by Iris R. Dart
Neetie and Herb have a friend they want me to go on a date with, but I don’t know. It seems silly when I know I’ll be back in Pittsburgh in a few weeks, for me to date a man in Miami. Neetie says, for God’s sake, Rose, it’s only to go out to dinner, you don’t have to think about marrying the man.
They are happy to have made the move here. Herb’s business is thriving, even though your aunt lives in the fear every day that he’ll get thrown in jail.
Neetie thinks I should move here, too, so at least I can be near her, but then it would mean I couldn’t be near you and Michael and someday, this is not a hint, a grandchild. Neetie says you’ll bring the grandchild to visit.
I guess I’m feeling lonely today, and maybe I’ll try to call you tonight, because you always cheer me up.
Give my best to Michael.
Love,
Mother
WHATSERFACE FIRST NIGHTERS ONE MAN’S OPINION BY DAVID BALLARD
Whatserface is the story of the rise to stardom and power of a woman who falls into it all by accident. If by some accident you should fall into the Brookhurst Theater while it’s playing, I hope you stay awake longer than I did.
Cami Dunnet, who was the only breath of spring in John Campbell’s Honey Bear off-Broadway last year, has fallen prey to Marc Rothfeld’s stodgy directorial hand, and the result is deadly. Dunnet’s transition to star model from cleaning lady is so devoid of transformation, you wonder why she even bothered to change for her last number into the bugle beads (overdone by designer Celia Fenwick).
Hal Collins’s lyrics and David Gelman’s music are just a shade less childlike than Helen Newsome’s book, which received (not an exaggeration) actual hoots in several places from members of the audience who were brave enough to remain for the second act. Particularly when Bob Foxdale, in a mercifully small role, tells Dunnet how the modeling world will take girls like her and “chew them up and spit them out.”
Can this show be saved? Absolutely not. And yet, magnificently cast in the role of Miss Dunnet’s associate on the night shift is a young actress-singer named Cee Cee Bloom, who has such presence, such a dazzling voice, such extraordinary sparkle that when she performed her song, “This Is Who I Am,” a few people who were on their way up the aisle were compelled to turn back and stay. (P.S. After she made her exit, so did they.)
Ergo, Virginia, every cloud seems indeed to have a silver lining. So, rest assured that just as the sun rises and sets, you can count on Whatserface to close real soon. But…keep an eye out for Cee Cee Bloom.
My dear daughter Cecilia,
I must admit when you called me on the telephone to ask if I would come and see you in a play on the Broadway stage, I had my worries and my doubts as to if I should do it or if I shouldn’t do it, even though you are my only child.
After all, since your mother died, may she rest in peace, I go out very little. I am not complaining because I like it that way. I have a nice person who comes once a week to clean, and she also makes a trip to the supermarket so I wouldn’t have to. Once in a while I go to your cousin Myra, who is a thoughtful girl to include an old man, and she makes a nice brisket and gives me leftovers to take home in an “uncle bag.” (That is a joke between me and Myra that I find funny.)
Anyhow, when I told Myra you invited me to Broadway, she told Herman and they wanted to come also, so that is why I asked you to leave three tickets. Myra said, Uncle Nate, how bad could it be? Right? Even though I always used to worry when your mother, may she rest in peace, would try to make you go every week to dancing lessons and singing lessons, and sometimes you would cry bitterly and I would say let her sleep late, Leona, darling, and she would get mad at me and tell me to shut up.
Cecilia, to make a long story short, I didn’t like for you to be in show business, and I can’t lie about it.
So Saturday night when you came on the stage and you sang a song with a voice like a bird, I am ashamed to admit that my eyes were so full of tears Myra gave me her hankie.
After the play, I came backstage to see you and give you a kiss and see your nice husband, but I couldn’t say too much because everyone was there, and if I bragged too much they would think it’s because I’m your father, and maybe that’s why I thought it was so good, because I’m related. But it’s not. I would think you were the best one even if you were a total stranger. Myra said so also. As did Herman on the way home.
Even though I hope your mother, may she rest in peace, is resting in peace, I wish she, over anybody, would have seen our daughter Cee Cee (why can’t you use Cecilia? It’s much better in my opinion and also in Myra’s opinion) Bloom?
