Folly Beach

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Well, Risley? I hope you never call the exorcist. And, by the way, I am experiencing the same phenomenon. All I did today was think about the curve in your lower back. Aren’t we a little old to be carrying on like this? I mean, what if we die in the middle of, you know . . .” I gave the corkscrew the hook of my thumb.

  “I’m hiding this thing from you,” he said, smiling. “Cate, if we die in the middle of carrying on I will be one happy dead man. But I don’t think we’re at risk quite yet.”

  “You know, I had all this fear and trepidation about us sleeping together so soon into our relationship and now I wonder what the heck was I so worried about? We’re old enough to do what we want, aren’t we?”

  “Yep.” He handed me a goblet. “And, we’re also old enough to know what we want, too.”

  “So, we’re not really a couple of impetuous idiots?”

  “So what if we are? Who’s going to judge us?”

  I gave him a kiss on his cheek, we touched the rims of our glasses, and we took a sip.

  “What are we drinking to?” he said.

  In the few short weeks we had been seeing each other we had drunk to everything under the sun, including my car, which was finally fixed and parked outside. But more important, our attraction and affection for each other had grown into a full-blown romance.

  “Let’s drink to us,” I said and raised my glass.

  “To us! And to the night!”

  “To the night!” I said and remembered my piano. “Oh! Let’s drink to Cunningham.”

  “Okay. Here’s to Cunningham! Who’s Cunningham?”

  I giggled and said, “Come! I’ll show you!”

  I took him by the hand back out to the front room where the Porgy and Bess display was.

  He looked at the piano, dropped his jaw, and looked at me.

  “Where did you get this piano?” he said in a somber voice.

  “My mother gave it to me when I was a little girl. Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Do you realize this is the exact same piano that the Heywards and Gershwin used to write the music to Porgy and Bess?”

  “No way!”

  “Yes! The real one’s on display at the Charleston Museum. I’ll take you there myself and show it to you.”

  “Oh, come on, John. You’re pulling my leg.” He could not have been more serious. “You’re not pulling my leg. This is a true story?”

  “Yes, ma’am. True story. Same make. Same model. Probably the same year.”

  “Holy moly. My mother bought it for me from Siegling’s Music House. It was used. I just had it cleaned and refinished. It was delivered this afternoon.”

  “Siegling’s? You’ve got to be joking, right?”

  “Why would I joke about something like that? I joke about a lot of things, you know, like my weight, my age . . . not pianos. No, can’t say I ever made a piano joke.”

  “Right.” John walked over to the piano and ran his hand across the top. “She’s a beauty.”

  “It wasn’t so pretty when I found Addison swinging over it.”

  “I can’t even imagine how awful that must have been for you. I don’t care if he was Genghis Khan.”

  “He practically was.”

  “What a moron. Cate?”

  “Yeah?”

  “This is a pretty eerie coincidence, don’t you think?”

  “Well, I didn’t think anything until you said it was the same piano . . .” The hair on the back of my neck stood on end and I had a sudden chill. “Eerie, I don’t know, but it’s strange. That’s for sure. When was Gershwin here?”

  “The summer of 1934. He was here for seven weeks.”

  “Wow. In which house?”

  “Well, the house he rented was blown away by Hurricane Hugo but he was in this very house on many nights.”

  “You know, I found all these cocktail recipes in Dorothy Heyward’s papers at the Historical Society.”

  “Really? Gosh, if this room is where they had their piano and they probably did have it in here . . .”

  “Yeah, because it would take daggum Harry Houdini to get it up those stairs.”

  “That’s for sure. But I’ll bet you they sat around this same room and drank whatever they drank. What did they drink?” John was getting very keyed up.

  “Martinis. And a lot of weird punches they made with champagne and liquor.”

  “Well, maybe we should make martinis and drink them in their honor.”

  “Why not? Maybe a little one. Tomorrow I’ll get us a bottle of gin or vodka and some vermouth and some olives, I guess?”

