I'll Be There (5 page)

In all the years she’d flown in commercial airplanes, even large private jets, she had never been anywhere near the cockpit. Always it was some magical off-limits place she didn’t want to think about, probably to avoid the idea that humans who were capable of making mistakes sat in there working the big mechanical bird. But today the exhilaration she felt at the moment of takeoff thrilled her. Made her feel as if she were part of the sky. Looking right out the big front

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window and feeling the lift of the aircraft and seeing the ground disappear below, and seconds later having the tops of mountains at eye level, and the view of the Monterey Bay below, made her feel so elated she nearly forgot the reason she was up in the airplane to begin with.

“Now this beats the shit out of TWA!” she said very loud to the pilot, who nodded at her but probably couldn’t hear her because of that headset of Mickey Mouse ears he was wearing. “I mean 1 could seriously get into this. My God. l,ook down. You can see eve.thing from here. I might even decide to get my pilot’s license. Wouldn’t that be a pisser? Amelia Earhart Bloom. Flying myself all over the place in my own plane,” she said to the pilot, who was flipping a bunch of little switches and not listening to her. “Like Meshulam Riklis. Ever see his plane? On one side he has painted the words ‘Here Comes Pia!’ for his wife, Pia Zadora; well, mine could say, ‘Boom Boom, here comes Bloom.’ Right?”

With relief she leaned back against the seat, proud of herself for actually pulling this off. Doing at least part of what she’d promised Bertie she would do. Going up in a little model airplane that looked like it was made of balsa wood and Duco Cement, to disperse her ashes and to say goodbye. How ‘bout that for an act of love?

The pilot flew south down the coast, and Cee Cee continued to look out at the mountains and the expanse of ocean below with a comfort that amazed her. For years in her therapy she had talked about the fears she had about so many things and how she hated herself for letting those fears run her, letting them determine what she would and wouldn’t do. In fact the only time she was really brave was onstage. Out there when she was performing she would say anything, try anything, wear anything, and not give a rat’s ass about the consequences. But in real life, she held back. Crippled and stifled by her fear.

All that stuff she had made jokes about with Nina were real. Perfect examples of her chickenshit life. She wouldn’t dream of snorkeling, or be caught dead skiing, and the only time she flew was to get to a job in some faraway city. But worst of all was the way she’d even been afraid of Bertie’s persnickety lawyer. Afraid if she didn’t do what he said and picked a school for Nina herself, she’d fuck up and scar the kid for life. Afraid to keep the kid with her in Los Angeles, or if she had to go on the road, afraid to educate her with a tutor who came

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with them, terrified that her crazy unorthodox life would shock an eight-year-old girl. Well, so the fuck what? The kid was hers now, and if something about her life or somebody in her life shocked her, Nina would get over it. After all, wasn’t the whole point of Cee Cee’s taking the kid to put some color into her little black-and-white world? Now she was pisscd off just thinking about the way she’d lamely agreed to that boarding school. Sophocles and Anouilh, my ass, she thought.

The airplane was flying out over the water, and all she could see below them was the slate blue ocean. Jesus, she thought, any minute Mister Charm would be telling her it was time to open the window. If only Leona could see her this minute, in the co-pilot’s seat of some flying teakettle, she’d shit a brick. Leona, that’s who it was who put all those bullshit fears in her head. That’s whose fault it was that Cee Cee didn’t even learn to ride a bike until she was a teenager because Leona said to her, “What do you need it for? You could break a leg and then you’ll never be able to be a Rockette.” “I’m too short to be a Rockette, Ma.” “So now you want to have two strikes against you?”

Leona, who also told her, “Never trust another woman if there’s a man around,” which was probably why Cee Cee had made only one real friend in her life. And of course it was Leona, that fountain of unwanted information, who had told her on at least a dozen occasions, “Believe you me, sweetheart, when it comes down to it… men only want one thing.” Okay, Cee Cee thought.., so some things the old bat was right about.

