by Iris R. Dart
Neetie went on. “She told me last night she’s been here for eleven days and nights straight. Doesn’t leave the waiting room except to go and sit by his bed and cry. Her daughter brings her food and clothes. She eats in here and changes in there.” Neetie pointed to a door that must obviously be a rest room. She seemed very interested in the woman’s case. She lit a cigarette and offered one to Bertie, who took it gratefully.
They sat and smoked. Bertie felt drained. She wanted to curl up on one of the plastic couches and cover herself with a raincoat, like the wife of the man with the heart attack, but she knew there was too much to do. Things to take care of. Like what? she thought. Doctors. Yes.
“Where’s my mother’s doctor? Who’s her doctor?”
“A little guy,” Neetie said. “He was the one who was here when they admitted her. Spatz? Spitz? Something like that.”
“Where is he?”
“He’ll be here later.”
“When?”
Neetie shrugged. “Last night he said he’d be here tomorrow. That’s today. So I guess later.”
Bertie put her cigarette out and stood up. “I have to talk to him.”
She walked out into the hall. Bertie had just seen a look in Neetie’s eyes that she recognized. It was a look she herself sometimes gave Michael when she felt grateful to him for taking over some difficult situation. A situation she had tried to handle herself, but couldn’t. A look of relief that said, now that you’re here, and you’re going to be in charge, I can become helpless again. Bertie knew from the look that Neetie expected her to take over, believed that Bertie, who hadn’t even been able to pack her own suitcase to make the trip here, would now do it all. She would force the doctors to pay attention, she would make sure they got the information they needed. Yes. She would somehow put it all together to make Rosie well. Bertie looked at the big black doors of the coronary care unit. There was a nurses’ station in there. She could go in and find out from one of the nurses how to reach Rosie’s doctor.
And then what? What would she say once she reached him? Make my mother well? She took a few steps toward the big doors. Her heart was pounding. She knew the nurses’ station was right outside of Rosie’s room, and she would have to look at Rosie again. Look at her and see those terrible tubes and the computer, and Rosie’s eyes, wanting to open and to see Bertie, see how she looked. Wanting to ask her the question she asked her nearly once a week: “Well? When are you going to make me a grandmother?” It always made Bertie feel guilty when she said that. “Make me a grandmother.” It wasn’t as if Bertie and Michael weren’t trying. Had been to specialist after specialist. And Bertie told Rosie that. But still she said it in person or on the phone at least once a week. “Make me a grandmother,” as if Bertie were deliberately holding out on her.
Bertie pushed the doors open and walked toward the nurses’ station. She decided not to look at Rosie, but she couldn’t help it. The nurse who had been in there must have moved Rosie’s arm to make it easier for the intravenous tube to get into her system, because now her right arm was kind of lifted over the metal railing that flanked the side of the bed, and Rosie’s index finger, with an unpolished nail, looked as if it was pointing toward the door of the room. Pointing at Bertie.
You didn’t make me a grandmother, the frozen gesture said to Bertie. And now look at me. I’m in a coma, and probably I’m going to die…without a grandchild.
“Yes,” the nurse said, looking up.
“Uh, I’m Mrs. White’s daughter, Roberta Barron,” Bertie heard herself say.
“Yes?”
“Uh, well, I wanted to know. Um. Would it be possible for you to tell me…” Bertie hated herself. Good God. She was a twenty-six-year-old woman and she sounded like a child.
“Could I speak to…I mean, who is my mother’s doctor?”
The nurse looked irritated.
“Which one is your mother?”
“Rose. White. Mrs. Rosie White.”
“Which room number?” the woman said impatiently.
“Room number?” Bertie looked anxiously at Rosie’s door. She didn’t see a number.
“That one,” she said, pointing.
“Seven,” the nurse said. Bertie looked all around the door of the room. She didn’t see a number seven anywhere. Her eyes caught Rosie’s pointing finger again, and she looked back at the nurse who was studying a chart.
“Myron Spatz,” the nurse said. “He was the admitting doctor.” She put the chart down and went back to her work. Bertie was nervous. “Can I speak to him?” she asked softly.
“Of course.”
“When?”
“When he gets here,” the nurse answered, as if to a child.
“When will that be?”
“I don’t know, dear,” the nurse said.
