Beaches (36 page)

“Bert, Nina ought to be here. To say good-by. Otherwise, she’s gonna grow up thinkin’ that people she loves just go off someplace, disappear, and die. That’s bad for her, Bert.” For an instant after she said it she was afraid, with Bertie being so weak and all, that maybe she was wrong to bring up something that was so painful. No. Fuck it. She knew she was right about this.

“No,” Bertie said, “absolutely not.”

Cee Cee wanted to press, to talk her into it. Convince her. But she didn’t. And she hated herself for changing the subject. Rattling on and on about some Hollywood gossip. And she was relieved when Bertie laughed at the stories, a big belly laugh.

On most days, Bertie would doze or ask for her medication, and Cee Cee, who carried the packets of medication in her purse, would give her what she needed, along with some juice from the thermos in the bag.

When Bertie had had enough of the beach, Cee Cee would pack everything up, saving the blanket for after she had carefully helped Bertie to her feet. Then, slowly, they would move to the top of the slope to the waiting car. When they got back to the house, Cee Cee would help her friend into the bathroom, then back into bed, then go downstairs and make them a light dinner of eggs or pasta. After they ate, Cee Cee would lie on the cot that Janice Games had brought over for her and read to Bertie from the Monterey paper or the Carmel fine Cone.

“Ya know what? There’s no crime in this town. No wonder I don’t like it here,” she said one day. “They got the daily police reports written in this Pine Cone paper. And here’s one of ‘em. ‘A dead squirrel was found on the corner of Fifth and Dolores. Police called to the scene, removed the animal and’-Bert …”

Bertie was asleep. She slept longer now, and woke up for shorter intervals. Cee Cee was exhausted and was grateful for the opportunity to grab some sleep, too. Janice Games still came by to help around the house, and she had found Cee Cee a young woman named Madeline, who lived in Pacific Grove, who drove in to Carmel every other day to do the heavier housecleaning, so that wasn’t a problem. It was having to be constantly alert, and be ever-patient, and moving so slowly to help Bertie get around, and never knowing when Bertie would call out to her, so even when Cee Cee was reading or napping, her mind could never be free of Bertie’s needs. The television special she’d been rehearsing was canceled indefinitely after dozens of phone calls to Los Angeles and threats from managers, agents, and lawyers about having her drummed out of show business. She could tell that they didn’t believe her anyway from the yeah, sure, right, too bad kind of response they gave her when she told them the truth about why she wasn’t coming back for a while.

She only had the clothes she’d brought with her in the little overnight bag on that night that now seemed

centuries ago when she first arrived. And the clothes she was wearing that night. So every other day, she would change them, and Madeline would wash whichever outfit Gee Cee wasn’t wearing at the time.

The clothes were getting tighter and tighter on her, because while she cooked the meals she would nibble, and while Bertie stared at her own food Cee Cee would hungrily wolf down hers, and when she took the dishes downstairs, before she washed them she would nervously nibble what Bertie had left on her plate, which most of the time was the entire meal.

The only time that Cee Cee spent away from Bertie was the few hours a week that Jessica came to check on them, or Janice stopped in for a visit. When Cee Cee was certain that Bertie was in good hands, she’d run out, hop into the car, and do errands. The shopping center on the highway had everything she needed. Market, drugstore, bakery. In fact, it was in that shopping center that she got the idea that she was sure would make Bertie think she was a maudlin schmuck. Or not. Maybe she’d actually like it. When Cee Cee walked into the store and told the owner what she wanted, it helped that he recognized her from the movies, so he knew she could afford it. She wrote him a check and somehow they managed to get a big sheet over it and fit it into the trunk of the pain-in-the-ass rental car.

When Bertie woke up at about five that afternoon, Cee Cee said, “Let’s go downstairs.” Bertie agreed, even though she wasn’t sure she felt able to get out of bed. Cee Cee helped her to her feet, and dressed her in a warm robe and slippers, and led her down the stairs.

“Oh, God,” Bertie said with a smile. “In July, Cee. It’s gorgeous.”

The Christmas tree was perfectly decorated from top to bottom with perfect, delicate ornaments and tinsel, and the multicolored strings of teeny-tiny lights blinked on

and off warmly. The tree stood in the corner and looked almost picked-from-the-forest real.

