Folly Beach

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Yeah. The mighty Trojans ha! We beat ’em by twenty. Smoked ’em.”

  “That’s a win for sure.” But that’s a most unfortunate name for a team, I thought.

  “So, what are you doing tonight, Mom? Alice made this huge casserole out of chicken and broccoli and I don’t know what else is in there but it smelled good. Want to come over for dinner like around six?”

  “Oh, Russ, I’d love to but I can’t.”

  “Wait a minute. Is it this John Grisley getting in your life?”

  “R. Risley. Where’d you hear about him?”

  “Sara.”

  “Oh, please. I had a wreck with the man and . . .”

  “You had a wreck?”

  “Fender bender. No biggie. We’re going out to a body shop in the sticks of Ladson to check on my car and then we were going to just get coffee or something and maybe a bite . . .”

  “Hey, Mom? I don’t care if you have a date. In fact, I think you should get yourself out there again. Why not? It’s not like Dad was the ideal husband or something. If you go out to dinner it won’t bring Dad back to life, right? Now Sara? She’s of another opinion.”

  “It’s not a date.”

  “Mom! I don’t care if it’s the most smoking hot affair in the history of the planet! It’s your business. Come tomorrow night then! How’s that?”

  “What does Alice think?”

  “About what? Your it’s not a date deal?”

  “Yes. I mean did Sara call y’all all upset?”

  “You could say that but Sara is still majorly immature when it comes to anyone’s happiness besides her own. She can’t help herself. And my lovely Alice has an opinion about everything, as you know.”

  Was he getting a bellyful of Doctor Know-It-All?

  “True enough. What did Sara say?”

  “She just thinks it’s too soon for you to be going out with a man. You know, she’s still pretty messed up about Dad. I’m a lot less emotional about it.”

  “And Alice?”

  “Believe it or not, she feels sorry for Sara.”

  “Oh my! That’s a first.”

  “Sort of. I mean, she says Dad’s death is complicated, which it is, and that everyone needs to be in touch with their true feelings to get the right kind of closure and move on in a healthy way.”

  “Oh, I see.”

  “Look, whatever. It’s how Alice makes her living. She means well.”

  “I know.”

  “I mean, Dad was who he was. I always wondered how you dealt with his insanity. Too much BS for me.”

  “Russ? You’re going to see that in a long marriage, if you’re lucky enough to have one, you have some good years and some not-so-good years. If you really love your family, you try to endure the difficult times, because it’s important to hold families together. Your father did the best he could. He was under tremendous stress . . .”

  “Yeah, I guess so. But he brought it all on himself, didn’t he? He sure was one crazy sumbitch.”

  “Is that the Southern term of endearment for son of a bitch?”

  “Yeah. It might be.”

  “Well, son, try to remember the many good things your father did for us. It’s not a black-and-white world. But don’t focus on the dark stuff. It wasn’t all his fault, you know. The housing market went south and banks made a lot of mortgages they shouldn’t have and believe me, no one knew the economy would go to hell in such a blaze of glory.”

  “Blaze of shame is more like it. I’m so glad I teach high school and that I didn’t get an MBA. You have to wonder how those guys on Wall Street live with themselves, right? No conscience.”

  “That slices it about as thin as you can.”

  “So, you’ll come tomorrow night?”

  “Absolutely! What can I bring?”

  “Just bring yourself.”

  During the time these phone calls came and went, I had traveled the distance between the Porgy House and Aunt Daisy’s and pulled up into her driveway. I hurried up her steps and right into the house through the unlocked door. Aunt Daisy was in her home office, going over a bank statement.

  “Morning! Your door was unlocked!”

  “Oh pish! Ella went out for the paper and must’ve forgotten to lock it. She’s as senile as the day is long. I thought you’d never get here!” Aunt Daisy said, as though I had just been to Tibet and back. “Are you hungry?”

  “No, I ate, thanks. Sorry I took so long. My phone didn’t stop ringing.”

  “Who called?”

  “The world.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, my world is small but chatty.”

