A moving, redemptive novel about the unexpected friendship between Marilyn Monroe and a young maid whose life will be changed forever, from the New York Times bestselling author of Sarah's Key.
Pauline, a young chambermaid who works at the legendary Mapes Hotel in Reno, Nevada, is asked to step in for a colleague and clean Suite 614. Although she was told the rooms were empty, a dazed, sleepy woman appears before her. This is Mrs. Miller, aka Marilyn Monroe, whose stay in Reno coincides with the breakdown of her marriage to Arthur Miller and the filming of what was to be her last film, The Misfits.
Set in the American West in 1960 where the mustang horses run wild, an unexpected friendship unfolds between the most famous movie star in the world and a young cleaning woman whose life will be changed forever through the course of a few weeks. A testament to the enduring power of female friendship and a reimagining of a side of Marilyn Monroe that has never been seen before.
Release date:
June 3, 2025
Publisher:
Grand Central Publishing
Print pages:
288
Reader says this book is...: classic themes (1) emotionally riveting (1) entertaining story (1)
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To see the Mapes again. To gaze at it one more time, and to watch it fall. The hotel had been in full construction on the corner of Virginia Street and the banks of the Truckee River when Pauline arrived in Reno in 1946 at the age of seven. She’d seen it go up brick by brick and reach its culmination for its grand opening in December 1947 when it proudly dominated the small town as the western United States’s first-ever skyscraper after the war. Dazzled, Pauline, a little French girl, had never laid eyes on such a magisterial and pristine building.
Publicity about Reno’s new hotel flourished in all the local gazettes, raving about the orange-red hue of the Art Deco façade, its twelve floors, three hundred rooms and forty suites, air-conditioning, two restaurants and two cocktail bars, casino, barber shop and beauty salon, but especially the Mapes’s crown jewel—the famed Sky Room right at the top with its bay windows offering unrivaled views of the Sierra Nevada mountain range. There, noteworthy evenings ensued with wining and dining, concerts, performances, and after-dinner dancing.
Pauline still remembered the odor floating in the Mapes’s vast lobby: a distinctive combination of cigarette smoke, felt fabric, and room fragrance called Sweet Desert Rose, which tyrannical Mildred had sprayed there morning, noon, and evening. She also recalled the less pleasant aromas, in spite of Sweet Desert Rose, persisting in the main floor restrooms where she cleaned up: whiffs of drains, bleach, and scouring products, not to mention the often-excruciating reek left by hasty guests who didn’t cast a glance her way, while others bestowed her with a smile, a word of thanks, or a coin.
In those days, Mildred Jones—the one they dreaded, housekeeper in charge of the twenty or so maids hired by the Mapes Hotel—had been her boss and the cause of the pit in her stomach each morning for three years. Would she be there today? Pauline wondered. How old would she be now? Back in 1960, Mildred was in her forties, so she would be well into her eighties now. She might very well be there, after all. Just as Kendall Spencer might be there too, a septuagenarian with tribe in tow—a frosty wife who would look askance at her even after all this time, and their children and grandchildren, those well-to-do, respectable Spencers.
Today, with her dear friend Billie-Pearl by her side, Pauline knew she would undoubtedly identify figures from her past within the throng amassed to watch the Mapes’s spectacular collapse. And, she wondered, Why had they all planned to come? To remember, to rejoice, to get closure? Or, like her, to pay one last homage?
The entire district around the Mapes had been cordoned off. East Second Street, Center Street, and North Sierra Street were closed, but Billie-Pearl managed to cross the river through Arlington Avenue and, at the last minute, was able to park by West Liberty Street. They hurried along to join the crowd gathered by the south banks of the Truckee River. From there was a perfect view north over Virginia Street Bridge toward the doomed hotel.
They had to elbow their way to reach the forefront, about two hundred feet from the Mapes. Pauline couldn’t get over the number of people: How many, a couple of thousand? Much more, offered Billie-Pearl, just as impressed. She pointed out numerous television cameras and reporters on site. The fall of the Mapes was a public affair, thought Pauline. Everyone wanted to see it.
Facing the camera, a journalist explained in detail how the Mapes was coming down. A hundred pounds of explosives had been inserted through four hundred holes drilled into support columns on five floors. The building, which stood tall at one hundred and thirty-three feet, was going to dissolve in midair. The crowd listened, awestruck.
