by Iris R. Dart
Cee Cee started back to the blanket to get her purse, then turned back to Michael.
“Say, Mike, old boy. No hard feelings, huh?”
Michael looked at her for what Bertie thought was a long time.
“No,” Michael said, grinning. “Nothing like that.”
“Let’s all have dinner in town tonight,” Cee Cee said.
Bertie looked at Michael for an answer.
“Great,” he said.
“Later,” John said, nodding to them as he and Cee Cee turned and walked up the beach toward the hotel.
THE MARKETPLACE AT NIGHT reminded Bertie of Kennywood Park. Kennywood was an old amusement park in Pittsburgh where her mother took her every year of her childhood. They packed a picnic and met Aunt Neetie and Uncle Herbie there, and the grownups took Bertie on rides all day and into the night. Every year, Bertie cried when it was time to leave Kennywood, and every year Rosie promised to bring her back for another day before the summer was over; but when other summer activities started, Bertie forgot about Kennywood until the next year.
Later, when Bertie was a teenager, she asked her dates to take her to Kennywood and they obliged. The bright lights and the carousel music and the smell of greasy food frying made her heart race. She’d taken Michael there once and afterwards had been sorry she did. He thought it was tacky. Just like now. He thought the Marketplace was tacky. But Bertie was in heaven.
There was a little Japanese restaurant right around the corner. Someone in New York had told John about it, so they tried it. The place was very tiny. A piano player sat at a beat-up upright piano in a corner playing pop tunes.
Michael ordered tempura because it was “nothing more exotic than fried shrimp.” Bertie ordered teriyaki steak, and Cee Cee and John ordered sashimi. Michael winced when the waitress brought their dinners. “Raw fish? You like it that way?”
“I like it every way, honey,” Cee Cee said.
Everyone laughed but Bertie. She was a little bit high from the sake, and she’d had only one. The others had at least three. Michael hardly ever drank at home. It was strange to see him like this. He was acting…how could she describe it? Cute. Boyish. In a way she’d never seen him act before. Wasn’t this what she wanted? For him to unwind? For him to be able to be the real Michael? But if this was the real Michael, it bothered her. She liked him better the other way. Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe she could get used to him like this.
“Piano player’s not bad,” John said. “Wanna get up, honey?”
There were several other tables filled with people. Bertie looked expectantly at Cee Cee. She hadn’t heard her friend sing in years and after that speech Cee Cee made in Waikiki this morning, she must really be singing better than ever.
“Sure.” Cee Cee got up casually and walked toward the piano. She was wearing white pants and a blue print Hawaiian shirt tied up, so her newly-thin-from-the-water-diet midriff showed.
Bertie watched her with awe. Bertie couldn’t stand up in a strange restaurant and have everyone look at her, even to tell them the place was on fire, and now Cee Cee was going to stand there and sing with some piano player she’d never met before. After only a minute of conversation, Cee Cee and the piano player were laughing together. What had she said to him? Bertie wondered. There must be some kind of show business language that only people in show business understood that helped them to connect that fast. There wasn’t a microphone up there. If Bertie remembered correctly, Cee Cee didn’t need one. Arpeggio.
Cee Cee sang “I Wish You Love.” After the first two bars, all of the people who were eating stopped to listen. She was wonderful. To put such feeling into a soapy ballad. Now Bertie understood what Cee Cee meant that afternoon. It wouldn’t be long before she’d have at least five watches. Bertie looked at John. There was something familiar about the way he watched Cee Cee, nodding at every phrase. Leona, Bertie thought. That’s the way Leona used to watch her.
Bertie looked at Michael. He was stunned, really surprised. It was as though he’d never really listened when Bertie told him about Cee Cee’s singing, and now he was saying to himself, “My God, what a singer.”
When the song was over, the audience burst into applause, stomping and yelling for more.
Cee Cee had a look on her face Bertie could only describe as regal. She turned briefly to the piano player and said something. He nodded and she turned back. This time she sang “God Bless the Child.” In the middle of the song some man in the back was so turned on he yelled out, “Ooh, sing it, mama!” And she did. It was better than anyone Bertie had ever heard. This time the applause was even louder. Again Cee Cee didn’t acknowledge it. She walked slowly back to the table with her head high, and when some people shouted “More! More!” she finally smiled a little smile, shook her head no and sat down. The people went back to their food.