Your loving father,
Nathan Bloom
T.V. GUIDE
ED SULLIVAN
VARIETY—SUNDAY, JANUARY 21ST
ED’S GUESTS INCLUDE
IMPRESSIONIST DAVID FRYE,
CONNIE STEVENS,
COMIC JOHN BYNER, AND
SINGER CEE CEE BLOOM SINGING HER HIT SONG
“THIS IS WHO I AM.”
MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA
1970
Bertie was too numb to look out the window of the taxi, and Miami Beach, at least from what she’d seen as she stood at the airport taxi stand, didn’t look at all the way it had in that James Bond movie.
“It’s like what Patricia Neal had,” Neetie had told her on the phone, giving Bertie hope that her mother, like Patricia Neal, would somehow bravely retrain whatever parts of her body had been damaged and pull through. Not her mother. Bertie thought of the children at the Home for Crippled Children where she worked. About the hours of physical therapy they struggled through every day and how slow their progress was, in spite of all their zeal to be stronger. Rosie could never make it through that kind of struggle.
The taxi was on Collins Avenue heading downtown. The paper with Michael’s directions was still clutched in her hand. ST. JOSEPH’S HOSPITAL. MIAMI BEACH. I.C.U. INTENSIVE CARE UNIT. COME RIGHT IN THROUGH EMERGENCY.
Michael had spoken to Neetie after Bertie heard the news. Bertie had handed him the phone because she was sobbing so violently that Neetie could only say, “Please, Bertie. Please.”
Michael had written down the directions to the hospital. Michael had packed Bertie’s clothes. Michael had driven Bertie to the airport, taken her to the VIP Lounge because the plane’s departure was delayed an hour, and made her have a Coke to drink. “It’s free,” he said. Twenty-five dollars to belong to the VIP Lounge, which they never used. This was a twenty-five-dollar Coke. She had laughed at that to herself and then felt guilty. She was laughing. Rosie, on the other hand, was…don’t say it. Say it or not, she was sure this was it.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God. If only she could stop her thoughts.
“Take a Valium,” Michael said.
Those were his last words. Not, good-by. Not, I love you. Not, I hope she gets well. “Take a Valium.”
Maybe if she cried she’d feel better. She tried to cry, then decided there was no such thing as trying to cry. You either cried or you didn’t. How did actresses do it in the movies?
Without looking, Bertie could feel the Miami Beach buildings the taxi was passing. Pink and white and glitter-filled stucco-fronted hotels. The ones that had been the most beautiful were now the poor cousins to the modern high-rise condominiums. Maybe she wasn’t looking because it was festive and she was going to a hospital where…. Bertie forced her head to turn, then closed her eyes immediately. Her first glimpse out the window had taken her breath away like a blow to the stomach. CARILLON HOTEL. FEB. 14–28. CEE CEE BLOOM.
Cee Cee was here. In Miami Beach. Performing at the Carillon, which, Bertie realized, as the taxi pulled up and stopped outside a large pink Spanish building, was right around the corner from the hospital. February 14–28. Today was, what—the twentieth or twenty-first?
Cee Cee again. Only a few weeks ago, Bertie and Michael had been at a dinner party at the home of Marshall, one of Michael’s law partners, and Marshall’s wife, Shei
la.
“Eat a lot of hors d’oeuvres,” Sheila said, “’cause we can’t have dinner until after Ed Sullivan.”
“My wife has a lot of class,” Marshall said, grabbing Sheila around the waist and pulling her close to him. Sheila giggled and kissed her husband on the cheek with a big MWAH sound. Bertie envied their playfulness.
“She’d serve us dinner in front of the television every night if I let her,” Marshall said.
“That’s not true. Only for Ed Sullivan. I love Ed Sullivan. Tonight he’s having David Frye. I love David Frye.”
They were sitting in Marshall and Sheila’s rumpus room. There were two other couples. When Ed Sullivan said, “And now, a really wonderful…really, really wonderful singer,” Bertie tapped her foot on the linoleum floor. She was hungry. God, Bertie thought, wouldn’t it be crazy if the really wonderful singer was Cee Cee? No. That would be impossible because Cee Cee wasn’t famous enough to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. You had to be a big star to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. So it wouldn’t be Cee Cee.