Here and there, with a quick pang, Pauline spotted a couple of familiar faces, but felt incapable of putting names to them. She settled for sharing a smile or a nod.
Next to Pauline and Billie-Pearl, a young woman wearing a blue beanie seemed tearful. She told them her father worked at the Mapes Casino for a long time, and she used to accompany him when he picked up his paychecks. A historic chunk of Reno’s past was to vanish forever and deserved better than turning into a pile of rubble.
“It’s such a pretty building,” she almost sobbed. “Look at it! Preservationists fought till the bitter end,” she added. A cluster of them were there, still shouting, “Save the Mapes!” minutes away from its destruction. A wake with a bagpiper had even been organized.
Another woman behind them shrugged and sighed as she eavesdropped—she was in favor of letting go of the past. The decrepit old Mapes had been shuttered for twenty years. It certainly wasn’t pretty anymore, and it was time for a fresh start for this part of Reno! A nearby group of friends added they had come up from Auburn, California, especially for skiing, the Super Bowl, and the implosion.
“It’s going to be phenomenal!” tittered one of them. “Better than the movies!”
Pauline noticed a number of people proudly brandishing large red bricks and certificates of authenticity bearing the Mapes’s cowboy logo she immediately recognized: two cowboys riding mustangs. They were going like hotcakes for a dollar each on the street corner.
“Do you want a brick as a keepsake?” asked Billie-Pearl.
“No,” murmured Pauline, wondering if she shouldn’t be saying yes.
All around them arose snippets of conversation caught in flight: Remember?… What floor were we on?… On the seventh, there!… No, more like the fifth… My, oh, my, those unbeatable Coffee Shop milk shakes… I preferred the Coach Room vibe.… That’s where we celebrated Kathleen’s thirtieth.… Oh, it was such fun!… And that nice Addie, who worked with the operators.… Thank God Miranda is no longer with us, she’d be in tears… Barbara and Josh’s wedding reception was a ball, we partied all night… Such a classy place… Remember when Rick got a lucky hand at the Casino?… I’ll never forget!…
It was impossible not to listen to them, each and every one, like the old lady clutching her caregiver’s arm, pointing a wobbly finger up to the Sky Room, saying she met her husband there for the first time, at a prom ball. Pauline noticed a dignified elderly man standing alone, clutching a red rose to his heart. He observed the façade in silence. What was his story and why had he come here today?
A pudgy sexagenarian came up to her, politely asking if her name was Pauline. He had come with his wife and kids. Pauline had no memories of him, but pretended she did, so as not to offend him. His name was Nate and he worked back then with Max at reservations. Pauline vaguely recalled a Max. Nate made a face: But hey, in those days, he used to be in shape and had a head of hair! She laughed along with him.
“It’s coming back to me, they used to call you ‘Frenchie,’” clucked Nate.
“That’s right, I was born in Paris, after all,” replied Pauline, amused.
The sky, low and ominous, was loaded with fast-approaching snow; people huddled close to each other trying to beat the cold. Pauline glanced at her watch. It was coming up to eight o’clock. The inexhaustible Nate was going on about how the Mapes’s proprietors were on-site as well, inconsolable. They hadn’t been able to rescue their beloved hotel.
While Pauline was wondering how to give Nate the slip, a sturdy bearded man stationed himself in front of her. Elated, she recognized her half-brother, Jim. He had been positive he’d find her here, but she should have warned him, he protested, all smiles. Billie-Pearl intervened—this was her fault; she had dragged Pauline to Reno, a last-minute plan.
“How’s it going?” asked Jim softly, wrapping an arm around his sister. “Are you happy to be here?”
He was the spitting image of his late dad, Doug Hammond—same playful grin, light blue gaze, stocky build—and whenever Pauline laid eyes on Jim, she was reminded of the beloved stepfather she still missed. Doug burst into her mother’s life in the haphazard and tumultuous times following the liberation of Paris. She had no recollection of her own father, Jacques Bazelet, who died of cancer in 1939, the year she was born. Doug Hammond, her mother’s second husband, was the one who brought her up, here in Reno. Against all odds, the graft had been a success.
