Dart - Beaches

1983

T he 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 dont 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.

Shes workin, he said softly. Huh?

The caller was a woman and she wouldnt 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 hadnt tapped in years and it was hard, but shed 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 Im 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 dont 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.

Whos 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. Ill 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 mistresss 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 didnt 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, BertIm 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. Ill 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.

1951

B ertie White was lost. Not the kind of lost where you think you might know where you are. She was really, honest-to-God lost. Shed 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 didnt see anyone she knew. Not her mom or her Aunt Neetie or anyone from Pittsburgh.

Bertie contemplated the busy, crowded boardwalk.

Well, theres the Traymore Hotel, she thought, reading the sign. Were we sitting near that beachor was it?

A chill came over Bertie. What if she couldnt find her mom? What if her mom couldnt find her ?

Maybe the beach was too crowded and shed 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? Berties 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 and I just wanna get a nap. Ya know?

Im lost, Bertie sobbed to the voice. Im lost and Im 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.