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up—without lies. Nobody will tell her lies about anything. And I’ll answer all her questions. If I don’t know the answers I’ll go to an encyclopedia and look them up. I’ll tell her whatever she wants to know—about love, about sex, about everything!
    But chiefly, no lies! No lies about there being a Santa Claus or about the world being full of noble and honorable people all eager to help each other and do good to each other. I’ll tell her there are honor and goodness in the world, the same as there are diamonds and radium.
    This is the end of my story of Norma Jean. Jim and I were divorced. And I moved into a room in Hollywood to live by myself. I was nineteen, and I wanted to find out who I was.
    When I just wrote “this is the end of Norma Jean,” I blushed as if I had been caught in a lie. Because this sad, bitter child who grew up too fast is hardly ever out of my heart. With success all around me, I can still feel her frightened eyes looking out of mine. She keeps saying, “I never lived, I was never loved,” and often I get confused and think it’s I who am saying it.

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lonely streets
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    I had been a sort of “child bride.” Now I was a sort of “child widow.” Many things seemed to have happened to me. Yet, in a way, nothing had happened, except that I was nineteen instead of nine, and I had to look for my own job.
    The sort of instinct that leads a duck to water led me to photographer studios. I got jobs posing for ads and layouts. The chief trouble was that the photographers were also looking for work. Finding a photographer who wanted me as a model was easier than finding one who could pay more than promises.
    But I made enough money for room rent and a meal a day although sometimes I fell behind on my eating. It didn’t matter, though. When you’re young and healthy a little hunger isn’t too important.
    What mattered more was being lonely. When you’re young and healthy loneliness can seem more important than it is.
    I looked at the streets with lonely eyes. I had no relatives to visit or chums to go places with.
    My Aunt Grace and Aunt Anna were working hard to keep food in their kitchens and the rent paid. When I called on them they felt sorry for me and wanted to help me. I knew how they needed the half dollars in their purses; so I stayed away unless I had money and could take them to a restaurant or the movies.

    I had only myself. When I walked home from the restaurant in the evening with the streets lighted up and a crowd on the sidewalks, I used to watch the faces chatting to each other and hurrying someplace. I wondered where they were going and how it felt to have places to go to or people who knew you.
    There were always men willing to help a girl be less lonely. They said, “Hi, baby,” when you passed. When you didn’t turn to look at them they sneered, “ ‘Stuck up, eh?”
    Sometimes they followed you and kept up a one-sided conversation. “You look all right, baby. How about we drop in someplace for a drink and a dance.” After a half block when you didn’t answer them, they got indignant and swore at you and dismissed you with a final insult.
    I never answered them. Sometimes I felt sorry for them. They seemed as lonely as I was. It wasn’t any moral attitude that kept me from accepting their sidewalk invitations. It was not wanting to be used by others. Norma Jean had been used, told to do this, do that, come here, clean the kitchen, and keep her mouth shut no matter what she felt. Everybody had had the drop on Norma Jean. If she didn’t obey, back she went to the orphanage.
    These lonely street corner wolves “hi-babying” me sounded like voices out of the past calling me to be Miss Nobody again—to be used and ignored.
    One evening I met a man in a restaurant. We walked out of the place together, and he kept talking to me in the street. He was