Beaches Read online

  Beaches

  IRIS RAINER DART

  FOR STEPHEN DART AND FOR GREGORY MICHAEL WOLF

  because his wisdom,

  integrity, and fire inspire everything I do.

  because his sensitivity, warmth, and maturity

  are a loving lesson to everyone who knows him.

  …if your love were a grain of sand,

  mine would be a universe of beaches.

  —William Goldman,

  The Princess Bride

  CONTENTS

  Epigraph

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  BEACH HAVEN, NEW JERSEY

  MONTEREY, CALIFORNIA

  HAWAII

  MIAMI BEACH, FLORIDA

  CARMEL, CALIFORNIA

  SARASOTA, FLORIDA

  PEBBLE BEACH, CALIFORNIA

  CARMEL, CALIFORNIA

  MALIBU, CALIFORNIA

  CARMEL, CALIFORNIA

  Special Thank-Yous

  About the Author

  Praise

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

  1983

  The dancers were holding Cee Cee above their heads. “And now,” she said, “as I lie in the arms of four promiscuous homosexuals from West Hollywood, my tits pointed towards the heavens like an offering to the gods, I slowly turn my head, look out at America and ask the musical question…”

  Everyone was laughing. The dancers were laughing so hard they made Cee Cee bounce up and down. Then Hal played the arpeggio and Cee Cee sang,

  Toot, toot, tootsie good-bye!

  Toot, toot, tootsie don’t cry,

  with the slow soulful rhythm of a torch song. Then the dancers turned front, and Cee Cee slithered down their shoulders and their backs until she stood on the floor with the four handsome boys swaying behind her.

  The little red light on the phone had been lighting up for a long time. The stage manager grabbed the receiver, put it up to his left ear and put his finger in his right ear so he could hear above the din of the music.

  “Yeah?” he whispered into the phone. It was someone for Cee Cee.

  “She’s workin’,” he said softly. “Huh?”

  The caller was a woman and she wouldn’t take no. The stage manager shrugged, told her to hold on, and then put the receiver down on the long table next to some scripts. Hey, Cee Cee Bloom was singing. As far as he was concerned the whole world could hold on.

  The choo choo train that takes me,

  Away from you no words can

  tell how sad it makes me.

  Now the music went into the up tempo, and the boy dancers began to tap-dance and Cee Cee was tapping, too, keeping up with them. Her skill was remarkable. She hadn’t tapped in years and it was hard, but she’d been knocking herself out for the last few weeks working on it, trying to get it back.

  “Hey!” Cee Cee yelled as she came out of a turn. “These bozos are twenty-two years old and I’m thirty-six. So applaud, for chrissake.”

  Everyone laughed and applauded. The crew and the guest stars and the director and the guy from the network. Somebody even cheered bravo, and now Cee Cee whirled around the room looking just as skilled as the boy dancers. Someone, maybe it was one of the writers, whistled one of those whistles that people whistle for taxis in New York, and Cee Cee cracked a smile.

  “All right,” she hollered, “could I get you to fall for thirty-nine?” Everyone laughed, applauded, and cheered again.

  Toot, toot tootsie don’t cry

  Toot, toot, tootsie good-bye!

  Suddenly, the dancers lifted her onto their shoulders and twirled around. She raised her arms in the air. The crowd was applauding and stomping and cheering as the song ended, and Cee Cee was helped to the floor. The choreographer, elated with his own success, hugged her, and the director hugged her, and all the boy dancers hugged her.

  “You did great on the hard parts,” Lester, the curly-haired dancer said.

  “Are you kidding?” Cee Cee answered. “Everybody knows hard parts are my specialty.” The dancers laughed.

  “Who’s on the phone?” the wardrobe mistress asked.

  “No one,” the director said. “Hang it up.”

  The wardrobe mistress picked up the telephone receiver and held it to her ear.

  “Hello?” She listened. “Just a second. Cee Cee,” the wardrobe mistress called.

  “Later,” Cee Cee told her. “I’ll have to call ’em back.”

  The wardrobe mistress held the phone receiver out to Cee Cee. She had a helpless look on her face.