That thought made her chuckle, and as she did, she could feel the plane starting to slow. The moment had arrived. This was what the pilot told her would happen. He wculd slow the plane down so it would be okay for her to open the window, and that’s what he was doing now. Oh my God, it’s my cue, she thought, and reached down to the floor and with two hands pulled the box onto her lap. Then she removed the lid again, slowly unwound the plastic, to look long at the ashes one more time.

Okay, Bert, she thought, here we go. I’m trying to do everything right. I’m up here like I promised, about to strew your remains over the deep blue sea like you asked me to, and I hope this cancels out the time I had that real fancy pin of your grandmother’s wrapped in a Kleenex and accidentally flushed it

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down the toilet, or the time l yelled at you in the lobby of the hotel in Florida, or any other time you were mad at me. Now she closed her eyes as if that would make Bertie’s spirit more able to hear her, and thought about all the last minute things she wanted Bertie to know, feeling as if she needed to cram them in before she parted with the ashes.

Bert, I’m trying to make things the way I think you would have wanted them to be but I know how particular you are about stuff, so sometimes it’s hard. Like for example I’m gonna keep buying Nina all those smocked little dresses you like her to wear, and that she likes too, I even took her to Saks in Monterey to buy her some more of them in spite of the fact that I personally think they’re so matronly my grandmother would have returned them. But I’m trying not to be too tough on her about it. After she insisted that was what she really liked to wear, I only told her once that she looked like a member of the D.A.R.

“Miss Bloom,” the pilot said, and Cee Cee opened her eyes. Obviously he was about to give her the signal. Any second he would tell her to open the window, so she would have to hurry up through the rest of what she wanted Bertie to know. “Yeah, yeah,” she sakl looking over at him, then she held the box close to her chest continuing her silent inner monologue to Bertie. And that school. Bert, I’ve got to tell you, I hated to leave her there, because that girl was not happy. I mean she acted real brave and all.., but see, that lawyer lean4 on me and when I thought about it I guess I figured for the time being she’d be better off there than with me, and once I saw how uptown the place was I worried that you’d think so too, so I…

“Miss Bloom, it’s time,” the pilot said over the noise of the airplane. “Okay!” Cee Cee said, feeling suddenly foolish and panicky and not sure she remembered the instructions he’d given her. The latch on the window. Turn it and push. She reached over and turned the latch on the window and pushed it open. It was hard to push now. Much harder than it had been in the airport, and the rushing wind rattled loudly through the cabin, blowing through her hair and her clothes. This was it, the last goodbye. Tears blurring her eyes, and her heart and head pounding, she looked at the pilot, who gave her the high sign, and probably because she’d been screwing up the timing talking to Bertie, the guy looked a little pissed, and he wasn’t exactly the winner of the Mister Congeniality award to begin with.

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“Goodbye,, Bert,” she said out loud now, the overwhelming force of the wind pounding at her face. “I sure as hell hope you think I’m doing the right thing by Nina.” And wincing from the wind, she lifted the box to the window, trying nervously to remember everything the pilot told her, and in one fast move, turned it over to dump the ashes straight down, when she instantly felt the povcrful slap of an enormous gust of wind that forced Bertie’s ashes back into the window at her, spraying, splattering directly into her stunned, gasping lace, covering her eyes, her nostrils, her ears, her hair, her clothes while the rest of the little pellets flew wildly all around the cabin. Hastily she pulled the box back inside and grabbed for the window, which she managed to pull shut and latch.

“Oh, no. Oh, God. Oh, no,” she wailed, horrified, weak and devastated by what she’d done because she’d been too rattled to make sure her arms were in the right position.

“Goddammit,” shouted the pilot, wild-eyed with rage. “What in the hell were you goddamned doing? Don’t you remember how I told you to hold the box?” There were ashes all over his face and hair too, and his jacket, all over the front of his jacket. “I don’t believe what you did to my plane.” This guy is gonna kill me, Cee Cee thought. He’s so bummed out he’s liable to open the door and push me out, like in some James Bond movie.

“Oh, God,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The box was empty. “Oh, Bert,” she said. “Oh, Bert, I’m so sorry,” and then she couldn’t control the bellow of a laugh that came next. The ashes were everywhere. On her, and the seats and the instrument panel, even on the pissed-off pilot who was turning the plane around now, heading back up the coast, while he brushed his hands through his hair and then over the shoulders of his jacket as if he were in a commercial for dandruff shampoo.

