Beaches (32 page)

“Yeah,” Cee Cee said, “I know.”

“But that mobility is going to be diminished soon.”

“How soon?”

“A month, three weeks maybe, and she can feel it. That’s why Jessica is starting tonight. Roberta really needs someone twenty-four hours. Frequently, the dying patient has a family member who’s a primary-care giver, and the hospice serves as a supplement to that, but because Roberta chose to die away from her family, the nurses will be the primary-care givers, and I’ll be here to tend to the house and to keep her spirits up, too.”

Janice put the chicken pot pies on a tray, each with a knife, fork, spoon, and napkin.

“She won’t eat much,” she told Cee Cee. “But some-

times if you get her talking and her mind is busy, she’ll eat a little more. I’ll be by in the morning. It was nice meeting you.”

Janice Games turned to leave the kitchen, and Cee Cee looked at the tray, dreading the idea of having to make her way up those stairs and have dinner in that room with that cadaverous person who used to be Bertie.

“What time’s that nurse get here?” Cee Cee asked Janice, more as a way to keep her from leaving than because she wanted to know.

Janice looked at her watch.

“Any minute,” she said, and was out the door.

Cee Cee heard Janice’s car start outside, and realized that the pot pies were probably getting cold. She picked up the tray and walked slowly up the wooden stairs. Why was Bertie doing this all alone? Why wasn’t Nina around?

When she pushed the bedroom door open with her hip, Cee Cee saw that Bertie was asleep again, so she set the tray down on a table, took up one of the chicken pot pies and a fork, and broke through the pie’s flaky crust into the creamy chicken vegetable mixture inside. God, she was hungry. Bertie would forgive her for starting.

It was good that she’d come hurrying to Bertie’s side. Heroic even. Yes, heroic. That’s how she felt, but she tried to stifle her next thought because it was so tacky. The thought about how it would look in People magazine.
STAR
FLIES
OFF
TO BE
WITH
DYING
FRIEND
, it would say, with pictures of Cee Cee sitting at Bertie’s bedside. And then shots of her coming out of Bertie’s funeral, wearing some great black hat with a veil, and shrieking at the fan magazine guys to leave her alone as they swarmed around her. Tacky. She hated that she even thought that.

The only sound in the room was Bertie’s labored breathing.

Cee Cee looked at her watch. What was she going to do? She couldn’t just leave without talking to Bertie at

least one more time. It was seven-thirty. She’d better call the airlines and see when there was a flight out. She’d go downstairs, put Bertie’s uneaten chicken pot pie in a warm oven, and make some phone calls. As she got to the door, Bertie stirred.

“Gee,” she said very softly.

Cee Cee turned. “Yeah,” she said. “I was takin’ your dinner down to warm it up ‘cause you fell asleep and I-”

“I was thinking that I’m so glad I’m going to miss the thrill next year of turning forty,” Bertie said with a funny half-smile. “You know,” she said sleepily, “one of the good things about dying of cancer is that I’ll never have to go to another aerobics class.”

Cee Cee laughed and shook her head.

“But I’m real annoyed about missing Christmas.”

She was awake. That was good. If there was a late flight out, Cee Cee could sit and chat with her now and then run out to the airport in time to return the car and make the flight. What could she say to that stuff about Christmas? Nothing. Just let her talk. Let her get it out.

“Any dinner for you, Bert?” Cee Cee asked.

“Maybe just some juice,” Bertie said.

“Comin’ up.”

Cee Cee covered the chicken pot pie with some aluminum foil, rinsed her own dish, and put it in the dishwasher. Then she took the apple juice from the refrigerator, poured some into a glass, put the glass down on the counter, and dialed the kitchen phone.

“Thank you for calling PS A,” the voice on the phone said.

“Yeah. What time is your last flight to L.A. from Monterey tonight?” Cee Cee asked softly. Why softly? Bertie couldn’t hear her from all the way upstairs. Maybe softly because she felt guilty for leaving.

“Ten fifty-seven P M ”

“I want to make a reservation.” Hey. Why should she

feel guilty? She loved Bertie. Walked out on her own show today to prove it.

“Round trip?” the voice asked.

“One way,” Cee Cee said.

Maybe in a week or two, when she got everything settled in L.A., she’d come back up. Sure. She could do that. That’s what she’d tell Bertie. I gotta go now, Bert, but I’m comin’ back. Maybe she’d wait to tell Bertie that till the nurse got there.

