stares at him for a long moment. She stands and stomps to the bathroom. She grabs the slip and throws it onto their bed, laying all bare between them.
“Who is she?”
Martin doesn’t answer.
“Is she blonde? Is she shorter than me? Is she your Marilyn?” She fires her questions like darts.
She rips Martin’s few shirts from their hangers, empties his two drawers, and piles his small life into a red suitcase. Martin stands in the doorway, pale as a cloud, staring at the slip.
“I won’t be disrespected like this. Get out.” She shoves the suitcase into his arms.
“Ev,” He tries to say.
“My name is Evelyn,” She asserts with tears streaming down her face.
She throws the slip, and it hits him like a car hitting a pedestrian.
“Get out,” she says, pushing past him in the doorway. She opens the front door, chin up, tears falling to the floor.
“It’s not what you think,” Martin says, but the door slams behind him.
Martin’s car hums down the road. Before he realizes, he’s parked and walking under a neon sign, reading “Burke’s.” The walls are lined with glass bottles, shade after shade of various brown and clear liquids. His feet lead him to the gin, where his arms reach for a bottle like a toddler. The store is nearly silent, a static-filled radio broadcast the only score to shoppers.
“Miss Monroe was found nude on her bed around 4 a.m. It’s unclear if it was suicide. We will report new information as it’s released. WSPB signing off,” the radio chants, before falling into a jingle and advertisements. Tears knock against Martin’s eyes as he walks to the clerk. His hand protests as he sets the bottle down. Shame grips his throat as his body tries to force out a sob.
“You alright, bud?” The clerk asks.
Martin tries a flat smile, but tears slide down his cheeks.
“My wife and I are huge fans of Marilyn. Or we were, I guess,” He lies.
“It’s a tragedy, huh?” the clerk says.
“Yeah,” Martin mumbles, eyes dropping to the floor, larger tears dripping down.
The clerk looks at him for a moment.
“I’m throwing something extra in there for you. Might help curb a bit of the loss,” He says and slips a mason jar in the bag with his other bottle.
“Thanks,” Martin says, offering another flat smile. He takes the bag and walks back into the cold night. In his car, the radio offers another report: “Rumors are swirling after the news of the Blonde Bombshell’s death-”
Martin turns off the radio, and lets silence carry him to a motel.
The room is large, with a bed, a television on the wood-paneled dresser, a sitting area with a glass coffee table, and an unusually ornate mirror. He clicks the tv on as he opens his bottle, savoring the botanical fire as it burns his throat. A news report plays.
“We are sad to report the passing of Marilyn Monroe, who was found dead, this morning, in her bed. LAPD is currently investigating the death, but it is currently assumed to have been a suicide. We want to extend our condolences to her family and friends, colleagues, and worldwide fans, as one of the brightest stars in Hollywood has gone dark.”
Martin first saw her in Niagara. She was an alarm clock that woke him to jealousy. She was bigger than the sun to him, blonde hair curling around her face, charm wafting off the screen even as she plotted a murder. Beautiful, like she couldn’t be touched, like the world would turn over a thousand times and she would still be there, beautiful.
His life was split into two sections then, Before Marilyn, and After. Now, his life had splintered from that break into a cacophony of broken pieces: Before Evelyn, Before Marriage, Before the Miscarriage, Before Marilyn, After Marilyn, After the Miscarraige, Before the Slip, After the Slip, and now, After Marilyn’s Death, and After Marriage, presumably.
The tv continues to murmur other stories while he fills a yellowed ashtray with cigarette after cigarette, and gin runs down his throat like a stream down a mountain. The room heaves in every direction as he tries to stand, only coming into focus when he leans against the bed. The slip lies there, material still shining as vibrant as it was when he first saw it hanging off the mannequin that looked like Marilyn.
He presses the champagne silk against his face. The first time he wore it, he stood in front of the mirror back home. His shoulders hunched forward. The lace and silk tried to cover his body, bent and broken with shame. Tears streamed down his face, in sorrow and in joy. He felt strong, for the first time in his life.
Martin kicks his shoes off, strips bare, and slides the silk over his head. He crumbles to the floor, arms wrapped tight around himself, weeping.
The deluge of tears pours, pain and drunkenness are replaced by emptiness like a vacuum in his stomach. The tv still hums through the room. He pulls the mason jar from the bag inspecting the dull green liquid sloshing inside. It smells wet and mossy, like some kind of wood. His tongue is coated with splinters of sweet, medicinal licorice when he drinks it. Ash spills onto the table as he rubs the end of another cigarette into the tray.
He presses the silk against the skin of his legs, savoring the feeling as he drinks.
“This is not at all what I expected,” Evelyn says.
Martin’s head swivels around the room.
“Is this… some sort of… fetish, Martin?” She asks.
Martin jumps out of the chair, spinning around, only to find the empty room. His eyes search the blurry walls and find Evelyn, in stark black and white on the small tv screen.
She looks like a movie star, with black curls cascading from her head.
“No, it’s not like that,” Martin mumbles to her, trying to cover himself.
“How much of yourself did you hide from me?”
“I don’t know,” Martin says.
