Beaches by Iris Rainer Dart

Brillo Pad. Shit, Cee Cee thought. Now it looks like the bristles of a clothes brush. She welcomed her frizzy hair as it began to grow back in, but it didn’t matter anymore. She was a graduate now and who cared what any of those high-school boys thought. Someday she’d go back to the Bronx and take John Perry with her and every one of those boys and their jerky girlfriends would shit from the shock. Hah.
    Now as she walked, wild fantasies of Broadway marquees danced in her head. She’d better get some sleep. Tomorrow her show was opening, and she needed all of her strength to knock ‘em dead!
    Cee Cee’s heart was pounding wildly. Maybe it was the third glass of champagne. No, it was the memory of her curtain call. The applause had risen audibly when she stepped on the stage to take her bow. She had glanced briefly into the wings, where Bertie stood clapping more than anyone else, even though she held under her arm one of the dancers’ skirts that had ripped during the first act. Cee Cee noticed Bertie had tears in her eyes. Christ, she was a good friend. She was proud. Proud of Cee Cee’s applause. Maybe almost as proud as Cee Cee herself.
    And now, at the opening night party, the tiki torches on the beach outside of John Perry’s house looked to Cee Cee like birthday candles on a huge sandy cake. Probably because the only other times she’d ever felt nearly as good were her birthdays when Leona would help her open the inevitable box of new tap shoes, and then the box containing a pretty new outfit that Cee Cee would want to wear to school, but Leona would say, “Sure, sure,” and then make her save it to wear to auditions.
    Cee Cee was elated. My God, how she deserved this. Perry hugged her after the show. A little reserved, but then the others were around, and whispered so only she could hear, “I told you so.”
    She laughed, too loud, hoping the others would know, could tell her secret. He was hers.
    “Gee.” It was Bertie. The two friends embraced. The party had been going on for at least an hour, but Bertie had just arrived. She was so thorough. She would stay at the theater after every performance, darning little holes in the costumes, ironing for the next night so she wouldn’t have to do it during the day, when she was working on the clothes for next week. Even now, the night before she was leaving, she still finished her work. She was a wonderful person.
    “How do you feel?”
    “Great,” Cee Cee said.
    “Want to go for a walk?” Bertie asked.
    “ok ”
    Sure.
    The water looked like a huge black monster advancing on the beach, then creeping away, then advancing again. The moon was not quite full, but very bright. The girls carried their shoes and walked slowly and silently. The tide was high and they stayed close to the houses, sometimes catching sight of a plastic bucket or shovel left by a child who had played there during the day.
    “I’ll miss you, Gee,” Bertie said.
    “Yeah,” Cee Cee said. Too choked to respond.
    They walked silently again for a long time until Bertie broke the silence again.
    “Cee Cee,” she said. “I did it.”
    Later, when she thought about the conversation, Cee Cee remembered that the minute Bertie said those words, she knew exactly what Bertie had done and with whom, but she was hoping (God, are you listening?) she was wrong.
    “Did what?” Cee Cee asked, and she stopped walking.
    “Got laid. By John.”
    Cee Cee couldn’t speak. It was a joke. Now Bertie would say, it’s a joke, Gee. You didn’t believe me, did you?
    “Oh, boy, I didn’t mean to blurt it out like that,” she said instead. “To say I got laid-which is really an awful way to put it, because it wasn’t like that. We made love. I mean, we really made love, and it was so neat, Cee Cee, not like it probably would be with someone my own age. He was so gentle and sweet. And you want to know the funny thing?”
    “Yes,” Cee Cee managed to say. Oh, God, yes, she wanted to know the