Beaches (35 page)

Fuck him, Bertie thought. It will be all right. We’ll be all right. It doesn’t matter what he does, and she grinned to herself, and then at her daughter, and at her very best wonderful friend.

Nina was only as high as Cee Cee’s waist, and the picture of the two of them doing the same steps was the

cutest thing Bertie had ever seen. Both Hollywood performers raised their arms, holding their canes above their heads, and then they did big high kicks.

Spread your lovin arms way out in space And then do the eagle rock With style and grace . . .

A few people had gathered on the beach below and were watching the musical number from the back.

You put your left foot out And bring it back . . .

Then Cee Cee gave Nina a nudge with her elbow, and Nina sang:

And that’s what 1 call . . . Then Cee Cee sang:

And that’s what 1 call . . . And then they sang together:

And that’s what we call ballin . . . And they did a spin.

Ballin the jack!!!!!

Their arms were in the air and their happy voices rang loud and true.

The people on the beach applauded. Cee Cee and Nina bowed and hugged one another. Bertie gave them a standing ovation.

After the “Three Musketeerettes,” as they decided to call themselves, had a lemonade and some sun, they went

out to buy a few little things for Sunday’s party. Some beer, some soft drinks, some nuts for nibbling. Next to the supermarket was the Malibu kid’s store. Cee Cee saw Nina looking in the window at the clothes. While Bertie and the boy pushing the grocery cart walked out of the Market Basket and to the car where they unloaded the bags into the trunk, Cee Cee got Nina to try on, admit she looked great in, and decide maybe she’d been wrong about, jeans. And then, just so she’d have something new to wear to the party on Sunday, Cee Cee bought her a pair.

DEAR
AUNT
CEE
CEE
,

THIS
IS A
THANK
YOU
NOTE
FOR
ALL
THE
PRESENTS
YOU
SENT
ME ON MY
BIRTHDAY
. I
LIKE
THE
SWEATSHIRT
THAT
SAYS
ROLLING
STONES
ON IT
THE
BEST
. I
LIKE
THE
EARRINGS
BUT
MY
MOM
SAYS
I
CAN’T
WEAR
THEM
TILL
I’M
A
LOT
OLDER
.
THE
GOLD
TIGHTS
WERE
SO
GOOD
.
AND
THE
FEATHER
THING
THAT
MY
MOM
SAYS
IS A
BOA
.
AND
I
REMEMBER
THAT
BECAUSE
IT IS
LONG
LIKE
THE
BOA
THAT
MRS
.
LIEB-MAN
MY
TEACHER
SOMETIMES
CARRIES
AROUND
HER
NECK
NAMED
LUMPY
.

LOVE
,

NINA
B.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx oooooooooooooooooooooooo

Dear Bert,

I tried to call you last night and that babysitter there said something about your being in the hospital. Then when I asked what hospital she got all weird and wouldn’t tell me anything. Hope you were just visiting a sick friend.

I’ll call again tonight.

Meanwhile, watch Channel Four next Thursday because Sarah! is on, and you can sing along with Cee Cee, and if you let her stay up that late, Nina can watch me ham it up, too.

I just signed to do a new picture opposite Burt Reynolds. It’s a great part and the studio says they’re going to promote the shit out of it. So things are looking good for me, kiddo. My weight is down and my hopes are up. (That sentence shows you why I sing and act and don’t write for a living.)

Come visit and I’ll introduce you to Burt Reynolds. You two would be cute together. When you got married it would say Burt and Bertie on your cocktail napkins.

C.

SARASOTA
JUNIOR
DANCE
GROUP
SPRING
RECITAL

SLEEPY
TIME
GALS
. . . Erin Laughlin, Maria

Dawes, Marcia Carsey.

HUNGARIAN
RHAPSODY
. . . Stacey Bishop.
RAT-A-TAT-TAT
. . . Bobby Lennox, Richard

Dean, Mike Halloran.
TAPPERS
ON
PARADE
. . . Susan Moll, Heidi

Brotman,(Nina BarronN Gail Andrews.

Dear Cee- f She was terrific.

B.

