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how she hated herself for letting those fears run her, letting them determine what she would and wouldn’t do. In fact the only time she was really brave was onstage. Out there when she was performing she would say anything, try anything, wear anything, and not give a rat’s ass about the consequences. But in real life, she held back. Crippled and stifled by her fear.
    All that stuff she had made jokes about with Nina were real. Perfect examples of her chickenshit life. She wouldn’t dream of snorkeling, or be caught dead skiing, and the only time she flew was to get to a job in some faraway city. But worst of all was the way she’d even been afraid of Bertie’s persnickety lawyer. Afraid if she didn’t do what he said and picked a school for Nina herself, she’d fuck up and scar the kid for life. Afraid to keep the kid with her in Los Angeles, or if she had to go on the road, afraid to educate her with a tutor who came

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    IRIS RA INER DA R T
     
    with them, terrified that her crazy unorthodox life would shock an eight-year-old girl. Well, so the fuck what? The kid was hers now, and if something about her life or somebody in her life shocked her, Nina would get over it. After all, wasn’t the whole point of Cee Cee’s taking the kid to put some color into her little black-and-white world? Now she was pisscd off just thinking about the way she’d lamely agreed to that boarding school. Sophocles and Anouilh, my ass, she thought.
    The airplane was flying out over the water, and all she could see below them was the slate blue ocean. Jesus, she thought, any minute Mister Charm would be telling her it was time to open the window. If only Leona could see her this minute, in the co-pilot’s seat of some flying teakettle, she’d shit a brick. Leona, that’s who it was who put all those bullshit fears in her head. That’s whose fault it was that Cee Cee didn’t even learn to ride a bike until she was a teenager because Leona said to her, “What do you need it for? You could break a leg and then you’ll never be able to be a Rockette.” “I’m too short to be a Rockette, Ma.” “So now you want to have two strikes against you?”
    Leona, who also told her, “Never trust another woman if there’s a man around,” which was probably why Cee Cee had made only one real friend in her life. And of course it was Leona, that fountain of unwanted information, who had told her on at least a dozen occasions, “Believe you me, sweetheart, when it comes down to it… men only want one thing.” Okay, Cee Cee thought.., so some things the old bat was right about.
    That thought made her chuckle, and as she did, she could feel the plane starting to slow. The moment had arrived. This was what the pilot told her would happen. He wculd slow the plane down so it would be okay for her to open the window, and that’s what he was doing now. Oh my God, it’s my cue, she thought, and reached down to the floor and with two hands pulled the box onto her lap. Then she removed the lid again, slowly unwound the plastic, to look long at the ashes one more time.
    Okay, Bert, she thought, here we go. I’m trying to do everything right. I’m up here like I promised, about to strew your remains over the deep blue sea like you asked me to, and I hope this cancels out the time I had that real fancy pin of your grandmother’s wrapped in a Kleenex and accidentally flushed it
     
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    down the toilet, or the time l yelled at you in the lobby of the hotel in Florida, or any other time you were mad at me. Now she closed her eyes as if that would make Bertie’s spirit more able to hear her, and thought about all the last minute things she wanted Bertie to know, feeling as if she needed to cram them in before she parted with the ashes.
    Bert, I’m trying to make things the way I think you would have wanted them to be but I know how particular you are about stuff, so sometimes it’s hard. Like for example I’m gonna keep