“Well, Bert,” Cee Cee said, trying not to laugh anymore, which only made her laugh harder as she pulled the empty cardboard box to her chest, smashing the cardboard when she did. “I guess | should probably take that as a no!”

Back at Del Monte Aviation she had to pay an extra cleaning fee for the damage she had caused the interior of the airplane, and after that she spent a long time in the ladies bathroom in the Monterey Peninsula Airport terminal, brushing, washing, and trembling with

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the courage of her convictions, and soon she got into the Chevy and drove in a fever back to Highway 1 and up to Santa Cruz.

At first it looked to her as if everyone on the playing field had long brown curly hair, but when the girl she had been certain was Nina separated herself from the others to run down the field, Cce Cee realized she’d been mistaken. For a long time she watched the beautiful little girls playing. Each one was prettier than the next, their pink faces flushed with the excitement of the game. Sometimes they would whisper to one another as they huddled together on the bench or braided one another’s ponytails while they watched the game, and each time a goal was scored, they all shrieked and leaped and hugged.

This is a mistake, she thought for a panicky moment. I should leave. Not even let Nina know I’m here. This is the way that child’s life is supposed to be. Playing soccer at a ritzy school and having friends and wearing a proper little uniform. This was just where Her tie would have put her, not in Hollywood where the cuckoos are. It’s exactly what Bertie would have wanted for her, and the ashes flying back at me was just an accident caused by my stupidity. Not a signal from Bertie. I should leave, and I’m going to.

“Cee?” When she turned, there was little Nina. Not in a soccer uniform at all, but in the plaid day uniform of the school. And the relief Cee Cee felt when she saw her renewed the certainty that had fired her as she had raced here from the airport.

“Did you forget something?” Nina asked, looking up at her. “Neen, | came back to see you and I want to talk’to you and the people at the school, because I have this really powerful feeling that maybe you shouldn’t.., maybe it would be better for you, since I’m your parent now.., if we… if you didn’t…”

“Didn’t go to boarding school?” Nina finished the sentence herself, then looked into Cee Cee’s face hopeful that the end of the sentence she had chosen was correct.

“Didn’t go to boarding school,” Cee Cee repeated, nodding.

Nina brightened for a second, but then doubt filled her eyes. “But what about the lawyers?” she asked.

“Honey,” Cee Cee said, “we’re just gonna do to the lawyers what lawyers have been doing to everybody else for years. And you’re coming home with me. To be with me and stay with me wherever I go.”

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“I am? Oh boy!” Nina said, hugging Cee Cee hard around the waist, her eyes closed and the side of her face pushed against Cee Cee’s chest.

“Neen,” Cee Cee said to the top of her head, “this isn’t gonna be like anything you imagine. Especially if I don’t get my television show back on the track, because maybe I’ll have to go on the road, or maybe I’ll have to go on location, or worst of all I could have to go off to Reno or Tahoe with an act, and that can truly be the lowest.”

“I think I can handle it,” Nina said, her eyes lit from the inside, as she held her head back so she could look up into Cee Cee’s face. “You know, a couple of times I heard my mom saying you were too much of a pushover. Is this the kind of thing she meant?”

“Sort of,” Cee Cee said, and her eyes were dancing with light too. Miss McCullough, the headmistress who had given them the tour, responded to the news of Nina’s departure in a way that Cee Cee later described as “so cold you could hang meat.” The woman stiffly informed Cee Cee that the school would have to keep the nonrefundable five-thousand-dollar deposit they had received from the child’s trust fund, since Nina had occupied a place which deprived another child from entering this semester, and Cee Cee smiled a big Cee Cee smile and said, “I’m sure you can find somewhere to put the five grand, toots.” Then she gave the woman a little wink and hustled Nina out of the office and the administration building and into the Chevy, where Nina’s already repacked suitcases had been piled into the trunk and the backseat, and as she did she said out loud to herself, “Maybe I should have phrased that another way.”