Jim lowered his voice to whisper in her ear—he wanted to warn her. She mustn’t turn around; Kendall Spencer was nearby. Pauline paid no heed to his words and looked behind her shoulder. It didn’t take her long to pick him out. He had certainly aged, but his blue-blood posture hadn’t. He still held himself upright with that complacent expression she hated. His thick hair was silver, and she had to admit he looked good. He always had. How young and gullible she had been then, and how naïve.
Kendall Spencer eventually sensed the gaze directed straight at him through the gathering. He seemed uncertain. Did he recognize her? Four decades was a long time, after all. She too, no doubt, had changed: The long brown hair was gone—now short and strewn with white. But she’d kept her slim figure. When Kendall’s eyes remained glued to her, she reckoned he had spotted her. Almost bashfully, he raised his hand.
“Forget it,” muttered Jim. “Don’t even go there.”
“Odious prick,” hissed Billie-Pearl.
They were interrupted by another TV crew. A few minutes from the event, a nonstop news network was seeking to interview more people who had worked at the Mapes.
A camera zoomed in on her and a mike was shoved under her chin before Pauline, taken aback, could protest. A young woman fired away:
“Hi, what’s your name?”
“Doctor Pauline Bazelet,” she faltered.
“Are you from Reno? What’s your current job?”
“I’m a vet. I live in California, but I grew up here in Reno.”
“When did you work at the Mapes Hotel?”
“Between 1957 and 1960.”
“And what was your position?”
“I worked as a cleaner on the ground floor and in the rooms. I was young, then.”
“And what’s it like to be here today and watch it go down?”
Pauline’s eyes flickered over the ramshackle Mapes looming above them with unfazed pride. Her throat felt tight.
“I can’t help feeling emotional. That hotel was like an entire world to me. So many of us worked there, and it was full of guests. It was the busiest place. There was always something going on.”
The journalist checked her notes.
“So you were there in the summer of 1960 when John Huston and his actors came for the filming of The Misfits?”
Why did Pauline’s lips tremble so? Undoubtedly stage fright.
“Yes, I was there. I remember it all.”
“We are minutes away from the hotel imploding. Could you briefly tell us what the Mapes was like in all its glory, when you worked there?”
Pauline hadn’t prepared a speech; she hadn’t expected to be interviewed. She felt tongue-tied. But much to her surprise, she managed to overlook the secret episodes in Kendall’s office, Mildred Jones’s hectoring, and the unpleasant smells left by customers in the main floor restrooms.
She only saw the curvaceous silhouette standing in front of the windows of Suite 614, champagne glass in hand.
And with a steady voice, she said, “In the summer of 1960, at the Mapes Hotel, I met someone who changed my life.”
“Great! Can you tell us more?”
“With pleasure.”
But the journalist was informed through her earpiece that the time had come. She was told to interrupt the interview and take it up again afterward.
The Mapes was about to fall.
Ten Days Before
Mount Shasta, Siskiyou County, Northern California
Pauline was sitting on a stool at work in Starling’s box, the wounded yearling who was giving her such a hard time, when her daughter, Lily’s, stride was heard at the entrance of the building. Wide-eyed with fear, Starling flinched and Pauline had to murmur soothing words in a low voice to calm the colt. Ever since a tractor had skidded on black ice, crashing into him and shattering his radius, Starling remained in a constant state of alarm. He was her most frightened patient, the one getting the most attention.
“Mom! Phone!” Lily hollered.
“Can it wait?” Pauline asked, cheek resting against the colt’s shuddering flank. Under the golden hide, she could feel his heart pumping away.
“No, it can’t,” retorted Lily.
Intrigued, Pauline detected a grin lurking in her voice, and she got up to study her expression: Lily was all smiles. Pauline checked the poultice and splint fastened around the colt’s limb one last time and ran a reassuring palm along his muzzle.
“Way to go, buddy. You got this.”
She washed her hands at the tap situated by the stalls and caught up with her daughter. Why all the mystery? Couldn’t Lily just tell her right now who was on the phone? Was it Nick, her partner? Lily shook her head, comically clamping her lips, walking her to the central office by the stables.