John gave Cee Cee a peck on the cheek. Michael said, “Nice voice,” kind of shyly, and Bertie said, “You were great, Cee.” Cee Cee, deadpan, downed the rest of her sake.
The waitress brought green tea ice cream, compliments of the management. It tasted like perfume. Bertie ate a spoonful and hated the taste so much she tried not to wince.
“Isn’t this yummy?” Cee Cee said, suddenly animated again. “It’s delicious.”
“It’s great,” Michael said.
Bertie shifted in her seat.
“I’ll bet it would be better if we were high.” John giggled.
John giggled, Bertie thought. John Perry giggled.
“Let’s try it,” Cee Cee said. “We’ll ask them for a doggie bag.”
Michael, Cee Cee, and John thought that was hilarious, and they summoned the waitress and asked her to pack up a carton of green tea ice cream to take out. Bertie was getting depressed. This was certainly not what she thought was going to happen on this vacation. She’d been worried for days before they got here, even after they’d all met, that poor Michael would feel left out because Bertie and Cee Cee and John knew one another from before. She was sure that the three of them would discuss Beach Haven and recall all the fun they’d had there and wonder whatever happened to this one or that one from the cast of the Sunshine Theater, but those things never came up. And now here Bertie was, sitting with Cee Cee, Michael, and John as if she was the outsider.
John paid the check after Michael promised he’d get the next one, and Michael hailed a cab on the street. “Kahala,” he said, and the cab driver took off with a start. John held the bag with the ice cream in it on his lap. No one said a word all the way back to the hotel, but Michael hummed. He couldn’t carry a tune very well, but Bertie was sure he was humming “I Wish You Love.” She felt nauseated from the sake and the bumpy cab ride, and she could still taste that perfumy green tea ice cream in her mouth. She wanted to tell Michael to stop the goddamned humming and ask the driver to slow down, but she didn’t.
The hotel lobby was quiet and Bertie realized it was pretty late. They hadn’t left for Waikiki until nine. Cee Cee had napped all afternoon and wasn’t ready to leave till then. Then they had wandered around in the Marketplace and, after that, had that very long dinner. Bertie wished now that she’d had an afternoon nap because she was really ready to go to sleep. In fact, she’d tell them that.
“Well,” Cee Cee said, taking Michael’s arm. “Your place or ours?”
“Ours,” Michael said, before Bertie could object.
Bertie and Michael had a suite with a beautiful spacious living room and Cee Cee and John just had a room. It had given Bertie a slight feeling of importance these past few days to know that she and Michael had their room service breakfast in a fancy living room while Cee Cee and John had theirs in their bedroom. Now she wished it wasn’t that way. If the four of them were in Cee Cee and John’s room, Bertie could excuse herself and leave if she got uncomfortable or too tired. With them in her suite she would have to entertain and politely stay awake.
The four of them took the elevator to the eighth floor and walked down the silent hallw
ay to eight fourteen-eight sixteen. Michael turned the key in the lock. This was one of those times Bertie was grateful for Michael’s neatness. The room was in perfect order.
“Wow,” Cee Cee said, looking around. “Would you look at this! Next year we get a suite, too. Right, Perry?”
“Right,” John said, not listening. He was already at the wet bar, rolling a joint.
Michael opened the glass doors and the sound of the pounding surf filled the room. The luau group was long gone. It was very late.
Cee Cee rummaged around in the wet bar looking for spoons.
“Oooh,” she said after she opened the refrigerator. “You still have your pineapple.” The management sent one to every room. “We ate ours the first day. Right after we ate each other.” She laughed and took the precut pineapple out of the refrigerator.
John had the joint lighted, and as he inhaled deeply, he walked out onto the balcony where Michael was standing at the railing and handed him the joint. Bertie watched.
