Beaches (18 page)

And then what? What would she say once she reached him? Make my mother well? She took a few steps toward the big doors. Her heart was pounding. She knew the nurses’ station was right outside of Rosie’s room, and she would have to look at Rosie again. Look at her and see those terrible tubes and the computer, and Rosie’s eyes, wanting to open and to see Bertie, see how she looked.

Wanting to ask her the question she asked her nearly once a week: “Well? When are you going to make me a grandmother?” It always made Bertie feel guilty when she said that. “Make me a grandmother.” It wasn’t as if Bertie and Michael weren’t trying. Had been to specialist after specialist. And Bertie told Rosie that. But still she said it in person or on the phone at least once a week. “Make me a grandmother,” as if Bertie were deliberately holding out on her.

Bertie pushed the doors open and walked toward the nurses’ station. She decided not to look at Rosie, but she couldn’t help it. The nurse who had been in there must have moved Rosie’s arm to make it easier for the intravenous tube to get into her system, because now her right arm was kind of lifted over the metal railing that flanked the side of the bed, and Rosie’s index finger, with an unpolished nail, looked as if it was pointing toward the door of the room. Pointing at Bertie.

You didn’t make me a grandmother, the frozen gesture said to Bertie. And now look at me. I’m in a coma, and probably I’m going to die . . . without a grandchild.

“Yes,” the nurse said, looking up.

“Uh, I’m Mrs. White’s daughter, Roberta Barron,” Bertie heard herself say.

“Yes?”

“Uh, well, I wanted to know. Um. Would it be possible for you to tell me …” Bertie hated herself. Good God. She was a twenty-six-year-old woman and she sounded like a child.

“Could I speak to … I mean, who is my mother’s doctor?”

The nurse looked irritated.

“Which one is your mother?”

“Rose. White. Mrs. Rosie White.”

“Which room number?” the woman said impatiently.

“Room number?” Bertie looked anxiously at Rosie’s door. She didn’t see a number.

“That one,” she said, pointing.

“Seven,” the nurse said. Bertie looked all around the door of the room. She didn’t see a number seven anywhere. Her eyes caught Rosie’s pointing finger again, and she looked back at the nurse who was studying a chart.

“Myron Spatz,” the nurse said. “He was the admitting doctor.” She put the chart down and went back to her work. Bertie was nervous. “Can I speak to him?” she asked softly.

“Of course.”

“When?”

“When he gets here,” the nurse answered, as if to a child.

“When will that be?”

“I don’t know, dear,” the nurse said.

Bertie was feeling angry, and her stomach hurt. She remembered an ad she once saw. Maybe it was for the American Cancer Society. In the big letters of the ad it said something like
AUNT
MARTHA
or
AUNT
MAGGY
or some name like that,
DIED
OF
SHAME
. There was a picture of an old-fashioned-looking woman, and then in the smaller letters it said something about how this old-fashioned woman had been too embarrassed to examine her own breasts or to let a doctor examine them, so she never knew that she had breast cancer, and then she died. The moral was, don’t let this happen to you. Don’t be intimidated. Speak up and save your life. Rosie’s life. Bertie took a deep breath.

“I want to talk to him now,” she said.

The nurse didn’t even look up.

“Can I reach him at home?”

The nurse shuffled some papers. Bertie’s heart was pounding. She could turn and walk back out to the waiting room. She could tell Neetie the doctor wasn’t available just yet. She turned her eyes for a glance back at Rosie’s room. The finger was still pointing. She had to speak up or

Rosie would die of shame like Aunt Martha or whatever her name was from the ad.

“I said,” she announced, surprising herself with the sound of this big new voice, “I want to talk to him now.” She paused for a moment as the next thought came to her. “Even if it means calling him at home.”

The nurse was silent for a long time. She didn’t look at Bertie.

Bertie’s mind raced. How did other people do this? Maybe if she was a man it would be different. Maybe then the nurse would be sweet, nice, even flirtatious. Saying, yes, sir, of course, sir. I’ll reach your mother’s doctor right away, but how about if I fix you some coffee first? Maybe this nurse didn’t like Bertie because she was pretty, and the nurse wasn’t, although she knew she couldn’t look too pretty, filled with Valium, and after that five-hour flight.

How could she get to her? She studied the woman for a moment when her eye caught the little plastic pin. Susan Byers, R.N. Susan Byers. Didn’t Susan Byers love a mother? Couldn’t she imagine what it was like for Bertie to see Rosie, who had fed Bertie, clothed her, hugged her, taught her to walk, to talk, sang “Poor Butterfly” to her when she was sick, called her “Puss” and “Mommy’s precious,” lying there helpless and dying? Unless somebody did something. Soon. Fast. Oh, God. Bertie felt the tears welling. There was a sob moving in her throat. No. She choked it back and leaned forward. She took a deep breath and leaned forward.

“Susan,” she said quietly.

The woman, surprised, looked up and into Bertie’s eyes.

“Susan, I know that you have an enormous amount of responsibility working in this unit, and I appreciate that and respect it. I’m grateful that my mother was brought to this hospital and am sure that she’s in good hands. But, I’m a stranger here, Susan.” The woman flinched a little every time Bertie said her name. “The last time I saw my

mother she was very healthy, and now she’s in a coma, and I’m upset.” The tears were fighting to come, but Bertie fought them right back. “I know you’ll understand my need to see Dr. Spatz right away. So please tell me how we can arrange that. Okay, Susan?” No tears. Not yet. Control.

Suddenly the woman who looked back at Bertie was totally changed. She reached out and touched Bertie’s hand. Susan Byers, R.N. Bertie had been wrong. She was pretty. Maybe even prettier than Bertie. “I understand,” she said. “The reason I can’t call Dr. Spatz is because he’s en route. He’ll be here any minute.”

Now the tears could come.

“I’m sorry about your mom,” Susan Byers said. Bertie knew she meant it. She also noticed now that Susan Byers was only about twenty-three years old.

Bertie walked into cubicle seven. The seven was very prominent over the door. She gently touched Rosie’s pointing finger.

“I love you, Mom,” she whispered, getting closer. And one of her tears fell on Rosie’s arm. Maybe it would be the way things happened in a fairy tale, and the fallen tear would awaken Rosie. And her awakening would awaken everyone else in the hospital who was unconscious. And they would all jump to their feet and sing, “There’s gonna be a great day,” as they danced through the hospital corridors. But Rosie didn’t move, and Bertie turned and walked toward the swinging doors. She looked back at Susan Byers, who was on the phone now, and Susan Byers smiled at her and waved a warm little wave. Bertie had handled it. So far. Maybe Rosie wasn’t going to die after all.

Bertie’s stomach was churning. She was hungry. Maybe Neetie would go and get sandwiches for them. No. Not if the doctor was due. Neetie would want to hear what he had to say. What did other people do about food around here? The lady whose husband had the heart attack had a

daughter who brought her clothes and food. Maybe they could call Uncle Herb, or …

Cee Gee. How had Bertie forgotten that Cee Gee was appearing nightly right across the street? There had been so many other feelings bombarding her since her arrival that Cee Cee had slipped from her mind, but now she was back, lodged there. Cee Cee and Michael making love in Hawaii. All of those letters that came later. Letters Bertie couldn’t read, couldn’t look at. Hated even to touch as she marked them
RETURN
UNOPENED
and put them back in her mailbox for the mailman to take. Only a few months ago, she had come upon the recognizable handwriting again in her pile of mail. This time the envelope was very large, as if purposely to get her attention, and underneath the place where it was addressed to Bertie, a note was printed in large letters:
PLEASE
BERT
,
I’M
BEGGING
YOU
TO
READ
THIS
.

Bertie had looked at the sealed envelope for a long time. She could just hear Cee Cee saying those words,
I’M
BEGGING
YOU
. It was so dramatic. Cee Cee was dramatic. That’s probably why she was such a good actress. And a successful one, too. In a play on Broadway. Rosie had seen a review of a play in which Cee Cee had appeared. She cut it out and gave it to Bertie one day at lunch. Later Bertie had heard her mother bragging about Cee Cee on the phone to a friend.

“Listen, my daughter’s pen pal, her very close girlfriend in New York, is in a play on Broadway,” she said, as if it had anything to do with her. And Bertie had fought the urge to pick up the extension phone and shout into it, “She’s so close she slept with my husband,” and slam it down.

That last envelope had taken on a life of its own. The large letters danced before Bertie’s eyes. Instead of sending it back immediately, she’d kept this one unopened in her drawer for nearly two weeks, trying to decide what to do. Once Bertie even held the envelope up to the light

just to see if she could see a word or two. That’s when she really felt ridiculous. What did it matter? Cee Cee had done a terrible thing to her and it was over between them. Back to the mailbox the letter went, finally, and she wished Cee Cee would stop sending the damned letters. Every time one came she relived that scene in her mind. Waking to hear Michael and Cee Cee out there in the living room of the suite.

“Mrs. Barron?”

A short, round-faced, balding man emerged from the swinging doors of I.C.U.

“I’m Dr. Spatz.”

Neetie must have heard him because she came bounding out of the waiting room like a shot and stood very close to Bertie.

“This is my aunt, Mrs. Burton,” Bertie told Spatz.

He nodded at Neetie. Bertie saw that Neetie was trembling.

“My mother,” Bertie said.

“Yes. Mrs. White,” Spatz said. “I admitted her yesterday.”

Through the door of the waiting room, Bertie could see the woman whose husband had a heart attack, Mrs. Koven. She was eating a sandwich and French fries. A teenaged girl was sitting next to her eating a brownie. Bertie’s stomach growled.

“Mrs. Barron, your mother has suffered a subarach-noid hemorrhage from a ruptured berry aneurism. That means she’s had bleeding in the layers around her brain from the blood vessels at the base of her brain.”

The doctor stopped talking. That was it. That was the whole thing.

Bertie felt weak. She was tired and very hungry. She wanted to ask the girl in the waiting room for some of her brownie, but the girl put the last bite in her mouth and wiped her face with a napkin. Now what?

Yes, Rosie. The doctor was waiting for Bertie to ask him something about Rosie.

“What do we do now?” Neetie asked.

“Will she live?” Bertie asked. Bertie was amazed how numb she’d become in the short time since she cried hysterically on the phone last night. Was it only last night?

“I’m afraid you’ll have to call in a neurosurgeon,” Spatz said. Bertie noticed that while he talked he rolled forward and rose onto his toes. Maybe he did that because he was short and if he spent part of the time on his toes he would seem taller.

“They will want to do a brain scan and an angiogram to find precisely where the berry aneurism is located. After that, they’ll probably want to operate.”

Neetie was chewing on her fingers. “Do you think my sister can live through an operation like that?” she asked softly.

The doctor merely gave Neetie a patronizing look. It was the look a waitress gave you when you called her over and asked if you could order now. Only when the waitress gave that look, she also said, “Sorry, that’s not my table.”

Whether Rosie would live or not wasn’t Spatz’s table.

“Which neurosurgeon?” Bertie asked.

“There are several on the staff here.”

“How do I find one?”

“They’ll give you a list.”

“How do I know who the best one is?”

That wasn’t Spatz’s table, either. He only told you what to do. Not how, with whom, or what the outcome might be. Bertie wanted to kick him.

“I’m sure you’ll find someone,” he said politely. “I’ll be by again tomorrow.” With one last rise onto his toes, he nodded, then turned and walked down the corridor.

Cee Cee’s throat hurt. And the goddamned sequined dress weighed a ton. Jesus, it was a good thing there were only five more days to this gig, otherwise Miami Beach

was gonna do her in. With the heat, and the old people, and nothing to do all day. She couldn’t stay in the goddamned hotel room anymore or she’d go stir crazy. She couldn’t stay at the pool oiled up like a French fry, either. Because all those people kept coming up to her and saying “Oh, honey, you’re just like my grandchild, with that big mouth of yours. So come and let’s have our picture taken together.”

Well, sure. That was great for the first few days. It was better than great. It was what she’d waited for, for her whole life, and she played it to the hilt. Hugging the nice people. Clowning for their pictures. Thanking them over and over again when they said how sensational she was on The Ed Sullivan Show a few weeks ago, and how she was even better in the show last night. In fact, they were coming again to see her tonight. And she loved it most of all when she overheard them say to one another, “She’s such a nice person. So real.”

But now it was starting to get to her. Maybe it was because she was fighting with John about dumb little things every day and that was getting to her, too. When things were okay with John, everything else seemed good, but the minute the two of them got out of whack, everything turned to shit.