Pauline still hadn’t succumbed to the lure of mobile phones, unlike most of her vet colleagues. She preferred to remain “old school,” and she laughingly confessed there was no way she would give in to a Nokia or a BlackBerry! She believed in the virtues of a good old landline and answering machine, which was, after all, normal at her age. Soon to be sixty-one, when teased about her vintage habits, she brandished the unbeatable fact of cell phone coverage being second-rate up in the craggy heights of her veterinary clinic.
Lily handed her the receiver with the same playful smile.
“Doctor Bazelet,” stated Pauline, brushing away a salt-and-pepper lock of hair, and expecting to hear Nick’s voice.
“You mean, ‘the’ Doctor Bazelet? The one and only Doctor Bazelet?”
This wasn’t Nick’s husky rumble.
Pauline’s smile mirrored her daughter’s. That voice! Her whole youth came back in a flash.
“It’s you!”
“You bet it’s me, Mademoiselle!”
Only Billie-Pearl would ever call her that—they were the same age and grandmothers several times over. They had been friends since their early teens.
Lily had gone, leaving her mother alone in the large room. Outside through the window, night fell like a curtain, blotting out the snow paling Mount Shasta’s peak: a view Pauline had not grown tired of; green in spring, golden by summer, white during winter, crimson in fall, reminiscent of the volcano it still was.
Billie-Pearl went straight to the point; it was in her character and Pauline was used to it. “Are you hard at work right now, Mademoiselle? Lots of lame horses to tend to?”
“A whole bunch,” admitted Pauline. “Why?”
“You need to get your pretty face back to Reno on January thirtieth. In ten days. A Sunday, in the morning. When I saw the news, I thought of you. You can’t miss this, no way.”
“Miss what?”
“You can find a vet who can step in for you, right? And your daughter will help out, like always?” Billie-Pearl mischievously enjoyed keeping her hanging on.
Pauline was used to that too. She lit a cigarette, putting away the stuff cluttering her desk. “How’s Dansa?” she asked, teasing her in return.
That was Billie-Pearl’s favorite mare, granddaughter of her beloved stallion, Commander, who had passed away years ago.
Billie-Pearl lowered her voice.
“Dansa’s fine. Hey, listen. On January thirtieth, they’re going to blow up the Mapes. Blast it to pieces.”
Surprised, Pauline asked her friend if they really intended to raze it entirely. Billie-Pearl confirmed they certainly did; the luxury hotel had not stopped losing money since it closed in December 1982. The place, which had been empty since then, was in a bad state of disrepair and had nothing in common with the glory of its debut back in the forties, when its elevated outline was Reno’s pulsating point of reference. Many people had tried to save it; petitions had been launched, added Billie-Pearl, but that hadn’t been enough. It was going to be replaced with parking spaces and a skating rink, and Pauline couldn’t believe her ears. Still, in the grip of an unexpected wistfulness stirring within her, she went on listening to her friend.
“That Sunday, the thirtieth, is Super Bowl Sunday,” Billie-Pearl went on, “which means roads will be packed like crazy. You could come on Saturday, get here in the afternoon, settle in. I’ll introduce you to the yearlings. And the next morning, Sunday, we’ll go together. You’ll be back home on Monday.”
Pauline said yes, even if she was aware it would be tricky getting someone to stand in for her. She would be gone only two nights, a weekend, moreover, and she knew she could trust Lily to manage the clinic. Her daughter was not a vet, but she handled invoices and clients. Lily’s husband, Howard, and she had two children, a son, ten, and a girl, eight. The family lived nearby, which meant she saw them often.
Sometime later, as Lily was getting ready to head home, Pauline told her she was planning to be away the weekend of January thirtieth. Lily made a face: She reminded her there were several operations scheduled for Monday morning, which meant arrivals on Sunday. Pauline promised she’d be back as early as possible on that Monday and that she’d be replaced by her friend and neighbor Doctor Merrill. She’d give him a call this evening. Lily grumbled, she had a couple of outings planned with her husband and kids. Wasn’t this kind of last-minute?
“Is Billie-Pearl hosting a memory-lane party, the kind where you listen to Carole King and watch your old mustang slides?”
Then she glimpsed the turmoil on her mother’s face and came around, placing a compassionate hand on her shoulder.
Pauline lowered her head. She was silent for a moment, then she said, “They’re going to raze the Mapes. I just want to be there.”
