Beaches

by Iris R. Dart

  “Did that already. He told me to get rid of it,” Bertie said.

  “Oh.” And that was all. No more discussion. Cee Cee didn’t want to discuss Bertie’s problems. She was flying. She didn’t need Bertie. She didn’t need anyone.

  Until after the phone call that night. When Bertie answered it, she heard the hushed sound of the long-distance line and when the man asked for Cee Cee, Bertie asked his name, and when Bertie told Cee Cee it was “someone named Allan,” Cee Cee, who had been putting on her make-up because Arthur was picking her up in one hour, turned pale under all the blusher.

  She took the phone in the kitchen and closed the door.

  “Hello,” Bertie heard her say, but then went quickly back into her bedroom because even though she would have loved to know who could make Cee Cee look that afraid, it wasn’t right to listen to someone else’s calls.

  After about fifteen minutes, Bertie heard Cee Cee in the living room, and then back in the guest room; she wanted to go in and ask her who that was and if she was okay, but…this was dumb. Allan was probably her agent. It was probably about a job, and Cee Cee was afraid to get offered a job, because if she did, she’d have to choose between taking the job and going away, or turning it down and staying here with Arthur. Of course that was it. A job.

  But when Cee Cee opened the door and Bertie looked at her eyes, she knew the call hadn’t been about a job. She also knew Cee Cee had probably just used cocaine.

  “Where’re my suitcases?” she asked.

  “Your what?”

  “Suitcases,” Cee Cee said. “I’m leaving.”

  “For—”

  “Home,” Cee Cee said.

  “Cee, you can’t. Arthur’s due here in—”

  “Bert,” Cee Cee said, “there’s a real big difference between wanting someone and wanting to want someone. Arthur Wechsler is the right man for me, so I want to want him. But the honest-to-God truth is I love Allan Jackson. He’s an unemployed guitar player who fucks boys when he’s not fucking me. He says he’ll lay off the boys for a while and give me a shot—and I’m leavin’, Bert. I have to be with him. Have to. I heard his voice on the phone and I said to myself, he owns you. You asshole. Face up to it. For whatever reason, he owns you. More than John did. Light-years more than this nice Jewish boy I wanted to love so I could go straight. Sometimes one person taps into another in some real deep place where no one else has been or can get to—and once you’ve been touched there, no other kind of love works for you. I had that with Allan, and I don’t want to live without it.”

  She didn’t even try to call Arthur Wechsler, just called a taxi, dressed quickly, packed without a word. All the new clothes looked odd next to the sequined clothes, as though the bag was being packed for two different people.

  “Cee, are you sure you—”

  “Positive,” she said. Her voice sounded shaky and shrill again, and Bertie noticed the small mirror was sitting on the dresser again.

  When she looked away from the mirror and back at Cee Cee, their eyes met and Cee Cee’s were filled with pain.

  “I tried,” she said, “and I almost…” She shook her head. “It was a lie,” she said.

  The taxi horn honked. She hugged Bertie a fast hug, then picked up one of her suitcases and the hanging bag. Bertie picked up the other suitcase, and they walked toward the door. When Bertie opened it, Percy the black cabdriver in the Hawaiian shirt stood smiling in the doorway.

  “Miss Cee Cee going home?” he said.

  “Yes,” Bertie answered, and she burst into tears.

  Percy took the bags, and Cee Cee and Bertie hugged again.

  “I love you and I already love the baby,” Cee Cee said, “and I’ll come back soon. I promise I will—for her, because she needs me.” And then she was out the door.

  Bertie closed the front door. Numb. She leaned against the door and thought about it all, from the phone call when Bertie first told Cee Cee about Michael’s leaving, through her arrival—and the days filled with stories and fantasies of how Cee Cee could change and be more “Bertie-ish,” as she said.

  Bertie must have been very deep in thought because when the doorbell rang it made her jump. She turned quickly to open the door and Arthur Wechsler stood, one foot on the step, the other on the path. He was carrying a small bouquet and looked more dapper than ever; it even seemed as if he had more hair.

  “Hello, Arthur,” Bertie said.

  “Hi there,” he said, and the smell of his wonderful cologne came wafting into the room. “Where’s my girl?”