“Your name?” asked the voice on the phone.

“Cee Cee Bloom.”

“Oh yes, Miss Bloom. I love your movies,” the voice said.

“Yeah? Thanks,” Cee Cee said.

“That’s flight forty-three leaving Monterey at ten fifty-seven P M , arriving Los Angeles twelve oh-three A M We suggest you arrive at the airport at least one half-hour before flight time.”

“I’ll be there,” Cee Cee said with relief. “Thanks.”

“Thanks for calling PS A.”

Perfect. Cee Cee had started up the stairs carrying the juice glass when the front door opened softly.

Jessica, the nurse, was about fifty. She had a long thin face and what looked to Cee Cee from where she was standing like a furry upper lip. She wore glasses, a white uniform with a beige cardigan cable knit sweater, and under her arm she had a paperback copy of what Cee Cee noticed was Sidney Sheldon’s Rage of Angels.

“Hiya, hiya,” she said cutely, as if to prove to anyone listening that she was jovial. “I’m Jessica.”

“I’m Cee Cee Bloom,” Cee Cee said. There was no recognition on Jessica’s face.

“How’s the gal?” the nurse asked, gesturing with her head in the direction of upstairs.

“Okay, I guess,” Cee Cee said.

“You her family?”

Cee Cee nodded, then realized. “Friend,” she said.

The two women walked up the steps together. Bertie was sitting up against two pillows.

“Hello, Jessica,” she said.

“Hiya, hiya,” Jessica said again, walked over to Bertie, gently removed the two pillows from behind Bertie’s head, plumped them up, and moved Bertie forward a bit so she could replace them. “How was your day?” the woman asked.

Bertie smiled. “Cee Cee came to visit today, so it was splendid.”

“Splendid,” Cee Cee said. “There are only three women in the world who use that word, Bert, and the other two both have the last name Hepburn.”

Bertie loved that. Jessica didn’t get it.

“Did she have dinner?” Jessica asked Cee Cee.

“Yes, I did,” Bertie replied. “I mean, Cee Cee brought it to me, only I didn’t eat anything because I was asleep.”

“Now you know you have to eat a little something or you’ll lose your strength, and you don’t have that much as it is,” the nurse said, and laughed self-consciously.

Cee Cee offered Bertie the glass of juice, but Bertie waved it away. “Won’t you try and take a little?” Jessica asked.

“Can’t,” Bertie said softly.

“Fluids are good,” Jessica said.

Jessica took the glass from Cee Cee, and Bertie took it from Jessica reluctantly and drank it. Jessica said, “Good girl,” in a way that Cee Cee remembered she’d heard the leopard trainer at the
MGM
Grand say the same words when he spoke to the leopard right before the show. Bertie didn’t seem to notice. Jessica must have sensed Cee Cee’s discomfort with her because when the juice glass was empty, she said, “Why don’t I mosey on downstairs for a bit?” and left the room.

Bertie seemed to brighten right away. Cee Cee was glad. It was time for her now to talk about leaving for Los Angeles.

“Bert,” she said, “maybe I can come back up here from L.A. to visit with you next week again, but tonight I gotta hit the road. I was in the middle of rehearsin’ this big TV special when you called and I just sort of waltzed out the door. I mean, you don’t know how many people I pissed off today by leavin’ and they’re expectin’ me to come back tonight and be there tomorrow, ‘cause every day I miss costs the network a bloody fortune, not to mention my production company.”

“I understand. I absolutely do. You’re the best person in the world to come running up here,” Bertie said. “But, Gee, listen, and I mean this, if you can’t get back here next week, I’ll understand, I only wanted us to see each other, and to be with you now-before-so you wouldn’t suddenly get a call from somebody and be surprised or hear about it and wonder how I was. I wanted you to know I’m okay about it. More than okay. I want it to be over.”

“Where’s Nina?” Cee Cee said, finally asking the question she’d wanted to ask since she’d arrived.

“With my Aunt Neet and Uncle Herb,” Bertie said, her eyes testing Cee Cee’s for a reaction, then looking away and going on. “She adores them and they adore her, and they’ve never had a child to shower all their love on, so I thought . . . Cee Cee, I’ve had a few hospital visits in the last few years. In Florida and in New York.” Cee Cee remembered fleeting references in Bertie’s letters to hospital stays for what were dismissed as minor problems.