  “Roberta Barron,” she said. She hoped Cee Cee would shrug noncommittally; then the phone could go back in its cradle and disconnect, and the wardrobe mistress could call her boyfriend and ask him what he wanted for dinner.

  “Who?”

  Good, it was no one important. The wardrobe mistress could hang up.

  “Barron. Roberta.”

  Cee Cee ran to the phone and grabbed it out of the wardrobe mistress’s hand.

  “Lunch, people. One hour,” the director said. Everyone was milling and talking and getting their things together.

  Cee Cee spoke into the phone in a voice that didn’t sound like her usual voice because it was almost timid.

  “Bert, is it you?”

  Her face was scrunched up as if that would help her to hear better over all the noise.

  “Huh?” she said, working at listening. “Talk louder, Bert—I’m in a room full of people.”

  Later, when the others were trying frantically to locate her, someone who had been standing nearby remembered that what Cee Cee had said next was, “Hey, I get it. I’ll be there.” Then she had ripped part of an inside page out of a script that was on the table, scribbled something on it, and put it in her purse. After that, she hung up the phone and walked quickly out of the rehearsal hall. Everyone thought she was going to lunch. But they were wrong.

  ATLANTIC CITY, NEW JERSEY

  1951

  Bertie White was lost. Not the kind of lost where you think you might know where you are. She was really, honest-to-God lost. She’d been digging with her bucket and shovel near the shoreline just down from where her mom was sitting when she spotted a great big seashell a few feet away, and then another one. Her bucket was getting all filled up with the pretty shells, so she just kept walking. But when she stopped to look around, she didn’t see anyone she knew. Not her mom or her Aunt Neetie or anyone from Pittsburgh.

  Bertie contemplated the busy, crowded boardwalk.

  Well, there’s the Traymore Hotel, she thought, reading the sign. Were we sitting near that beach…or was it—?

  A chill came over Bertie. What if she couldn’t find her mom? What if her mom couldn’t find her?

  Maybe the beach was too crowded and she’d be better off walking along the boardwalk and looking down. She could spot her mom and Aunt Neetie from up there.

  Bertie ran up the beach toward the boardwalk. She got to the big wooden steps and turned to look back at the beach. So many people! And where were her bucket and shovel? Bertie’s lower lip trembled and her face collapsed into a mask of sadness. The tears came and she sobbed aloud for her mom, who was responsible for this, anyway.

  Sitting on the beach all day with Aunt Neetie yakking and smoking cigarettes and putting oil all over Bertie with sandy hands. Bertie hated sandy hands. And she hated her mom and Aunt Neetie for letting her get lost like this.

  “Awwwww,” she sobbed. “Awwww, noooooo.”

  “Hey, fa chrissake. Would ya mind shuttin’ up ovah there?”

  Bertie turned. The voice was coming from under the boardwalk.

  “I mean, Jesus. I knock myself out workin’ an
d I just wanna get a nap. Ya know?”

  “I’m lost,” Bertie sobbed to the voice. “I’m lost and I’m scared.”

  “Ah, fa chrissake. What are you? Some kinda baby or somethin’?” The voice was getting closer.

  Bertie bit her lip. She was certainly not any kind of baby. She was only in second grade, but her teacher said her reading was on a fifth-grade level. And that was no baby.

  “When I was your age, I was already in the business,” said the voice, and out of the darkness stepped a little girl of ten.

  Bertie looked at her. Cee Cee was skinny with very curly red hair. She was wearing a plaid cotton one-piece bathing suit with a little skirt attached. And nail polish. Red! On every finger and toe.

  “Boy, I was dead to the world under there, kiddo,” Cee Cee said. “I was up till two in the morning. We had to put on an extra show.”

  “I’m lost,” said Bertie.

  “Relax, kid,” Cee Cee said. “You’re not lost anymore. I found you! I’m Cee Cee Bloom. Recognize me?”

  “Huh?” Bertie answered.

  “Maybe out of sequins I look different. I do the ‘Mama’ number.”

