Folly Beach

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “I’m full from just listening!” I said.

  John shook his head, smiling at his former student. “I always said, Ms. Geier, you should go into theater. You’re missing your calling. Do we really need more lawyers?”

  Ms. Geier grinned and said, “I don’t know, sir. I hope so. Y’all need a few minutes?”

  “No, I think I’m all set. How about you, Cate? See anything interesting on that menu?”

  “Sure, I’m thinking the ceviche to start and the Hawaiian sunfish? How’s that sound?”

  “Very good! And you, professor?”

  “I’m thinking all that effort on the tilapia shouldn’t go to waste and I’ll have the day-boat scallops to begin.”

  “Perfect! I’ll get your order right into the kitchen.”

  “Thanks,” John said, watching her scuttle away. “She’s a real talent. Would’ve made a great playwright.”

  “Hmmm,” I said. “I always wanted to write a play, a big musical with great choreography like the old days or maybe something for the screen.”

  “And why didn’t you? Cheers!”

  “Cheers!” I said, touching the salty side of my glass to his frosted mug with a musical clink. “Well, I started down that road but then I hit a few twists and turns, you know, marriage, children . . .”

  “So did Dorothy Heyward.”

  “You mean DuBose Heyward’s wife?” I took a large sip of my cocktail. “Gosh! This is really delicious. But wait, she was a playwright.” Even I knew that much.

  “Yep. I know. Dorothy Heyward always intended to be a playwright, from the time she was a little girl but the facts of her actual career make for a very interesting saga on their own.”

  “Tell me the saga,” I said, feeling infinitely more relaxed as the alcohol entered my bloodstream.

  “I don’t want to bore you . . .”

  “I don’t think you could, but I’ll let you know if you do. I mean, I really am interested.”

  “Okay. So, in the very beginning of her career one of her professors urged her to get to know the theater from the inside out.”

  “Good advice. You should always know the business inside and out.”

  “Definitely. So somewhere in between the time she went to New York to study playwriting at Columbia and when she went to Harvard to join George Baker’s famous Workshop 47, she got herself cast as a chorus girl in a traveling show.”

  “Seriously? I danced in plenty of chorus lines, including the play A Chorus Line, for the exact same reason! So, how did she like it?”

  “Hated it. Thought it was demeaning to be a chorus girl, especially back then, in the vaudeville days, when theater people were suspect anyway. I think the whole theater world probably was a pretty sexist environment then.”

  “This would have been what year?”

  “Early twenties. The story goes that in this particular play, all the girls had to enter the stage in their underwear, carrying a little suitcase and wearing high heels. Then all the girls would file down into the audience, pull out a dress from their suitcase and, get this, sit on a man’s lap so he could button her up the back of her dress.”

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  “I am beyond stunned. How many laws would that break today?”

  “About a hundred, I’ll bet. Talk about creating a hostile work environment?”

  “No lie. That was a pretty gutsy thing to do for her time, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, it definitely was. Especially given her background. She grew up on the right side of the tracks with her aunts. She lost her parents when she was a young girl . . .”

  “What?”

  “But her aunts seemed to have done an amazing job of giving her a cultured life.”

  “Aunts?”

  “Yep. I mean, she began going to the opera as a child and later she was sent to universities and so forth. And this was in the day when women rarely went to college except to become a teacher or a nurse. Dorothy was encouraged to be creative. Her whole family was very musical.”

  “Was she? Dorothy, I mean. Was she musical?”

  “Not so much. In her papers she talks about the fact that she had a tin ear and couldn’t play any instrument very well, except for the piano, a little.”

  “This is sounding creepy—like you’ve been reading my diaries, professor, not Dorothy Heyward’s.”

  “I thought you might find her history interesting.”

  “I do. Where are these papers?”

  “Right here in Charleston. They’re all in the archives at the South Carolina Historical Society downtown. For a slight fee, like five dollars, you can go read them and you really should. After all, you’re living in her house.”

  “You’re right, you’re absolutely right.”

  “Yeah, they were quite the couple, old Dorothy and DuBose. She was definitely the pepper in his pot.”

  “And him? What was he like?”

  “Well, I think he can be described most politely as a man of his time.”

  “That’s pretty cryptic.”

  “Yes. Because I think people should draw their own conclusions about others, especially when it comes to relabeling Charlestonians with aristocratic backgrounds.”

  “So, what you’re really saying is that anything less than veneration of Mr. Heyward could be considered desecration of something sacred?”

  “Exactly. Look, among other things, here’s the guy who allegedly put Charleston on the map again with Porgy and Bess.”

  “What do you mean allegedly?”

  “DuBose published the book Porgy in 1925, not the play.”

  “Then who did? The Gershwins?”

  “Nope, the play Porgy appeared on Broadway in 1927. Gershwin’s play didn’t run until 1934. And you should know, DuBose dropped out of school at fourteen and went to work in a hardware store. Then on the docks. Then in insurance.”

  “But Dorothy went to Harvard . . .”

  “My goodness! Miss Cate Cooper! You are one quick study!”