  “Humph. I see. Well, here’s a check for the plumber. And the keys. I really appreciate you doing this. Just get a bill from him so I can enter it in my books. I always worry about being audited. Besides, this is not one of my houses. I just manage it.”

  “No problem. Then what? You bill the owner?”

  “Are you kidding me? I deduct it straight from their share of the rent! If I wait around to get paid from all these people with their second and third and fourth houses, spending their winters jetting down to Palm Beach and out to Aspen or Arizona and wherever the hell they go to give their happy place a little scratch, you’d be sending my deposit slips to the Pearly Gates!” Her arms were whirling around while she spoke.

  “You’re too funny!”

  “Listen to me.” She wagged her finger at me. “I’m gonna tell you something and don’t forget it. Ever!”

  “Okay?”

  “The poor people don’t pay their bills because they don’t have the money. But the rich people don’t pay their bills because they don’t want to!”

  “You might be right. But wouldn’t you consider yourself to be rich, too?”

  She harrumphed again. “I’m nice and comfortable and that’s all. You mark my words! Awful! Rich people are awful!”

  Evidently my sweet old Aunt Daisy, who was as rich as cream, had rolled out of her bed on the wrong side.

  “Well, come on now, not all of them. I think you’re pretty nice! Anyway, give me the address of the house and the plumber’s number in case he doesn’t show and I’ll go take care of this.”

  Aunt Daisy looked at me and sighed, smiling at last.

  “It’s such a comfort to have you here, Cate. You just don’t know.”

  I knew I was witnessing a master manipulator at work but I didn’t mind it at all. Wasn’t manipulation how a lot of things got done in this world? Besides, maybe I’d learn a thing or two. I blew her a kiss and left.

  The Jolly Buddha was on East Arctic Avenue right where Aunt Daisy said it would be. I knew this place from my childhood. It was a small house up on stilts with red doors, not to be confused with Elizabeth Arden. Classic Folly Beach—two-million-dollar rustic, charming, inviting, sort of a house you’d never find in Palm Beach. But Palm Beach attracted a different kind of resident, who in all likelihood would not be found on Folly anyway unless they were shipwrecked.

  The plumber was nowhere in sight. Big surprise. This was like déjà vu all over again, like Yogi Berra says. I guess there was no escaping this part of life when there was property to manage. But dealing with workmen was in the sweet spot of my limited skill set. I pulled out my cell and tapped in his number. He answered right away.

  “Hull-low,” came the deep voice.

  “Hi! This is Cate Cooper calling. Daisy McInerny’s niece? Is this Lou?”

  “You got him.” Brooklyn. I would’ve bet my life on it. “I’m on the way now. Had a backed-up sump pump that wouldn’t cooperate this morning.”

  “No problem. About how long will you be?” I used my mother voice, the one that’s stern but not rude.

  “Fifteen? Twenty minutes? Depends on traffic. I’m downtown. Seems like I spend half my life fixing sump pumps downtown.”

  The water table in Charleston was so low that after a big rainfall you could almost make yourself believe you were in Venice.

  �
�Yeah, I’ll bet. Well, don’t worry. I’ll just wait.”

  We hung up and I thought, you know what Lou the Plumber? You’ve got a phone, use it. Tell me you’re running late. That’s all. Simple courtesy. But nooooo. Make me chase you, right?

  Tradesmen were notorious for making you wait because they were out saving your world and their time was more important than yours. Unfortunately, at this particular moment, his time was worth more than mine by around a hundred dollars an hour. So I checked out the bathrooms and sure enough, the water in one of the toilets was right up to the edge. I wasn’t touching it. Nasty. Then I decided that whatever plumbers charged, they earned it.

