Folly Beach

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Wow,” I mumbled stupidly, looking at him and alternately appraising the scrape across his left rear bumper, hoping he would think I meant the damage. “Look at your bumper,” I said, thinking it might help clarify that The Widow wasn’t on the prowl. Yet.

  “Entirely my fault. I backed out without looking,” he said. “By the way, I’m John Risley.”

  His fault? I sighed with relief. John Risley. Nice name. Was John Risley trying to spare me the expense of the repairs? He was about my age, I thought.

  “Cate. I’m Cate Cooper.” I smiled at him. I must’ve looked like a refugee from Fright Night. We shook hands and then stepped back to examine the cars again. My taillight was in pieces on the ground. And my bumper had a crack in it. “Have to fix that, I guess.”

  “I’ll take care of it,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  “Gosh, that’s okay. It’s nothing really.”

  “Look, my car belongs to the college . . .”

  “What college?”

  “The College of Charleston.”

  “Oh.”

  “I teach there. Anyway, our insurance will cover it. I don’t know if your bumper needs to be replaced but it looks like a maybe. We can find that out. If you’ll just give me your number, I’ll call you tomorrow and get it all taken care of right away.”

  He took off his gloves to pull out his wallet to get a business card and there it was. A wedding ring on the left hand. I knew this was completely ridiculous but something inside of me sank.

  “I just need a good night’s sleep,” I said, which probably sounded like a stupid thing to say. I took his card while I dug around in my purse for a piece of paper, deciding to use the receipt from the Pig.

  “You too? I haven’t slept through the night for about fifteen years,” he said. “Do you need a pen?”

  “No, thanks.” I leaned on the hood of his car and wrote out my cell phone number. “Yeah, sleep’s a precious commodity these days. My mind just whirls around all night. I should write a book.”

  “Shouldn’t we all? I’ll call you in the morning?”

  “Sure.”

  “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks. I’m fine. Just beyond exhausted in mind, body, and spirit, but other than that?”

  “Cate? I’m really sorry about this.”

  “No sweat, really. I needed a jolt.”

  “Right. Okay, then . . .”

  He smiled at me again, climbed into his SUV that was heavy-duty enough to pull a trailer of horses, started the engine, and then he drove away into the night.

  “Wow,” I said.

  Inside of twenty minutes I was climbing the steps up to Aunt Daisy’s front porch. I had called ahead to say I had been delayed by a fender bender but save me a plate of whatever they were having and I would see them very soon.

  All the lights in the house were on and I rang the doorbell. I was excited then, smelling the salt rolling in from the ocean, feeling the dampness swelling my hair. I felt myself sliding back to my childhood and I remembered being really young and how complete I felt then. Maybe this would be good for me, to be here, to remember who I had started out to become, to find that girl and resuscitate her, see if she had any life left in her. Maybe if I could find her I wouldn’t feel like an old, used up, and fractured middle-aged woman. Maybe I’d try to figure out a way to stay until I could put myself back together again. I heard uneven footsteps.

  “It’s open! It’s open! Come on in! Come in out of that cold!”

  It was Aunt Daisy, of course, hobbling toward the door. I tried the handle and the door opened with no problem. I stepped inside, adjusting my eyes to the bright lights.

  “Hey!” I said. “Look who’s back just like the flu! How are you?” I hugged her so hard I thought she might break but I was so filled with relief to be there at last.

  “Close that pneumonia hole!”

  I closed the door behind me as quickly as I could.

  “Oh! My dear girl! How I’ve missed you! Let me look at you!” She stood back to give me the once-over and the tears in her eyes tumbled down her cheeks.

  “You can’t cry, Aunt Daisy! Don’t! Believe me! I’ve shed enough tears for both of us, enough to last all our lives!” I hugged her again and we made our way toward the kitchen, from where the smell of something wonderful was beckoning us to follow. Good grief, we were surely turning into a bunch of weepers.

  “Oh, shoot,” she said and pulled a tissue from her sleeve to blot her eyes, “look at me!”

  “You’re fine! How’s that foot?”

