I'll Be There (37 page)

Pappas gave Nina what looked to Cee Cee like a conspiratorial congratulations for being able to say what she bad in front of Cee Cee. Obviously it was information she had shared with Pappas, with the whole group of kids before this. Then the doctor looked at Cee Cee as if to ask her if she wanted to respond. How can I do it? she thought. How will I ever be able to tell her what I should have told her every day for the last eight years? Then she cleared her throat, which had become clogged with nervousness, and spoke.

“For a big part of my life I thought the same thing about myself that Joanne over there said about me. That I was different than other people. But over the last eight years of living with Nina, and now after coming to these meeting rooms for even this little while, what I

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know for absolute certain is that what Doctor Pappas said was true. I’m the same as everybody else. In spades. I’m raising a child and I want the best life has to offer for her just like all of you want for your kids. I work hard at what I do and I want it to go well, just like all of you feel about your work. I want to be loved and respected the same as everyone in this room does. And just like every parent here, because it’s all trial and error, I raised my kid making a lot of mistakes. Like being in her face too much when she doesn’t want me around, and being out to lunch too often when she does want me to be around, and I wish I could turn back the clock to that first day and do everything right but I can’t so…”

“Cee Cee,” Doctor Pappas interrupted, “may I suggest that you talk directly to Nina.” Then he made a little gesture to Nina to move inside the circle so she could turn around and look at Cee Cee, and she did. Her pretty but pale face turned up at her, her eyes blinking fast in a way Cee Cee knew she always used to hold in her tears.

“Nina,” Cee Cee said, “it took your mother’s death to make me think I grew up, because taking care of her when she was dying was the only unselfish thing I’ve ever done in my life. By the end, I guess she knew it, so that even though it was pretty obvious I was the candidate least likely to succeed at the job, she must have figured, from the way I finally set everything aside but her, that I had the potential to be a caring person and it would be okay for her to appoint me as your guardian.

“At the time it made me happy, but I didn’t even have a clue that first day you and I were together what it was gonna mean. In my wildest dreams I didn’t imagine that the job description of motherhood was that one day you start feeling so close to another person that when she hurts even the least little bit, it kills you, and that without even thinking about it, you get so attached to that person and need her love so much, that even if she looks at you crooked, you want to cry. And maybe I never told you up till now, but what being with you taught me that I never knew was that it was possible to love another person more than I love myself. I know I don’t always show it, doing dumb things, making wrong choices, but believe me, it’s true.”

She paused for a moment, and when she did Dr. Pappas spoke. “But after saying all that you still haven’t said the words.”

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“Huh?” Cee Cee asked looking at him.

“You still haven’t simply stated what it is I believe you want to tell Nina.”

“You mean… ?”

Pappas nodded and Cee Cee looked into Nina pathetically ringed and bloodshot eyes and said, “Neen, I love you. I love you as if I was the one who gave birth to you in that delivery room myself, instead of the one who fainted. I couldn’t love you any more if you were born from my body. But I have to admit there hasn’t been one day that we’ve been together when I didn’t fear I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, understanding enough, loving enough to live up to being as good as your real mother would have been for you. And that was the biggest reason I was afraid to adopt you. Because of what I’m not.”

Nina looked down into her lap now with what seemed to Cee Cee to be a look of relief.

“And believe me when I tell you, your mother wasn’t perfect. Sometimes she could be a cold, judgmental pain in the kiester. Holding feelings inside, being too rigid about how things were supposed to be. But she had other stuff about her that I loved, and her best quality, at least for my money, and the thing that I know made her a great mother, was the way she’d stand up with an opinion about things I did that she didn’t like, even if the risk was rejection or me mouthing off at her, which I did a lot. And on the other side of that coin, she was just as unafraid to say, ‘Goddammit, you did something great and I’m proud of you,’ and never thought that saying that meant she was putting herself in second position by getting out of the way and making me feel appreciated.”

Now there was a little smile on Nina’s fae as if she was remembering those aspects of Bertie too.

