I'll Be There

by Iris Rainer Dart

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  I’ve been trying to learn about my part in that by coming to these meetings. About the times I’ve given her things instead of giving her me, and the times I’ve looked the other way when she walked out of the house with friends I wasn’t sure about. And the times 1 said to myself I have no right to control her, because I’m not her real mother, and even if I was, I hated my mother for controlling me and I don’t want my kid to hate me that way so I’ll back off.

  “And if kids learn by example, my own life hasn’t exactly been a shining one. I’m disorganized and sloppy, I’m moody and unpredictable. I used to do drugs myself, a lot, and though I stopped, I have an addiction of my own. You see, the reason I was able to stop using drugs was because they were hurting my performing, which means the drugs were getting in the way of my bigger addiction, because I have one and it took me all this time to realize what it is.

  “I’m hooked on the high I get from performing and stardom, and some version of success I made up when I was a little kid and never bothered to change. But even though that’s not what I think success is about anymore, I don’t think, I mean, I’m not so sure I can kick the habit of scoring that high again and again, because it was how I turned on for so long. And because of that, I’ve pushed aside my personal life over and over again to get the phony synthetic kind of love that comes from an audience, instead of taking in the real blast that comes from being loved by the people I love.

  “I don’t mean to knock my career. It’s wonderful that I’m good at what I do and that people like it, and that when they see me up there in the movies they laugh and cry with me, but over the last seven years, that was never what really did it for me… gave me unending joy, filled me up. That was done by my little girl. Being with her was what made me glad to be alive. When that little face told me she thought I was funny or brave or important.., that was when I got the real goods.

  “And the horrible thing is, you never figure when you watch that little pink person come into the world, so cute and scrawny and helpless, that one day she’ll be taking your car while you’re asleep and going out to score drugs with money that she got by selling her belongings and yours too, and you tell yourself, even when you look right into the jewelry box and things are gone, that you probably left them somewhere or maybe the plumber took them on his way past

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  the closet to fix the bathroom faucets. But now | know that I just kept denying and denying, and thinking when I looked at her that she couldn’t need anything more grownup than her teddy bears.

  “And because I took her innocence and her goodness and her love for granted, and didn’t pay close enough attention, she started using drugs. The kid had to get high just to go to school, to be with friends, to feel okay about herself. And now I’m afraid that I let the most valuable person in my life slide away, and that I’ll never be able to… 1 have to make this right. Have to get her to know she’s more important to me than … oh my God, oh my God.”

  The man next to her, who was big and beefy looking, wearing a baseball cap with a short ponytail sticking out of the adjustable part in the back, stood and held her in his arms, and she stayed there for a while with her face against his shirt that smelled of starch and sweat. Then, finally when she was able to, she said, “Thank you for letting me share,” and everyone applauded for her, as she sat down wondering what she had accomplished, but some of it was starting to sink in, as she sat with the Twelve Step literature, the Alanon day-by-day messages, and the Blue Book, and read and thought and wrote and took stock of the past seven years.

  It was a Sunday afternoon when she got the word from the doctor telling her that next week Nina would be ready to have her come to a family meeting with the other boys and girls in rehab and the members of their families, and she was jubilant. She was in her room when the phone rang, so she scribbled the date and the time and the directions down on the pad next to her bed, and as she did she thought excitedly about what she would say, and how good it was going to be to see Nina’s face, ready to have her there. /laybe Nina would rush to her and hug her, maybe … As she looked at what her hand had written on the page, she realized that the family group in Newport Beach at the rehab center was being held on Monday night, March 26, at eight o’clock, which would be halfway through the Oscar ceremony.

  “Thank you for calling,” she said into the phone. ‘I’ll be there.”

  The small row of dormitory houses belonging to Seaside Sobriety where Nina had now lived for nearly three weeks sat on a narrow

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  street across from a wide expanse of a beautiful off-white sandy beach, in what was in other parts of the neighborhood a pricey vacation home community in Newport Beach. The neighborhood reminded Cee Cee of the way it had looked in Beach Haven, New Jersey, when she was in summer stock. In fact, the accommodations reminded her of the place where the cast had lived, but it was clear by looking at the faces of the young people who filed into the living room where tonight’s meeting was being held that they weren’t here to be in a musical play.

  When Cee Cee saw Nina walk in among a group of girls, she felt afraid that the girl would be embarrassed by her and wish she wasn’t there. Maybe she would do her usual and say the wrong thing in front of the other kids, who, she could see by the laughing and the elbowing and wisecracking among them, had become Nina’s new group of friends. Nina waved a little wave to her, but stayed with the friends, none of whom moved to speak to any of their parents, who were forming a group right near where Cee Cee stood. It wasn’t until the door to the living room was pushed open with a flourish, and handsome Doctor Pappas moved through the parent group and pulled a big frayed armchair for himself to one end of the room, that the others began pulling chairs into a circle.