Evelyn’s hand stretches toward the screen, melting through the glass. She grabs the knob and turns the dial, and the tv clicks to black.
Martin puffs an anxious breath through a new cigarette, returning to the chair, leg bouncing, when the room blooms in iridescent color. The paneled walls bubble with movement; the carpet ebbs and flows like a glittering ocean beneath him. He stumbles to the bed catching Her hazel eyes in the mirror. Their lids hang lazily, with a sharp wing of black extending towards each temple. He watches as she forms from a mystic swirl, moving from milky smoke to milky flesh, and there, she sits on the edge of the bed, staring back at him.
“Hi, darling,” She says.
“Marilyn?” Martin asks.
Her red lips part, stark white teeth peeking through. She wears the same slip that hangs off Martin’s body.
“You look beautiful,” She says.
Martin’s cheeks pull back into a smile.
“They’re all saying you’re dead,” Martin says.
Marilyn laughs, “I wonder when they’ll give me peace.”
“Do you not have peace?” Martin says.
“I have more now than I did, I think.”
“How could someone so beautiful not have peace?”
“Darling, there is nothing beautiful enough to shield itself from war. Everything beautiful was once drenched in blood. Or it will be. It doesn’t matter how beautiful anything is, war always looms, swirling in the dark corners of life. War seeks to claim beauty. It wants the power that beauty has.”
“What power?”
“Security. War is an ever rolling tide, victors becoming victims, becoming victors again. It’s unstable, but beauty… beauty stands. Won’t birds always sing in spring? Won’t flowers always bloom?” She pauses. “And when you try to hide beauty, war comes quicker.”
Martin looks at the floor. “I don’t think this is beautiful.”
Marilyn coughs a few times, her hand coming away from her mouth with droplets of blood.
“Are you okay?”
She coughs again, fingers pulling an eye out of her mouth by the optic nerve.
She tosses the eye over her shoulder, and rubs her hand on the moving bedspread. “Beauty can only be defined by one thing: Confidence.”
Martin reaches his hand out, and Marilyn watches him.
“What are you reaching for?” She asks.
“Confidence.”
“Well, you can’t have mine. You have plenty of your own.”
“I don’t think I do.”
The room bleeds with color, oil slick walls melting with greens, purples, reds, and blues. A vibrant yellow thread weaves its way between the waves.
“What’s happening?” Martin asks.
“I don’t know. It’s quite beautiful though. Why do you think you got married?” She asks.
“Evelyn was pregnant… it was the right thing to do.”
“How do you know what the right thing is?”
Martin looks around the room. Evelyn sits in the chair, holding her stomach, weeping. Her dress is soaked with tears.
Before Martin can move, her skin melts, dissolving to muscle, to bone, to dust.
Martin turns back to the mirror, where blood drips from Marilyn’s mouth, thick and red.
“What happened?” Martin asks.
“You looked away,” She smiles, dabbing the blood away with the back of her hand. Martin presses his hand to the mirror and Marilyn’s hand meets his on the other side.
“I have loved you for so long,” Martin says.
“I don’t think you’ve loved me. I think you see in me what you can’t see in yourself.”
“What have I done to her?”
“You were scared.”
Behind Marilyn, eyes blink through the swirling wall. Several arms reach out, each with too many hands, which have too many fingers. Elbow after elbow comes out of the wall, each arm bending in more places than any arm should. Martin looks back to his room, but the wall only continues to swirl. He looks back into the mirror, and the hands reach and stretch for Marilyn, like all of hell is reaching to claim her. Her mouth hangs open, blood pouring on her chest.
He reaches for her, but the hands pull her back, over the bed, and she slides toward the wall. Martin presses his hands hard against the mirror. The glass ripples. The rooms spin like hurricanes with color. Marilyn’s edges begin to fade into the swirl as her back meets the wall. Her body is completely shrouded in hands. The world swirls faster.
He pulls the mirror off the wall and presses his hand to the glass again. The glass gives and feels something like water. It boils around his arm as it passes through. He can’t even see Marilyn now, only hands clawing at more hands. He slams his face into the water, and it boils violently, consuming him in fire as he shakes through the portal.
“Marilyn, it’s okay, I’m coming,” He says, the words piercing through the fire water. Marilyn’s room swirls a deep red.
Martin sinks through the burning water and stumbles into Marilyn’s room. His body sweats and burns, heat pulsing with his heartbeat as the room swirls more and more red.
Marilyn sits on the bed now, legs crossed, in the blood red tornado.
“You never gave Evelyn the chance to love us,” She says, laying her hand on Martin’s cheek. Her thumb traces a small line on his face. “Even though there was so much of us to love.”
Martin’s body crashes through the coffee table, and the glass top shatters all around him. The mirror hangs from his neck like a collar, where blood pulses out in a steady stream. His face glitters with shards of glass. His slip is heavy with blood. His eyes hang half closed, staring at the swirling ceiling as Marilyn pets his face, and a final breath shudders and bubbles through his blood covered lips.
Luca Grainger is a writer and musician. Their EP “VOID” is available on Spotify and Apple Music.
