Page 14 of The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe

“That’s really very sweet of you,” she replies with her not-too-high smile, as she climbs up onto the leather stool in her tight black pencil skirt and places a folder of headshots onto the counter. She sighs. “So, what does a girl drink in here?”

“Well, it depends,” replies the young man, stubbing out his cigarette and looking her up and down.

“On what?”

“On what sort of a day you’ve had.”

“Well, honestly, it’s not been great. I’ve been sitting on a hard bench so long in the sun, along with all the other hopefuls, waiting for a part, any part, a walk-on role, an extra, a chance … I think might have burnt my nose.” She taps the end of her nose with the tip of her index finger. “I feel it must be quite pink.”

“Let me see,” asks the man, bending over to take a closer look.She smells of talcum powder and pears,he thinks. “It looks perfectly fine to me.”

“You’re just saying that to be sweet.”

“No one calls me sweet.”

She sits back to look at him. “But you do look sweet with your thick glasses and your smart tie.”

“I’m a journalist, ma’am.”

“But that’s so brave.”

“I specialize in gossip.”

“That’s so fun!”

“I’m Sidney—Sid—Skolsky. I write a newspaper column called ‘From a Stool at Schwab’s’ forPhotoplaymagazine.”

“And here you are, on a stool in Schwab’s!”

“Here I am indeed. What can I get you?”

“Hmm.”

“Did they ask you to come back after sitting in the sun? Or did they say, ‘See you around’? Or worse, ‘We can’t see you today at all’?”

“We can’t see you today at all.”

“Then you, my dear, will be needing a bourbon.”

“A bourbon-bourbon?”

“A ‘We can’t see you at all’ bourbon.”

She smiles and extends her hand. “I’m Mrs. Norma Jeane Dougherty.”

“Well, in all my life I have never heard a more terrible name for such a beautiful young woman.”

Turns out that Sid Skolsky is quite the guy. He knows everyone, everything: all the deals, the casting directors, the producers, the directors, who’s up and coming, and who’s on their way down.

The reason he works mostly out of Schwab’s—or “the Schwabadero, the wannabes’ Trocadero,” as he calls it—is because he doesn’t know how to drive. He has a phobia of cars, to go along with his phobia of cats, dogs, germs, and children. Others put forward the uncharitable explanation that Skolsky’s legs are too short for his feet to reach the pedals of an automobile.

Norma Jeane listens, her mouth slightly open as she soaks up his every word.

“Say,” he says, pointing the end of his lit cigarette in her general direction. “You do know that no major studio will put you under contract?”

“Why not?”

Is it her nose? Her hair? What?

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