  “I’ll bring my shaker. Cate, this is really unbelievable. If I was a religious man, I’d take this as a sign from God.”

  “What? What sign?”

  “Cate? I want you to listen to me, very carefully, okay?”

  “Maybe I’d better get a little more wine for this?”

  “Why not? I’ll get it.”

  “I’m coming, too.”

  We went back to the kitchen where the potatoes were boiling away. I checked the chicken and it was golden brown. I was no Julia Child but if a woman couldn’t roast a decent chicken she may as well turn her kitchen into a walk-in closet.

  John poured me a little more wine and handed it to me.

  “So, what are you telling me, Professor Risley?”

  “I’m saying that all of this . . . this business of you and me and the Charleston Renaissance and this house and now the piano . . . doesn’t it seem like we’re pawns on somebody else’s chessboard?”

  “I like what’s happening. I don’t care if we’re getting manipulated by some unseen force, do you?”

  “Listen, there was this guy, one of the Fugitive poets, named Allen Tate, who also had an affair with a nun by the way . . .”

  “A nun?”

  “Yeah, a nun. He was a pretty wild guy for his day. He divorced his first wife, who he married twice . . .”

  “He married the same woman twice?”

  “Yep. And divorced her twice. Then he converted to Catholicism, married the nun, fathered a child when he was seventy years old, and oh, he was also married to the poet Isabella Gardner.”

  “Holy hell, Risley! Every time you tell me about these characters, they sure sound much more interesting than anybody we know, don’t they?”

  “Well, if you’re into this stuff like I am, the answer is yes. Anyway, Tate was of the opinion that detachment, alienation, and living through tumultuous change are what distinguished a Southern writer from writers from say, the northwest. If that’s not your situation, I don’t know what is. If you don’t get busy and write that play the unseen hand might decide we’re not worth the effort of throwing all these signs our way.”

  “Well, I have been giving it some serious thought. And I’ve read all the books you gave me. There are about a thousand Post-it stickies on the pages.”

  “And?”

  “And I devoured them. Speaking of devouring, do you want to eat? The chicken is ready.”

  “Which one?”

  “Your choice,” I said and laughed. “You sure are full of beans tonight.”

  I drained the potatoes and mashed in a whole stick of butter and some half-and-half with the back of a wooden spoon. The chicken was resting quietly on the cutting board, waiting patiently to be dismembered.

  “So, tell me about your serious playwriting thoughts,” he said, yanking a chicken leg away from the carcass with his fingers and taking a bite. “Wooo! This is delicious! But it’s hot!”

  “Thanks!” I handed him his glass of wine to put out his fire. “Oh, shoot. I forgot to make a vegetable!”

  “Who cares? I’ll just eat more chicken. Dang. This is so good! My momma used to make chicken like this.”

  “I’ll bet she was a great lady,” I said.

  “She was that,” he said.

  Soon we were at the table, eating and talking like we’d known each other for a thousand years. We started to talk about my thoughts on th
e play. I told him I was thinking of an almost one-woman show, where we may or may not bring in someone to play DuBose in a few scenes and their daughter Jenifer in a few others. But mostly it would be Dorothy’s story. In Act I, she starts out as an older woman, talking to the audience and remembering her life, telling stories about her great love for DuBose. Then she would also tell stories about his family and friends, his insufferable but completely forgivable mother, but the big fish would be Gershwin and how they worked together writing Porgy and Bess. In the end, the audience will understand that the real reason she gave her life and the credit for all her work to DuBose was that she loved him that much. It had nothing to do with the times or her gender or the fact that she was from Ohio. It was love. Period.

  “I really think this is a beautiful piece of genius, Cate. You need to write this down, just as you told it to me. So, you know, if you take this idea, write it in the right format, polish it to death, and we manage to get it up on a stage during Piccolo Spoleto, I’m just thinking here, would this be something your daughter Sara might like to do? Play Dorothy, I mean.”

  “Wouldn’t that be brazen nepotism?”