  “Do you understand this kind of talk is practically treason?”

  “What? What did I say? I didn’t say a thing! You did!”

  “Holy moly. John, this is serious.”

  “Yeah, it is. Would you like another drink? I’m gonna have another beer.”

  I looked at the bottom of the inside of my glass to see that I had all but chugged this, my Magic Margarita. I wasn’t feeling magical but I surely knew that John Risley was capable of pulling away the curtains and exposing the Wizard of Oz. I was fascinated.

  “Yes. Yes, I would. Thanks. Maybe a glass of white wine? Like a pinot grigio?”

  John turned away and scanned the restaurant and after a minute he made eye contact with young Ms. Geier. My wine and his beer were ordered, our appetizers and entrées came and went, and I listened with both ears. I had found a new purpose for the days and weeks ahead. As we talked some more about Dorothy and DuBose Heyward, many other characters of their day came exploding to light, exploding because that was the way John presented them.

  The members of the Charleston Renaissance and especially the Poetry Society of South Carolina were like a little army of determined carpenter ants, chewing their way out of the final mounds of Civil War ashes, through the poverty of the Great Depression and into the light of modern day—a new day. Their collective mission was to look to the future, to find everything about it worth living for and to take their artistic colleagues from every discipline of the arts from all over the country, bring them to Charleston, educate her citizens on what was happening in the larger world, and move forward. Whew! Now, there’s a mission statement, if I ever heard one.

  When John spoke of these people—John Bennett, Josephine Pinckney, Hervey Allen, Beatrice Witte Ravenel, and others—he became contagiously animated. His eyes danced and he leaned in across the table in conspiratorial whispers when he talked about the alleged private life of Laura Bragg or when he revealed the secrets of Julia Peterkin.


  “You make it sound more exciting than Woodstock,” I said and we laughed.

  “It was.”

  “I want to know everything about it.”

  “I’ll make an historian out of you before I’m done. If you stick around long enough, that is.”

  “I think I’ll be around for a while.”

  Driving home across the Cooper River Bridge, high above the port of the City of Charleston, for perhaps the hundredth time in my life, I was struck by the great beauty of the shipping industry. Even with some of the container ships in their weathered state, I thought they were all beautiful. So many rested below us, docked overnight for an evening of shore leave, waiting for cargo that would come in the morning, waiting for the harbor captain to give them the signal to ship out, just arriving from Belgium or Port Elizabeth, or perhaps bound for someplace exotic like Singapore.

  “It’s always something to watch, isn’t it? The port, I mean,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s irresistible to me, too. All those people, all that cargo, coming here, going somewhere else. Nothing stagnant about harbor life, that’s for sure.”

  “That’s the attraction, I think.”

  “Definitely. That whole industry has changed so dramatically since technology moved into our lives. But, like a lot of things, the more it changes the more it stays the same.”

  “I like being able to rely on things staying the same, well, I used to anyway,” I said and then realized how pitiful that must have sounded.

  John was quiet then and I thought, oh Lord, he’s probably worried that I’m getting emotional. Men hated it when women let their feelings get the better of them. I had probably just ruined the night by reminding him about the loss of Addison, that I was broke, and that I was mortified by my changed circumstances. He was deciding then and there that I was too much trouble to get involved with. I probably was. He was probably wondering what I did to make my husband want to kill himself. Good grief, I thought, I’m not only a broke widow, I’m also damaged goods. Maybe dangerous, too.

  My paranoid indulgence was for nothing. Just as I turned to him and was about to launch into an I’ll-survive explanation for what I’d said, he reached his hand out to cover mine and gave it a squeeze.

  “Look,” he said, “I know it hasn’t been easy lately. It’s okay. Anyway, sometimes change is good.”

  “Maybe.”

  “No, not maybe. Definitely. I mean, look, how do you know what’s going to happen to you now? The universe, or whatever you believe in, might have something unbelievably wonderful in store for you.”

  “I have merely retreated to the familiar and I believe in God, just so you know. I grew up Catholic, but in Aunt Daisy’s Leftist cafeteria sect.”

  He laughed then, a hearty laugh that had been unused for a while. I began to laugh, too. The pall was officially lifted.

  He said, “I want to hear all about that.”

  “In between history lessons?”

  “Anytime.”

  We finally pulled up to the Porgy House and I was safely home, back on Folly Beach. There was nothing darker than a beach on a moonless night, and at the door, I fumbled around in my purse to find the keys.

  “You need a porch light,” he said.

  “Boy, no kidding!”

  “I can take care of that. I mean, it’s no big deal. I go to Lowe’s all the time.”

  “Thanks. But I don’t know if it would be historically correct. Aunt Daisy doesn’t want anything changed.”

  “Oh, well, maybe the Heywards used tiki torches. Let’s find out.”

  I giggled again. God, I was glad he had a sense of humor. What’s worse than a humorless man?

  I finally found the house key and unlocked the front door. Rather than invite him in (dangerous territory), I decided it was wiser to just say good night so that the evening would end on a high note. I turned to face him only to see him retreating down the steps.