  I definitely remembered this house from when I was a girl. It wasn’t the Jolly Buddha then or maybe it was but in my memory it was just a cottage without a name. All summer long this house and dozens of others like it were filled with families and children, arriving on one Saturday and leaving the next. Their rambunctious voices, raised in laughter and games, traveled over the dunes to Patti and me as we walked by on our way to Center Street for ice cream or whatever nonsense we were after. I could remember hearing them then, teenagers in bathing suits, shouting from the balcony upstairs to someone on the deck below. I always wondered who these people were, where they had come from, wishing to Patti that we could go there and play. She would tell me I was crazy, that you couldn’t just waltz into someone’s house and expect them to be glad to see you. It was trespassing and stupid and undignified. But those were the days when we were pretty well convinced we were no longer entitled to accidental happiness. I shuddered remembering how sullen we were when we were alone with each other. Thank God that part of my life was in the past. Wasn’t it?

  I continued snooping around. The kitchen had been recently renovated, had new countertops and a brand-new stainless-steel refrigerator. Everyone seemed to think that stainless-steel appliances were the ticket to heaven. I had a higher appreciation for the table with various styles of retro wooden chairs, all lacquered red. Very slick, I thought. And clever. The bedrooms were all comfortably furnished with new striped bedspreads and vivid artwork decorated the walls. Everything was clean and although it was an old house, it wasn’t musty like many beach houses are. When all the doors and windows were opened wide, and the ceiling fans were spinning, it must have been wonderful to listen to the ocean and feel the breezes moving through the rooms especially in the fall and spring.

  You didn’t have to live in a palace like Aunt Daisy’s to enjoy the best aspects the island had to offer. The magical air on Folly Beach was everywhere, a powerful drug that could make you forget there was a world on the other side of the bridge. That was why people were so passionate about this place. It made them forget all their troubles by simply washing them away on the turn of the next silvery tide.

  I walked out onto the deck, down the steps, and, lo and behold, there was a gray cement statue of the Jolly Buddha himself, rooted in the sandy yard facing the ocean. His robes were flung back revealing his well-fed protruding belly. His arms were stretched over his head and his face was filled with happiness. Maybe I could learn a thing or two from him as well. Garden statuary of gnomes and deer, geese and fairies, angels and squirrels were peculiar to me but the Jolly Buddha had my attention. Maybe it was okay to get a little bit fat on the pleasures of the world as long as you did no harm, as Buddhists preached. I looked at him for a few minutes almost as though I expected him to tell me what to do with my life. Then a truck pulled up in front of the house and there was the recognizable loud metal clang of an unevenly hung car door slamming.

  I rushed up the steps to see our plumber peering through the glass-covered screen door.

  “Come on in!” I said and gave him the once-over. Smiling Lou was about my age, spiky salt-and-pepper hair, gelled to a sheen. In his day? I’d have bet my front teeth that he took in more skirts than Saks Fifth Avenue. Lou the Dude was in the house.

  “Thanks,” he said, stepping into the dim light of the foyer. “Where’s the problem?”

  “Right in there,” I said, pointing to the bathroom.

  He walked into the room, presumably took a look, and came right back out.

  “Gotta get my snake,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  One hour and forty-five minutes and $130 later, Lou had his check, I had a bill marked paid, the Jolly Buddha was locked up tight, and I was walking up Aunt Daisy’s steps, starving like an animal. She hobbled to the door and opened it.

  “I’m going to give you a key,” she said. “This is ridiculous.”

  “Probably not a bad idea anyway,” I said, thinking if they needed me in the middle of the night, it would be good if I could get in. “Do you have any bananas?”

  “Of course! I always have bananas. Gotta watch my potassium. Hell at my age I gotta watch everything. I probably need to hire a night watchman just to make sure I’m still breathing.”

  I giggled and she smiled at me. She was glad that I took her ongoing harangue about the pitfalls of aging in the right spirit.

  “Can I make you a sandwich?” I said.

  “Yes! I think a sandwich might be very nice! And there’s some leftover thirteen-bean soup in there, somewhere.”

  I dug around in her refrigerator, found the soup and a wedge of cheddar.

  “Grilled cheese?”

  “Why not?” she said. “It’s the perfect weather for hot soup and a grilled cheese sandwich.”

  “What about Ella?”

  “She’s gone to the city to see her eye doctor.”

  “Oh, I see.” I thought that was marginally hilarious but Aunt Daisy just shook her head. “Get it?”

