Folly Beach (24 page)

I was just putting the plump, herb-stuffed bird in the oven and closing the door when I heard a voice.

“Anybody home?”

It was Ella.

“Hey! Come on in! I’m in the kitchen!”

“I’ve got your pie.”

“Pecan?”

“Lord, no! I can’t even
look
at a pecan for right now. Too many pecan pies, even for me.” She delivered it in a sweetgrass basket lined with a red-and-blue plaid kitchen towel. It looked like something out of
Southern Living
magazine. “No, I made an apple pie this time. Is that okay?”

The minute she folded back the towel, the smell of apples and cinnamon filled the air and my mouth started to water. The way my salivary glands reacted to Ella’s baking? You’d think I’d spent the last twenty years in the woods, wandering aimlessly, starving and foraging, living on a few berries and roots. Actually, that wasn’t too far off—the aimless wandering part, anyway.

I clasped my hands together and gave the glossy golden crust a good once-over.

“Oh, Ella, it’s gorgeous. How can I thank you?”

“Humph. You can get your Aunt Daisy to a doctor instead of those Marsh Tacky Races down in Hilton Head. I don’t like the way she’s looking for the last week and I can’t get her to go see her doctor.”

I began to panic inside at the mere thought of anything being seriously wrong with Aunt Daisy.

“What are you saying? What kind of symptoms does she have?”

“Well, it started the night you, Russ, and Alice came over, after y’all left. First, she seemed sweaty, you know like flu. But it ain’t flu. Then she starts getting all kind of cranky.”

“More than usual?”

“A lot more. And I think she’s running a fever. I see her taking aspirin and ask her why and she tells me to mind my own business, which isn’t unusual for
her
. But something’s wrong. I think her pressure is up. And her breathing ain’t quite right.”

“She’s congested? Maybe she has bronchitis?”

“I don’t know. Anyhow, she’s determined she’s going to get me to drive her to Hilton Head to watch these fool horses run on the beach and I just don’t think she needs to go this year.”

Aunt Daisy loved the Marsh Tacky horses and I knew why. They were like us—a little bit abandoned but adaptable in tough situations. Once, when we were sitting around talking, she told me that if a Marsh Tacky got caught in the pluff mud and started to sink, he didn’t panic like a regular horse. He just lay down on his side and pulled his hooves out. Then he got up and went on his way. They were tough little fighters like Aunt Daisy and me, too, if I could remember how to fight.

“I’ll talk to her. She probably
does
have the flu. In fact, I’ll make her go with me in the morning. Who’s her primary doctor? She’s not still seeing Harper?”

“Yeah, God. She’s the only woman her age I know that uses a pediatric allergy doctor but all these years after y’all all grown? You can’t get her to change and he doesn’t seem to care. Maybe ’cause she give him and his family a house last summer for two weeks. I don’t know. Maybe he’s her long-lost son. Here’s his number.”

Ella reached in the pocket of her cardigan and handed me the folded paper that revealed his office address and phone number in addition to his cell phone number.

“You’re really worried, aren’t you?” I said.

“I don’t know, but I don’t like what I see and I ain’t no doctor to decide what’s best.”

“I’ll call him tonight.”

“Thanks, honey. That makes me feel much better. What time is Mr. Risley supposed to show up? Your table looks very nice, by the way.”

“Well, thanks. Amazing what you can buy at the grocery store these days. He’ll be here in an hour.”

“Well, I’d better skedaddle and let you young people have your night.”

She turned to go but I could see that she was filled with anxiety.

“Ella?”

“Uh-huh?”

“I don’t want you to worry tonight, about Aunt Daisy, I mean. Let me worry for you.”

“You’re a sweet girl, Cate. That’s a nice thing to say.”

She went out the door and I followed her to the front stoop.

“Call me if you need anything, okay?”

“I will.”

“And thanks again for the pie!”

She waved at me as she pulled away, leaving me to stew over the frailty of her position in the world. She had come here with Dr. Harper’s number, prepared to ask me to step in and get involved with Aunt Daisy’s health care. Life partners. That’s what they were but saying they had a life partner didn’t mean they didn’t need anybody else. Had Aunt Daisy provided for her? I mean, was there an insurance policy naming her as the beneficiary? A will? Would she be able to stay in the house? Would it belong to her? How many houses did Aunt Daisy own at this point? If something happened to Aunt Daisy, which I could not fathom, would others step forward to put a claim on Aunt Daisy’s assets? Like the IRS? Would her estate be obliged to pay exorbitant estate taxes because she had not put her affairs in order? Who was her executor? And, most important, how in the world did you approach a subject like that with someone who might be very ill but was as belligerent as Ella described? You did it tomorrow, honey. You approached these kinds of things delicately and with all the sensitivity you could muster. Tomorrow.

Meanwhile, I had a chicken in the oven and I was in need of a fast bath. My first thought was that if I ever had any money again, I was getting a place with a shower. Baths made a mess no matter how careful you were.

I dressed myself, after a careful but generous application of whatever body moisturizer they were selling in the bomb shelter–size for the least amount of money and targeted spritzes of the last of my Chanel No. 5. It wasn’t going to waste. I wondered if there was a generic version of it out there in the world I could find for less. Not that I was
so
worried about my resources yet, but it couldn’t hurt to be vigilant about these things.

Risley wasn’t due for another twenty minutes so I decided to use the time to call Dr. Harper. I pressed his number into my keypad and, to my surprise, he picked up.

“This is Tom Harper,” he said.

“Dr. Harper? You probably won’t remember me but I’m . . .”

“Cathy Mahon? Caller ID, you know. The nice girl who ran off and married that old geezer? Addison, right?”

“Yeah, well, that old geezer bit the proverbial dust and I’m back in town.”

“Oh! I’m terribly sorry! I didn’t know . . . please accept my apol . . .”

“No, no, it’s okay. Really.” I stopped for a second and remembered I was a widow, not someone on a travel spree, dropping in on relatives for the fun of it. “Anyway, I’m calling you about my aunt Daisy.”

I told him what Ella said and he was quiet.

“Could be anything. Why don’t you bring her around in the morning and let me look at her. I’ll do some blood work and we’ll see what we’ve got going on.”

I heard John’s car door close. He had arrived. I opened the front door for him and before he reached the house, I thanked Dr. Harper and hung up, promising to be there by nine. I felt so much better.

“Hey!” he said, and handed me a bottle of wine. “What’s happening? Boy! Something smells good. Is it chicken?”

“Yeah, but what about
this
chicken?”

“I’ve been thinking about
this
chicken all day,” he said leaning down to give me a kiss. “Where’s the corkscrew?”

“Did you say
screw
?” I opened the drawer, took it out, and handed it to him.

“Bad girl!” He shook his head, grinning. “You’re driving me a little mad, you know. I mean, there I am sitting at my desk, grading papers on the importance of the Agrarian Poets, and suddenly a memory of us, you know, us . . .”

“No, I know what you mean.” I pointed to the corkscrew and he slapped my hand. “You don’t have to say the word.”

“You are so bad tonight! What got into you?”

I just stared at him as if to say, whaddya think?

“Yeah, it’s way too cavalier to just call it . . . anyway, you know, here comes this memory and I lose total concentration, I start reliving
the moment
and I’m worthless for the rest of the afternoon. It’s like I’m possessed or something.”

“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?”