  “I had a great time,” he said.

  “Me too,” I said but there was no mistaking the disappointment in my traitorous voice.

  He stopped and turned around. “What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? Nothing! Nothing’s wrong. I just thought, you know, well . . . I thought, well, okay then. I had a great time, too!”

  “Did I do something wrong?”

  “Wrong? Oh! God, no! No! I don’t know what I was thinking!”

  He looked down at the ground and then up to me and shook his head, incredulous that a woman could get the whole way to my age and still not have one shred of cool in her arsenal of social skills.

  “Do you want to invite me in?” he said.

  S. H. I. T.

  “Well, of course I do but I’m not sure what to do about that because you know you’re . . . well, you know . . .”

  “Married?”

  “Well, it crossed my mind. And I’m, well, you know . . .”

  “Unsure of what would happen?”

  “Oh, no . . . I mean, yeah, that, too.”

  “Look, we’re not kids, Cate. It’s gonna happen . . . you and me, that is unless I am reading the signs wrong.”

  “Oh, no. You read well! Yes, you do . . . but I . . .”

  “You’re nervous and you don’t want to get involved with a married man?”

  “Yeah, that’s about . . . yeah.”

  “There’s an explanation.”

  He began walking toward me and up the few steps until he was right in front of me in my personal space that was, believe me, completely unviolated by his close proximity. He took my face in his hand and with his other hand he reached for the small of my back but this time it wasn’t a ceremonial touch. He pulled me into him and honey that man laid his lips on mine and I never even had a second to shut my eyes. I thought I was going to die, but I didn’t and then I got so excited to realize what was happening and thinking this might be the only time I ever got to do this with him so I kissed him back and surprised myself that I was instinctively kissing him like I was a starving animal. Maybe I was. It appeared that he was starving, too.

  “Wow,” I said when he finally stood back.

  “Wow yourself,” he said. “Who taught you how to kiss like that?”

  “All Catholic girls are sluts. Didn’t your momma ever tell you that?”

  He laughed so hard then and I did, too. We laughed, teasing each other, until tears ran down our faces.

  Do you know how long it’s been? Are we teenagers or just manic? Or maniacs? The last time I even kissed anyone was . . . who remembers? Is it the Magic Margarita? Oh my God! That was crazy!

  “So! Listen!” he said with some seriousness. “Here I was thinking I’m not going to reveal the story of my life to you if the kissing ain’t no good but I think we’re okay there. Whaddya think?”

  “I’m thinking I might need a cardiologist. No lie! Feel my heart!”

  He was about to place his hand over my heart, which was conveniently located under my left breast, and I thought, shit, he’s gonna know my puppies are store-bought.

  It did not appear to matter.

  My heart was banging against my rib cage something fierce and I was still out of breath.

  “Wow. I don’t think you need a doctor but you might want to join a gym,” he said with a straight face.

  “Up yours,” I said and began to calm down. Sort of.

  “Actually, normally it’s the other way around. Want to have dinner tomorrow?”

  “Can’t. Seeing my son and his wife.”

  “Then, the next night?”

  “Without a doubt.”

  This time he was leaving. I wasn’t stopping him. We’d had our fun, well, we’d learned what our real fun might be like and it was enough to know for the time being. Besides, I wanted to make the Heywards’ bedroom look something more than it did, you know, flowers or candles or some atmospheric enticements from this century. Not that we would need much encouragement. Holy hell. I would have to give the personal grooming issue some immediate and t
horough attention. Holy hell. Holy hell. Holy hell.

  And speaking of the Heywards, I fully intended to find the South Carolina Historical Society building and spend the day there digging around. I wanted to understand why John was so passionate about this period of Charleston’s history but what I really wanted to know was why would a woman who had a classical education let her high school dropout husband take the bulk of the credit for her work? Or did she? Was it just a perfect collaboration? Because of the times in which they lived? Was that what had really happened? I suspected there was more.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Setting: The bathtub at the Porgy House.

  Director’s Note: Photos of Hanovia’s Alpine sun lamps, the News and Courier, and the streets of Folly paved in oyster shells on the backstage scrim.

  Act II

  Scene 3

  Dorothy: Like I did on so many weekends, I got up early to take a hot bath, deciding to let DuBose and Jenifer sleep for a while. It was a Saturday and there was no reason to rush headlong into the day like the house was on fire. The fog and damp continued to hang over the island as though it had taken up permanent residence and I probably could have convinced Jenifer that we were actually in London.

  The wind last night was fierce, thundering around the house like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse! I was surprised and believe me, very glad that Jenifer slept through it. In fact, DuBose slept soundly, too. I was the one up and walking the floors.

  Island winters were very different from island summers when the beaches were stuffed with cars and sunbathers and everything was light and full of optimism and liveliness. Winter was its opposite, undeniably strange in the early morning and at night the fog rolled in and out on the tides. It was hard to believe there was a world out there over the bridges and down Folly Road. We were so very isolated. But we loved the isolation. It was wonderful for our imaginations.