Folly Beach Part 14

"Wrong? Oh! G.o.d, 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 a.r.s.enal 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 s.p.a.ce 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 s.l.u.ts. 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 G.o.d! 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, s.h.i.t, 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 h.e.l.l. I would have to give the personal grooming issue some immediate and thorough attention. Holy h.e.l.l. Holy h.e.l.l. Holy h.e.l.l.

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 pa.s.sionate about this period of Charleston's history but what I really wanted to know was why would a woman who had a cla.s.sical 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 sh.e.l.ls 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 Sat.u.r.day 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 Hors.e.m.e.n 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.

And it was wildly changeable. By midday the sky could be a blazing blue with a sun that warmed you all over, so much so that you didn't even need a sweater. But not that morning. It was simply miserable outside, a real Ohio winter day of the sort I remembered from my childhood.

I knew that DuBose's arthritis had to be troubling him, because my rheumatism was bothering me, not that the medical establishment seemed to be able to define the differences between them to me. It didn't matter. It was pretty obvious that cold dampness aggravated our conditions. But I loved being on Folly Island in every season and I didn't like to complain, because it didn't change anything if I did. And it wasn't as if we had not taken advantage of every alternative treatment there was. I had tried everything from ordering Hanovia's Alpine c.o.c.keyed sun lamps out of a catalog to every diet in the world designed to reduce the inflammation in my joints. So had DuBose. Nothing really helped. We finally came to the conclusion that staying as thin as possible, being physically active, and taking aspirin was the best course. I normally weighed about eighty-eight pounds and DuBose could not have weighed more than one hundred and twenty-five. (Of course his tailor cleverly padded his jackets to make him appear to have a more manly physique!) And hot baths helped us, too.

So that morning I soaked in a steamy bubble bath until the water was cool and I drained the tub a bit by removing the stopper with my big toe and added more hot water, turning the faucet with my big toe as well. I did this over and over until my skin looked like prunes. I finally got out, feeling ever so much better. I covered myself with great puffs of bath powder and thought about what I would make for dinner.

This whole living on a shoestring business was beginning to be a trial but it was useless to complain about that as well, because it would only depress DuBose. What could he do? The whole country was still in a slump since the Crash in '29. If only the Gershwins would finish the score for Porgy and Bess so we could get it up on the stage. Nine years! But did George Gershwin need money? No! He was flying high on Rhapsody in Blue! Our situation was not his problem. Ah well, when Porgy and Bess was finally up, people would come to see it in droves and then we'd be in the chips again. Golly! Have patience! I told myself this all the time. Patience, patience.

Then I remembered I had split peas soaking from last night and I thought about how good the soup would taste with ham. The recipe I had yielded six servings for about eight cents a bowl. That was almost as thrifty as my vegetable soup, which also tasted better cooked with a ham bone for flavor. Didn't a ham bone make everything taste better? (And don't fret, the recipes for all of my budget meals are in the back of your program, too.) Anyway, I thought I just might take a walk down to Mazo's Grocery to see if he had a smoked hock that fit my budget. And some cornmeal. I'd make a pan of cornbread in my cast-iron skillet. The walk would do me good. Moving around to work the kinks out of my bones always made me feel better.

So I bundled up and made my way down the road leaving my husband and daughter in the Land of Nod under piles of blankets and quilts, still fast asleep. As I walked along, I wondered if the streets would always be paved with oyster sh.e.l.ls. I loved the crunch of them beneath my feet. I would just hate it if anything here changed. This was one of the many things I loved about Folly. Streets with oyster sh.e.l.ls, wooden sidewalks on Center Street, cars on the beach, and the goats people kept to landscape their yards. Yes, goats! You never saw that in Ohio. I even loved the two-tiered buses, with their ta.s.seled shades, that brought us deliveries from Charleston. And I adored the fried chicken from the Magic Lantern. We stopped there for dinner every time we went to Charleston for drinking water. Now, hauling water in jugs was a definite inconvenience but if we lived in the tiny downtown area where the water was potable I wouldn't have the thrill of watching the sun glisten all over the oyster sh.e.l.ls. Walking down Atlantic Avenue was like walking on miles of pearls and that made me feel like a queen.

I stopped by Mr. Spradling's house to see if he had an extra copy of the News and Courier he could spare and he did indeed, for the price of a nickel. We were not regular customers but since the Donahue family was out of town he was happy enough for me to take it off his hands.

"How's that playwrighting going?" he asked.

"Well. It's going well."

"That's good. Give my regards to Mr. Heyward."

"I'll surely do that."

Most people on the island and, to be honest, most people in South Carolina couldn't understand why anybody in their right mind would pay money to go see a play about African Americans. But all those same people would not be able to answer that question unless they went to New York City to see a performance. In South Carolina it was against the law for African Americans to perform in a white theater. Not only did the general public rail against the idea of seeing actual blacks on the stage, but they also could not fathom what was so interesting about the Gullah culture that a gentleman like DuBose Heyward with all of his pedigree would waste his creative energy to write about such an insignificant topic. Insignificant! Can you fathom such a thing? They probably thought it was my Yankee influence bringing his talent to ruination. Not so. Not so at all.

DuBose was an intellectual who found the world of the Gullah people to be not only an endlessly fascinating subject but also that their culture was actually enviable. He longed, I mean longed to live that same spirited life he was forbidden to have. I think I mentioned that but you know, these days . . . I can't remember everything quite as well as I used to.