  “Like hell. Hurts like hell.” She blew her nose. “I’m just a sentimental old fool!”

  “No. You’re not. You’re perfect. Now, what do I smell?”

  “Okra soup. What else? In this weather? It’s so damn cold you could lay down and die.”

  “Well, don’t do that! I couldn’t handle another funeral quite yet. Hey, Ella! You’re here!”

  Aunt Daisy’s companion and partner of forty years stood there with her hands on her hips, grinning wide. There was a warm pecan pie on the sideboard that I could smell from across the room.

  “And just where else would I be? We can’t have Miss Daisy running around in that cast, falling down and breaking her other foot, too, can we?”

  “Ella? Are you making us martinis or what?”

  “Yes, Your Highness!” Ella mumbled.

  “I heard that! I finally moved her in,” Aunt Daisy said. “After all these years? Let ’em talk and see if I care!”

  “That’s right!” I said. “Wait till the neighbors hear what happened to me, you two old scandals will look like Republicans.”

  “Grey Goose good for you?” Ella said, shaking the martini shaker like mad.

  “Anything. Believe me. For the first time in my life I can honestly say I have earned a cocktail.”

  As she poured the drinks out into three martini glasses, I realized the shaker was meant to look like a penguin. It seemed to me I had seen one before, ages ago.

  “How cute is this?” I said. “Where’d you find it?”

  “Catalog,” Aunt Daisy said. “Restoration Hardware, I think. Maybe Target?”

  “Ever since she became an invalid . . .”

  “I am not an invalid!”

  “All she does is sit around and order frivolous junk from catalogs, HGTV, QVC, and the Internet,” Ella said and Aunt Daisy pouted. “Did you see the doormat with the smiling shrimp?”

  “You said you liked the penguin,” Aunt Daisy said.

  “Well, I think it’s adorable!” I said, wondering if the two old biddies went at it around the clock and how long I could bear it before it got on my nerves.

  Ella carefully passed me a glass filled right up to the rim and one to Aunt Daisy, too. We held them up to toast.

  “What are we drinking to?” I said.

  “Welcome home, Cate,” Aunt Daisy said. “We have missed you more than we can say!”

  “Yep, it’s fuh true, like we say down ’eah in the Lowcountry. More than we can say.”

  “Thanks,” I said and took a deep sip, vowing to let them bicker all they wanted and I would never say a word.

  Over dinner we talked about the recent days, finding Addison, the funeral, his whores, his maybe-love child, the foreclosure, my diamonds, moving—the whole horror show was briefly revisited right up to my car accident of that evening.

  “His name is John Risley. He teaches at the College of Charleston,” I said.

  Aunt Daisy and Ella put down their spoons and looked at each other. For the first time since I had walked in the door, the chatterboxes were dead silent.

  “Yeah, so, John Risley’s one gorgeous devil,” I said. I looked at them still staring at each other. Then they finally turned to me. “What? He’s married! And hello, I’ve been a widow for less than two weeks. Although, I gotta say that if he got lost in the night and fell in between my sheets, I wouldn’t have him arrested.”

  I thought that
was a pretty witty line for the old girls to chew on but they were definitely chewing on something else.

  “Okay,” I said, “let’s have it. He’s an ax murderer?”

  “Oh, no, darling,” Aunt Daisy said with the most curious smile. “Yes, he’s married but not exactly. Anyway, we know John really well. He brings students out to the Porgy House all the time. We’ll move you over there tomorrow morning. I’m afraid you’ll be seeing a lot of him.”

  “Oh, okay, so that’s not the worst news. But what do you mean he’s not exactly married? I saw the ring on his hand.”

  “He married a kook!” Aunt Daisy said.

  “Hush your mouth! She’s not a kook, she’s sick. She’s in an institution for the criminally insane, Cate. Been there for years. And she’s probably not coming out.”

  “Why? What did she do?”

  “He won’t talk about it,” Ella said.

  “But maybe you can find out!” Aunt Daisy said.

  “Good grief!”