“Every time I came home, Nina would be so helpless and so uncomfortable and so unhappy while I convalesced. And every day she’d ask me, ‘Are you going to be better tomorrow?’ with so much hope. I just couldn’t be around her the way I am now, having to tell her this time that the answer is no. This way she gets to live a normal child’s life, without the worry of a sick mother in the other room.” It was all so matter-of-fact. Cee Cee couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Bertie continued, “And Car-

mel is beautiful, so I … Gee Cee, do you remember when I first met you that time in Atlantic City?” She said that in the same tone of voice she used when she was talking about Nina.

“Like it was yesterday,” Cee Cee answered, wondering where Bertie’s thoughts were going.

But Bertie’s eyes closed. She didn’t speak for a while, and her breathing changed. All the interaction was tiring for her. After several minutes, Cee Cee was certain she had to be asleep, and then Bertie’s eyes opened again, halfway this time, and she said, “Cee, I always wanted to tell you, but I guess I never did before, that you were so much better than that other girl. The one who walked on her hands. So much better,” she repeated. Then she closed her eyes and in a few minutes she was asleep.

Cee Cee stood by the bed for a long time, and when it looked as if the sleep would continue for a while, she left the bedroom and walked downstairs.

Jessica had a fire going in the fireplace and she sat on a chair with her feet on the ottoman, reading Rage of Angels, “Hiya, hiya,” she said when she saw Cee Cee.

“I’m goin’,” Cee Cee said, and she stretched and yawned. She was exhausted. Her suitcase? Yes. It was still in the trunk of the car.

Jessica stood. “Well, it was nice of you to stop by,” she said. “I’m taking good care of her, and she sure is a sweet person.”

Cee Cee nodded. A sweet person. No kidding. She nodded. Standing for a moment trying to remember how to get back to the airport, then she gave the nurse her best show business smile and walked out the door.

The rain had stopped long before, and the night air was chilly and filled with the sweet smell of burning eucalyptus coming from the neighborhood chimneys. Cee Cee got into the big cold Chevrolet, started it, turned on the lights, and headed out of town. She would call Jake, her driver, from the Monterey airport, and he’d come and

pick her up in L.A. Tomorrow, at work, she’d make a big deal of apologizing to everybody and explain about her sick friend, and then she’d get the sympathy vote, so that would work out great.

Hiya, hiya, Cee Cee thought, shaking her head. Good girl. Bertie. All her life she was the good girl. Living the good-girl life. Now she was dying, and it was just like her to die the good-girl death, far away from her family so she wouldn’t bother them. Sparing her daughter from the sight of her. Even inviting Cee Cee up to Carmel to reassure her that all was okay. And now, shit. She was dying. Dying. Bertie. You were much better than that other girl, she said. The one who walked on her hands. So much better. Bertie. Even if she didn’t think that or believe it, she had to say it before she died to make Cee Cee feel good.

There. Rental car return and an arrow. Cee Cee could see the Hertz sign at the end of the long drive. She pulled up and stopped, turned off the car, got out of it, and opened the trunk. Her small overnight bag looked lost in the huge trunk space, and as she reached for the case and began pulling it toward her, watching as the black porter for curbside check-in moved in her direction, she stopped. To think about it all.

“Check your bags?” he asked.

Cee Cee didn’t answer. She stood, instead, staring at her suitcase.

“Lady?”

Cee Cee never spoke to him. With a sudden determined movement she slammed the trunk, got back into the car, started it, turned the lights on, pulled away from the curb, and put her foot down hard on the gas pedal.

Malibu, California, 1981

In July 1981, if you lived in Los Angeles, and you were Hollywood-wise, you might drive down to the public beach at Malibu and park your car. Then you would walk north on the sand, and ease around the wire fence which is supposed to keep the public out, until you were on the private beach of the Malibu Colony.

If it was really a perfect sunny day, you’d know that on that beach, there was always a chance you might be able to spot Candice Bergen or Cher or Larry Hagman or even Barbra Streisand, sunning, chatting with friends, or playing with their kids. You’d also know that the rundown Cape Cod house on the far end of the Colony, so far down it was technically on Old Malibu Road, was being rented by Cee Cee Bloom, who threw big parties there nearly every Sunday. Catered parties, sometimes with live bands. Parties that attracted so many characters and types, you might be able to slip in unnoticed no matter what character or type you were.

Cee Cee was glad that Bertie and Nina had arrived