Bertie was feeling angry, and her stomach hurt. She remembered an ad she once saw. Maybe it was for the American Cancer Society. In the big letters of the ad it said something like AUNT MARTHA or AUNT MAGGY or some name like that, DIED OF SHAME. There was a picture of an old-fashioned-looking woman, and then in the smaller letters it said something about how this old-fashioned woman had been too embarrassed to examine her own breasts or to let a doctor examine them, so she never knew that she had breast cancer, and then she died. The moral was, don’t let this happen to you. Don’t be intimidated. Speak up and save your life. Rosie’s life. Bertie took a deep breath.
“I want to talk to him now,” she said.
The nurse didn’t even look up.
“Can I reach him at home?”
The nurse shuffled some papers. Bertie’s heart was pounding. She could turn and walk back out to the waiting room. She could tell Neetie the doctor wasn’t available just yet. She turned her eyes for a glance back at Rosie’s room. The finger was still pointing. She had to speak up or Rosie would die of shame like Aunt Martha or whatever her name was from the ad.
“I said,” she announced, surprising herself with the sound of this big new voice, “I want to talk to him now.” She paused for a moment as the next thought came to her. “Even if it means calling him at home.”
The nurse was silent for a long time. She didn’t look at Bertie.
Bertie’s mind raced. How did other people do this? Maybe if she was a man it would be different. Maybe then the nurse would be sweet, nice, even flirtatious. Saying, yes, sir, of course, sir. I’ll reach your mother’s doctor right away, but how about if I fix you some coffee first? Maybe this nurse didn’t like Bertie because she was pretty, and the nurse wasn’t, although she knew she couldn’t look too pretty, filled with Valium, and after that five-hour flight.
How could she get to her? She studied the woman for a moment when her eye caught the little plastic pin. Susan Byers, R.N. Susan Byers. Didn’t Susan Byers love a mother? Couldn’t she imagine what it was like for Bertie to see Rosie, who had fed Bertie, clothed her, hugged her, taught her to walk, to talk, sang “Poor Butterfly” to her when she was sick, called her “Puss” and “Mommy’s precious,” lying there helpless and dying? Unless somebody did something. Soon. Fast. Oh, God. Bertie felt the tears welling. There was a sob moving in her throat. No. She choked it back and leaned forward. She took a deep breath and leaned forward.
“Susan,” she said quietly.
The woman, surprised, looked up and into Bertie’s eyes.
“Susan, I know that you have an enormous amount of responsibility working in this unit, and I appreciate that and respect it. I’m grateful that my mother was brought to this hospital and am sure that she’s in good hands. But, I’m a stranger here, Susan.” The woman flinched a little every time Bertie said her name. “The last time I saw my mother she was very healthy, and now she’s in a coma, and I’m upset.” The tears were fighting to come, but Bertie fought them right back. “I know you’ll understand my need to see Dr. Spatz right away. So please tell me how we can arrange that. Okay, Susan?” No tears. Not yet. Control.
Suddenly the woman who looked back a
t Bertie was totally changed. She reached out and touched Bertie’s hand. Susan Byers, R.N. Bertie had been wrong. She was pretty. Maybe even prettier than Bertie. “I understand,” she said. “The reason I can’t call Dr. Spatz is because he’s en route. He’ll be here any minute.”
Now the tears could come.
“I’m sorry about your mom,” Susan Byers said. Bertie knew she meant it. She also noticed now that Susan Byers was only about twenty-three years old.
Bertie walked into cubicle seven. The seven was very prominent over the door. She gently touched Rosie’s pointing finger.
“I love you, Mom,” she whispered, getting closer. And one of her tears fell on Rosie’s arm. Maybe it would be the way things happened in a fairy tale, and the fallen tear would awaken Rosie. And her awakening would awaken everyone else in the hospital who was unconscious. And they would all jump to their feet and sing, “There’s gonna be a great day,” as they danced through the hospital corridors. But Rosie didn’t move, and Bertie turned and walked toward the swinging doors. She looked back at Susan Byers, who was on the phone now, and Susan Byers smiled at her and waved a warm little wave. Bertie had handled it. So far. Maybe Rosie wasn’t going to die after all.
