Sure, when I got her herpes medication refilled at the pharmacy I had to use my name, but for the coffee I had to let her be “Norma Jean.” I was twenty-five and making a thousand bucks a week and didn’t want to point out she was bonkers.

“Norma Jean” was completely obsessed with Marilyn. In her living room, high above the overstuffed red velvet couch, was a giant framed sepia print of herself in profile, frozen with her eyes closed and head thrown back, her homage to Marilyn. “Norma Jean” was obsessed with the story of Marilyn and the necrophiliacs. “Dani, you just don’t know what it’s like to have people want a piece of you, any piece of you,” she’d tell me.

“I can’t imagine. It’s one more awful thing about being so famous,” I’d reply gravely.

“The thing is no one ever tells you what will happen when you’re famous. There’s no class you can take or school that will prepare you—it just happens and then your life gets so crazy that you can’t help but think this wasn’t what you signed up for.”

“I know you must feel like you’re being hunted sometimes.”

“You have no idea. Do you know if those paparazzi didn’t have cameras around their necks I could have them arrested for stalking, but because they’re press”—she sneered the word—“they can do what they want, because it’s a God-damn-fucking-freedom-of-the-press-constitutional-thing!”

“They’re vultures,” I replied.

“And let me tell you, they’re going to hunt me until I’m dead— they’re going to chase me like they did Diana, and they won’t be happy until they get photos of me lying on the pavement after a car accident, and then they’re going to follow me to the hospital to have sex with my helpless dead body.”

She was starting to get a little manic; she always did when she mixed Diana and Marilyn in the same rant. I tried to calm her down. “That’s why it’s so good you have The Plan.”

She nodded vigorously. “The Plan is my only hope for being able to rest in peace. No one is going to violate my body when I’m dead!”

To make sure The Plan would work, we’d have drills, the way they do in New York in case there’s another terrorist attack. “Norma Jean’s” dead body was never to be left alone; her sister or brother would be the first to be called, and they would handle all details of contacting authorities and overseeing transportation. We were ready for the day when “Norma Jean” kicked it, so that her impeccably maintained body wouldn’t be defiled. The Plan made her sleep well at night. Sometimes I’d put an Ambien in her Yogi Tea before bed so she really slept well.