Beaches (37 page)

Nina devoured her dinner, and Cee Cee noticed that even though she didn’t stop chattering, she never once forgot her perfect manners. Bertie seemed to love the time they were having, but she didn’t once look at Cee Cee. Not when Cee Cee took the trays from the bed, or when she asked if anybody needed anything else from downstairs. Bertie, the soul of manners, didn’t thank her for dinner. Usually she raved over the food, even though she had little or no appetite. And she didn’t, even when Nina told a funny joke, look at Cee Cee proudly the way she ordinarily would to share her joy.

When the meal was over Cee Cee carried the tray downstairs and washed the dishes, and Nina took a bath. After that, clad in her pajamas, she kissed her mother and ran downstairs with a quick hug for Cee Cee.

“Tomorrow, can I put some more tinsel on the Christmas tree?” Nina asked.

“You bet,” Cee Cee said. “Are you glad to be here, Neen?” Cee Cee asked her.

Nina’s answer was just to hug her again. Tighter. And then she was off to tuck herself in, in one of the guest bedrooms.

Cee Cee made some tea for herself and for Bertie and then walked up the wooden stairs carrying the steaming

cups. Feeling good. Feeling proud of herself. Certain that she’d done the right thing. When she got to the bedroom door she pushed it open with the side of her right arm. Bertie was sitting up, staring at the wall across the room.

“Nina asleep?” Bertie asked brusquely.

“Yeah,” Cee Cee said, and put Bertie’s teacup on the table next to Bertie’s side of the bed.

“I want you to leave,” Bertie said after a moment. “I want Jessica back here full-time, starting tomorrow. I want you out of here, Cee Cee. I knew it was a mistake to let you stay here to begin with. Because you weren’t doing it for me. You were doing it for you. To prove to yourself that you weren’t the crazy selfish flake you’ve thought you’ve been all your life. Well, you’re going to have to find that out somewhere else, because I’m not going to be your goddamned guinea pig for one more day.”

Now she looked at Cee Cee, her brow furrowed.

“How you had the nerve, after I told you how I wanted it to be for me, to fly in the face of the wish of a dying person, and to expose my child to this horrible experience just to satisfy yourself, is beyond me. Pack your goddamned things and get out of here,” she said. “Right now.”

This person, this furious raging person, didn’t even look like Bertie.

“Bert, please,” Cee Cee said, sitting on the bed. “I thought-”

“Get off my bed,” Bertie said. “I don’t care what you thought. Get out of this house. I don’t want you here. I don’t want Nina here. I want to be by myself, so it doesn’t matter if I want to scream when the pain hurts, or want to cry when I look out the window at the beautiful day and realize that the next time I leave this house it’ll be in a goddamned plastic bag. I want you gone, Cee Cee, and I want Nina gone, too. Now get out.”

“Bert, you’re wrong. Getting Nina here was right. She needed this,” Cee Cee tried.

“Why don’t you get that you don’t decide what’s right here, and I do?” Bertie said between clenched teeth. “I’m the one who’s dying. ME. ME. I’m the one who’s helpless and in pain. I’m the one who won’t live to see her daughter grow to be a woman, or even a teenager. Who won’t be able to protect her from the world. And I have to die without ever having lived with a man who loves me passionately. Really understands me. Goddamn it, I feel cheated, Cee Cee, Ripped off, as you would say, because I don’t want it to be over yet. I don’t want it.” She angrily swept her hand across the night table next to her, knocking to the ground a glass of water, the cup of tea, a thermometer, and some bottles of pills.

Cee Cee bent to pick them up.

“Leave them!” Bertie shrieked. “Leave them and leave me.”

Cee Cee stood.

“I didn’t want you to call Nina. Oh, my Nina,” Bertie said, sobbing. “What will happen to my Nina?” She put her face in her pillow and wept.

“Maybe you’ll give her to me,” Cee Cee said so softly she was certain Bertie hadn’t heard her.

But she had. Her wet swollen eyes turned on Cee Cee.

“Give her to you? My God, are you insane? Place the life of my child into the hands of a woman who’s used cocaine and probably worse drugs than that, who’s slept with God knows who and how many, who dresses like a whore and talks like a sailor?” She was screaming. “Cee Cee, you may fool them in the movies, but I know you faint in delivery rooms, and when the going gets tough you leave, you’re obsessed with yourself and your career, and I don’t ever want to speak to you or see you again, let alone give you my child. Now get out of here, Cee Cee Bloom, you asshole,” she yelled in what was left of her voice. Then she turned her face to the pillow and cried uncontrollably.

Cee Cee sat slowly on the bed next to her. The bed shook from Bertie’s deep and prolonged sighs. After a while, Cee Cee spoke. “Bert,” she said, “I just can’t tell you how great it is to see you be the crazy one for a change.”

The next day, Madeline the cleaning girl was hired to come five days a week. She would take care of the house in the morning and in the afternoon take Nina walking in Carmel or to the wharf at Monterey.

Sometimes on days when Jessica was there, Cee Cee would take Nina out. To Point Lobos or down to Big Sur. The child would come back ecstatic about the harbor seals or the carousel at Cannery Row, as she and Cee Cee sat on Bertie’s bed and they all ate dinner together. Once, in a burst of excitement, Nina said, “This is the most fun vacation I’ve ever had.” Then, realizing what she’d said, she felt guilty, but Bertie grinned and said, “Isn’t that great?”