  “She’s…gone,” Bertie said, and her face must have given it all away. Because Arthur Wechsler knew she didn’t mean that Cee Cee had driven to the drugstore for a pack of cigarettes.

  He paled. “To L.A.?” he asked. Bertie nodded. “To be with the guitar player?” he asked, and Bertie nodded. “When did he call?” the doctor asked quietly.

  “Tonight,” Bertie said, looking down at her feet because she couldn’t stand to look at his hurt face. There was silence for a long time, and when Bertie did look up at last, she saw tears streaming down the nice gynecologist’s face. Many tears before he finally took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his eyes and blew his nose. Bertie realized they were still standing in the open doorway.

  “Arthur,” she said, “forgive me for being so rude. Won’t you come in? Sit down. I’ll make a drink and we’ll talk and—”

  “No,” he said, handing her the flowers he’d bought for Cee Cee. Then, for a moment he stood, closing and opening the palms of his hands as if he were exercising his fingers. “No, thanks, Bertie, I think I’ll go.”

  He turned, Bertie closed the door and, in a minute, the neighbor’s German shepherd barked as the doctor started his Porsche and drove away.

  THE NEXT DAY, BERTIE became a member of the Selby Botanical Gardens and volunteered to work in their bookstore three days a week, and after a few months, she met a woman at the Arts and Cultural Center who noticed she was pregnant and invited her to join a prenatal exercise class. At the exercise class, she met two or three women who lunched together once a week after class. At the first lunch, each of the women told her story to Bertie, and when Bertie told them she was having the baby alone, they all oohed and aahed in admiration and offered to help, and took turns calling her and inviting her to their homes for dinner, and when she went, even though their houses were small, and they were hard-working, and their husbands weren’t attractive or interesting to Bertie, she ached with envy of them.

  The only time she saw Arthur Wechsler was when she went for her monthly checkups, and from the first time he acted as though nothing had ever happened. Nothing. He checked her, asked her all the routine questions, and dismissed her. The only note of warmth was on the first visit when he put his hand on her arm, promising if she needed him, he would pick her up and take her to the hospital. My God. She hadn’t even thought about that. Never even considered that while she was in labor she wouldn’t be able to drive herself to the hospital. Some women must do that. Or call taxis.

  “Thank you, Arthur,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to take you up on that.”

  Cee Cee called once every few weeks. She sounded weary when she did, even though she seemed to have lots of exciting things happening in her life. A movie, a great one, Bert, in preproduction, with a really hot new director—she mentioned some name Bertie never heard. He’s great. We really see this thing the same way. How ya feelin’?

  “Great,” Bertie told her, and it wasn’t a lie. She was proud of her independence, and although she was a little frightened about the baby, she was excited, too. She’d hired a nurse to stay for the first month, and she’d bought lots of nursery furniture and baby things. Wechsler had told her to do that to cheer herself and it worked. The baby seemed real to her now.

  Cee Cee never breathed one word about Arthur Wechsler. Had never, in any of her phone calls, asked how he took the news. Nothing. Occasionally, she’d mention Allan Jackson, but only in
passing, as in Allan and I went here or there together, but that was all. Not how the romance was going, and Bertie was too polite to ask. Too polite. That’s exactly what she was. Maybe, she thought, she was even having this baby out of politeness. To whom? Cee Cee, because she’d insisted? Her mother’s memory? Rosie would have loved to have seen this baby. Just one time. To see Bertie pregnant would have thrilled her. Not like this, of course, with no husband around.

  That was the last thing Rosie would want for Bertie. For Bertie to have to raise a child the way she had been raised by Rosie. With no father. No sense of family. Always an outcast little twosome. Arriving on Parents’ Night at school with one parent. When they had the Father-Daughter dinner at Girl Scouts, Bertie just stayed home, but once Rosie convinced her to go and to take her Uncle Herbie with her. Herbie left the dinner table six times to make phone calls. He was booking numbers from the Girl Scout dinner.

  “Well it could be worse,” Rosie said to her on the rare times that Bertie mentioned how she wished she had a father. “At least he’s dead. We could have been divorced.”

  Yes, Bertie remembered thinking divorce would be worse. Death was just pitiful. Divorce would be scandalous. It was good Rosie wasn’t seeing any of this.