“The Holiday Hutch,” Gee Cee said. “That store in the shopping center. They sell ornaments and stuff all year round. So when I saw it I figured …”

“It’s perfect.”

“Are you sure?” Cee Cee asked. “I mean, Chanukah I know from. If the assignment was to bring a menorah, I would have been aces, but I had to take this guy’s word for it.”

Bertie put her arms around her friend.

“Merry Christmas, pal,” she said, and hugged her as tightly as she was able.

That was the last time Bertie was downstairs. In the days that followed, it became too difficult for her to get out of bed. Twice a day Cee Cee would gently turn her on her stomach and give her back rubs, and while she was rubbing she would sing songs from her old nightclub act. And then she’d remember the patter that she’d done in between the songs. “Once, in this toilet club, I told this audience, ‘We’d like to do a little medley now of songs I’ve recently recorded.’ I didn’t mention the fact that where I’d recently recorded them was into my tape recorder in my bedroom.” She could feel Bertie’s giggle.

Soon, getting as far as the bathroom was difficult without exhausting Bertie, and Jessica arrived with the portable commode. She taught Cee Cee how to help Bertie use it, and how to clean it.

“Cee,” Bertie said. “It’s too much. Too much for you to do this. We’ll get Jessica to come here more often. You have to stop this.”

“What?” Cee Cee said, with a look of mock alarm. “And get outta show business?” Bertie didn’t know what that meant, so Cee Cee told her the story of the guy who worked in the circus, whose only job was to clean up after the elephants, just follow behind the parade and clean up after the elephants, and finally one day someone asked

him why he kept such a job. Why didn’t he quit? And the guy said-but Cee Cee didn’t get to finish because Bertie smiled and said the punchline softly. ” ‘What? And get out of show business?’ That’s funny.”

But on the first day when Cee Cee took the bowl of the toilet into the bathroom to empty and clean it, it wasn’t funny. She talked to herself for strength. Now, this is the test. How can I fuckin’ do this? How can I keep it together? I don’t think I can do this for another day. Maybe I made a mistake. No more. I can’t. But her life had become hooked into Bertie’s and her thoughts so attuned to Bertie’s every sigh in the night that by the next day she emptied the toilet as if she were a nurse who had done it for years. Not Cee Cee Bloom of stage, screen, and television whose maid, secretary, cleaning lady, business manager, manager, and agent had separated her from the everyday realities for years, never mind the horrible realities like terminal illness and death. Impending death. Now she could see that it was closer every day.

Cee Cee called her business manager one morning when it occurred to her that none of her bills were getting paid at home, since she wasn’t there to sign the checks.

“Cee Cee,” Wayne said, in a tone that she recognized as a phony glad-ta-hear-from-ya-kiddo voice, because she’d used it many times herself. After they’d discussed her financial business, he asked if he could mail her some scripts of movies people wanted her to consider, and she said yeah, what the hell. When the scripts arrived from Air Express, Cee Cee left the unopened envelope on the coffee table. After a few days she opened it, and tried to read while Bertie slept. But she couldn’t concentrate. All she could hear were Bertie’s breaths in and out. Were they steady? Normal? Was she comfortable? Warm enough? Medicated enough?

One afternoon, Jessica noticed Cee Cee’s bloated, unmade-up, tired face.

“Why don’t you get out of here for a few hours and see a movie?” the nurse asked her.

A movie. Maybe that would be a good change. Cee Cee drove to the multiplex theater in the shopping center and walked to the ticket window.

“Gimme a ticket,” she said absently, putting her cash on the counter.

“Which picture?” the cashier asked, gesturing to the marquee.

Cee Cee hadn’t even noticed. There were four movies playing. She had to choose one, and she looked at the titles. No. No. No. No. Forget movies. She put her money back in her purse and drove back to the house. She was overwhelmed with exhaustion, but it wasn’t just the fatigue that was getting to her. Jessica had told her that she should expect this depression. That she was already mourning the loss of her friend. But it was even more than that. She was aching inside, in her stomach, the way she did when she knew something was very wrong.

The minute she realized what it was, her mind was made up, and she made the necessary phone calls. At four o’clock the next day, when Janice came to the house to visit Bertie, Cee Cee left for the airport.