Bertie’s stomach was churning. She was hungry. Maybe Neetie would go and get sandwiches for them. No. Not if the doctor was due. Neetie would want to hear what he had to say. What did other people do about food around here? The lady whose husband had the heart attack had a daughter who brought her clothes and food. Maybe they could call Uncle Herb, or…
Cee Cee. How had Bertie forgotten that Cee Cee was appearing nightly right across the street? There had been so many other feelings bombarding her since her arrival that Cee Cee had slipped from her mind, but now she was back, lodged there. Cee Cee and Michael making love in Hawaii. All of those letters that came later. Letters Bertie couldn’t read, couldn’t look at. Hated even to touch as she marked them RETURN UNOPENED and put them back in her mailbox for the mailman to take. Only a few months ago, she had come upon the recognizable handwriting again in her pile of mail. This time the envelope was very large, as if purposely to get her attention, and underneath the place where it was addressed to Bertie, a note was printed in large letters: PLEASE BERT, I’M BEGGING YOU TO READ THIS.
Bertie had looked at the sealed envelope for a long time. She could just hear Cee Cee saying those words, I’M BEGGING YOU. It was so dramatic. Cee Cee was dramatic. That’s probably why she was such a good actress. And a successful one, too. In a play on Broadway. Rosie had seen a review of a play in which Cee Cee had appeared. She cut it out and gave it to Bertie one day at lunch. Later Bertie had heard her mother bragging about Cee Cee on the phone to a friend.
“Listen, my daughter’s pen pal, her very close girlfriend in New York, is in a play on Broadway,” she said, as if it had anything to do with her. And Bertie had fought the urge to pick up the extension phone and shout into it, “She’s so close she slept with my husband,” and slam it down.
That last envelope had taken on a life of its own. The large letters danced before Bertie’s eyes. Instead of sending it back immediately, she’d kept this one unopened in her drawer for nearly two weeks, trying to decide what to do. Once Bertie even held the envelope up to the light just to see if she could see a word or two. That’s when she really felt ridiculous. What did it matter? Cee Cee had done a terrible thing to her and it was over between them. Back to the mailbox the letter went, finally, and she wished Cee Cee would stop sending the damned letters. Every time one came she relived that scene in her mind. Waking to hear Michael and Cee Cee out there in the living room of the suite.
“Mrs. Barron?”
A short, round-faced, balding man emerged from the swinging doors of I.C.U.
“I’m Dr. Spatz.”
Neetie must have heard him because she came bounding out of the waiting room like a shot and stood very close to Bertie.
“This is my aunt, Mrs. Burton,” Bertie told Spatz.
He nodded at Neetie. Bertie saw that Neetie was trembling.
“My mother,” Bertie said.
“Yes. Mrs. White,” Spatz said. “I admitted her yesterday.”
Through the door of the waiting room, Bertie could see the woman whose husband had a heart attack, Mrs. Koven. She was eating a sandwich and French fries. A teenaged girl was sitting next to her eating a brownie. Bertie’s stomach growled.
“Mrs. Barron, your mother has suffered a subarachnoid hemorrhage from a ruptured berry aneurism. That means she’s had bleeding in the layers around her brain from the blood vessels at the base of her brain.”
The doctor stopped talking. That was it. That was the whole thing.
Bertie felt weak. She was tired and very hungry. She wanted to ask the girl in the waiting room for some of her brownie, but the girl put the last bite in her mouth and wiped her face with a napkin. Now what?
Yes, Rosie. The doctor was waiting for Bertie to ask him something about Rosie.
“What do we do now?” Neetie asked.
“Will she live?” Bertie asked. Bertie was amazed how numb she’d become in the short time since she cried hysterically on the phone last night. Was it only last night?
“I’m afraid you’ll have to call in a neurosurgeon,” Spatz said. Bertie noticed that while he talked he rolled forward and rose onto his toes. Maybe he did that because he was short and if he spent part of the time on his toes he would seem taller.
“They will want to do a brain scan and an angiogram to find precisely where the berry aneurism is located. After that, they’ll probably want to operate.”
Neetie was chewing on her fingers. “Do you think my sister can live through an operation like that?” she asked softly.
The doctor merely gave Neetie a patronizing look. It was the look a waitress gave you when you called her over and asked if you could order now. Only when the waitress gave that look, she also said, “Sorry, that’s not my table.”
Whether Rosie would live or not wasn’t Spatz’s table.
