Folly Beach Part 35

Ella took the stairs and I looked at Patti when Ella was out of earshot and said quietly, "Holy h.e.l.l. She gave us free reign in her kitchen. You know, they're starting to show some signs of aging."

"That's another reason I want to move back. They need us, Cate."

"I think you're right. And what the h.e.l.l is the point of living someplace where n.o.body really loves you?"

"Well, I've got Mark, of course, but after this winter? I think he'd be thrilled to be here."

"You know what? I'm thrilled to be here, even if I don't have my life all worked out yet."

"You mean like having a shower?"

"Precisely. Anyway, let's go to that big Whole Foods and see what they've got."

After scouring and foraging like picky little animals in the woods for the best this and that we could find, we settled on a menu that did a fair job of showcasing our individual skills. Patti was going to prepare a risotto with a melange of mushrooms-oyster, shiitake, and the hen o' the woods, finished with a truffle-perfumed olive oil and shavings of aged Parmigiano Reggiano. Her entree was glazed, double-cut, organically raised pork chops, grilled with fresh rosemary and finished with a twenty-five-year-old balsamic vinegar. I was in charge of salad and dessert. I stood there in the produce aisle with a peach pie in my arms, trying to make a decision about the salad.

"What's the matter?" she said.

"I can't decide. Are two bags too little or are three bags too much?"

"We're not buying prunes here, you know." She grabbed two bags of prewashed mixed spring greens, threw them in the cart, and said, "Okay, we're going to make you the president of the slice-and-dice club. And I'm going to teach you how to make chops that will have John on his knees."

"I am your humble slave."

We brought home sandwiches and soup for lunch, which Ella and Aunt Daisy gobbled up. By five thirty, Aunt Daisy's and Ella's kitchen was crackling with warmth and delicious smells and Ella was shaking cosmos in the penguin. Aunt Daisy, still wearing a beret, was seated at the table chatting away. She was in fine spirits. Of course, Brian Williams would be on television any minute to tell us if the world was falling apart.

"Just a little one for me," I said.

"Why? Got a big head from last night?" Aunt Daisy said.

"No, I do not."

"Should I turn off the television and put on some music?" Ella asked.

"Do you have any Gershwin?" Patti asked.

"Have you lost your marbles?" Aunt Daisy said. "I have everything he ever recorded. Ella? Put on Rhapsody in Blue. I love that."

"Oh, Aunt Daisy, speaking of Gershwin, there's a leak in the Porgy House window. All that rain we had? It trashed the back of my piano and well, I guess we need a carpenter."

"Bring me my red leather address book from my desk and I'll give you his number," she said.

I got the book and handed it to her.

"Sit down," she said. "I want to talk to you."

I sat.

"I'm gonna talk and you're gonna listen."

"Okay," I thought, what have I done wrong?

"Ella and I have been doing a lot of thinking and talking about our future and we've made some decisions. You know that you and Patti are my only heirs so everything I have is going to y'all, split equally right down the middle. But here's the thing. I'm not dead yet. But I could've been if you and John hadn't been here."

"Oh, Aunt Daisy . . ."

"Hush, before I lose my train of thought."

"Sorry."

"Anyway, I want to retire. There are things in this world I want to see that I have never had the time to see. I want to see the pyramids and take a sail on the Nile. I want to go to Paris and learn the cancan. I want to see the Great Wall of China and go see every play on Broadway. I can't do those things and run my business. So if you're going to inherit it, you may as well learn about it now. I want you to take over as of today."

"Today?"

"Yes. And here's the rest of the deal. As of today, whatever the net earnings of the business are, you get half. If I die first, Ella stays here until she goes and whatever the business earns, Ella gets my half. When she dies, you and Patti own all the properties jointly but the earnings are yours because you're running the business. It's all spelled out in my will."

So there was a will. Patti and I were worried for no reason.

"I have retirement money and Social Security, too," Ella said and handed each one of us a cosmopolitan in a martini gla.s.s. "And I have excellent health care policies from the state."

"Well, I'm glad you do but can we not talk about dying, please?" I said.

"No, because we have to have this discussion at some point. So, cheers! Here's to Cate! Congratulations! Your future is secure!"

Patti put down her wooden spoon, with which she was stirring chicken stock into the risotto, and gave me a big hug.

"Don't you want to stay and help me manage Aunt Daisy's properties?"

"No, baby. I leave in the morning 'cause I've got cakes to bake. This is perfect for you, Cate. Congratulations! Aunt Daisy?" she said. "Here's to you!"

"Aunt Daisy! Thank you! Thank you so much!" I hugged her so hard I thought she might break and I kissed her face a dozen times. "I don't know what to say."

"Listen, this is the easiest money you'll ever earn. Most of my houses are rented by the same tenants over and over. I only open the office if I need to drum up business. Each house has its own file in my office in this house. I've got a kid from the College of Charleston who manages my Web site. Here's the list of all the people I use, been using them all for ages. Every third year, you paint. Sometimes every second year. Depends on the weather. Think you can handle it?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Good! Ella? Is the shaker empty? I'm a little parched."

Ella refilled our gla.s.ses, Aunt Daisy knocked hers back in one giant swallow, held it out for Ella to refill yet again, which she did, and Aunt Daisy took a lady sip.

"I'm gonna tell you something and I don't want you to ever forget it."

I nodded my head and waited.

"Every woman needs to have her own money."

"We all do!" Patti said.

"Aunt Daisy? I learned that lesson the hard way. Patti always said I needed a stash of FU money. And I had a little but not nearly what I needed."

"Yes, but that's in the past now. And you know what's really wonderful about you taking over?"

"What?"

"Now you'll have all the time in the world to write and you don't need a man to pay your bills."

"Thanks to you, Aunt Daisy. Only because of you."

Chapter Twenty-nine.

Setting: Empty stage, soft light.

Director's Note: Show the silhouettes of Dorothy and DuBose on the back scrim. At the end remarks, Dorothy blows audience a kiss and stays onstage while the lights go down.

Act III Scene 5 Dorothy: I am one of the luckiest women you will ever meet. I had so many spectacular opportunities and I am so grateful for having had each and every one of them. I actually lived my dream of having a life in the theater. I met and even knew many of the great creative minds of my day. I had the chance to help young playwrights find their voice and ultimately their wings. And most important, I was the mother of Jenifer Heyward and the very happy wife of Edwin DuBose Heyward. Oh, let's be honest, there were days I wanted to strangle him but there was never one minute that I regretted my decision to marry him.

Do I have any regrets? Only that I didn't meet DuBose sooner. And maybe that I was not born in Charleston, although I got here as quickly as I could.

My time with you is coming to an end. After all, it's late and DuBose is waiting for me in that big c.o.c.ktail lounge in the sky. We still have our rituals, you know. These days we're drinking whatever heavenly thing that they're pouring and then we get together and sing. Not a bad way to pa.s.s eternity.

You all coming here tonight and listening so patiently marks the fulfillment of my dreams and I want to thank you for allowing me to tell you my story. Oh, there are endless anecdotal stories I could regale you with-bits of gossip about our friends, about us, but for me it is enough that you now know where DuBose fit in the scheme of things, just how very important he was to not only the Poetry Society of South Carolina and the Charleston Literary Renaissance but to also consider the bold risks he took to make his contribution to the collective social consciousness in matters of racial inequality.

Edwin DuBose Heyward was a great man. He was an intellectual decades ahead of his time. He literally had the sensitive soul of a poet, the gentlemanly manners of an aristocrat, and I cherished his love. Yes, I did.

Thank you for coming and good night.

Fade to Black.

Chapter Thirty.

The Playwright.

The Porgy House seemed lonely without Patti. If I had learned another thing it was that I was much happier surrounded by family. I had placed that recommended call to Jennet Alterman, who could not have been sweeter or more understanding. When I went to her office to tell her the whole story of Heather Parke, she did exactly what I had hoped she would. She took that worry away.

"I'll call my good friend, Susan Rosen. Big family attorney. Fabulous woman! She'll write her a letter that will give this Heather a religious conversion. Just give me her contact information."

I did and a letter went out the next week. Of course, I got the address from Patti, who got it from Mark. According to Patti, Mark wouldn't ever keep a secret like that from her again. Wish I'd been a fly on the wall for that conversation!

Having attended to yet another stinky detail of Addison's legacy, I knew I had to say something to Aunt Daisy.

So over supper one night that week I said, "Oh by the way, Aunt Daisy. I had a lawyer write a letter to Heather Parke telling her she wasn't ent.i.tled to a dime and that if she hara.s.sed you ever again we'd have her locked up."

There was a pregnant pause in the conversation.

"Good! Thank you!"

"That's my girl," Ella said.

"I don't know why I ever worried about you, Cate. You seem to be managing life very well."

"Thank you! I'm just putting one foot in front of the other the way you taught me to."

Sara and Russ were thrilled to hear about Aunt Daisy's recovery and that I was taking over her business. And Sara was especially excited that I was attempting to write a play. We had talked last night for more than an hour.

She said, "I remember when I was a little girl you used to say that all the time, that you wanted to write."

"It's still true," I said.

"Remember all those silly plays we used to make up?"

"I sure do. There was a lot of laughing around the house in those days."

"Well, if making up stories makes you happy, maybe that's what you ought to be doing?"

Out of the mouths of babes, like they say.

So there I was, with my morning coffee, sitting on the chair at the desk allegedly used by the Heywards to write Mamba's Daughters, writing about the Heywards themselves. I decided to call my play Folly Beach. The subt.i.tle would be A One-Woman Show with Images. The story Dorothy Heyward wanted me to tell, or so I thought, was about the deep love she felt for DuBose, which bloomed the first moment she met him and then became all-consuming. Okay, I thought, where to begin? Well, she's dead, I thought, so we have to bring her back to life so why not start in the cemetery? If anyone had a sense of humor, it was Dorothy Heyward and she would think it was a riot to rise from her grave, dust herself off, and set the record straight on a few things. Wait! Would she? c.r.a.p! Well, my lack of conviction was going to be a huge problem so I knew I'd better decide what it was I really thought and go with it. Scene: St. Philips Cemetery, Charleston, South Carolina . . .

I was on my way. The floodgates were officially open.

I wrote and wrote, the story gushing out of me in twists and turns like the white water of the Chattahoochee River. I laughed, loving the fact that I was helping Dorothy tell the world so many things they did not know about her, about DuBose, his mother, George Gershwin, and on and on. I was having the most exhilarating time of my life! I stopped for a moment and thought, people made money like this? Incredible!

I did not hear the knock on the door so when I looked up to see John in the doorway of my room I nearly screamed.

"Oh!" I jumped in surprise.

"Sorry. Oh, gosh, I'm so sorry. I've been knocking on the door for five minutes. Then you didn't answer your cell and I thought, oh please, don't let anything have happened to you so I just walked in."

"No! It's fine. I was just . . ."

"In the zone, Cate. That's what they call it when you're writing and you tune out the whole world. Let me see what you've got."

"What? Oh, no! I can't. It's just a draft!"

"I read drafts for a living. Remember?"

"Yeah, but let me just polish it up a bit."