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  Marilyn’s Ghost

  Lorena Franco

  Translated by Sophie Elizabeth Murten

  “Marilyn’s Ghost”

  Written By Lorena Franco

  Copyright © 2017 Lorena Franco

  All rights reserved

  Distributed by Babelcube, Inc.

  www.babelcube.com

  Translated by Sophie Elizabeth Murten

  “Babelcube Books” and “Babelcube” are trademarks of Babelcube Inc.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Marilyn’s Ghost

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  MARILYN’S

  GHOST

  LORENA FRANCO

  Translated by Sophie Elisabeth Murten

  ©MARILYN’S GHOST

  Original title in spanish: El fantasma de Marilyn

  Copyright © 2017 Lorena Franco

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any format by any means without the prior written permission of the Publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.

  ABOUT THE AUTOR

  Lorena Franco, born in Barcelona in 1983, is an actress and show host, has participated in numerous TV programs, TV series, movies and commercials at national and international level.

  She has won literary competitions, she writes several blogs and her passion is creating stories, delving into them through her novels. Her ninth novel, The Time Traveller, was a finalist of the 2016 Amazon Indie Literary Prize for Spanish-Language Authors and has been a bestseller in the fantasy and time travel categories in Spain and in the USA.

  Her other titles available digitally and in paperback on Amazon are: It Happened in Tuscany, The Lost Hours, Happy Life, The Life I Didn’t Choose, Stay With Me, Marilyn’s Ghost, Story of Two Souls, Where Oblivion Lies, What Time Forgot and Words, A Brief Story of Those that Leave.

  These titles that endorse her literaty trajectory have conquered thousands of readers worldwide, making Lorena Franco one of the most searched for and most valued writers.

  “Marilyn’s Ghost” is a fictitious story. It is in no way a biography of the actress. It is a story created and imagined by the author and many of the situations you may read in the following pages did not happen in the real life of Marilyn Monroe, nor in the life of the many well-known people that appear in the novel.

  Enjoy!

  CHAPTER 1

  THOSE THAT BELIEVE IN MAGIC ARE DESTINED TO FIND IT

  OSCARS’ CEREMONY 2015

  Pam Miller treaded the red carpet of the Oscars’ ceremony with the self-confidence of a young women of twenty-six that was about to win her first statuette as a young actress. Trying to hide her wonder and her weakness for certain actors that were much more well-known than her and who had been shining brightly for years, she posed, smiling and excited for the cameras. Finally she felt like someone important. She was a beautiful and slim young woman, standing out in one of the most beautiful and elegant dresses of the ceremony, as days later magazines, newspapers and television programs would acknowledge. The journalists crowded around her, asking a thousand questions she tried to answer with the elegance of the actresses of past eras she had always tried to imitate. She looked around, sometimes lost, but finding herself again each time someone from the production team would tap her back, guiding her in the right direction to her next destination. However, despite the fact that she was surrounded by so many people, someone was missing, someone whom she had not yet managed to see. This was the real person responsible for Pam shining in her own right in the place she had dreamed of since she was a little girl, when everyone had tried to take those crazy dreams away from her. Crazy dreams, she said to herself smiling. She greeted the other actors with respect and discreet admiration, holding back her strong urges to take a photograph with each of them as if she were just one more fan. But Pam was no longer a fan with apparently impossible aspirations and dreams. Pam had managed to reach the top yet the best was still to come.

  When Pam saw her face on the big screen next to the other famous candidates, she could not help but get excited and think about how proud her parents must be, watching the ceremony from their house. Tensing up, she mentally rehearsed the speech she would give a few minutes later if Sandra Bullock said her name and although she was not religious, she also prayed, just in case.

  All the stars present in the Kodak theatre stood up and applauded excitedly when they heard that Pam Miller was the winner of the most coveted award, best young actress for her memorable role in the film Story of Two Souls. Carefully, so as to not trip in her high heels, Pam climbed onstage and between tears and after hugging Sandra Bullock, as if she was in her favorite dream, she began her speech, trying to control the shaking in her voice.

  “When I was a little girl, I always dreamt of being stood here… shining, being a star as you all are. But I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the most beautiful woman that ever walked the earth. She will be a star for eternity and will always be in my heart. I owe it all to her… and to everyone that believed in me over the course of these last two incredible years. Thank you… being here is a dream come true.”

  She, the most beautiful woman that had ever walked the earth, was watching her dear Pam’s speech from between the shadows. She, used to being the center of attention, wished with all her might from the hidden dimension she was in, that Pam would have a long life full of success but most of all… happiness. Happiness in the small things that really mattered, in the small moments that in time, become the most important.

  With one of her pretty and cheeky smiles still recorded by innumerable photographs, with the memory of all the moments she had lived through with Pam and with the glint in her eye that characterized her in life, Marilyn blew a kiss from a distance to the new best young actress and discreetly disappeared into the shadows without being seen by anyone, without being spotted. She disappeared forever from a world that still remembered and admired her.

