Casting Norma Jeane Read Free Page B

Merchant Marine too far beyond the end of the war for the good of their marriage. It had brought her to the point where, here at the door, she was now uttering the most outlandish proposals.
    “Jimmie, we can still be close,” he heard Norma Jeane saying in her sweetest voice. “We can still date. We can go on just like before…” And incredibly to Jim’s ears, she went on babbling about how this divorce of hers was just a career move—how she was trying to land a movie contract, how the studios only hired single girls, and so on.
    “Are you crazy?!” he broke in, his mind suddenly awhirl. “I want a wife and kids. You want a divorce? We’ll get a divorce! Then it’s over.”
    “Let’s talk tomorrow,” suggested Norma Jeane softly. “Maybe a little later in the day, OK? Can we do it then, Jimmie? Please?”
    “OK,” Jim said, shoving his long arm past her and grabbing the set of keys he’d been noticing on her small table just inside the door. “I’ll take the car. I’m gonna need it to get around during my leave.”
    “Oh!” came a little surprised cry from Norma Jeane. “Well, I really do need it to—umm…” She drew her words out, waiting for him to change his mind, because of course she wanted the car to make more of her confounded modeling rounds. But Jim had no intention of giving up the keys, and they both knew that the car was registered in his name. “…Well, all right, Jimmie.”
    He spun angrily around, sprang down to the walk, and strode off toward his sports coupe, finding means to congratulate himself only at the cost of wild irrelevancy, “Good, at least I’ve rescued my car from her! She’s a terrible driver anyway—an actual menace behind the wheel!”
    Jimmie,” Norma Jeane called after him.
    At the car, he turned and glowered back at her. She was standing very still in the doorway. He’d been speaking to her in a certain contemptuous tone of voice that he’d very rarely ever used before because of how deeply he knew it was capable of hurting her.
    “I think…soon…I’ll be making a lot mm-more mm-money,” she said mysteriously.
    “That’s nice, Norma Jeane,” sneered Jim. “I’m very glad for you.”
    “Bye, Jimmie,” she called, her voice small. “Sorry about this mm-morning.”
    Even in his anger, Jim’s conscience rebuked him for hurting her the way he had, but he told himself, That’s OK, she doesn’t even know the meaning of hurt! The tailspin of agonies he’d felt upon receiving her lawyer’s letter aboard ship in Shanghai was rushing back on him so vividly that he choked back a sob as, without answering her, he got into the sports coupe.
    Sorry about this morning! What about the divorce? What about our whole life?!
    Certainly his pride had been stung by her suggesting he take a demotion from the rank of husband to that of a favorite beau while she replaced him in their bed—replaced Jim, who knew and loved her far better than anyone else in the world—with that nutty, floating-in-and-out mother Gladys whom Norma Jeane had never once gone to see in the mental hospital during the almost four years of their marriage. But worse than anything else was the aching in his heart because he hadn’t even been able to embrace her this morning.
    As he headed for his folks’ place in Thousand Oaks, Jim took consolation in one thing. He’d been right about her so-called career. It looked no less like a failure now than it had looked to him seven months ago. Her very first words to Jim this morning about the allotment money had said it all. She was still broke. Sure, maybe she’d gotten her face on a few magazine covers around the country, but who had paid for it? He had! She’d emptied out their bank account. It was drained—finding that out was a big part of what had so angered him in January. She’d pawned everything except the radio. She’d even sold their silver. All this just to cover the costs of her makeup and clothes, items which were