Some of their friends in Pittsburgh smoked pot, and Michael always criticized them. He told Bertie he didn’t need that stuff. He said he was “high on life,” an expression she knew he must have heard someone else use. They had tried it at one party, and Michael said it had no effect on him. The smoke had burned Bertie’s throat. Everyone else at that party got very giggly, and Bertie remembered that she and Michael left early. Michael was irritable, and he made some speech in the car about moral decay.
Now Michael took the joint from John and inhaled deeply. Then again.
“Save some for me,” Cee Cee yelled, running out to the balcony, holding a piece of pineapple in her hand.
Bertie felt left out again.
“Bert,” John said, turning back to her. “Want a hit?”
She didn’t. She was feeling queasy and sad, and for some reason, suddenly those three people out there looked like strangers. She wished she could just say no and walk into the bedroom and fall onto the bed and sleep. She’d had too much sun today and her face was hot and the cold pillow would feel so good.
“Sure,” she said, joining the others.
John was holding the joint, which was only half a joint now, and Bertie put it to her lips. She remembered the instructions. Inhale. Hold it in your lungs for as long as you can. Exhale. She took another hit. The sound of the surf pounded inside her head. No one spoke. It was as though they’d been standing there for hours.
“Ice cream,” Cee Cee said.
They went back inside. John had forgotten to put the ice cream in the refrigerator. It was runny and soft. Cee Cee gave them spoons, and they stood around the container digging in. Bertie thought maybe if she tried it again, maybe after smoking the pot…but she hated it. It tasted like…which perfume was it? Shalimar? No. Jungle Gardenia. No. Cee Cee was wearing Jungle Gardenia. Maybe she should sit down. She walked to the sofa. The surf was so loud. The others were laughing about something.
“Bert? You all right?”
“Huh? Yes. Fine.”
She was sleepy. John was standing next to the sofa. He had rolled another joint. He handed it to her. She took it and inhaled again. Then again. John took the joint from her and went back to the bar. Bertie heard Michael say something about macadamia nuts, and then Cee Cee made a joke, but Bertie only heard the last word, which was nuts, and the three of them laughed. Maybe being polite wasn’t so important. Maybe it didn’t count on vacations. Maybe Bertie would take a little nap and come back and join the others later. She stood up slowly and started for the bedroom.
“Something we said?” John joked.
“I’m sleepy,” Bertie told him. She wasn’t even sure if he heard. She didn’t care. The pillow. Where was the pillow? Ah, there. Bertie fell asleep.
The dream she had was about Cee Cee. She was standing on a corner about a block away from where Bertie was, and Bertie could barely make her out, but she knew it was Cee Cee. She was wearing a funny little flat hat that was smashed down on her head, and a big giant raincoat. Bertie wanted to get to her to ask her why she was just standing there on the corner like that and she started to walk toward her, but there were people. Other people. So many people.
Every time she tried to get near Cee Cee the other people got in her way, pushed past her, stepped on her toes. Finally she got there, and Cee Cee looked sad like Buster Keaton and didn’t say a word, and Bertie said to her:
“Cee Cee, what are you doing here looking like that?”
Then Cee Cee ripped off the hat and threw it to the ground and underneath, mounted on her frizzy red hair, was a diamond tiara. And then slowly she opened the raincoat and underneath she was wearing a marvelous beaded gown. Then suddenly the people, who were just ordinary people before, became fancy, elegant people wearing fur coats and tuxedos and they rushed toward Cee Cee, grabbed her, lifted her over their heads, and carried her away.
“HOWSA BOUTTA SWIM?” Cee Cee asked Michael and John. The three of them sat silently on the sofa staring out toward the ocean, even though the blinking light of a small boat was all they could see.
“Not for me,” John said. “I’m hitting the sack.”
“I’m game,” Michael said.
“I’ll go get a suit,” Cee Cee told him. “Meet you at the pool.”
The lights in the Kahala pool were off, and Cee Cee and Michael silently swam laps, passing one another in the warm water, and then Cee Cee suggested they race and Michael won every time. Once they started a race by diving in from the side, and as he dove, Michael’s foot caught on Cee Cee’s robe that was sitting on the edge by the deep end and he accidentally pulled it into the water.