  CHAPTER 2

  MISFORTUNES NEVER COME ALONE

  (TWO YEARS PREVIOUSLY…)

  Hundreds of actors move to Los Angeles every day with a mountain of dreams in their bags and a small chance of succeeding, proven by the other hundreds of actors that leave. It is perhaps for this that it is impossible in Los Angeles airport for the passengers arriving and those leaving to cross paths, so that the frustrated actors do not pass on their negativity to the others arriving with positive energy and desires to take on the world.

  Two years ago, the young Pam Miller was one of those brave actresses that fled their hometown to try their luck in Los Angeles. With little acting training, she decided to risk it all for she knew that in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the pessimism of her family and friends would end up drowning her and would put her desire to chase her dreams at risk. Her pride stopped her from going home and even more so from begging her parents for money as it was already hard for them to make ends meet at the end of the month. However, the simple truth was that over the course of those two years, she had only managed to scor
e a few disastrous auditions for B-movies, a sanitary pad commercial that ruined her life, sleazy short-films of frustrated cinema students and a job as a waitress for six hours a day in Smashburger’s burger restaurant. Luck did not seem to follow dear Pam, who was only happy when she took out her camera in search of the best shots. She loved exploring the city and immortalizing expressions, strangers’ faces, or simply any landscape that caught her attention, especially if it was a night clear enough to see each star in the sky.

  Even though when she first arrived in Los Angeles she shared a flat with other aspiring actors that were too irresponsible and bohemian for her taste, Pam had taken the first chance that came along to live alone in a modest and tiny flat on South Spring Street, quite far from the grand and majestic mansions of the city. She could hardly afford to pay the rent and locking herself up in that house was to her like being in a lonely and ugly prison. Nothing of her day-to-day life was nice or interesting and she had not even found anyone with whom to share her day-to-day. Making friends in Los Angeles had turned out to be mission impossible. Pam lost faith and had often thought about swallowing her pride and going back to Gettysburg, despite knowing that she would have to listen to ‘we told you so’ a thousand times.

  That day would be like any other, marked by a depressing routine whilst looking for something special that would change her life. But that something special never appeared, no matter how hard she looked. The handsome young man that sat next to her every morning on the bus had not noticed her existence, the bus driver still did not say hi to her and when she got off at a nearby bus stop to start work one more day at Smashburger at 9am, she was still the same blonde girl with extremely long hair, scruffy, hollow-eyed and without makeup, as always. Entering the door of the restaurant, her boss greeted her with a simple head movement, her three colleagues looked as dispirited as she was, wishing they could change the course of their lives, and the clients were forever in a hurry, demanding their hamburgers and milkshakes be made as fast as possible.

  When she left work at three in the afternoon under a scorching sun, Pam wandered aimlessly through the city, carrying her inseparable camera. Other than shooting the starry sky, taking photos of beggars was her predilection. She loved portraying them without her discreet presence being noticed. And even though nothing special would happen that day and that things started getting ugly when a dove dropped its excrements on her military-green jacket, Pam saw something that caught her attention powerfully. There was a sign on a building in Flower Street that encouraged young actors to sign up for the prestigious acting classes of Actor’s Studio, located in DeLongpre Avenue, quite far from where Pam lived. She opened her big blue eyes with curiosity and seeing the price of the classes, her world came crashing down. She would have to work for a year without eating to save up that much money. She shook her head full of worries and when she got the call from her agent, telling her that she was not wanted for an audition of another B-movie because she was too inexperienced and nothing stood out on her resume, she thought about going back to Gettysburg again. She could work on the farm with her father, milking cows, riding horses, collecting eggs and looking after the vegetable garden. She looked at the sky knowing that was not what she wanted. But what could she do? At least she had an agent, Robert McMan. He was what could be called damned useless, locked in a dinghy, windowless room and without the charisma to ensure his young actors could survive on their passion and profession in Los Angeles. Acting. Cinema, television, commercials… the possibilities seemed huge, however few were destined to be touched by luck’s magic wand. Most lived on miserable salaries as part-time waiters, kitchen assistants or worked in call centers.

  Pam spent the afternoon touching up the photographs she had taken, still thinking of the possibility of signing up to Actor’s Studio. She searched for information on the place and her eyes lit up when she saw that some of the best actors of all-time had gone through there. Decided, she called her parents asking to loan the amount of money the classes cost, but they point-blank refused to send it. Again, luck had turned its back on her.

  “I understand, dad…” Pam answered, watching night fall on Los Angeles through the tiny window of the room that was both her kitchen and her study. The play of colors was magnificent, the only beautiful thing she had seen on this disastrous and overwhelming Monday.

  “It’s not that we don’t want to give it to you,” said Mr. Miller, still apologizing, “It’s just that we can’t. And we still think you’re wasting your time in that city. When are you coming home?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re at least going to come visit, no?”

  “Maybe…” said Pam, thinking of the twelve miserable dollars in her bank account.