  Now Cee Cee noticed how each of the kids carried a pillow. As she moved into the group, she saw the other family members sit on their chairs in an outside circle, and the kids put their pillows on the floor in the center of the circle, then sit on them. A few of the kids positioned themselves directly in front of their mothers. Cee Cee saw Nina notice that and then plop her own pillow in front of Cee Cee and sit facing into the circle. According to the rules, the only treat parents could bring their kids was sugarless gum. Cee Cee saw one of the mothers offer some to her own daughter, so she offered some to Nina, who shook her head to decline.

  “()kay,” Pappas said, “let’s have a feelings round. Say who you are

  and how you’re feeling. Bobby, why don’t you begin?” “Hi, I’m Bobby, I’m an alcoholic, addict.” “Hi, Bobby.”

  “I’m feeling scared because my dad’s here for the first time.” “I’m Gary. Addict.” “Hi, Gary.”

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  “I’m feeling glad because next week’s my graduation from this place and I get to go home, which is cool since I haven’t seen my dog in three months.”

  Everyone laughed, especially Gary’s mother whom he resembled, who said, “Thanks, pal.”

  “I’m Jenna, I’m an alcoholic.” This girl looked as if she was nine

  years old. Tiny and dark skinned, with giant brown eyes.

  “Hi, .]enna.”

  “I’m three weeks sober, and I’m feeling bummed out because neither one of my parents is here tonight, and last week they hardly came to any meetings either, and I hate their fucking guts.”

  “Hi, I’m Nina. I’m an addict.” Cee Cee hoped no one noticed how

  she flinched when she heard those words.

  “Hi, Nina.”

  And all the way around the circle. Addicts, alcoholics, many of the kids said they were both, and not one of them was over the age of seventeen. Cee Cee had to stop herself from shaking her head in disbelief at the straightforward way these kids spoke in front of their parents with no holds barred. Now the focus moved to the outside of the circle, to the parents. Cee Cee had be
en looking them all over carefully. One of the mothers sat behind her daughter and tenderly brushed the girl’s hair. A father massaged his son’s shoulders. One couple sat far away from their son and clutched each other’s hands so tightly that their knuckles were white.

  “I’m Harv, Bobby’s dad. I’m an adult child of an alcoholic, an alcoholic, a co-dependent, and a sick son-of-a-bitch for not coming to any

  of these meetings before tonight. I’m feeling glad I’m here.”

  “Hi, Harv.”

  “I’m Edith, Gary’s mother.”

  “Hi, Edith.”

  “I’m feeling glad Gary’s coming home soon, too, because I’m sick of taking care of the goddamned dog.”

  “I’m Cee Cee. I’m with Nina, and I’m feeling fine,” she said.

  A chorus of kids’ voices rang out, and because they were trying to top one another in volume it was hard to make out exactly what they were saying at first, but they repeated it at her a few times. “Fucked up, insecure, neurotic emotion.”

  “What?” Cee Cee asked, looking around nervously.

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  Doctor Pappas was smiling. “The group has an aversion to the wordfine,” he explained. “They think it’s a catchall, a coverup for real feelings. They say it’s an acronym for fucked-up, insecure, neurotic emotion. A way to conceal how you really feel.”

  Cee Cee had to laugh a little laugh. After all the meetings she’d attended, she should have known these kids would have an instant

  bullshit detector. “They’re right,” she said. “I feel real scared.” “I’m Joanne, I’m Danny’s mother.” “Hi, Joanne.”

  “And I’ve got to say what I’m feeling, which I’ll bet is what a lot of people here would like to say, which is that I’m feeling uncomfortable because Cee Cee Bloom is here, and knowing she was coming tonight had everyone around here gossiping for the last few days, and I don’t know if I can be myself with some movie star in our group. I don’t feel like she’s one of us.”

  Cee Cee’s heart sank, and all eyes went to Doctor Pappas. “Joanne, when Cee Cee is in this group, she is a mother just like you, except for the fact that she has…”

  “Several million dollars in the bank,” someone quipped, and a few people laughed, but Cee Cee felt tense now because she saw by Nina’s back that her body was tensing up.

  “… a higher profile,” Pappas went on. “She hurts over her family’s problems just like you do. She cries when her child is suffering just like you do. So let’s go on.”

  The next parent and the next and .the next said their names, but Cee Cee didn’t hear them. She watched Nina’s body language as the girl pulled her knees to her chest and put her head forward so her chin rested in the space between them, trying to make herself small enough to be unnoticeable.

  “Nina, you look particularly unhappy,” Pappas said. “Can you say why?” Cee Cee would have bet that Nina, in a group this size, would never talk about what was going on with her, but the weeks in this place must have had their effect because she spoke right up.

  “Because here I am trying to get over the worst thing in my life, and just like always it gets to be about Cee Cee Bloom, and I’m sick of that. All I ever wanted even with my real mother was to be in a regular family, ordinary, you know? Where the mother cleans the oven, and the father comes home and says, ‘What’s for dinner?’ And

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  instead I wen from a bad situation as the daughter of a single mother to living with Cee Cee and being the …” And then she said a few words that were unintelligible, after which she stopped short and

  everyone was uncomfortably quiet until Pappas asked:

  “The what, Nina?”