  By the time the divorce papers arrived in the mail, Bertie hadn’t even found herself a lawyer yet. Michael was more than generous in his support of her. And there, just to prove he believed she wasn’t making it up, were the words “child support,” and again a generous amount.

  The lawyer in Sarasota Bertie was using for the divorce had been referred to her by one of the women in the Botanical Garden bookstore. He was young, aggressive, and wanted to fuss over every point in the papers, but Bertie said no, please, let’s dispose of this marriage pronto, in a tone of voice that sounded unlike her own, but oddly familiar.

  The baby was due on November ninth. On Halloween, Bertie passed out trick-or-treat candy to the neighbors’ children, wondering what her little baby would wear someday to dress up for Halloween. Little Nina. Or would it be a boy? She hadn’t even picked out a name for a boy. After she had passed out chocolate bars to three pirates, one witch, a ballerina, two skeletons, a Spiderman, and a robot, and the doorbell was silent for a while, she went into the baby’s room and stood next to the crib for a long time without turning on the musical duck lamp, stood and talked to the yet unborn child.

  “I love you, little person I’ve waited for all my life. And I’m sorry that your grandma won’t be here to see you, or your father, but I promise to supply you with enough love to make up for all the grandmas and daddies in the world, so you won’t even notice. And we’ll have a wonderful life. I swear we will, baby, because—”

  The doorbell rang. “Excuse me,” Bertie said as she left the dark room and headed for the front door. She picked up a few Snickers bars and opened the door. Four trick-or-treaters held out their bags. They were so cute Bertie wanted to grab them and hug them all for lighting up her evening.

  “Ooh, Snickers is my favorite,” said the little hobo. “How did you know?”

  “’Cause they’re my favorite, too,” Bertie said, smiling, and dropped one in the hobo’s bag. The hobo moved out of the way to leave room for the robot.

  “Are you pretending to be a pregnant lady for Halloween?” the robot asked, showing a mouthful of braces under the silver painted cardboard box, “or are you really a pregnant lady?”

  “I really am,” Bertie said, grinning, and tossed another Snickers.

  The green thing with a top hat grabbed the Snickers out of her hand and ran, and the tallest one with the bushy fur coat and the Frankenstein mask didn’t have a trick-or-treat bag. It just stood there.

  “Do you want a Snickers?” Bertie asked.

  “Shit, no,” said Frankenstein. “But I wouldn’t mind a fuckin’ Scotch on the rocks.”

  Cee Cee. She pulled off the Frankenstein mask. “Just like Barbara Bain and Martin Landau,” she said. “I take off one weird face and here’s another one underneath.”

  Bertie couldn’t believe it. “Where did you get that costume?” she asked.

  “What costume? All I got was the mask. This is my regular everyday coat. The real question is where’d you get that belly? I gotta hug you sideways,” she said, hugging Bertie sideways. With the coat Cee Cee was bulkier than her pregnant friend. “Meanwhile, believe it or not, I only brought one small suitcase,” she said, and ran out to the curb where she’d left it. “I had my mask with me and I couldn’t resist being one of the kids. Maybe I ought to put the mask back on and see how I do down the block.”

  Bertie laughed.

  “Don’t laugh,” Cee Cee hollered. “Some people give cash,” and she was in the living room. Not a word about the fact that she was just popping in unannounced. Just Cee Cee unpacking again, back in the yellow bedroom. Dropping her things here and there. Smoking cigarette after cigarette; opening the refrigerator, looking disgusted, and yelling out the word “Goornisht,” which she explained was the Yiddish word for nothing, meaning how could Bertie, a woman who was carrying a child inside her, have a refrigerator so empty of food?

  They sat on the bed for hours, Bertie telling Cee Cee about the people she’d met over the last months, and how she was enjoying Sarasota even though she felt it was retirement- rather than youth-oriented—and Cee Cee telling Bertie about three months of working in a one-woman show, and how rehearsals every day forced her to take off weight, and Bertie told her she looked great even though she was wearing those multicolored striped stockings, and the diaper-wrapped skirt and the purple suede blouse and the gold dangling earrings and her hair in that pompadour, and they laughed, and no one mentioned Arthur Wechsler. Finally, in exhaustion, maybe even because the sun was coming up, Bertie said good night and went to her room.

