by Iris R. Dart
That deli across the street was open all night. Maybe they had something good. Maybe she’d walk in there and pick up a couple of sandwiches and take them back to the room and have a little picnic with John. That would cheer him up. She took her dark glasses out of her purse and put them on, just as the doors of the service elevator opened.
The lobby was dead. Old people go to bed early. The man at the front desk was reading a magazine and didn’t look up as Cee Cee walked by. She knew she must look a little weird with her stage makeup still on, dressed in her muumuu and wearing sunglasses at two in the morning. Maybe not. Maybe in Miami Beach that was the right way to look.
The warm night felt soothing, and even on a busy street like Collins Avenue, with bus fumes and odors wafting from the restaurants, Cee Cee could still smell the salty ocean air mixed with the perfume of the tropical growth that was planted in stucco planters around the outside of the hotel.
There were only four full tables in Pumpernicks, and nobody at any of them seemed to notice Cee Cee.
“Help you, hon?” a short waitress with blond hair and black roots asked. Cee Cee improvised the ingredients of two different sandwiches, and the waitress made them while she waited.
A couple who had to be at least in their eighties came through the door. They both walked very slowly. The man carried a cane. The woman had her arm through his, and they walked toward a booth not far from where Cee Cee was standing. Just as the woman was about to sit down on one side of the booth, the man lifted her wrinkled old hand to his lips and kissed it. The woman smiled a girlish smile at him and then she sat as he went to the other side of the booth and sat, too.
Cee Cee grinned. She wondered if the couple was on a date. No. These two had been married for at least fifty, maybe even sixty years. Christ. Would she have that kind of marriage with John? It had only been ten years, and the bickering was so bitter, sometimes she didn’t think she could stand it.
“Anything else, hon?” the waitress asked, handing Cee Cee the bag with the sandwiches. “I threw in a couple of pickles for you.”
“Thanks a lot,” Cee Cee said.
“And you pay the cashier up front.”
CEE CEE TWISTED THE key hard to the right and then pressed against the door to the suite with her shoulder, but the door didn’t budge. The dogs inside began yapping when they heard her out there. Shit. Maybe the key was supposed to go to the left. She’d better put the bag with the sandwiches down till she figured this out. Besides, her muumuu was starting to smell of the garlic that was seeping through the bag with the pickles. Every goddamned hotel door was different, to the right, to the left, pull first then push. Ah, the left and a little nudge from the hip did the trick. The suite was completely dark. The two poodles ran around her feet sniffing out the corned beef. John must have fallen asleep. Well, maybe she wouldn’t wake him, Cee Cee thought as she bent to pick up the bag of sandwiches. Maybe he needed this rest and she’d just nibble her sandwich, down a beer from the refrigerator, and then crawl in beside him.
Nah. He’d love it if she woke him. She’d bring in a couple of beers, rip open the deli bag, and tell him how great the show had gone, and which songs worked the best and…
“Cee?”
It was John’s sleepy voice calling from the bedroom. Great. He was awake. He was gonna loove these sandwiches.
“Baby, guess what I brought,” she said. The only light in the bedroom came from the orange end of the cigarette John was smoking. He had quit smoking years before, and just started again a few weeks ago. Right about the time Cee Cee was on The Ed Sullivan Show.
“Ayy,” she said. “I got something that’s gonna knock your socks off, Perry, so I hope you’re hungry.”
“Great,” he said. “But sit down first, okay?”
“Yeah, I will,” she said. “Soon as I unwrap these, and get us a couple of beers and feed the dogs and—”
“Sit down now, Cee,” John said. He sounded really serious. So serious she wished it wasn’t dark so she could see his face. Then maybe she could tell by his expression that he was kidding.
“Cee Cee,” he said. Her eyes were getting used to the dark, and she could see he was putting out what had become a cigarette butt. And then he reached for another cigarette.
“We both know that you’re a big talent,” he said. “The biggest. And I told you from the beginning that when you finally made it, no one was going to be bigger. Didn’t I say that?”