  “Would you like some more soup?” Ella said.

  “Is there anything left in that shaker?” I said. “And maybe I’ll have a piece of that pie.”

  Chapter Nine

  Setting: The Porgy House, the Heyward bedroom.

  Director’s Note: Photos of the Porgy House fireplace, the poker, and wood floors. At the end of this scene, the kitchen table with peanut butter and milk. Dorothy in a nightgown and robe.

  Act I

  Scene 5

  Dorothy: It was so quiet and remote that living on Folly Beach could be lonely and even frightening sometimes—one night I was convinced there was an intruder in our house.

  I said, “DuBose? Are you asleep, DuBose?” I whispered as quietly as I could. Nothing. I poked his shoulder until he stirred.

  “Yes. No, not now. I’m awake. What is it?”

  “Shhh! There’s someone in the house!”

  I guess he decided to humor me because he rolled over, stood up, put on his slippers and his robe and went to see. I heard him padding across the upstairs living room, and Jenifer’s room, and I could hear him on the steps, going downstairs making all the noise he pleased! Was he crazy? He was not even tiptoeing! And then I realized what he was doing. He didn’t want to surprise the robber. If this criminal who sneaked in our house heard him coming, he’d have a chance to run out of the back door. Then no one would get hurt! Brilliant!

  I could hear him opening closet doors and closing them shut again. He was going to wake up the whole island! I was holding my breath, listening for any other sounds beside the noisy commotion he was making. I thought I heard breathing but then I realized it was me doing the breathing and I thought well, thank God, because this whole business was enough to give me a darned fatal heart attack.

  I heard something else from the kitchen, something muffled. Then there was a slam. The back door. Then it got quiet. I thought, oh no! Now DuBose is dead, bleeding from the head, lying in a pool of his own blood. There was blood everywhere! I knew it!

  Now I had to hurry downstairs and save my husband. Oh, dear God! Jenifer was upstairs! What if the thug was still in the house? After weighing both sides, I decided to go it alone. There was no reason to wake her up and hide her in the closet, was there? Wouldn’t this monster see her unmade bed and figure out there was someone else in the house? Wait! What if he had come to kill us and kidnap her like that Lindbergh baby? Oh, sweet Mother of God! Please pray for us!

  I didn’t even stop for my slippers, but I picked up the poker from the upstairs fireplace and sneaked across the floor. It creaked. I cringed, stopping and waiting for a second to see if I could hear anything downstairs. Silence. So I continued toward the steps and made my way down them, as quietly as a palmetto bug.

  I could see the warm yellow glow of the overhead light in the kitchen as it cast itself in geometric shards across the floor and out into the room where I stood. My heart was in my throat. I tried to slide along the wall, not breathing, and peeked in the room from the corner of my eye. There was my darling DuBose, sitting at the table eating a sandwich.

  “What on earth are you doing?” I said with my hand across my racing heart.

  “Eating a peanut butter sandwich and drinking a glass of milk. Can I make something for you?”

  “Since when do you eat peanut butter?”

  “Since now, I guess. It just seemed appetizing.”

  “So, there’s no robber, no killer here to murder us all?”

  “Nope. Just a raccoon in the garbage bin outside. We can clean it up in the morning.”

  “I’m going back to bed.”

  “Are you sure? This is awfully good.”

  Men.

  Fade to Darkness

  Chapter Ten

  The Porgy House

  It was seven in the morning. I was in the kitchen getting fatter by the minute, bingeing on the sweet mysteries of leftover pecan pie, nearly euphoric from its healing properties. Pecan pies, especially the ones that Ella made, lifted my spirits to such spiraling heights I decided that if I could, I would have a slice every breakfast for the rest of my life. But, my confessor would be glad to know, I was sipping hot coffee with skim milk to compensate for my sins.

  The house was dead quiet and I moved around like a little mouse in socks, gliding silently on the lemon wax of Aunt Daisy’s highly polished heart pine floors. To the outside observer it might seem odd for a newly widowed middle-aged woman to sock-skate across her auntie’s floor but it was what I had done as a child on these very same floors and I was home again. Besides, you should never pass up an opportunity to dance.