“Which neurosurgeon?” Bertie asked.
“There are several on the staff here.”
“How do I find one?”
“They’ll give you a list.”
“How do I know who the best one is?”
That wasn’t Spatz’s table, either. He only told you what to do. Not how, with whom, or what the outcome might be. Bertie wanted to kick him.
“I’m sure you’ll find someone,” he said politely. “I’ll be by again tomorrow.” With one last rise onto his toes, he nodded, then turned and walked down the corridor.
CEE CEE’S THROAT HURT. And the goddamned sequined dress weighed a ton. Jesus, it was a good thing there were only five more days to this gig, otherwise Miami Beach was gonna do her in. With the heat, and the old people, and nothing to do all day. She couldn’t stay in the goddamned hotel room anymore or she’d go stir crazy. She couldn’t stay at the pool oiled up like a French fry, either. Because all those people kept coming up to her and saying “Oh, honey, you’re just like my grandchild, with that big mouth of yours. So come and let’s have our picture taken together.”
Well, sure. That was great for the first few days. It was better than great. It was what she’d waited for, for her whole life, and she played it to the hilt. Hugging the nice people. Clowning for their pictures. Thanking them over and over again when they said how sensational she was on The Ed Sullivan Show a few weeks ago, and how she was even better in the show last night. In fact, they were coming again to see her tonight. And she loved it most of all when she overheard them say to one another, “She’s such a nice person. So real.”
But now it was starting to get to her. Maybe it was because she was fighting with John about dumb little things every day and that was getting to her, too. When things were okay with John, everything else seemed good, but the minute the two of them got out of whack, everything turned to shit.
Like last week when all of a sudden, out of nowhere, John decided to tr
y and get the hotel to give them a bigger suite. Cee Cee told him that was silly because she was perfectly happy in the suite they had now, but he had some kinda bug up his ass.
“Hey,” he said, “business in this place is better than ever, and it’s because you’re bringing the audience in. So why should you be staying in anything less than a penthouse suite?”
And he was so serious and redfaced when he said it that she shrugged and told him, “Fine. Let’s ask.” But when he called the management to ask, they told him they were sorry, but there wasn’t a penthouse suite available. Well, that made him really pissed, in a way Cee Cee hadn’t seen before. And he wouldn’t give up, either. He told the guy on the phone that the hotel ought to pay to move him and Cee Cee to another hotel where there was a penthouse suite available. The guy on the phone thought about it for a minute and then said he’d get back to John. But he never did.
After that John was more edgy than ever. He’d go down to the pool for a quick swim in the mornings, then he’d come back up to the hotel room and sit in the bathtub for hours. He’d start drinking wine around four o’clock. Then at eight o’clock he’d come down and sit at a table by the entrance to the showroom, and while Cee Cee was singing she could make him out back there, throwing down a few more drinks. And even though he told her every day that he loved her, she was scared.
Tonight he seemed better, she thought, pulling the heavy dress up to take it off. She was relieved when he’d begged off to stay in the suite and watch some old movie on TV. He said they could call room service after the show when she got upstairs, and he seemed more relaxed. Five more friggin’ days of Miami Beach. Then they’d go back to New York. They needed that. To be in the city in their own dumpy little apartment where they were comfortable.
Cee Cee hung the sequined dress on the rack, slipped a muumuu over her head, put some sandals on her feet, turned off the light in the dressing room, closed the door, and walked down the hall toward the service elevator.
She was hungry. Always after a show she got those hunger pangs like she could eat a friggin’ horse, and now she couldn’t think of one goddamned thing on the room service menu that appealed to her. Club sandwich. Blah. Salade Fruits de Mer. Yech. Meat. She needed a sandwich. Double decker. Maybe triple. What Nathan, her father, used to call a Dagwood sandwich. He’d pile the cheese on there, and then the cole slaw, and three different kinds of meat, with mustard and mayonnaise and then call out, “Hey, Cecilia, c’mere and take a bite out of this,” and Cee Cee would come into the kitchen and they’d both start laughing at how funny the sandwich was, until Leona came in, and said something shitty like, “even Cee Cee’s mouth ain’t big enough for that thing,” or, “Nate, you pig. Eat like a person. Not an animal, fa chrissake,” and ruin their laugh.