  The first pain woke her at six-fifteen. The second one was at six-nineteen.

  “Cee,” she said, knocking at Cee Cee’s door. “I think it’s—” Another pain. “Cee Cee, I think we should hurry.”

  Cee Cee was panicked.

  “Where?” she said, blinking, looking around to figure out where she was. “Time for…oh, my God, oh, my God, I don’t know what to do. What do I wear? Do I drive or do you? You’re not going to bleed or anything, are you? I mean…do I have time for a shower? We never even made a plan about this.”

  Bertie was in the middle of a labor pain. “No shower, wear anything, keys to the Cadillac are on the coffee table. Oooh, Cee, let’s hurry up. I’ll call Wechsler.”

  A look of panic passed across Cee Cee’s face that looked like she was thinking, Wechsler, my God, I forgot about him, but what she said was, “Even a fast shower?”

  Bertie shook her head. She was dialing the phone and looking at her watch. The pains were only three minutes apart now.

  “Dr. Wechsler’s service? This is Mrs. Barron. I think I’m in hard labor. My pains are close to—” This one felt like a truck was running over her abdomen. “Going to Memorial Hospital. You’ll contact him? Thank you. Cee? Cee Cee?”

  Cee Cee emerged from the guest room. By some miracle she was fully made up and dressed in a darling powder blue pants outfit, much more Sarasota-style than Hollywood.

  “Ready?” she asked, grabbing the keys from the coffee table.

  Bertie wanted to lie down in the back seat of the Cadillac but she couldn’t, because she had to direct Cee Cee to the hospital. Cee Cee blabbed endlessly, said she felt like Butterfly McQueen in Gone With The Wind because she didn’t know nothin’ about birthin’ no babies, and laughed, and said that maybe someday she’d have a baby herself, so she wanted to observe very carefully how all this maternity ward shit looked, and then she started to cry and told Bertie that Allan Jackson had left her again but it didn’t matter—that she was dating some very nice new men, and one of them was a successful movie producer and they had a lot in common.

  As they drove up to the hospital’s emergency entrance, Bertie saw Arthur Wechsler’s black Porsche pull into a
space marked Doctors Only, and when he got out of the car and saw it was Cee Cee helping Bertie out of the Cadillac, Bertie noticed that he opened and closed his hands in that nervous way of his, and took a deep breath before he walked over to help.

  After that, everything was a blur to Bertie. The two hours in the labor room were hazy, Cee Cee’s face, Wechsler’s face, a pink-cheeked nurse, a young black nurse, all of them checking her, talking to her, hovering. Even in her foggy state, though, she noticed that Cee Cee and Wechsler behaved like strangers to one another. It was so odd. Bertie couldn’t help but picture in her mind the nights they’d come home from dates like two teenagers, smooching in her kitchen, giggling lovingly on the phone, and now, a few little months later, they were strangers.

  Then it was time to go into the delivery room, and everyone was wearing scrub clothes, even Cee Cee, with the orange hair sticking out, and Bertie had never felt so helpless and hurting. And while she was being wheeled into the delivery room she caught a whiff of Wechsler’s cologne, and Cee Cee, who was beside her must have, too, because she looked after him with misty eyes.

  “Push,” Wechsler said to Bertie, and Bertie could see him in the mirror over her head, and the pain was so awful that she was gagging and straining and, “Push,” Bertie looked up at Cee Cee, whose brow and upper lip were covered with sweat.

  “Doin’ great, Bert,” Bertie heard her say. And she pushed with all her might. A baby. She was (oh, my God, the pain) having a baby.

  “Push harder now, Bertie,” Arthur Wechsler said. Why was he wearing cologne? He never wore cologne to work. Did he know that Cee Cee was coming last night? Did he figure she’d be here for the birth of the baby, which was two weeks early, as if to oblige Auntie Cee Cee’s busy schedule? Push. Aah. Again. Oh, God.

  Bertie looked at Cee Cee again, who was white as a sheet, and who reached out her arm for anything. Anyone!

  One of the nurses saw Cee Cee start to go and grabbed for her just before she hit the floor.