  “Everybody’s a comedian,” she said. “All we do anymore is go to doctors. A big day is a doctor appointment and lunch downtown at Joseph’s or SNOB’s.”

  “Where’s the bread?”

  “In the breadbox. Where else would it be?”

  “Right.” I took out four slices of white bread and dropped a tablespoon of butter into the frying pan. “So, is everything okay? With your health and Ella’s?”

  “She’s got cataracts and glaucoma, high blood pressure and high cholesterol. So do I. And we take an aspirin a day so we don’t get a stroke and some other damn fool pill to improve our memory, I forget the name of it.”

  I giggled again.

  “How’s that one working?” I said. I sliced the cheese and put it on the bread in the pan.

  “Not so hot, huh? Wait! It sounds like that Alaskan woman with the whiny voice, the politician . . . Sarah Palin . . . Cerefolin! That’s the one! Whew! I still have it together!”

  “Aunt Daisy? You’ve got it together better than I do.”

  “Yeah, well, you’ll be all right. Let a little time pass.” She said this and quickly changed the subject. Aunt Daisy’s coddling days were behind her. “Anyway, we’ve got these plastic containers with little pillboxes for each day of the week like I used to have for my old dog, Manny. Remember him?”

  Manny was her sweet black lab, who lived for almost eighteen years. And I say who not that because he was like a person in so many ways.

  “He was a great dog,” I said.

  “He was the love of my life,” she said. “Ah well, we’re getting older, Cate, but the alternative stinks, too.”

  “Yes, it does. But you’re not going anywhere for at least another fifty years.” I flipped the sandwiches onto two plates and stirred the soup. I stuck the tip of my finger in the pot. “I think it’s hot enough. You want to check?”

  “You can’t tell if the soup is hot enough? Where’s your confidence, girl?” She was a little incredulous. She poured two glasses of tea over ice and put them on the table. It was barely fifty degrees outside and I could hear the fronds of the palmetto trees slapping the sides of the house.

  “It left with the repo guys.” I sat down opposite her, opened my paper napkin on my lap, and lifted my glass of iced tea. “Getting windy out there.”

  “Humph. It’s the beach.
”

  “Right. So, Aunt Daisy, let me ask you a question. What do you know about the Charleston Renaissance?”

  “The what?”

  “The Charleston Renaissance. I don’t know a thing about it. In fact, I’ve never heard about it. I just thought it might be something interesting to learn about. That’s all.”

  “Oh, sure. You think I was born yesterday? This is about John Risley isn’t it?”

  “I guess so.”

  “He’s calling on you and taking you all around the town and you don’t want to look uneducated if he asks this renaissance business? Is that it?”

  “I guess so, yeah.”

  “Girl! Don’t you play cat-and-mouse with me!”

  “Sorry.”

  “Humph. Well, I was just a little girl at the time so I didn’t know there was a renaissance going on, either. But! Ever since I bought the Porgy House, I’m learning something new all the time. This soup is too cold.”

  “I knew it. Give it back. I’ll nuke it.”

  She passed me her bowl and I put mine and hers in the microwave, setting the timer for one minute.

  “Well, you can sure learn a lot from our Mr. Risley. He lectures all over God’s green earth about it. Basically it was a period of time, the twenties and the thirties, when there was a creative fire lit under a lot of aristocratic backsides and a bunch of new thoughts were thought.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like the Civil War was actually over and maybe segregation was wrong. You know, these are sensitive subjects that took some getting used to.”

  “Yeah, but the Civil Rights Movement didn’t really get going until Kennedy was in office.”

  “I told you it took a while. The seeds were planted much earlier. Anyway, there were lots of interesting people coming and going in Charleston and, of course, that’s when Gershwin came to Folly while he and the Heywards were working on the music for Porgy and Bess. It was 1934. I was only about eight. Hell, I can’t remember anything from yesterday, much less 1934.”

  “Oh, come on, Aunt Daisy. Throw me a bone.”

  “My mother, your grandmother, used to say she had no idea that the crazy bohemian man running around without his shirt on was George Gershwin himself! Every time she told that story she would hold her heart and pretend to swoon.”