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

"Leona!"
"Okay."
Cee Cee had removed her bathing suit and now stood naked. She pulled out a pair of red mesh stockings and put them on. Here and there in the mesh was a tiny rhine-stone. Her grown-up, made-up face looked weird with her little-girl body. She took down a hanger with something red and sparkly on it and handed it to Bertie.
"You hold it while I step into it," she said.
Bertie wasn't sure she was holding it right, but she held it anyway. It didn't seem to have any recognizable form, no arms or legs or a label on the back so you could tell where the front was. Cee Cee seemed to know what she was doing, though. With great agility, she stepped into two holes, put her arms through two others, did a little shimmy to pull it up, and there she was, resplendent in a tiny red-sequined suit that clung to her child's body in a way that made it look almost curvy. Out of a little
cardboard box she pulled a sparkly red pair of shoes with taps on them and sat down on the floor to put them on.
"I'm ready," she said.
"Tune up," said Leona.
"No."
Cee Cee took Bertie's hand and they walked back toward the backstage area. Cee Cee's taps clicked on the hard floor.
"Sometimes I puke before I go on," she told Bertie, "but this is just an audition." As they approached the area next to the stage, a tall man wearing a bright purple long-sleeved shirt and a matching scarf around his neck came running toward Leona.
"Oh, my God," he said, "can you believe this?"
"You got the music?" Leona asked.
"Oh, sweetie, do I ever," the man named Harry said. "And when the kid's a star, honey, just remember who never played a wrong note for her, even saved her ass a few times on the high notes. You know?"
Cee Cee had wandered over to the stage. She took the edge of the large curtain in her hand and pulled it back ever so slightly and peeked out at the auditorium.
"They're coming in," she said, turning quickly to Harry, Leona, and Bertie. It was the first trace of true excitement Bertie had seen from her.
"Harry, hurry up."
"Whaddya mean?"
"Get to that piano," Cee Cee said, her teeth clenched.
"I'm not moving until Jerry tells me to," Harry said haughtily. "He's my boss, little Miss Movie Star, not you."
"Aw, go on, Harry," Leona pleaded. "Warm them up a little. Play a few tunes."
"Absolutely not," Harry said.
"Fine, Harry," Cee Cee said. "You're right. Wait till Jerry Grey, the king of the kiddie shows, tells you what to do."
"But it would be such a good warm-up," Leona began.
"Say, Ma," Cee Cee said sweetly. It was the first time Bertie had heard her call Leona anything but Leona. "What's Charlie doin' these days? The crippled kid who used to play for my recitals? I'll bet he'd love Hollywood."
Harry pouted and walked across the stage and down the steps to the piano. Bertie could see him from where she was standing, even though the piano was in the orchestra pit. He spread all the music out on the piano and then he waved to Jerry Grey and said something that sounded to Bertie like, "Any requests?" Then he laughed and dusted off the piano stool and twisted it around a few times to make it just the right height, and unbuttoned his cuffs and shuffled through the music a few times and smiled out to where Jerry Grey was sitting and brushed back his hair, and buttoned his cuffs, until Jerry Grey finally yelled, "Hey, Harry. Get on with it. Bring out the kid."
Bertie was nervous. All of a sudden, she had a strange feeling that she was the one who was supposed to go out there. It was as though any second, by mistake, somebody might give her a big push and she'd find herself standing on the stage wearing the mesh stockings that had a rhine-stone here and there, and that red-sequined thing, singing that song of Cee Cee's. Bertie came out of her reverie. Cee Cee was already on stage. And that voice. That great big grown-up voice was a hundred times bigger, a hundred times better than it had been when they were standing near the boardwalk earlier. Bertie moved closer to the stage. It was difficult seeing past Leona who stood clinging to the curtain's edge, moaning ever so slightly.
Now Cee Cee was doing what Bertie figured must be the part Cee Cee had described as the "hot tap." Harry pounded a few chords on the piano and then he stopped. The only sound in the place was Cee Cee's taps on the wooden floor. Then Harry played a few more chords and Cee Cee moved those bright red shoes and made her feet
fly all around. Harry began to play the regular music again, and Cee Cee whirled in a giant circle around the stage until she was almost near the center. Then suddenly, as if she'd just thought of it, she did a perfect cartwheel and stood up. Without a gasp, in perfect control, the voice came, belting out the last two lines.
You've got to see mama ev'ry night, Or you can't . , . No, you can't . . .
Harry pounded the piano dramatically.
See mama . . . At all!!!!
Cee Gee's arms stretched to the sky until her last note was completed, and when it was, she leaned forward at the waist in a deep, deep bow.
Bertie and Leona jumped up and down with excitement. Leona was crying and laughing, and without warning, she picked a surprised Bertie up into her big flabby arms and swung her happily in a circle.
Harry was still playing as Cee Cee ran off the stage in the other direction and then ran back on, blowing kisses.
She ran offstage for the last time and the music stopped. There had been some applause during the playoff, but now there wasn't a sound. Bertie and Leona stood looking across to the other side of the wings at Cee Cee who just stood there as though she was in shock.
Everyone, including Harry, was frozen to the spots they were in when the song ended. The silence seemed to go on forever.
Jerry Grey's voice broke the stillness. "Kid," he yelled, "kid, c'mon out."
Cee Cee took a deep breath and walked slowly to the edge of the stage.
"This is Joe Melman," Jerry said, "and his wife, Irene. Mr. Melman is a casting director in Hollywood and he saw you in the show last night," he continued, as if all of them didn't know what they were doing there.
Bertie got brave and nudged Leona out of the way so she could peek out. Melman was a handsome man. He was tall, with dark hair and glasses, and he wore a shirt and a tie and a seersucker jacket. His wife was pretty enough to be a movie star.
"How do you do," Gee Cee said in a voice that was so polite, it sounded to Bertie like a foreign accent. "I'd like you to meet Harry Chalmers, my accompanist," she continued, "and my mother, who is here as well. Perhaps you'd like to meet her."
Melman nodded.
Leona adjusted her dress and walked out onto the stage, timidly. Bertie followed a few feet behind.
"My mother, Leona Bloom. This is Mr. Melman and his wife, Irene," Cee Cee said. "Oh, and this is Bertie, my younger sister."
Bertie flushed. Her sister. Wouldn't it be something to have a sister like Cee Cee Bloom.
"You're very talented, Cee Cee," Melman said. "And I'd like to arrange for you to come out to California and test for a-"
Suddenly, there was a loud rumbling noise from the back of the theater and some shouting. Everyone turned to look.
"Let me in there, Grey, you son of a bitch," screamed a voice. "Open these lousy doors or I'll kill somebody, Grey, you bastard." Just then, one of the doors in the back of the theater crashed open. A skinny, dark-haired woman stood there wild-eyed, surveying the scene at the edge of the stage. Then she charged down the aisle toward the assembled group.
"You got some guy here from Hollywood, huh, Grey, you no-good? What's the matter? My Karen's no good for