“Direct from the Broadway show Whatserface,” Ed said.
Good heavens, Bertie thought. I think that’s the name of the show that she’s in. Rosie had clipped a review from The New York Times.
“Let’s welcome…” Ed Sullivan put his hand out and said, “Cee Cee,” and he put his hand up to his face, paused a minute, and said, “Bloom.”
Then there was some music and there she was. Cee Cee. Singing. Belting out a wonderful song. Bertie’s face was flushed and her heart was pounding. She looked out of the corner of her eye at Michael for some reaction. There was none. He sat at the end of the sofa watching, his left hand toying with an ashtray on the end table next to the sofa. Lifting the ashtray and gently placing it back on the table, again and again.
“This girl’s fabulous,” Sheila said after Cee Cee had sung about half the song.
“Yeah, Bertie knows her,” Michael said. No one heard him but Bertie.
When the song finished, the applause was peppered with people in the audience shouting bravo. Bertie excused herself, went to Sheila and Marshall’s powder room, and splashed cold water on her face. Cee Cee again.
And now she was here, in Miami.
Bertie paid the taxi fare and carried her suitcase into the corridor. The smell and the feeling of the hospital filled her senses, and her head began to pound. It’s only a hospital, she told herself. The Home for Crippled Children is kind of a hospital. You should be used to the way a place like this feels. But she wasn’t.
“Excuse me.” She heard her voice sounding very tiny. “My mother is in I.C.U. and I don’t want to take my suitcase there…and I don’t know where exactly to…”
“Just put the suitcase in there,” a busy nurse said.
Bertie dragged the case a few more feet and put it in a closet. What if someone took it? So what? Have to get to Mother before she…oh, God.
“Elevator to the third floor,” the nurse said coldly. Why not? It wasn’t her mother.
I.C.U. and an arrow. Bertie rounded the corner and entered the room. Neetie was there. Neetie was a younger version of her mother, and for a split second when Bertie saw her, she thought it was her mother. Yes, maybe it had been, please, dear God, a joke they were playing just to get Bertie to come to Miami. Neetie looked at Bertie for what seemed like a long time before she realized it was Bertie. Her eyes were half-closed and she got up slowly and put her arms around her sister’s child. That’s what she always called Bertie. “My sister’s child. I love you as if you were my own.”
Bertie didn’t move. Neetie’s smell engulfed her. Jean Naté. It was the way Neetie always smelled. The way her house in Pittsburgh had smelled all the time. There were giant bottles of it all over her funny little house. The house that Bertie used to think was magical because it had three telephone lines, with three different telephone numbers, all unlisted. Only later, when Bertie found out that Uncle Herbie was a bookie and what a bookie did, did the three telephones with the three different telephone numbers lose their magic.
“Come,” Neetie said, taking Bertie’s arm.
Bertie’s heart raced. She knew Neetie was taking her to see her mother, and she wasn’t ready. Ready? More make-up? Her mother was in a coma. Patricia Neal, remember? Coronary Care Unit. Doesn’t that mean heart attack? Swinging doors. Little cubicles. Nurses. Someone’s in an oxygen tent. Which one is…Neetie moved her. Guided her. Take a deep breath. Not too many. Don’t hyperventilate. Cubicle seven and…oh, my God, no, please, God, don’t let it be. Mother. Mommy. Oh, God.
Tubes. In every part of her. Tubes. The ominous one was in her nose. There was a computer connected to her with numbers that got higher and lower.
Bertie was afraid to look at Neetie. Neetie was used to it. She had seen it before. Since yesterday.
YESTERDAY IN PUMPERNICKS. Rosie had to go to the ladies’ room. She was fine. Neetie had finished her corned beef sandwich, a little more coffee, please, when she heard the screams. In Pumpernicks there had been screams before.
“Some alta kocker croaks in here once a week,” a lady from New York with too much eye make-up said.
Neetie finished her coffee. A crowd was gathering by the ladies’ room. Neetie looked at her watch.