“Schmucko,” Cee Cee yelled when she swam back and saw her robe sinking to the bottom. “I’m gonna freeze my ass off,” and she dove for it, and came up laughing.
Michael was laughing, too, apologetically. He wrapped himself in a towel, carried the wet robe upstairs, and Cee Cee wore his robe.
“Why am I getting off the elevator here?” Cee Cee asked as the shivering pair stepped off the elevator into the hallway of the eighth floor. It was five-thirty in the morning.
“So you can give me my robe, and I can give you some clean dry towels to wrap around you and your wet robe to take to your room,” Michael said.
When he opened the door to the living room of the suite, it was very dark. Cee Cee stepped inside after him, and when he turned back and reached out his arm, she thought he was reaching for the light switch.
BERTIE WOKE UP. Her face was still throbbing. That dream. It was so strange. Lying there now, thinking about it, she realized that throughout the dream she had hated Cee Cee. Wanted to have the beaded gown and the diamond tiara for herself. Wanted the fancy people to take her along as well. Hated her friend Cee Cee.
Bertie had spent every minute of the vacation watching Cee Cee closely. The outrageous style she had, the sexy way she talked, the way she casually said things that Bertie could never bring herself to say out loud in front of a man. Someone else’s man. Michael. Did it arouse Michael? The thought that it might made Bertie’s stomach hurt. Bertie turned her pillow over so she could put her hot face against the cool side of it. That was when she realized that Michael’s side of the bed hadn’t been slept in.
She sat up quickly and could see the living room light coming in under the door. What time was it? She clicked on the bedside lamp and looked at the clock. Five thirty-five A.M. She put her feet on the floor. She felt shaky and feverish. It must be because she’d had too much sun. She stood up slowly and was going to walk into the bathroom, but instead she walked to the door that led to the living room. She turned the knob, but then when she heard Michael talking, some instinct told her not to push the door open.
“I’ve wanted to fuck you since I saw you. And you’ve wanted it, too, so what are we waiting for? She’s asleep, he’s asleep, nobody’s gonna know. C’mon, Cee Cee, you know you want it. If your bathing suit wasn’t wet before, it is now,” he said softly.
Then Bertie heard
him say, “Come here.”
There was a moment of silence, and then…
“Michael,” Cee Cee said. “Michael.”
Bertie’s eyes opened wide. She was filled with disgust and rage. She put her hands to her hot face, and then rushed into the bathroom and closed the door. She looked at herself in the mirror. Red skinny face, squashed with pillow marks. Hair flying everywhere. Ugly. Horrible. No wonder Michael hated her. No wonder he didn’t want to make love to her and wanted to make love with Cee Cee. Wanted to fuck you since I saw you. Oh, God. She felt sick. Bathing suit wet. My God.
“MICHAEL,” CEE CEE SAID, her eyes closed. “You are the lowest, most pitiful slime on the whole fuckin’ face of this earth, and you know what, you shitpile, if my loud dirty mouth made you think I was trashy enough to fuck with my friend’s husband, I’d like to cut my fuckin’ tongue out, because I’d die on the rack before I’d dream of it. And you know what else? You’re not fit to be in the same world as Bertie,” Cee Cee said, and she walked out the door and closed it quickly behind her. She was still wearing Michael’s bathrobe. She couldn’t wait for the elevator. She found the exit to the stairs. She opened the door and stood on the landing, leaned against the wall, and cried.
“BIMBO,” MICHAEL SAID TO the closed door, and looked at the clock. Eleven forty-five in Pittsburgh. Perfect, he thought. He could make a few business calls before Bertie woke up.
Bertie splashed cold water in her eyes again and again, scrubbed her teeth and pulled a brush through her hair. She found some Noxema in the bottom of her cosmetics bag, unscrewed the lid and dipped her finger into the thick minty cream, pulled out a glob and spread it on her face. Now she had a cooler face, but her eyes were still stinging from her tears.
Michael dialed the long distance Oahu operator to put him through to Pennsylvania.
“Jeffrey,” Michael said when his law partner took the call.
“Barron, you bum. How’s Hawaii?”
“Not bad,” Michael said.