Carmel, California, 1983

In a matter of minutes, fueled by exhilaration, Cee Cee was guiding the big Chevy down the highway, approaching the Ocean Avenue turnoff. Shit, she didn’t have those written directions with her anymore. Must have left them in the house. And she wasn’t sure she remembered the name of the street now, or even if she’d recognize the house. Right turn on Ocean. But what was it? Ahh. Carmelo. And left and . . . This time she didn’t take her suitcase out of the car because she was rushing.

When she pushed the front door open, the fire in the fireplace was dwindling and Jessica was no longer in the living room.

“Hello,” Cee Cee called out, hoping the nurse would hear her, but that she wouldn’t disturb Bertie. She walked up the stairs. The bedroom door was closed. The bathroom door opened and Jessica emerged. She looked surprised to see Cee Cee.

“Why, I thought you were …”

“Jessica,” Cee Cee said, feeling the flame of her

conviction rising in her cheeks. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re fired.”

The older woman’s eyes opened wide and she looked blankly at Cee Cee.

“I mean, Bertie doesn’t need you here. Won’t be needing you here anymore, because I’m here, and I’m gonna do it and I’m her friend. So that way it won’t be so nursey, Jessica, it’ll be friendly because …”

Cee Cee was crying, and Jessica pulled a handkerchief out of the pocket of her white uniform and handed it to her. Cee Cee wiped her eyes and went on. “Because I love her,” she said. “So you’ll have to teach me to be her primary-care giver. You and Janice. About pills and bathroom detail and rubdowns and
CPR
, whatever that is. And I guess you’ll even have to teach me what to do when she finally hits the road,” she said, not believing these words were coming from her mouth. “Like the details about who I gotta call to come and get the remains.” That thought made her shiver, but she went on. “You know what I’m sayin’, Jessica? I mean I’m talkin’ about me doin’ the whole enchilada. On my own.” Cee Cee blew her nose into Jessica’s handkerchief.

“That’s very lovely,” the nurse said, “but are you sure you-”

“Sure?” Cee Cee said, and laughed a little laugh. “Let me put it this way, hon. Once, when I was a kid, a bird fell off a wire, and I watched it die on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building. I was twelve, and that was the only dead creature I’ve ever seen in my whole life before or since. I say the only one because when my mother died, by the time I got back from summer stock to the funeral, there was this closed coffin. You know? It coulda been empty for all I knew. And the other people I knew who died? I was too chicken to go to their funerals. Thought it was too spooky. Too weird. So that’s my experience with the dyin’. What I’m tryin’ to tell ya is, that I’m not sure one bit, and in fact I don’t have a clue here. So

do me a favor, okay, and lay it on me real slow and careful. And get ready to hear the dumbest questions you ever heard, and for me to make like there’s no way in America I’m ever gonna get through it. And for me to make dumb mistakes, and maybe even puke ‘cause I’m scared or turned off or both.”

The older woman looked at Cee Cee the way she might at a mental patient, but Cee Cee went on: “But I’m doiri this, Jessica. I’m, excuse my language, goddamned fuckin’ doiri this, no matter what else happens in the world.”

That statement made Jessica look flustered for a second, and it seemed to Cee Cee as if she might begin to cry herself, but after a moment she gathered her forces together and looked almost pleased, and she said, “Well, then, let’s go downstairs and get started.”

Cee Cee and Jessica sat at the kitchen table until morning, and Cee Cee learned about titrating Bertie’s medication for pain, and how she would eventually have to be able to lift and move Bertie from the bed to the wheelchair and back again, how when Bertie was no longer able to get out of the bed, she would have to make the bed with Bertie in it. How to feed her, how to wash her, how to turn and massage her, how to use and clean the portable commode. And, finally, when the millions of questions Cee Cee asked seemed to be answered, the nurse took her hand and patted it.

“I’m afraid you’ll have plenty of time for hands-on application of all of this soon,” she said.

It was six A M Jessica made some coffee. When Bertie opened her eyes a few hours later, the morning sun poured into her room so powerfully that for a moment she couldn’t make out who was standing there. When she saw Cee Cee, she was sure she must still be dreaming. And when the apparition said she was staying for an unlimited amount of time, and then told her in a voice that sounded as if someone from the British stage had dubbed it in, “as your

primary-care giver,” Bertie’s reaction, which made Cee Cee’s face fall, was a peal of unreserved laughter.