The little girl stood at the top of the steps, holding the stewardess’s hand. She was a foot taller than the last time Cee Cee had seen her. And slim. She had grown to look like her mother. Had Bertie’s nose-in-the-air style. She was the last passenger to emerge. Cee Cee had watched all of the others, envying them their casual laughter and greetings to one another, knowing that any minute it was her job to tell a little girl that her mother was dying. After the poor kid’s fuckin’ father left her before she was born. Christ, Cee Cee thought, the kid could be weirded out for the rest of her life.

Nina spotted Cee Cee right away, and she let go of the hand of the stewardess and walked with great poise down the steps. Cee Cee walked toward the plane. When

the child got to the bottom and saw Cee Cee waving, she stopped moving.

What do I say now? Cee Cee thought. What do I … She reached out for the child.

“My mother’s dying,” Nina said.

Cee Cee was grateful they were hugging so the child couldn’t see her face.

“Aunt Neetie said she only has a short time left, so she probably looks awful and scary and doesn’t feel well, so I’ll have to be careful not to disturb her and-”

“Hey, Nina,” Cee Cee said, moving the child away so she could look at her. Nina’s eyes were almost squinting, as if she thought keeping them that way would help her not to cry.

“I want you to disturb her. I want you to do all the things you’d do at home. Crash into the room. Fall on the bed. Hug and kiss her if you feel like it. Even if she does look a little different. Skinnier, and her hair isn’t great and sometimes-”

“She wears a wig,” Nina said.

Thank you, God, for making this a tiny bit easier, Cee Cee thought.

“She wore it in Florida sometimes when she had radiation therapy.”

“But it doesn’t matter how people look,” Cee Cee said, hoping the kid would buy it. “Does it? When you love them and they love you?” That was so saccharine she couldn’t believe she said it. Neither, obviously, could Nina.

“If she loves me so much, how come she left and lied and said she was going on some trip?”

“So you wouldn’t have to feel the way you feel now,” Cee Cee said, walking the child toward the baggage claim. “Scared about how she looks or how fragile she is. To protect you. But you don’t need protection from your mother, do you?”

“No,” Nina said. But while they stood by the con-

veyor belt waiting for her suitcase, she held tightly on to Cee Cee’s hand.

Bertie was restless. Her sleeps were filled with dreams of being cured and well and, sometimes, still married to Michael. Today the dream was about being at La Mont, a restaurant overlooking Pittsburgh, where she and Michael used to go. At night the view of the rivers was beautiful. And Walt Harper’s band played there every weekend. The dream was so real that Bertie could hear the music playing, and she looked across the table lovingly at Michael and she said, “Why don’t we dance, Mickey Mouse?” And though she could tell by his expression that he didn’t want to, he said, “Sure, Minnie,” and stood and took her hand and held her. As they danced, Bertie moved her face back and forth on the lapel of his coat, loving the way it felt, and the song the band had been playing blended into another song, and then that song segued into another song, and Bertie was happy and peaceful until she felt Michael take his arm away from her back and when she looked to see why, she realized it was in order to look impatiently at his watch. When his eyes caught hers, he looked guilty and then said angrily, “Ahhh, c’mon, Bert. How much longer is this going to go on, for God’s sake?”

She woke up with Michael’s voice and those words repeating themselves, and she found herself shivering in the dimly lit bedroom, which it took her a few moments to place. Carmel. The rented house in Carmel.

“Cee Cee,” she called out, but there was no answer.

“Cee Cee,” she said, a little bit louder. Maybe Cee Cee could bring her another blanket. But there was no sound. Ah, now someone was coming up the stairs. Someone who stood outside the door for a second. Good. It must be Cee Cee who had heard her and was-

“Hi, Mom,” Nina said.

Dear God. Bertie closed her eyes. Maybe this was just more dream, but Nina was on the bed, kissing her

and hugging her, warming her, and laughing. Cee Cee stood in the hallway, holding her breath, until she heard Bertie laughing, too, and the sound that two long-lost people make when they’re excited to see one another again. The way the pitch of their voice rises and their words jumble together as their thoughts rush out. So she went downstairs to make dinner.

By the time she came back with the trays of food, Nina had her shoes and socks off and was lying next to Bertie on the bed, leafing through a fashion magazine, showing her mother which outfits she loved and which ones were “too dorky.” And Bertie, with her arm around her daughter, was all smiles.