“I hope it’s not too late for me to say I want to try harder to be that way for you. Not scared to point out what I think is wrong for fear you’ll hate me if I do, and thoughtful enough to pat you on the back as often as I can. I have lots of fears that have plagued me and run me for too long, and one of those is what’s kept me from admitting to you what I’m about to tell you now, which is not what I planned to say here tonight, but I have to.

“For a big part of my life I was a user too. A heavy user. It was one of the reasons your mother was planning at first to give you to

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your Aunt Neetie instead of to me. I smoked grass and sometimes hash to go to sleep and for the longest time I tooted up to go to work, and then used some more to get me through the work day.., and to get me through the fact that I felt fat, or unattractive, or different than everybody else. Your mothcr once screamed her head off at me, trying to get me to stop. And the reason I ncver told you or anybody that about me is because I was afraid if it came out, it would somehow be what separated us, that you would think I was garbage for having that in my past. It’s also part of the reason I never tried to adopt you, though I’ve thought about it every day for the last eight years too, and wanted to but was always afraid if I started the process and social workers came and checked on me, they would find out I once did drugs and say what I feared. That I didn’t deserve to be your mother.

“Having you in my life has made me a human being, given me a reason to wake up on mornings when I was too depressed to move. I couldn’t believe it when you said that you did drugs so you could be like me. Because I’ve spent a lifetime wishing I could be like you. Beautiful and dignified, smart and classy. Knowing just how to behave, and being in enough control to pull it off. I admire you so much, and if I never told you I loved you all these years, I realize now that the reason was probably that I was afraid to, since I’ve lost everyone I’ve ever loved.”

Nina nodded knowingly, then spoke softly. “Me too.”

“And you know what else?” Cee Cee said. “Not that this makes it okay, but you’ve never said you love me either.”

Again there was silence, interrupted only by the cracking of one of the kid’s chewing gum and what sounded to Cee Cee like a floor

polisher somewhere off in the distance in the hospital corridor. “Nina,” Doctor Pappas asked, “do you love Cee Cee?”

Nina didn’t answer, and the silence was killing to Cee Cee, who figured it could go either way now and the kid could say no, and that would be the worst thing she could ever hear, but then Nina’s lower lip trembled and her face collapsed, and she cried, that kind of cry where no sound comes out and the crier seems to be inhaling all of the tears and can’t say a word. Then she nodded, a very slow nod, and took in a huge breath, and Doctor Pappas asked softly, “Well, why don’t you tell her?”

Nina took a few breaths and tried to gain control, as Cee Cee sat

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forward in her chair expectantly. “I love you, Cee Cee,” Nina said, punctuated by intakes of breath. “I really do love you a lot.”

Thank you, God, oh thank youfor that, thank you, Cee Cee thought. “I love the way you always stick up for yourself and for me. And I think it’s so cool the way you try to be so nice to your fans even when they bug you, and the way you try to act real tough but inside you’re really full of mush.” That caused a light giggle to ripple through the group, and brought a smile that started inside Cee Cee’s chest and moved to her face, and her smile seemed to buoy Nina to continue.

“You’re what some of the kids in this group call ‘truly awesome.’ But, see, one of the things I’ve been finding out about me is that I can’t always handle awesome too well? BeCause what I really need is real? And I don’t know if you and I will ever get there. To being real. Because you’re still always going to be you, Cee Cee Bloom, and I’m still going to be me, wishing for a real life with real parents. And that’s the kind of stuff that all the meetings and groups in the world can’t change.”

Doctor Pappas handed Nina a wad of Kleenex, and she wiped her eyes and blew her nose and went on. “What I’m saying is, I think I’m scared that talking about not using won’t make me not want to get out of here and use again. But yes … I love you, and I’ve been superafraid to tell you that before tonight. Before I knew that you love me… and that I wasn’t someone you got stuck with because your friend died.” She bit her lip and looked straight and hard at Cee Cee, waiting to see what would happen next, and Cee Cee moved to the middle of the circle, took Nina’s hands, lifted her to her feet, and pulled her into her arms where they wept, and Doctor Pappas passed a box of Kleenex around to many of the other people in the group who needed it too.

