I'll Be There by Iris Rainer Dart Read Free Book Online

buying Nina all those smocked little dresses you like her to wear, and that she likes too, I even took her to Saks in Monterey to buy her some more of them in spite of the fact that I personally think they’re so matronly my grandmother would have returned them. But I’m trying not to be too tough on her about it. After she insisted that was what she really liked to wear, I only told her once that she looked like a member of the D.A.R.
    “Miss Bloom,” the pilot said, and Cee Cee opened her eyes. Obviously he was about to give her the signal. Any second he would tell her to open the window, so she would have to hurry up through the rest of what she wanted Bertie to know. “Yeah, yeah,” she sakl looking over at him, then she held the box close to her chest continuing her silent inner monologue to Bertie. And that school. Bert, I’ve got to tell you, I hated to leave her there, because that girl was not happy. I mean she acted real brave and all.., but see, that lawyer lean4 on me and when I thought about it I guess I figured for the time being she’d be better off there than with me, and once I saw how uptown the place was I worried that you’d think so too, so I…
    “Miss Bloom, it’s time,” the pilot said over the noise of the airplane. “Okay!” Cee Cee said, feeling suddenly foolish and panicky and not sure she remembered the instructions he’d given her. The latch on the window. Turn it and push. She reached over and turned the latch on the window and pushed it open. It was hard to push now. Much harder than it had been in the airport, and the rushing wind rattled loudly through the cabin, blowing through her hair and her clothes. This was it, the last goodbye. Tears blurring her eyes, and her heart and head pounding, she looked at the pilot, who gave her the high sign, and probably because she’d been screwing up the timing talking to Bertie, the guy looked a little pissed, and he wasn’t exactly the winner of the Mister Congeniality award to begin with.
     
    30
     
    IRIS RAINER DART
     
    “Goodbye,, Bert,” she said out loud now, the overwhelming force of the wind pounding at her face. “I sure as hell hope you think I’m doing the right thing by Nina.” And wincing from the wind, she lifted the box to the window, trying nervously to remember everything the pilot told her, and in one fast move, turned it over to dump the ashes straight down, when she instantly felt the povcrful slap of an enormous gust of wind that forced Bertie’s ashes back into the window at her, spraying, splattering directly into her stunned, gasping lace, covering her eyes, her nostrils, her ears, her hair, her clothes while the rest of the little pellets flew wildly all around the cabin. Hastily she pulled the box back inside and grabbed for the window, which she managed to pull shut and latch.
    “Oh, no. Oh, God. Oh, no,” she wailed, horrified, weak and devastated by what she’d done because she’d been too rattled to make sure her arms were in the right position.
    “Goddammit,” shouted the pilot, wild-eyed with rage. “What in the hell were you goddamned doing? Don’t you remember how I told you to hold the box?” There were ashes all over his face and hair too, and his jacket, all over the front of his jacket. “I don’t believe what you did to my plane.” This guy is gonna kill me, Cee Cee thought. He’s so bummed out he’s liable to open the door and push me out, like in some James Bond movie.
    “Oh, God,” she said. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The box was empty. “Oh, Bert,” she said. “Oh, Bert, I’m so sorry,” and then she couldn’t control the bellow of a laugh that came next. The ashes were everywhere. On her, and the seats and the instrument panel, even on the pissed-off pilot who was turning the plane around now, heading back up the coast, while he brushed his hands through his hair and then over the shoulders of his jacket as if he were in a commercial for dandruff