  I put my plate in the dishwasher, careful not to rattle the racks, refilled my mug, and walked gingerly out toward the living-room doors that led to the enormous front deck suspended high over the dunes. From that vantage point, the sweeping water view was so pretty it took my breath away as it always had every single time. Aunt Daisy’s simple deck ranked high among my favorite places anywhere in the world. It filled me with such peace to watch the ocean, dimples glistening and currents moving, demanding my undivided attention, and my undivided attention it would have. This was where I would park myself until Aunt Daisy and Ella were awake.

  I had the doorknob firmly in the clasp of my hand. Just then, right before I could turn that doorknob, I swear to you that in that very split second, I heard rushing, clomping footsteps overhead, a triple beep, and then Aunt Daisy’s voice.

  “Alarm’s off!” she called out.

  The woman had eyes in the back of her head. How else could she know that I was about to trip the alarm? Maybe she heard a floorboard make a familiar creak, but could her hearing be that good at her age? No. I was more inclined to go with the eyes-in-the-back-of-the-head that she had grown specifically for the difficult and challenging job of raising Patti and me. She was omniscient, like women can be, innately knowing all and seeing all.

  “Thanks!” I called back to her. It occurred to me that our world today was pretty darned precarious if my aunt felt she needed an alarm on Folly Beach but that’s how the world had changed. Everyone everywhere was at risk all the time. If it wasn’t Al Qaeda scaring the liver out of you to take a plane to some benign place like Omaha, it was teenagers who’d rob you blind in your own house so they could get high on meth or whatever it was our young druggies of today ingested for sport.

  I opened one of the French doors, let myself outside, and stood there, some twenty feet above the Atlantic. I looked around for a moment and then made a beeline to the railing, leaning on it, scanning the beach. It was empty except for a few dog-walkers and runners. The morning fog was disappearing by the minute, giving way to blue skies, and there was no doubt, it was going to be a beautiful day. I counted three container ships out near the horizon. They were fully loaded with heavy cargo and riding low in the water, probably on their way to Germany to deliver BMWs or to parts unknown with whatever we were exporting these days. Gorgeous. South Carolina had certainly come a long way from the days of ta
ll sailing ships carrying cotton, rice, and indigo back to the mother country. Yes, she had. Yet, though those days were centuries ago, the historic images of tall ships were very easy to visualize, highly polished wooden vessels, gleaming brass fittings, stark white sails unfurled, taut, their cheeks filled with easterly wind, keeling and moving briskly across the water . . . there was something romantic about living in a port city. Ports were not stagnant. They were always in motion, engaged in their own particular endless rhythms. Movement was the soul of their very nature and I loved it. I loved the waters of Charleston’s song most especially because she had saved me from despair so many times.

  When I was a little girl I spent hours wandering along the edges of this very shore, my sneakers sinking in the soft sand, my footprints filling quickly with the rising tide. It was hypnotic, watching tides roll in to wash the shore with their swirl and froth. The water chased the flocks of tiny sandpipers away, back into the salty air and they landed some twenty feet down the shoreline. Then the water pulled back only to slide in again, over and over, in its own measured time, covering the beach inch by inch, until it reached its high-water mark.

  Low tides, most especially after storms, revealed treasures sprinkled along the shore—shells, bits of seaweed, driftwood, and so on. These were the things Patti and I gathered and saved. We held conch shells, whelks really, to the sides of our heads to hear their secrets. We decorated our elaborate sandcastles with moon shells and cockles. With the tips of our fingers, we carefully pried sand dollars from the mud they suckled for nourishment and safety, strung them across the deck railings, and before long the merciless sun bleached them to chalk-white. During the years of a good haul, we suspended our sand dollars from thin satin ribbons and hung them on our Christmas trees. Other times we broke them apart to find the five doves of peace that Aunt Daisy told us were in there. For us, for all of us, Folly Beach was filled with a kind of sacred majesty and in return for our homage she gave us endless rewards.