"Dart, Iris Rainer - Beaches 01 - Beaches" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart Iris Rainer)

She would tell him about Bertie and how much fun they had. And how she was making other friends, too. How every morning at breakfast Richie Day, who was very cute, would tease her by singing (badly), "Does your mu-ther know you're out-Ce-cilia? Does she know that I'm a-bout ta steal ya?" And how, when after all those weeks of playing crummy chorus parts, Cee Cee finally got the part of Lola in Damn Yankees, Peggy Longworth hugged her and said, "You deserve it." And how when Mrs.- Godshell made macaroni and cheese (puke) for dinner last Friday and all the dancers decided to go out for dinner instead, they invited Cee Cee to come along. Everything was perfect.
Okay, so there was one little thing bothering her, but nothing she would tell Nathan in a letter, especially a letter Leona would open and devour before Nathan got home from work. It was Bertie and John Perry. She felt like a jerk even thinking about it. It wasn't that Bertie was doing anything, exactly. Jesus, this was stupid, but it was the way Cee Cee saw them laughing together sometimes, or the way she saw him give Bertie little pats on the ass he never gave anyone else. Maybe it wasn't Bertie's part of it so much-but, well, here she was, Cee Cee finally playing a lead, and Perry still not paying any attention to her. Christ, Bertie was a costume girl. That's all. Bertie wasn't belting out, "A little brains, a little talent," until it knocked everyone dead at rehearsals, and Perry still seemed to like her better, anyway. All he ever said to Cee Cee during rehearsals was, "Got your lines down, Gee Cee?
Lines down? Even in the sixth-grade play, she'd had her lines down the first day.
And sometimes, when Cee Cee was trying to rehearse her song with Jay Miller at the piano, Perry would be laughing with Bertie.
Cee Cee hated herself for thinking even one crummy
thought about Bertie, who was spending every day making a wonderful dress from scratch for Lola's dance number where she teases Joe, "Whatever Lola wants." Bertie promised the dress would look "really spectacular" (with exclamation points).
Bertie was so sweet. And she couldn't really be involved with John Perry. How crazy. Jesus, she was only sixteen and he was in his thirties. That would be nuts. He could get arrested or something. Probably it looked that way because Bertie was such a big flirt. She flirted with everybody. She batted those long, gorgeous eyelashes at every guy. Even that old "faygelah" (Leona's word) Moro Rollins, who joked when Bertie fitted his pinstripe trousers for Henry Higgins that it was "the best time he'd had in weeks." Who was he trying to kid?
Cee Cee drifted off to sleep.
The beach was peaceful early in the morning. And now, in the middle of July, it was hot enough to get a tan by nine o'clock. Cee Cee lay on her stomach on a towel reviewing the lyrics to her songs. Sunday was becoming her favorite day. The theater was dark and everyone was pretty much free to work alone on lines or routines, unless the show was in a crisis, which Damn Yankees wasn't. Cee Cee knew she should have put some oil on her back, but she also knew if she got oil on her hands she'd end up getting it all over the musical score, and besides, she didn't feel like it. She felt comfortable and warm and happy. Even the dancers had told her what a great job she was doing. That was a real compliment because Lola was a part a dancer could have played if only the singing wasn't so hard. But Cee Cee could sing and dance, too. So she got it. The show would open tomorrow night. She couldn't wait.
"Hi."
Cee Cee looked up. It was Bertie. In a ruffled two-piece suit. Boy, she was pretty. Even though the sun was
behind her and Cee Cee couldn't see all of her features, she still looked pretty.
"Neetie let me have the car all day," she said, spreading her towel next to Cee Cee's.
"That's great," Cee Cee said.
"No, it isn't," Bertie said, plopping down and reaching for Cee Cee's suntan oil. "She only did it because she feels guilty." There was a silence as Cee Cee wondered what the tearful Neetie could feel guilty about.
"We're leaving on Tuesday morning."
Cee Cee felt a terrible pang and turned on her side to face Bertie.
"No! Why?"
"Oh, Herbie's been calling her. He says he misses her and loves her, and didn't mean to go with that other girl since Neetie's the only one for him, and lots of other stuff like that. Frankly, I think the other girl probably got tired of him. He's a creep. Anyway, she's chomping at the bit to get back to him. She wanted to leave this morning, but I talked her into waiting at least until I saw your show open."
"Can't you stay without her?"
"Nope. I called my mother this morning and asked her. I told her the other apprentices lived in an apartment near the theater, and I could move in there, and that I really wanted to stay and be with you, and she didn't care. She said, 'Roberta, you're only sixteen, and I still decide what's best for you, and I want you to come home!' I'm furious at her."
Cee Cee couldn't speak. She had imagined that she and Bertie would be together all summer. Now it was all ruined.
"My mother doesn't trust me," Bertie said, pouting. "One minute she lets me come here to be Neetie's nursemaid, and the next she's making me come home like I was a six-year-old child instead of a sixteen-year-old woman."
"What does she think you'll do?" Cee Cee asked.
Bertie took a deep breath. "Get laid," she said.
It sounded funny, like a punchline to a joke, and Cee Cee laughed. Bertie started to laugh, too, and they laughed harder when their eyes met. Finally, shrieking with laughter, the two of them rose and ran down the beach into the water, splashing and ducking each other, coming up sputtering and squealing. After they ran back up the'beach, water-logged, and dried off, Bertie held the music score from Damn Yankees to see if Cee Cee knew the words.