Although, at times, DuBose could be very narrow-minded about social boundaries. But who doesn't do a little talking out of both sides of their mouth? Back in early 1923, which wasn't so long ago, I had written him saying I had a delightful lunch with a Negro woman. At the time, I was still studying at Columbia. He wrote me back in that tone he sometimes used, saying he knew I could not have seen this as an absolute impossibility because I am a benighted Yankee from the Midwest, whatever that meant! Was he forgiving me? Then he warned me she would be in my room next. I got the gist of what he was saying and didn't like it. His words contradicted his wide-eyed soul. But there were scads of people who thought that way even in Ohio.

Unfortunately, it was the prevailing wind of the time in which we lived and although the wind had begun to shift, it wasn't a change sufficient enough to make a noticeable difference in our society. So, I did what I normally did when something didn't suit me. I ignored it, filed it in the back of my head, and wrote about it later on. After all, like my grandfather used to say, "The pen always has the last word."

Fade to Darkness.

Chapter Sixteen.

Grandma.

Old people can be sage-like and wonderful but they can also be as persnickety as the day is long. Obviously, I was still using Aunt Daisy's car and she claimed she didn't mind at all. But I thought I owed her the courtesy of letting her know I was going to take it downtown so I stopped by her house to tell her. I mean, I wasn't driving her car to Miami or Albuquerque but I knew her meticulous (read: persnickety) nature and thought she'd appreciate knowing its whereabouts. And in her mind, going downtown, which was in reality a mere fifteen-minute ride, had become quite the trek. I also just wanted to see how she and Ella had fared during the night. They didn't need caretakers. Yet. But while I was sloshing around in Dorothy Heyward's bathtub that morning, singing "Summertime" over and over to the ethers, it occurred to me that considering all Aunt Daisy had done for Patti and me, a little un.o.btrusive oversight of their days and nights was a tiny but potentially important compensation.

The front door was locked so I rang the bell and Ella let me in.

"G'mornin'!" she said.

"Hey! How're you?" I gave her a peck on the cheek.

"Good, honey. Just roasting a pork shoulder and cooking some greens for supper. Your aunt is in the living room with her foot propped up. Finally! I keep telling her she's got to rest it, but you know her!"

"Yep! I sure do!"

Aunt Daisy was wearing a sweatshirt from the College of Charleston with a Cougars baseball cap, sitting in a big upholstered armchair, working the New York Times crossword puzzle in ink. I loved that she worked the puzzle in ink. She always claimed it was so she could read what she had written but I thought it reflected her decisiveness. Once Daisy McInerny put it in writing, it was so. I mean in all my life I was always reluctant to argue with her. It just didn't pay.

"Well!" she said and put the newspaper on her ha.s.sock. "Look who the cat dragged in! How was your dinner with our Mr. Risley? Did you get the p.o.o.p on his wacky wife?"

"I'm working on it," I said. "I just stopped by to see if y'all need anything from downtown."

"Sit a minute! Where're you headed with your pants on fire? Ella! Make my niece one of those cappuccinos! She had a hot date last night and I want her to give us all the juicy details! Here, I got you a key." She pulled a key on a chain from her pocket and tossed it to me.

"Ooh! One cappuccino, coming right up!" Ella called out from the next room.

"Thanks. There's not too much to tell, really. We went out to the repairman to see how my car's coming along and some part they need isn't in yet."

"That's fine. The part my foot needs isn't in yet either."

"Getting restless, huh?" I said.

"Humph," Aunt Daisy said. "This gee-dee foot of mine."

"You have no idea," Ella said and put some kind of a microwave coffee concoction in front of me. "Driving me crazy," she whispered behind her hand.

"I heard that! You think just because I'm old and decrepit that I'm deaf, too?"

"Apparently not," I said and giggled.

Aunt Daisy's face softened and she smiled then, her shoulders relaxing. All these two old girls needed was an agreeable buffer. And it had to be annoying to be hobbling around in a cast for weeks on end. I would've been impossible to live with.

"So where'd you go for dinner? Someplace romantic I hope?"

"Oh please! No, actually, we went over to Mount Pleasant to this very cute place called the Red Drum. It was good. Sort of Tex-Mex meets up with the Lowcountry. I liked it a lot. When y'all feel like a night on the town, I'll take you over there." I took a sip of Ella's version of cappuccino and decided one sip was more than plenty. It was truly wretched.

"I don't like to drive at night anymore," Aunt Daisy said.

"Me either," Ella said. "I see things in the street that aren't there."

"Humph! I wouldn't get in a car with you after dark for all the tea in China," Aunt Daisy said to Ella.

"And I don't blame you but who invited you anyway?" Ella said to her and then turned to me. "Is she turning into a mean old biddy or is it my imagination?"

"She might be a mean biddy but she's not old," I said.

"Hush your sa.s.sy mouth! You're not too old for me to turn over my knee, you know."

Aunt Daisy was smiling but you could sense the Grim Reaper blinking and lurking behind every doorway and in each and every shadow in Aunt Daisy's house, taking away her freedoms one by one. And Ella's. That's how old age was, chipping away at you, bit by bit. If you're lucky. No one in my family had ever liked to talk about it, to admit they saw changes in their abilities to go and do as they pleased. But I guessed Aunt Daisy and Ella were fed up a little.

"Well, the dark doesn't bother me," I said, "so I'd be happy to drive."

"Speaking of night, can we get back to your evening with the professor? Did you have a wonderful time?"

"Yes, I sure did."

"And are you going to see him again?" Ella asked.

"Yes, I definitely am."

"Okay, give us the dirt. Did he try to put the moves on you?" Aunt Daisy said with the most serious face, the kind you reserve for depositions with the FBI.

"Aunt Daisy! Good grief!"