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

had made it through six weeks. Six weeks of settling in, getting that this was forever. Figuring out what they were going to do next. Six whole weeks since the day the people came and carried Bertie out of the house in Carmel shoved into a body bag, so just the fact that it was still that fresh, and she and the pip
     
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    IRIS RAINER DART
     
    squeak had already survived tons of little battles and the big one of moving out of one house and into another, they were doing all right.
     
    Consider what happens when we are learning any new skill, whether it is playing bridge, playing golf, riding a motorcycle, playing the piano or anything else. We learn hy making literally thousands of mistakes. Why should learning the complex skills of raising a child be an exception to the rule? We should take it for granted that we will make mistakes and not berate ourselves or feel guilty about it.
     
    Cee Cee had closed the over-the-counter child psychology book after reading those words and said, “Yeah!” out loud. This was new to her, but eventually she’d get the hang of it and be great. Now she needed to get back into the swing of things in the business. Needed to call people and tell them she was back, needed to get a real good job to pay for this big fucking house. Frigging house. Fancy house. Some days she would call her agent five times in a row with ideas about how to get her career back on track, but other days she would sit incapacitated, numbly staring at the ocean for hours, not knowing or caring what time or even what day it was.
    And most important of all she had to find a school for Nina. In the last few days, after talking to everyone she could think of who had a child, she compiled a list of all the recommended private schools within a reasonable distance of the beach house, then she phoned the admitting offices of those schools and set a time to visit. This afternoon the two of them dressed, and as usual looked one another’s outfits over with patent disapproval, then headed off to the Buena Vista School, which had been recommended highly by Larry Gold, whose three kids were all registered there. While Nina was escorted on a tour of the place, Cee Cee sat talking with the headmaster. She had a list of questions a mile long, and after he had answered all of them, he took a long deep breath and launched into what, she could tell by the way he delivered it, had to be an often-repeated sales pitch.
    “Cee Cee, listen to me, our school caters specifically to the special needs of the children of people like yourself. Let’s face it. We all put our kids into schools where we’re comfortable, right? Of course I mean by that where the policies of the school are the same ones we live by at home. But also where we ourselves fit in with the parent body, if you know what I mean.” He waited for Cee Cee to nod and let him
     
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    know she knew what he meant, then he went on. “Now it’s pretty hard for me to believe you’d be more comfortable than in a school like ours where you’re surrounded by your colleagues.” He handed her the school’s roster. “Go ahead,” he said, “feel free to look through it. We’ve got more stars than the Milky Way. And the reason for that,” he added, “is because we’re cognizant of the needs of these families for privacy.”
    Cee Cee wanted to ask this guy if the school had such a great respect for privacy, why he was letting her, an outsider, look at the list of the names of people who were registered there. But instead she just shuffled through it, and had to agree that a lot of well-known people’s kids were registered in that school.
    “This child has had a few tough breaks,” she said, looking into his eyes.
    “Oh, I know.” The headmaster’s name was Jason, and the more Cee Cee looked at him, the more she thought he looked too young to even be a teacher, let alone a headmaster. “I read about it in the paper,” he said, nodding, and Cee Cee