  “Well, yeah it is. So what? If you’re the director and I’m the producer, we can cast Adam’s house cat if we want.”

  “Do you want pie? I’d have to ask Sara, but she’d probably go crazy to do it.”

  “Pie? Absolutely. But the next dinner is at my house. I have a dishwasher.”

  “And a shower. It’s a deal. Hey, did I mention to you that my sister is coming for a visit next week?”

  “No, but that’s great! Can I take you ladies out on the town?”

  “I don’t see why not. Thanks! And did I tell you that Aunt Daisy isn’t up to snuff?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Ella doesn’t know. She just told me this afternoon and she’s pretty concerned about her. I’m taking her to the doctor first thing in the morning.”

  “Think we should check on her tonight? I mean, they’re not exactly in their twenties anymore.”

  I weighed the choice of hopping in the sack with John before or maybe right after the dishes were done, or going over to Aunt Daisy’s to see if she was really all right, for about two seconds and knew what we had to do. It wasn’t even eight o’clock yet. Decent people didn’t screw this early at night. It was gauche. And it was barely dark.

  “You know what? We can take the rest of this pie over there, saying it was so good we just wanted to make sure they got a slice and then we can see what’s up. What do you think?”

  “Great idea. Let’s go now.”

  I quickly wrapped the pie plate in aluminum foil, put it back in Ella’s basket, and grabbed my cell phone and my purse. We were out of the door and over at Aunt Daisy’s in a matter of minutes. I let us in the front door using my key.

  “Anybody home?” I called out, expecting to find them somewhere watching one of their many televisions.

  There was no answer so I called out again, but louder.

  “Ella? Aunt Daisy? Y’all here? It’s Cate and John! We brought the pie over to share!”

  “This can’t be good,” John said.

  I put the pie down on the kitchen counter and said, “I’m going upstairs.”

  “I’m coming with you,” he said.

  We hurried up the steps, calling out for Ella and Aunt Daisy to no response. Finally, I tiptoed into Aunt Daisy’s bedroom and I could see from the doorway to her bathroom door, which was slightly ajar. There were her hat racks, filled with every style and color hat you could imagine.

  “Come on now,” I heard Ella saying. “Let’s just sit still.”

  I went to the door and without looking inside I said, “Ella? It’s me, Cate. Y’all okay?”

  “I’m just trying to give Daisy a sponge bath to cool her down.”

  “Who? Who’s there?” Aunt Daisy said.

  Let me tell you, her voice did not sound right. Not one bit. I felt my chest tighten with panic. She wasn’t gasping for breath but she sounded congested and out of it.

  “Can I help you in any way?” I said.

  “Maybe you can help me get her out of the tub. I got her in here but I can’t . . .”

  “No!” Aunt Daisy said. “I’m naked!”

  I was going in and I didn’t care if the whole world was naked.

  “Please!” I said and swooped right into the bathroom. “Where’s her robe?”

  “In the wash,” Ella said. “There’s a big towel on that rack.”

  “Get out of here!” Aunt Daisy said.

  She yelled so loudly that John came to the door immediately.

  “What’s going on in there?” he said.

  “We’re trying to get Aunt Daisy out of the tub and she’s fighting us,” I said.

  The next thing I knew John was in the bathroom, pushing us aside and lifting Aunt Daisy out of the tub in one swift move. I put the towel over her for the sake of her modesty and she started to cry.

  “I don’t feel good,” she said.

  The sound of my sweet Aunt Daisy crying like a baby broke my heart. It made me want to cry with her.

  “Something’s terribly wrong,” Ella said.

  John laid Aunt Daisy on her bed, pulled her comforter over her, and felt her pulse. Then he felt her head.

  “I’m calling 911,” he said.

  “NO!” Aunt Daisy said.

  I had never seen her so agitated. Maybe she was afraid of the hospital?

  “Ella? Let’s you and I pack her a little overnight bag. Do you know where her medicines are? And her health insurance cards?”