  “Huh?” Bertie repeated.

  “At Jerry Grey’s. You been there?”

  Bertie shook her head.

  “Never been there? Jeez, whaddya been doin’, for chrissake? Every kid on vacation in Atlantic City comes to Jerry Grey’s Kiddie Show down at the Steel Pier. It’s the greatest.”

  Bertie felt bad. She considered crying again.

  “I do the ‘Mama’ number.”

  You’ve got to see mama ev’ry night,

  Or you can’t see mama at all,

  Cee Cee sang.

  Bertie listened. That voice. It sounded like a real person’s voice. Not a kid’s, but a lady’s.

  You’ve got to kiss mama, treat her right,

  Or she won’t be home when you call.

  Cee Cee was starting to get into the song. Her little lips did funny things when she sang. Even when her voice had finished a word in the song, her lips kept moving. Her hands with the polished nails did what Bertie’s mom called “the motions.” Bertie’s mom used to sing sometimes in front of the mirror, and she once told Bertie, “You can’t sing a song without the motions.”

  If you want my company,

  You can’t fifty-fifty me….

  Bertie blushed. One of the motions Cee Cee did was to put her hands right on her own bust, or rather, where her bust would have been if she had one. If there was one thing Bertie knew for sure, it was that you didn’t ever touch your bust in public, whether you had one or not.

  You’ve got to see mama every night,

  Or you can’t see mama at all.

  “Then I do a real hot tap,” Cee Cee said. “But I can’t do it here. I haven’t got the right shoes. And then I come back to the last two lines and I really sell it. It’s a showstopper. Ya know what I mean?”

  “I’m lost,” said Bertie. The words had little meaning now, but she didn’t know what else to say.

  “Fa chrissake. Is that all you can say?”

  “Will you help me find my mom and Aunt Neetie?” Bertie asked.

  “How old are you, kid?”

  “Seven.”

  “Seven? Jeez. I’m ten. Practically old enough to nurse you.”

  “My mom was sitting on the beach and I…”

  “You sure are serious about finding your mom,” Cee Cee said. “I spend half my time trying to lose mine.”

  “Oh, you do, huh, you little shtoonk. I’ll beat you black and blue when I get my hands on you,” came a voice from up on the boardwalk. The two girls looked up.

  “Aww, crap,” muttered Cee Cee.

  Rumbling down the steps came the fattest woman Bertie had ever seen. She wore a giant yellow beach hat and a dress that showed legs that looked as though she had borrowed them from a hippo. Each of the old wooden steps from the boardwalk sank as her weight fell on them. Bertie couldn’t understand why the woman looked familiar until she took a side glance at Cee Cee, and then realized that if someone took one of those air pumps that they used to blow up Mickey Mouse for the Macy’s parade and blew up Cee Cee, she would look exactly like this woman.

  “Oh, Leona, take it easy,” Cee Cee said as the woman fell on her in tears.

  “I woke up and you was gone, ya little brat. What was I gonna think, fa chrissake?” Leona sobbed. “And then Mistah Grey called. He said he’s got somethin’ big ta tell us. I sweah to God, Cee, I almost called the cops.”

  “Leona, you’re a real jerk!” Cee Cee said.

  Bertie thought it was amazing that Leona hadn’t even noticed that her daughter had said something terrible to her. She just wiped her eyes.

  “Is this kid in the show?” Leona asked, pointing to Bertie.

  “Nah.”

  “Well, let’s go. Over to the pier. Come on,” Leona said, reaching for Cee Cee’s arm. Cee Cee took a deliberate step away so Leona couldn’t touch her.

  “I’m comin’! I’m comin’!” she said.

  Leona turned and started back toward the steps to the boardwalk. Cee Cee walked a few feet behind her, slowly, looking down, watching the impressions her red-polished toes made in the sand. Cee Cee was on the bottom step when Bertie spoke in a tiny voice.

  “I’m lost.”

  There were lots of noisy people on the beach, and the roar of the surf was very loud, but still Cee Cee heard Bertie’s voice and turned back.

  “What’s your name?” Cee Cee asked her.