The moon lit the narrow beach street as Cee Cee and Nina walked toward Cee Cee’s car, arms around one another’s waists. Some of the tiny, funky, one-story houses they passed had wind chimes, which hung quietly in the still night. A few of the houses just beyond the row of Seaside Sobriety houses were lit only by the flickering lights of televisions.

“Doctor Pappas said he thinks you’ll be able to come home in a few weeks,” Cee Cee said as they reached the car, which was parked

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just opposite the open sliding glass door of a house inside of which Cee Cee spotted an older couple, watching the Academy Awards.

I’ll come back on Wednesday for the next family meeting,” she said, taking Nina’s hand, “and for every meeting after that. I promise. I’m going to do everything | can to get us through this.” Nina squeezed her hand gratefully, then looked past her at the television in the little house, and when Cee Cee followed her gaze back to the small set she saw Billy Crystal introducing Gregory Peck, who strode handsome and elegant up to the podium, and when the applause ended he said something about five gifted women. And then he named them, and as he did a piece of each of their films rolled by. Isabelle Adjani, Camille Claudel. Jessica Lange, Music Box. Cee Cee Bloom, Lives of Sophie West. Cee Cee, who never liked the way she looked on film, was relieved that the clips were so short.

When Gregory Peck had announced all the nominations, he opened the envelope and announced, “And the Oscar goes to Jessica Tandy for Driving Miss Daisy.” In an instant the audience rose to their feet and Cee Cee took a long deep breath as Nina put a supporting arm around her shoulder and held on tight, and they both watched as Jessica Tandy took the stage. The old couple in the house were applauding along with the television audience.

“I never expected in a million years that I’d be in this position, and I thank my lucky stars…‘Jessica Tandy said, “and Richard and Lily Zanuck, and that forgotten man Bruce Beresford. I’m on cloud nine.”

Cee Cee turned away from the television and looked at Nina. She could hear the old woman in the house they were standing next to saying, “Well, it’s about time she won one of those things.”

“Do you feel awful that you’re not the winner?” Nina asked her.

“Oh, kiddo,” Cee Cee said. “That’s where you’re wrong. I have you. And that makes me the biggest and luckiest winner I know.”

They hugged again, and Cee Cee got into the car and Nina waved goodbye as the car pulled away, and then she walked slowly back to the small house where some of the group were waiting for her.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

August 1990

IT WAS seven years exactly from the day of Bertie’s death, one of those eerie coincidences Cee Cee remembered thinking when she entered today’s event into her appointment calendar. Now it crossed her mind again while she sat in the back of the limousine, which snaked with funereal slowness through the relentless freeway traffic. Her father, Harriet, and Hal sat with her, staring out of the darkened windows, lost in their respective thoughts, and as the oddly mixed architecture of the downtown skyline came into view signaling their

imminent arrival, Hal reached over and took Cee Cee’s hand. “How’re you holding up, old girl?”

She answered with a fervent squeeze of his hand.

Within minutes the limo slowed and Cee Cee leaned forward to look out the window in amazement at the size of the group waiting for them at the curb. So many of Nina’s friends were there, all of them wearing what were for them somber clothes, and every one of them was serious-faced. Particularly Kevin, who stood in the front of the group and nodded a nod of encouragement to Cee Cee as she opened the door for herself and emerged from the car.

And then Jake, looking very official today in a uniform, including the rarely worn chauffeur’s cap, opened his own door and walked around to the front door on the passenger side, opened that one with a flourish, and out stepped Nina. A cheer rose from the group, as all of the friends ran to greet her, to encircle her, hugging and congratulating her noisily, and finally they nearly lifted her off her feet to usher her along the sidewalk and up the steps to the courthouse.

Cee Cee took a deep breath and stopped at the bottom of the steps

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