Maybe we’ll take a little walk on Collins, then we’ll go back to my place and see how Herbie’s doing, she thought. Then later, if Herbie’s busy, Rosie and I will go see a movie. Rosie. Where the hell was…Neetie heard the ambulance and stood up to see where it was headed.
No, it couldn’t be. She walked toward the ladies’ room. The door was open. A few people were inside. A heavy man wearing a flower print shirt was sitting on the floor beside the woman who had collapsed. Next to him a waitress was holding a pair of sandals. They were the sandals Neetie had picked for Rosie in Burdines.
“Rosie,” Neetie said. “Oh, not my Rosie.”
“MOM,” BERTIE SAID.
“She can’t hear you. She doesn’t know it’s you. The doctor told me.”
“I don’t believe it. Mom.”
The numbers got higher. Heartbeat increases.
“I’m here, Mom,” Bertie said.
The tubes were moving liquids in and out. Intravenous. Catheter. There were slurping sounds with each labored breath.
“Look at her eyes,” Bertie said.
Rosie’s head was way back, probably to help the tubes to stay in, and her eyes looked as if they were half-open.
“Sometimes they flutter,” Neetie said. “Sometimes, I swear she wants to open them and look at me.”
A nurse entered briskly. For a second Bertie thought she was about to throw them out of the room. There had been a sign on the way in that said something about visiting I.C.U. rooms only on the hour, but it must have been the pained look on Bertie’s face, or maybe her resemblance to Rosie that told the nurse she was the daughter and damn the rules.
Bertie felt Neetie’s hand on her arm, trying to direct her out of the room, but she didn’t move. There was something telling her that maybe, if she stayed there, stood there, sang songs to Rosie, talked to her, read to her, tirelessly, constantly, that Rosie might wake up and respond.
“Mom,” she said. She was too embarrassed by the nurse’s presence to sing. If only she had the nerve, she would lean over the bed and sing “Poor Butterfly.” It was the song Rosie used to sing to her when she was a child to get her to feel better.
“Mom.” Bertie said it a little louder. She wanted to scream it out, but she was afraid the nurse would be shocked and tell her she had to leave because screaming was against hospital policy.
Bertie saw a nun walk through the corridor and enter one of the cubicles. That’s right. This was a Catholic hospital. This was probably a good time to be a Catholic, Bertie thought. To have a lot of faith.
She remembered reading some article about the Lennon Sisters while she was waiting at the beauty salon to get her hair cut one day. The Lennon Sisters’ father had been shot and killed by a man w
ho was such a crazed fan of theirs that he wrote letters to them, saying he believed he was the real husband of Peggy. Or was it Kathy, the prettiest one? Then one day, so the article said, the man approached the Lennon Sisters’ father, who was on the golf course at the time, and demanded to know where to find Peggy, or Kathy, or whichever one he thought he was married to. The Lennon Sisters’ father wouldn’t tell the man, so the man killed the Lennon Sisters’ father. Shot him. The horrible part came when the police finally found the murderer. He was dead. He had shot himself, at least that’s what they said. But somehow, his body was in the trunk of his own car, surrounded by piles of fan magazines.
The Lennon Sisters were Catholic, and Bertie couldn’t remember now exactly what the article said, but mostly it was about how the Lennon Sisters believed it was “God’s will,” and they accepted it with peace in their hearts. And even in the photographs where they were coming out of the church from the funeral, they looked peaceful and serene and accepting.
Neetie edged her to the door, and Bertie took another look back at Rosie. There was no polish on her mother’s fingernails now. Bertie couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother’s nails without polish. And her hair. It looked like straw. She’d been bleaching it some yellowy color; now the roots were showing. If Rosie were awake and could see herself she would say, “Oh, my God. Don’t I look like hell?”
“Mom,” Bertie said.
“Come.” Neetie moved her out of the cubicle and through the big swinging doors through the corridor to the waiting room.
A woman of about forty was sleeping on one of the plastic couches. She was using a raincoat as a blanket.
“Mrs. Koven,” Neetie said, seeing Bertie look at the woman. “Her husband had a very serious heart attack. A young man, too. Forty-one.”
Bertie sat on a hard chair and tried to think what to do next.