Cee Cee heard her heart in her ears. She tore a tiny piece of paper from the bag she was still holding and rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. Both dogs jumped in her lap.
“Yeah, you said that. And the reason I’m so good is on account of you. You made me this good. I mean, because you’re always pushing me to do better and stuff.”
Now Cee Cee blessed the dark because she was biting her lip knowing that she had stretched the truth more than a little. Not that John didn’t push her. Because he did, but…For a long time neither of them said a word. Now and then John’s cigarette would glow as he puffed it. Cee Cee was more scared than before. It felt like something bad was going to happen any second, and she didn’t know how to stop it. She wanted to drop the sandwich bag and jump on him and say, Please, don’t leave me, J.P., you’re the only man who ever even liked me a lot, let alone loved me—so please don’t leave me. Only she didn’t. She just sat there in the dark room praying to God that he wouldn’t. That that wasn’t what this was all about. Just sat there listening to the lousy air conditioner drip. And then John said, in a really quiet voice, “Cee Cee, I think what I need is a woman who will bask in my glory.”
She knew it. He was saying what she had always been afraid he’d say eventually. That he couldn’t live like this anymore. That he’d given away his balls when he sold the Sunshine Theater. That he’d spent thirty-some years being hot shit, and now his big job in life was to carry her fuckin’ hair dryer. She was afraid he’d say that one day, and now there he was, saying it. But it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t make him do that. It was all his idea. Anyway, it didn’t matter whose fault it was. Or whose idea it was. What mattered was she had to make him change his mind. Now.
“Well, what’re you gonna do about it?” she asked him, her voice filled with fear.
And after a moment he said, “I’m going to try and find another little theater. There’s one in Ohio I heard about.”
Then there was no sound but the air conditioner for a long time, and finally John said, “And I’m going to let you go ahead without me.”
“No,” Cee Cee said. “No. You’re not. Now just stop it,” she said, and she dropped the bag that she’d been hugging to herself, and lay on the bed next to him. She was crying. “You know if you’re going to Ohio, I’m going to go with you. I mean, I don’t want any success if you’re not there.” She could feel him crying, too. Felt his tears on her face.
After a minute he sat up and reached over to the night table and turned on the light. Then he looked at her face, and she was sure she must look horrible with tears smeared all over her goopy stage makeup.
“Now, baby,” John said. “We both know that isn’t true.”
“It is, it is,” she said, kissing his face. “J.P., take it back. Say you won’t go, honey. Say it.” She loved him. She was sure she loved him more than anyone had ever loved anyone in the world. Without another word, John made love to her. And then they slept tangled in one another’s arms and legs, and the next morning when she opened her eyes, barely awake yet, she saw him standing, showered and dressed, at the foot of the bed. He was holding his packed suitcase. He was so beautiful. No, she thought. Please. Don’t John.
“I love you, Cee,” he said. “A whole lot.”
And he was gone.
FOR FOUR DAYS BERTIE’S life was a cycle of sitting first on the plastic couch in the waiting room, sometimes awake, often asleep, while Neetie sat right next to Rosie’s bed; then Bertie would go to the plastic chair next to Rosie’s bed while Neetie m
oved out into the waiting room and had a cigarette, and finally Bertie would be in the stark white neon-lit ladies’ room, even if she didn’t have any need to use the bathroom. She thought that maybe she was going in there (and this made her laugh as it passed through her mind) for a change of scene.
The neurosurgeon was Dr. Metcalfe. He was slim and tall, with very short salt-and-pepper hair, and they had chosen him after Bertie called Michael. Michael called his father, Dr. Barron telephoned a Dr. Fishmann, with whom he’d gone to the University of Pittsburgh and who now practiced in Miami, and Fishmann called Metcalfe, who was on the staff of St. Joseph’s. Bertie had been terrified she would make the wrong choice. Certain that because Michael’s father was a doctor, he could come up with the name of some miracle worker to save Rosie.
Metcalfe was not a miracle worker.
They took Rosie’s inert body down for an angiogram one night while Bertie slept. The damage was too great for any surgery.