"Perfect," Bertie said when Cee Cee finished.
The sun was getting higher in the sky. Bertie scrunched sand between her toes, let it go, and scrunched it again.
She was thinking about her mother, who had raised her alone, without a man, for fourteen of her sixteen years, and never once said, "God this is hard," or, "I envy other women for having husbands." People said Rosie was "resourceful," or they would tell Bertie, "Your mother is amazingly strong." Bertie knew Rosie loved the image of being not only beautiful-which she was, a little like Katharine Hepburn-but also tough like the characters Hep-burn played in movies.
And as far as family, it was almost as if her mother enjoyed not having a husband. Just being the two of them. Not having some man around to boss them or needing to be catered to. Just the two of them to "carry on," as Rosie would say. But even though her mother didn't complain to Bertie or to anyone, there were lots of times when Bertie felt sorry for her. Like the time when she was outside shoveling snow from the driveway, so she could pull the car out to get Bertie to school. And up and down the street all the other people who stood in the driveways shoveling were men.
And those times on Father's Day when, to make Bertie feel better about not having a father, Rosie would take her out to North Park for a picnic and in honor of the day tell stories about Bertie's daddy Joseph, and how they met and what a "helluva good guy" he was. God rest him.
When she told those stories, Bertie could always see the loneliness in Rosie's eyes.
There was no doubt that Bertie's mother made their lives very bright and full and kept her daughter from feeling deprived though fatherless, and probably because she didn't have a husband to worry about and fuss over, she worried about and fussed too much over Bertie. Certainly protected her too much, in Bertie's mind. Like the way Rosie hated the thought of Bertie's working at a theater.
"If I'd had any idea you'd end up being involved in show business," she said on the phone, not finishing the sentence-not having to.
"Show business," Bertie said aloud. "It's so strange. I guess my mother's right in a way. I'll be better off in Pittsburgh. I'm really a fifth wheel around here."
Cee Cee was spreading the damp towel out on the sand again. She'd put oil on now. Her shoulders were starting to sting. She wished the bookie would change his mind and leave Bertie's Aunt Neetie for good, so Neetie would have to stay in Ship Bottom all summer and cry, and then Bertie could stay around. Or she wished Bertie's mother would let Bertie stay without Neetie. But, most of all, she wished she could say things she was feeling, instead of keeping them locked inside, because then she could tell Bertie how important their friendship had become to her.
"Let's go out to dinner tonight," Bertie said. "Just the two of us. To Dukes. A celebration of the opening of your show and a good-by dinner for me."
Gee Cee smiled. It was a great idea.
Bertie couldn't believe that in Cee Gee's whole life she'd never had a shrimp cocktail. She made her have two at Dukes. Both girls wore cotton sundresses, and with her tan Cee Cee felt as if she looked almost as pretty as Bertie.
Bertie rambled on about all the odds and ends she had to pull together before she left Tuesday morning, as if she were the owner of the theater instead of just an apprentice. She talked excitedly about the opening of Damn Yankees, and Cee Cee felt a rush of excitement at the thought of how she was going to look in the Lola costumes. John Perry would have to love her in them. Oh, yes. John. Had Bertie told him she was leaving?
Bertie flushed. She had. He said he would be sorry to see her go, and she changed the subject to Neetie or her mother or something.
"Bertie," Cee Cee asked as she sipped her coffee, "don't you think John Perry is really sexy?"
Bertie looked at her watch. "It's late, Gee," she said, "and you need your sleep for tomorrow night."
Bertie dropped Cee Cee at the cast house, made her promise she wouldn't sit in the living room and yak because it was bad for her voice, and drove away.
Cee Cee walked through the living room. Peggy Longworth was sitting in a chair reading An Actor Prepares by Stanislavsky, and somebody with a pillow on her face was asleep on the sofa.
"Good night," Peggy said as Cee Cee walked upstairs.
She had fallen asleep almost immediately, even though she knew going to sleep too early was a mistake and now her eyes were open and it was, according to Nathan's luminous dial, two A.M.
John Perry. Why was he on her mind? Cee Cee turned over on her stomach. Her body ached from all the dance rehearsals. And she ached inside, too. She would miss Bertie. John Perry. Oh, yes. Him. John Perry in those tight white pants; he must own a dozen pairs. And those tight T-shirts. His arms looked so strong. If only she could fall back to sleep. Had Bertie blushed when she asked her if she thought Perry was sexy? Actually, it wasn't even an original question. It was something she'd
heard one of the dancers ask Marilyn Loughlin, who had laughed and said, "I don't think he's sexy, honey. I know he is." What did that mean? Were Loughlin and John Perry lovers? Did they used to be lovers? Lovers. Aunt Neetie and her bookie husband. Bertie's desperately horny mother. Shit. She was wide awake.
Slowly and quietly she got up, dropped her pajama top to her feet and stepped out of it, and slipped a caftan on over her baby-doll pajama bottoms. No one stirred. On tiptoe, she made her way to the door at the top of the stairs and opened it. Down the long wooden staircase that led to the living room. It looked odd in the darkness. The old wicker furniture was tattered, and everything smelled of mildew. Above the sofa hung a needlepoint legend. "You ought to go to Hollywood. The walk will do you good."