After another week, Jessica had to put a catheter into Bertie, because it became clear that now even being lifted to the portable toilet was too tiring for her. Jessica also taught Cee Cee how to change the throwaway bedpads, and one night, after Jessica left and Nina was asleep, Cee Cee had to give Bertie a morphine injection. When the pain had subsided and Bertie slept, Cee Cee went outside, coatless in the crisp northern California night. She walked around the block a few times, taking deep breaths, wishing her head would stop pounding.

As she walked along the quaint Carmel streets, she heard a dog howl from somewhere. Through several windows she could see people watching their televisions. The eleven o’clock news was on. She felt bloated and aching. Soon this would be over. Soon Bertie would die, and Nina would go back to Florida and Cee Cee to Los Angeles. She would get busy with her career again, and in a year or two it would seem as if it all hadn’t happened, except that there would be no more letters, phone calls, pictures in

the mail from Bertie. And Nina? Maybe Gee Cee could convince Nina to write to her. Maybe even get Bertie’s aunt to let the kid come to visit her once in a while.

She went back to the house, sat on the living room sofa, and read a script where they wanted her to play a female hockey player. She didn’t sleep until dawn, and just as she drifted off she heard Bertie stir. It was almost time to make breakfast, so she went into the bathroom and filled a bowl with warm water, and added a few drops of Jean Nate to it, because Bertie said it reminded her of Aunt Neetie’s house, and when she got to the bedroom, Bertie was awake.

“Nina still asleep?” Bertie asked.

Cee Cee nodded. Then she took a deep breath, hoping it would give her courage, and said, “Bert, I’ve been havin’ this fantasy that you’d say, ‘Cee, I’ve changed my mind. I want you to have Nina.’ And I’d say, ‘Me? Get outta here. I can’t take care of another person. I’m a fainter, a whore, a sailor, and a junkie.’ And then you’d say, ‘Hey, you’re crazy, Cee Cee. You used to be a fainter, a whore, a sailor, and a junkie, but since you came here you’ve been doin’ a fabulous job with a guinea pig like me.’ And I’d say, ‘Bert, do you really think so?’ And then this music would play. Real sentimental stuff-violins or somethin’ like that. And then you’d say, ‘Don’t ya get it, Cee, even though you’ve been all those things and a pushy bitch to boot, you love life and you love this world, and you’re full of laughs and jokes no matter what happens, so I think that maybe givin’ the kid to some old aunt and uncle, as nice as they are, is a chickenshit way out. Because if Nina was with you, she’d have a real nice life of adventure and fun and craziness.”

Cee Cee stopped talking, hoping Bertie would say something, anything, but Bertie didn’t say a word. Just looked at the ceiling.

“Bert,” Cee Cee said. “You gotta give her to me. I’m tellin’ ya. I want her and it’s right. I’ll help her and I’ll

teach her. I’ll show her a world your aunt and uncle never even heard of. And don’t laugh at that because I mean the good parts. I swear. And I’ll love her and hug her and every day I’ll tell her stories about you. About me and you together. And I’ll show her your letters. Ones you wrote when you were her same age, and lots of ages after that, because I have ‘em all, Bert. I saved every one. Bertie, say yes. Say you’ll call your aunt and the lawyers and tell them you changed your mind and that Nina’s gonna live with me after you’re not here anymore. And not out of politeness, either. But because you know I’m right that she could have a great life with me.”

Bertie didn’t say anything, and her brow was furrowed the way it was when she was in pain.

“You need medication?” Cee Cee asked.

After a while Bertie answered.

“No, Cee Cee,” she said. “No.” Cee Cee’s heart sank. “I mean, no, I don’t need medication,” she added. “I’m thinking.”

Cee Cee stood very still, as if Bertie’s thinking was fragile, and any movement might upset it. Bertie didn’t speak for a long time, and when she was ready to give her answer she turned to Cee Cee and looked into her eyes. Cee Cee’s heart pounded in her throat. Bertie nodded, faintly, and then she said, “She’ll be good for you.”

Cee Cee wanted to shout and dance and scream, but instead she sat on the bed and gave Bertie a sponge bath. And when she’d finished she changed her into a fresh clean nightgown, and then she brought the phone to the bed so that Bertie could call the lawyers.

Nina seemed to like the idea. At least, she told her mother, unlike Neetie and Herbie, Cee Cee was “sort of young,” which Bertie smiled about and Cee Cee made jokes about for days.

But then the joking stopped. Bertie’s waking moments became very rare. When she was awake, she wasn’t certain where she was. She asked for her mother many

times, and once she said something about having her appendix out. One evening, she asked Cee Cee where Dr. Wechsler was. Nina seemed afraid now, more reluctant to come into the room, but still she did, sometimes when her mother was asleep, to stand and look at her.

Jessica was at the house the day Bertie died. Cee Cee was relieved. Because even though she had learned and memorized all of the post-mortem procedures, she just couldn’t . . . not anymore.

Downstairs with Nina, she called Aunt Neetie in Florida. Neetie had received the news from the lawyer about Cee Cee’s taking Nina, so when she heard Cee Cee’s voice she was very cold, and didn’t ask to speak to Nina. In a businesslike voice she started to tell Cee Cee how she would be shipping Nina’s clothes and toys as soon as …

When Cee Cee could get a word in, she told Neetie that Bertie was dead. At first Neetie was quiet. Then she sobbed. It sounded to Cee Cee that through her sobs she said, “Poor kid. She had everything.”

Later, Cee Cee and Nina walked down Ocean Avenue to the hillside overlooking the beach.

“Whaddya say we take off our shoes?” Cee Cee asked.

Nina sat on the ground and removed her shoes. So did Cee Cee. Then, together, arm in arm, the two of them took a walk on the beach.

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