“Then what do we…” Neetie said, unable to ask the question.
“We wait,” Metcalfe said, answering the unfinished question.
At each mealtime one of the “cast members,” which was the way Bertie had come to think about the other people who were sitting similar vigils for their own parents or husbands or wives, would walk over to Pumpernicks and get sandwiches for the rest, so that it seemed to Bertie she now had eaten at least seventeen corned beef sandwiches with cole slaw and Russian dressing—one of the sandwiches at every meal. Bertie and Neetie hadn’t been asked to take a turn going for the food yet. Maybe it was because Neetie said very loudly one day in front of everyone that she’d die first “before I’d ever go back to that lousy Pumpernicks whose food probably did this to my sister.”
On the fifth day, when Mr. Heft offered to go over and pick up some deli for “a little nibble for everyone,” Bertie volunteered to go along to help carry. Mr. Heft’s wife was in Intensive Care after an operation. She was not doing well, it seemed, because on several occasions Bertie saw Mr. Heft sitting with a dark-haired woman who must be his daughter, and they were both crying. Mr. Heft had decided to leave just as Bertie emerged from Rosie’s cubicle, and it was Neetie’s turn to sit by the bed. Bertie said, “Back in a few minutes, Neet,” but when Neetie heard that Bertie was going to leave the hospital building, Bertie saw panic in her aunt’s eyes.
“It’s okay,” Bertie promised. “I just need a breath of air.”
As Bertie and Mr. Heft silently walked the few blocks from the hospital to Pumpernicks, Bertie realized how full her lungs had been, not just her lungs, but her clothes, her unwashed hair, her mouth, with the smell and the taste of the hospital. No, she couldn’t let Rosie die. Not even in her mind. She mustn’t put that negative energy out in the atmosphere. When Mr. Heft took Bertie’s elbow gently as they crossed the street, she realized she hadn’t even looked at him since they left I.C.U., her eyes had been so busy taking in the parts of the hospital she hadn’t seen or noticed on her way in.
Old people. Mostly old people in every room. Maybe because in this neighborhood there were mostly old people. Bertie remembered Uncle Herbie saying one time that Miami Beach was “God’s waiting room.”
“Your mom any better?” Mr. Heft asked her.
Bertie smiled and shook her head. She was starting to feel close to Mr. Heft. This morning he had shown her pictures of his married daughter Ruthie and her husband Max and their four kids. “Boy, do these kids love their grandma,” he said, pointing to the I.C.U. doors. “They couldn’t live without her,” he said, his lip trembling.
She also felt close to Mrs. Devlin, the tiny red-haired lady of about fifty who regaled them all, including some of the nuns the night before, over corned beef sandwiches, with the story of the mastectomy she herself had had two years before, which, when she told it, seemed like the funniest comedy routine anyone had ever done. Now, Mrs. Devlin was waiting for news of her husband, who had had brain surgery yesterday; but this morning she’d said to Mr. Heft, “Don’t worry, Heft honey, she’ll dance at the grandchildren’s weddings. I’m telling ya!”
A support system. That’s what they were for one another. Even Peter Gaché, the young man. He was very handsome. He looked like Hugh Hefner. But he didn’t sleep there with the rest of them. Instead, he came every day to visit his father, who’d had his third coronary. Gaché wore a suit and brought a fresh package of cookies from a bakery which he left in the waiting room for the others. The first day he had looked longingly at Bertie, who was certain the longing looks decreased in direct proportion to how dirty her hair became over the next four days, during which she did not dare leave the hospital.
Well, she was glad to be outside now. At last. To walk on Collins Avenue. Just to breathe. Just to—
CEE CEE BLOOM. FEB. 14–28. There it was again. That marquee. Cee Cee. Bertie thought about Cee Cee every day. Everything made her think about Cee Cee’s being in Miami Beach. Mrs. Devlin’s story. Bertie kept thinking that as funny as the story was, Cee Cee would have, could have, told it better. Late that night, while Bertie and Neetie sat on the plastic sofa in the waiting room, whispering because Mr. Heft was asleep, and munching leftover chocolate brownies from Pumpernicks, Neetie asked, “How is your girlfriend, that girl from Beach Haven? The singer. I saw her picture in some magazine. And then we watched her on Ed Sullivan.”