  Nina shook her head no. She was refusing to finish the sentence. “Come on, Nina,” one of the kids said, “you told all of us.” “Living with Cee Cee and being…” Pappas said, leading her. “The nobody to a star.”

  “Why a nobody?” Pappas asked quietly, and no one moved while they waited for her answer.

  By the time Nina spoke, it was in a tortured voice that would have been painful to hear no matter what it said, but the words delivered the killing blow. “Because I’m not her daughter. Sometimes I lie and tell people I am, but that’s what it is. A lie. I’m nobody’s daughter, not my mother’s, my father’s, or Cee Cee’s. She never cared enough to make me her daughter or she would have adopted me when my mother died. And I’ve thought about that every day of my life for the last eight years. Sometimes Cee Cee would come home and say, ‘I have a surprise for you,’ and I would always think, ‘This is it. Today’s the day she’s going to say she’ll adopt me, and that will be the surprise.’ But it never was. It was always a stuffed animal or a sweater or tickets to a play, and I was always afraid to say, ‘Don’t you get it, that’s not what I want. I want you. To belong to you, to belong with you. Because I’m a person who doesn’t belong to anyone.’ But I never said that because I was afraid she’d say no.”

  Pappas gave Nina what looked to Cee Cee like a conspiratorial congratulations for being able to say what she bad in front of Cee Cee. Obviously it was information she had shared with Pappas, with the whole group of kids before this. Then the doctor looked at Cee Cee as if to ask her if she wanted to respond. How can I do it? she thought. How will I ever be able to tell her what I should have told her every day for the last eight years? Then she cleared her throat, which had become clogged with nervousness, and spoke.

  “For a big part of my life I thought the same thing about myself that Joanne over there said about me. That I was different than other people. But over the last eight years of living with Nina, and now after coming to these meeting rooms for even this little while, what I

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  know for absolute certain is that what Doctor Pappas said was true. I’m the same as everybody else. In spades. I’m raising a child and I want the best life has to offer for her just like all of you want for your kids. I work hard at what I do and I want it to go well, just like all of you feel about your work. I want to be loved and respected the same as everyone in this room does. And just like every parent here, because it’s all trial and error, I raised my kid making a lot of mistakes. Like being in her face too much when she doesn’t want me around, and being out to lunch too often when she does want me to be around, and I wish I could turn back the clock to that first day and do everything right but I can’t so…”

  “Cee Cee,” Doctor Pappas interrupted, “may I suggest that you talk directly to Nina.” Then he made a little gesture to Nina to move inside the circle so she could turn around and look at Cee Cee, and she did. Her pretty but pale face turned up at her, her eyes blinking fast in a way Cee Cee knew she always used to hold in her tears.

  “Nina,” Cee Cee said, “it took your mother’s death to make me think I grew up, because taking care of her when she was dying was the only unselfish thing I’ve ever done in my life. By the end, I guess she knew it, so that even though it was pretty obvious I was the candidate least likely to succeed at the job, she must have figured, from the way I finally set everything aside but her, that I had the potential to be a caring person and it would be okay for her to appoint me as your guardian.

  “At the time it made me happy, but I didn’t even have a clue that first day you and I were together what it was gonna mean. In my wildest dreams I didn’t imagine that the job description of motherhood was that one day you start feeling so close to another person that when she hurts even the least little bit, it kills you, and that without even thinking about it, you get so attached to that person and need her love so much, that even if she looks at you crooked, you want to cry. And maybe I never told you up till now, but what being with you taught me that I never knew was that it was possible to love another person more than I love myself. I know I don’t always show it, doing dumb things, making wrong choices, but believe me, it’s true.”

  She paus
ed for a moment, and when she did Dr. Pappas spoke. “But after saying all that you still haven’t said the words.”

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  “Huh?” Cee Cee asked looking at him.

  “You still haven’t simply stated what it is I believe you want to tell Nina.”

  “You mean… ?”

  Pappas nodded and Cee Cee looked into Nina pathetically ringed and bloodshot eyes and said, “Neen, I love you. I love you as if I was the one who gave birth to you in that delivery room myself, instead of the one who fainted. I couldn’t love you any more if you were born from my body. But I have to admit there hasn’t been one day that we’ve been together when I didn’t fear I wasn’t good enough, smart enough, understanding enough, loving enough to live up to being as good as your real mother would have been for you. And that was the biggest reason I was afraid to adopt you. Because of what I’m not.”

  Nina looked down into her lap now with what seemed to Cee Cee to be a look of relief.

  “And believe me when I tell you, your mother wasn’t perfect. Sometimes she could be a cold, judgmental pain in the kiester. Holding feelings inside, being too rigid about how things were supposed to be. But she had other stuff about her that I loved, and her best quality, at least for my money, and the thing that I know made her a great mother, was the way she’d stand up with an opinion about things I did that she didn’t like, even if the risk was rejection or me mouthing off at her, which I did a lot. And on the other side of that coin, she was just as unafraid to say, ‘Goddammit, you did something great and I’m proud of you,’ and never thought that saying that meant she was putting herself in second position by getting out of the way and making me feel appreciated.”