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LAWANDA WALTERS Marilyn Monroe I didn’t know much about Marilyn Monroe the day she died. I’d heard her name. The world’s most beautiful woman has killed herself, said the newscaster. I saw her stretcher on the black-and-white television. I was visiting my cousin’s fiancé’s house—visiting strangers. But the news about Marilyn had me squeezed on the couch in that white farmhouse of Jan’s fiancé’s herd of brothers. And while the newscaster talked, Jan’s fiancé called her a woman and popped her bra in back. “You’re my woman,” I heard him say, and she slapped him. Visiting, like I was, I felt shy. I listened to the newscaster harder. He said how even though Marilyn was beautiful and famous, no one had heard her cry of loneliness that night. I saw how whiteblonde her hair had been. “White like that you call platinum,” Jan said. “Women do it with peroxide.” I didn’t care what else I heard— I was thirteen and my stomach hurt. Visiting men overnight was Jan’s idea! And Marilyn Monroe was dead. Later Jan offered me castor oil (they had peppermint-flavored castor oil). I was terrified—they said I looked white— was I still so upset about Marilyn Monroe? But in the bathroom Jan said, “You’re a woman, now! You have a ‘friend’ visiting. No wonder your stomach has been hurting . Did your mother tell you? Have you heard of Tampax? That’s what I use.” She broadcast my news all over that house I was visiting, where I had to spend the night with an old white sheet for rags. All night, in the womanly, stuffed-fat underpants, I thought about Marilyn and camping at the Shepherd of the Hills—white water, with my dad flycasting, my womanly mother visiting us in her yellow two-piece. “Here comes Marilyn Monroe!” AMERICANA ...

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