Bertie nodded.
“She’s here,” Bertie said.
“Where?”
“Miami Beach.”
“No kidding? So why haven’t you seen her?” Neetie asked loudly, loudly enough to make Mrs. Koven, who was sleeping as usual, covered with her raincoat, on one of the plastic sofas, turn over. “Is she staying near here?” Neetie asked.
“Neetie, should I go be with Cee Cee before I sit in I.C.U., or when I come out?” she snapped, and was instantly sorry.
“You’re right,” Neetie said. “Sometimes I forget for a minute.”
Of course, the real reason Bertie wasn’t looking up Cee Cee was one that Bertie could never tell Neetie or anyone else in the world.
The anger rose in Bertie again. Cee Cee Bloom. Bertie had to force her eyes away from the marquee. Cee Cee was a star. Just like she said she would be that time in Hawaii. Hawaii. Cee Cee and Michael.
Mr. Heft was pushing open the glass door of Pumpernicks, and holding it open for Bertie, and as they approached the deli counter, he pulled a small folded piece of paper from his shirt pocket. The paper was a little limp from being against his perspiring body, and he peeled it open.
“What’ll it be, pop?” the clerk asked.
Mr. Heft read his deli order from the piece of paper to the clerk.
“Three corned beefs, two roast beefs, and a chopped liver with onion,” he said, and then looked apologetically at Bertie. “That chopped liver’s for me. I’m getting sick of corned beef.”
Bertie smiled and looked out the window toward the driveway of the Carillon Hotel directly across the street. A white Cadillac pulled up and stopped. What if the door of the Cadillac opened and out stepped Cee Cee?
A white-haired woman of about sixty got out of the Cadillac, and Bertie sighed and realized she’d stopped breathing, waiting to see who would emerge.
“Maybe you should try the chopped liver, too,” Mr. Heft said to Bertie. “With a red Bermuda onion. I’m tellin’ you, there’s nothin’ like it.”
Bertie smiled. “No thanks.” She had to go to the bathroom. Why hadn’t she gone before they left the hospital? “Always make a stop to be safe,” Rosie had taught her. “Even if you think you don’t have to.” Now Bertie would have to use Pumpernicks’ ladies’ room, which was where Rosie had…no. She’d wait until she got back to the hospital. She watched the man in the white apron behind the counter gingerly slice the corned beef. He was singing a song along with the movement of the slicing machine. It sounded like “What the World Needs Now Is Love Sweet Love.” She looked around the restaurant, trying not to think about what it must have been like a f
ew days ago when they found Rosie, and the ambulance came and…
Mr. Heft took the paper bag filled with sandwiches to the cashier and paid for them. Bertie looked out the window again, and across the street at the marquee of the Carillon Hotel. FEB. 14–28. When she looked back at Mr. Heft, he was motioning to her to come along with him. Yes, back to the hospital. To eat a sandwich and sit with Rosie and eat another sandwich and sit some more. Mr. Heft opened the door of Pumpernicks, and the two of them were outside again in the hot, salty-smelling Miami Beach day.
As they turned the corner and began walking toward the hospital, Bertie stopped. “Mr. Heft,” she said, “would you mind going on ahead? Tell my aunt I had something to do. Tell her I’ll be back in a few minutes. Could you do that for me, please?”
Mr. Heft patted Bertie on the arm and turned to go. Bertie stopped and watched him, and as he walked toward the hospital, he took his chopped liver sandwich out of the bag, unwrapped it with the hand that wasn’t holding the bag, and took a bite out of it as he walked along. It must have tasted good because he shook his head the way people do when they can’t believe something is as good as they’d hoped.
Bertie walked back to the corner, waited for the light to turn green, and crossed the street toward the Carillon Hotel. She kept telling herself that she was just going to find the ladies’ room in the lobby, use it, and leave.