  “Yes, yes!” Ella said and began rushing around, getting what she needed.

  “It’s going to be all right, Aunt Daisy. I promise it’s going to be all right.”

  “NO! NO! NO!”

  She screamed NO! over and over again for the next five minutes or so until finally her yelling became a whispered but still desperate protest and then at last, she rested, falling asleep. Even in her resting state, I saw that she was drooling and her hands were shaking and I was afraid for her. Ella was nearly panic-stricken. I put my arm around her shoulder and tried to console her.

  “She’s going to be fine,” I said.

  “Dear Jesus, please save her! Please Lord! Don’t take my Daisy away from me now!” she said, and began to weep. “Oh, Lord, Cate. What’s happening here?”

  I felt absolutely terrible for both of them and I was just as frightened as anyone else in the room.

  “Come on, Ella. Don’t worry yourself so. We’re going to get her to the hospital and they will give her what she needs.”

  “I’ll be right back,” John said.

  John ran downstairs to turn on the porch lights and to unlock the doors. We could hear the sirens approaching and, in minutes, Aunt Daisy was on a gurney and on her way to the capable hands of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston.

  “You ride with us,” John said to Ella and she nodded her head, grabbed Aunt Daisy’s little overnight bag, and hurried out to the car with us.

  It seemed like an eternity passed in the blink of an eye. We raced down Folly Road behind the screaming sirens and flashing lights, and yet another eternity passed until we reached the emergency room entrance, but we got there at last and stayed with her in a curtained-off area until a doctor came to examine her, minutes later. She was still asleep. John went to the desk with her health cards to fill out the forms and tell them what they needed to know.

  At last a doctor pulled back the curtain and looked at Aunt Daisy and then to us. I was busy thanking God he wasn’t just some medical student. He was a real adult. He asked us who we were.

  Ella said, “I’m her best friend, Ella Johnson.”

  “She’s way more than that,” I said, completely unsolicited, and added, “and I’m her niece, Cate Cooper. My aunt is Daisy McInerny.”

  “I’m Doctor Ragone,” he said and nodded to us.

  I didn’t know if the doctor
understood what I meant but I wasn’t going to let them shuttle Ella out of there just because they weren’t related by blood or marriage. The doctor did not care one iota about any of that or that the woman in that bed was one of the most important people in my life. I started getting upset and bit my lip to hold back the tears I could feel getting ready to rise up and fall. John stepped back inside the curtain and put his arm around my shoulder, giving me a solidarity squeeze.

  “Shhh!” he said to me. “It’s all right. We got her here and she’s going to be fine.”

  “She has to be fine. I can’t stand it if she’s not.”

  “Shhh,” he said again.

  I sighed so hard then. It had been a rough month for me, but this wasn’t about me. It was my momma in that bed, not my birth mother, but the momma that had loved me all my life. I wanted her well and out of that bed as fast as possible.

  Dr. Ragone began to examine her by taking her pulse.

  “Ms. McInerny, can you hear me?”

  “She’s been really out of it,” Ella said.

  Inside of fifteen seconds, he slapped a pressure cuff around her arm and began pumping it up. Then he made a note on her chart, put his stethoscope in his ears, and listened to her heart. He made another note and looked up at us.

  “Do either of you know what kind of medicines she takes?”

  “Everything’s in this bag,” Ella said and handed the doctor a Ziploc filled with vials.

  “What other kind of symptoms is she showing?”

  Ella described all of Aunt Daisy’s behaviors and her fever and spasms and everything she could think of to the doctor and he listened carefully, taking more notes.

  “Do you know where she got that nasty gash on her arm? It’s infected.”

  “I do and I told her that thing looked bad but she don’t listen to nobody!”

  “How did it happen?” Dr. Ragone asked again.

  “Oh! She caught her arm on a splintered board under the house where she had no business being in the first place. It was raining and she wanted some paper towels from the storage room. I said I’d go for ’em ’cause her foot’s in a cast . . . oh, Jesus! We forgot to bring her cast!”