  “Bertie.”

  “Ya mean like the kind that sing in the trees?”

  “Nope. Short for Roberta.”

  “Ah. Cute,” said Cee Cee. “Well, whaddya waitin’ for?” she asked, and moved her head in a way that meant come with us.

  Bertie had no idea where they were going, but she knew that she didn’t ever want Cee Cee to be out of her sight again, so she went.

  JERRY GREY’S OFFICE WAS at the back of the Steel Pier. To get there, they walked by the Auto Show where Bertie had passed before with her mom and Aunt Neetie in the straw carriage pushed by the colored man. Then through the building and up a long staircase. Bertie must have gotten a sunburn while she was looking for shells, because now in the cool of the building her bathing suit straps were hurting. Leona trailed behind the two girls, panting as she walked up the steps.

  “Be polite,” she yelled ahead to Cee Cee, who was already at the top; Bertie was between them. “No swearin’.”

  Cee Cee waited at the top for Bertie and Leona, and the three of them walked to an open door at the end of the hallway.

  Jerry Grey was a little fat man. Not as fat as Leona, but his belt buckled under his large stomach.

  “Kid,” he shouted, coming around from the back of the desk, arms open to give Cee Cee a hug.

  “Whaddya say, Jerry,” said Cee Cee, extending her hand to avoid the hug.

  “Kid, I got great news. Sit down.”

  There were two wooden chairs next to the desk. Bertie sat in one and Cee Cee in the other. Leona stood, fanning herself with the big yellow straw hat.

  “Last night, kid,” said Jerry directly to Cee Cee, “unbeknownst to even me, there was a guy from Hollywood in the audience.”

  “Hollywood,” Leona screamed out, so loud it made Bertie jump. “Oh, my God!”

  “Seems the guy couldn’t sleep, so he was walking on the boardwalk and stopped in for our twelve o’clock show. See? And all the mothers thought I was a slave driver making you kids do three shows last night. Well, God moves in mysterious ways.”

  Cee Cee sat silently.

  “Well, he liked Lewandowski a lot. A whole lot. Thought her hand-walk on the lighted staircase was great.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” said Leona impatiently, starting to pant again.

  Jerry didn’t look at her. “But he loved you, kid! He called me this morning and that’s all he could talk about. Besides mentioning Lewandowski, that is. The kid that did the Mama numb
er. The son of a gun couldn’t believe that was really you singing. Said you must have been pantomiming a record.”

  Bertie looked at Cee Cee for a hint at the excitement she must be feeling.

  Cee Cee’s face was a blank. “So?” she asked.

  “So?” Grey said excitedly. “So? So he wants you to have a screen test.”

  Leona let out a wail and waddled over to Bertie’s chair.

  “Oh, my God. I gotta sit down,” she said, tapping Bertie hard on the arm. Bertie jumped up, and Leona’s big body fell into the chair.

  “Oh, my God. A screen test.”

  “When?” Cee Cee asked.

  “Well, he wants to see you again. Today. I’ll call him now. I’ll have him here right away. At three o’clock. Hollywood,” said Jerry Grey.

  Bertie wasn’t sure, but she thought his eyes filled with tears.

  “Some of my kids have been on Broadway…but Hollywood.” He put his head in his hands and just sat there.

  Bertie, Cee Cee, and Leona walked down the stairs and through the building.

  “You start getting ready,” Leona said. “I’ll go get some sandwiches.”

  “C’mon, kid,” Cee Cee said, taking Bertie’s hand. Leona walked out of the building, and Cee Cee walked with Bertie to a big brown door marked “Backstage.” She pushed the door open, and cool darkness surrounded them as they walked inside.

  Bertie looked up at the enormous fly gallery and the massive area beyond it that she figured must be the stage. She couldn’t move. She had never seen anything like it before.

  “Move it, kid,” Cee Cee said, pulling Bertie’s arm. “I gotta be in full dress, fa chrissake.” They walked past the various colored flats and behind the vast black curtains to the dressing room. A small room with six mirrors, each surrounded by six bare light bulbs.