  “You have a guaranteed job in Gettysburg,” her father insisted.

  “On the farm, of course…”

  “When you were young you loved it here!”

  “I’m not ten years old anymore dad…”

  “No, but you are twenty-four. An age at which you should already be thinking about the future. The idea of being an actress is crazy, Pam. When are you going to realize that?”

  “Enough… with that much encouragement I will go far.”

  “With or without encouragement, you’ll get to the same place. If in two years you haven’t achieved anything, it’s best you come back.”

  Always the same conversation. Always the same words. It was as if her parents had a script every time they spoke to her on the phone. Pam’s heart broke sometimes. But she couldn’t get angry with her parents, they only wanted the best for their only daughter and perhaps in their place she would have done the same.

  After finishing the monotonous conversation, Pam searched the internet for a solution to her problem. How to earn money. Finally, she saw an exit. Selling her numerous photographs online through a webpage on which any company or person could buy her images to use them in publicity campaigns, for personal use, for book covers… It was an image bank in which Pam could put her photographs up for sale if they were accepted, as the bank insisted on good quality.

  “I can at least try…” she whispered, opening the folder she had curiously kept her photographs in, separated by category.

  She chose a total of fifty photographs she had taken over the past two years with such good luck that after being accepted, by the following day she had already sold three. Pam rejoiced, seeing herself in the future as a great photographer rather than as a shining actress. It seemed easy, or perhaps it had been beginner’s luck.

  Upon waking up the next day, she looked in the mirror as usual. She saw so many defects in herself. Despite her youth, she had neglected her skin that was now certainly freckled. Her blue eyes did not shine like those of Hollywood actresses and her teeth were not much whiter than the wall nor perfectly alined. Her nose did not have the personality of Meryl Streep nor the attractiveness of Rachel McAdams and her lips were not desirable enough like those of Angelina Jolie. If she compared her face to that of those who had triumphed in the mecca of cinema, she saw that her chances of being someone were slim. But she trusted in her photographs and in the webpage, and if in a few hours she had sold three, in a few months she could raise enough money to sign up to Actor’s Studio, improve her acting technique and start making contacts.

  However, misfortunes never come alone. When Pam left her house she slipped on a banana skin that had been dropped on the floor by some manner less joker. The fall was spectacular and as she used her right arm to hold herself up, she had the bad luck to suffer a bone fracture that obliged her to go to hospital in terrible pain. After having her arm x-rayed, the result turned out to be a fracture of the radius and ulna and she needed to wear a cast for almost two months. Pam wanted to die, especially when she saw the medical bill that she could not afford but that her parents could pay from Gettysburg, being totally necessary. Despite this, Pam had to hear a second time in less than twenty-four hours that she should leave Los Angeles and her dreams,
that she should go home and that it was not worth the trouble. Hours later, Pam went to Smashburger to tell her boss about the rotten accident due to which she would not be able to work for almost two months.

  “Lisa, I’m sorry…” she apologized, showing her arm in a cast.

  “What happened?” the manager asked, mouth open.

  “I slipped on a banana skin and I leant on my arm and I broke it,” Pam answered sadly.

  “You have bad luck, Pam. How long is it for?”

  “Almost two months.”

  “I’m sorry Pam, I can’t keep your contract for so long without you working. I’m afraid you’re fired. When you’re better, come back to see if I have a free spot,” Lisa explained coldly.

  Pam didn’t know what to do, nor what to say. She didn’t even know how to react to her unexpected dismissal. For a year and a half she had never missed a single day of work and she had always been punctual and respectful. She didn’t deserve to be fired for a random accident that could have happened to anyone. But Pam did not want to cause a scene and even less close doors and so crestfallen, she returned home with eyes full of tears cursing her bad luck.

  CHAPTER 3

  FOCUS ON WHAT YOU LIKE AND YOU

  WILL SEE OPPORTUNITIES LINE UP

  Pam photographed the starry sky of Los Angeles with her camera, but even that was difficult with just one hand. She gave up ten minutes later. She turned on her computer out of curiosity, wanting to see how many photographs had sold on the webpage she had recently discovered, imagining it would be the three of that morning. Imagine her surprise when she saw she had sold the not-so-trifling amount of two hundred and fifty copies of the fifty photographs she had published in just a few hours. As a result, her account had risen by three hundred dollars. So had her reputation, given that the high number of sales immediately placed her photographs in the spot of most in demand. She asked for an immediate withdrawal to receive the money in a week’s time. With a smile on her face and with the hope of earning more money over the next few days, she rewatched the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s. She had seen it fifty times but she never tired of observing every movement Audrey Hepburn made, who was one of her favorite actresses. She wanted to be like her: elegant, refined and admired by all. She wanted to be a diva, a star that shined in her own right and not someone that nothing good ever happened to. At least her photographic penchant that her parents also criticized was rewarding her in record time. If it hadn’t been for that, she may have seriously thought about throwing herself out of the window.