Lily didn’t have to ask her mother why she was going. She hugged her close, said she understood.
Mount Shasta, Siskiyou County, Northern California
Pauline reversed the Dodge Dakota out of the garage, taking care not to scratch the ancient blue Ford Thunderbird sleeping there, slipped her favorite CD—French singer Françoise Hardy—into the drive, and took off. The trip to Cold Springs, where Billie-Pearl’s ranch was situated, would take over three hours, possibly more with traffic. Her friend was expecting her later in the day. Pauline hadn’t been to Reno in a while. When was the last time? She couldn’t remember. Probably to see her younger brother, who no longer lived in the Hammond family home on Washington Street that had been leveled months ago. Jim had done well in the real estate business and had moved to a pretty home in well-heeled Old Southwest Reno.
Each time she returned to Reno, she found herself entangled in a net of nostalgia and regret, dominated by memories of her mother, Marcelle. Her relationship with Lily’s father remained ambiguous, even though forty years had gone by, Lily’s age. She knew Kendall Spencer had not left Reno. His name still filled her with a sense of unease. For fifteen years he had sent a check with a Christmas card. Nothing much on the card except his signature and a few scrawled words she could hardly decipher. He hadn’t seen Lily again either. And Lily had moved on a long while ago. The years had gone by and he was not part of their lives. He didn’t even know his grandkids. How was it going to feel if Kendall turned up? she wondered. Uncomfortable. For her. And, no doubt, for him.
Pauline made her way carefully along the sinuous road as it curved down from Mount Shasta, but she knew the way by heart: down CA-89, then on to Feather Lake Highway until Route 395. Luckily, last week’s snowfall had not affected travel. She kept thinking of Nick and what he had said to her that morning over breakfast. He had warned her about the full force of her feelings taking over when the hotel came tumbling down in front of her eyes. Even the passage of time wouldn’t be able to obliterate what she had undergone there; the good and the bad, all the stuff she had told him, little by little, everything she had held back for so long. Nick was a newcomer in her life, but she trusted him more than most of her good friends. She had opened up to him, completely. She was in love. And it felt marvelous.
Two hours later, when Pauline reached Feather Lake Highway, more and more cars appeared. She had to slow down. She didn’t mind; she enjoyed being on the road. Before she opened her equine clinic, she had spent countless hours behind the wheel, visiting her patients around the area. She lit a cigarette, turned on the radio, and concentrated on the road.
Pauline had not set foot in the Mapes Hotel after the fall of 1960. Everything had changed at that moment, and she’d left, not looking back. She remembered holding out her hand for the envelope, seeing her name written in the unmistakable slanted, irregular handwriting, and holding her breath. And the guy at the front desk (what was his name, Lincoln?) saying with a touch of awe, “She left this for you.” His grin. Yes, you, Pauline, the maid. The cleaner. The girl with a mop and a pail, the one scrubbing toilets on the ground floor. That girl.
Every mile drew her closer to Reno, bordering on a past she couldn’t forget or erase, a past that had shaped her into the woman she was today, as Nick had pointed out. He was right. Often, in her mind, she could see herself racing mustangs at full speed with Billie-Pearl, like they used to in their youth at Pyramid Lake, coated with sweat and dust, mouths parched, skin burned by the sun, limbs shattered by the exhilarating gallop. And, later, her mother’s reproachful tone: Where had she been? What was that stench? Had she been horseback riding? With that girl from Wadsworth? Again? Was she crazy or what? Her mother had fought so hard to get them settled in Reno, to turn her into a decent young girl with a proper education. Had Pauline forgotten where she was from? Where she was born? The City of Light. Paris, France! Just because they’d landed smack in the middle of nowhere didn’t mean that Pauline should allow herself to turn into a redneck American.
On Route 395, an hour or so away from Billie-Pearl’s place, Pauline parked at a busy rest stop near Honey Lake for a cup of coffee and a bite to eat. The weather was dreary, with an icy wind blowing. Seated in the smoker’s area, impervious to the din around her, Pauline observed her hands curled around the mug, reddened by cold and toil—a far fetch from anything ladylike. How often had her mother chided her about her hands? Hands she’d not protected from unflinching sun nor relentless labor with horses; hands with veins that showed, speckles, and short unvarnished nails. She did,. . .
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