“Hey, I said I’m gonna take care of you, Bert,” she said giddily. “Aren’t you glad?”

Bertie couldn’t stop laughing and when she finally did, she looked a little nervous.

“Cee Cee,” she said. “This isn’t a movie. You’re not going to be Sarah Bernhardt nursing the wounded during the siege of Paris, wasting away because you gave your food to a handsome soldier. This is real death. With tubes and pain and injections and foul-smelling excretions. No offense or anything, Cee Cee, but the truth is I called you here for laughs, not nursing. I love you a lot. You’ve been a wonderful friend throughout my brief but boring life. Now go home. Jessica . . . send her …”

But Jessica had discreetly left them alone.

“I’m not leavin’,” Cee Cee said.

“Oh, yes, you are,” Bertie said as harshly as she could muster.

“Uh-uh.”

“Cee Cee,” Bertie said, “I want to die the way I want to die, and you’re spoiling it. Now the discussion is over.”

“Hey, Bert,” Cee Cee said, pleading with her, “you gotta gimme a chance, for chrissake.”

“This isn’t an audition,” Bertie snapped. “And if it was, you’d be wrong for the part.” Then she called out, “Jessica!”

“I fired her,” Cee Cee said.

Bertie laughed a shocked laugh. “You didn’t. You’re crazy. Jessica!”

“But don’t worry,” Cee Cee said. “She’ll stick around for a few days to train me.”

“No,” Bertie said. “No, no, no.” She was laughing, but outraged at the same time.

Cee Cee walked over to a chair nearby, picked up a copy of Time magazine, then sat and opened it in front of her face as if she were reading.

“What’s going to happen to that TV show you were rehearsing?” Bertie asked. “They’ll fire you or sue you. Can’t they do that?”

Cee Cee didn’t answer. Just kept holding up the magazine.

“What are you doing?” Bertie asked.

“I’m takin’ care of you,” she heard Cee Cee say from behind the magazine.

“No,” Bertie said, “you aren’t.”

“I even know how to cook now, Bert, I learned when I was outta work for a while.”

“Cee Cee, whether you can cook or not is hardly the point.”

“Fuck you,” came the reply.

“Cee Cee!”

“And you know what else?” Cee Cee said, flinging the magazine to the floor, “as soon as you have your breakfast, you and me are going to the beach.”

During the next few weeks, Bertie was still able to get out of bed and dress herself, and sometimes after a little coaxing from Cee Cee she might even put a little blusher on her cheeks. Then, slowly, she’d make her way downstairs. Cee Cee would help her into the car and drive down Ocean Avenue to the beach area, find a parking spot and help her out of the car. Then Gee would put her right arm around Bertie’s waist and almost completely support Bertie’s weight. She would also carry two blankets, a backrest, her purse, and a bag of things they might need under her left arm, and walk down the sandy hill to a spot where the sand was nearly level. When they found the perfect spot, Cee Cee would spread one blanket, place the backrest on it, help Bertie down, cover her legs with the second blanket, and sit next to her.

The bag Cee Cee packed very early in the morning, before Bertie was even ready for breakfast, was loaded with goodies. Juice and yogurt and bread crumbs for the sea gulls, and magazines the drugstore had delivered after

Cee Cee called them and told them, “Send over one of each,” and she would read Bertie the articles,

“Okay,” Cee Cee said. “This one’s from Cosmopolitan, it’s called ‘Single Men: Where to Meet Them, How to Dazzle Them.’ ” Bertie would laugh and Cee Cee would rewrite the article as she read it: “Single men may come on to you at the beach if you’re sitting with a dying friend.” Bertie gave her a weak punch on the arm. Cee Cee continued as if she were reading.

” ‘You two girls doing anything next week?’ the man may ask. ‘Well, I’m available,’ you should answer, ‘but my friend here may be dead.’ ”

“Cee Cee!” Bertie said, throwing a magazine at her and laughing.

Sometimes they would just quietly feed the sea gulls for hours.

Once, two little girls were flying a kite. Running and falling and laughing. Cee Cee watched Bertie watching them. Cee Cee weighed her words carefully before she spoke, but she had to say this: