Folly Beach (25 page)

“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 the 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.