Folly Beach (3 page)

The only person who knew the truth about how I really felt about my marriage was Patti, and she would never betray my confidence. Never in a million years. We both figured we may as well bury the old bastard on a high note.

In some bizarre way, I still cared about Addison and always would. He had given me two wonderful children, a luxurious life, and a long list of things for which I would always be in his debt. After all, we had traveled the world as a family, the children had been sent to good schools, and he gave them incredible opportunities to learn, see, go, and do. If I had ever really felt our lifestyle was that unacceptably vulgar or that his cruelty was too much, could I have left? Of course I could have but we were a family, with all the good and bad, and I wasn’t tearing my family apart over something so stupid as Addison’s conspicuous consumption or because he became more unsatisfied with his entire personal life when the markets declined. It would only have made a bad situation worse. And living with Addison was generally a tolerable situation. Not a joyous one, but tolerable. But let me tell you, markets may rebound but chasing great wealth is a delusional trap.

Two years ago, Patti and Mark began to notice a marked difference in Addison, too, as he slid even further into a new hell. Mark would offer to talk to him all the time but I knew that would probably complicate things so we just held our breath and hoped that whatever problems he was dealing with would be resolved and the old Addison would soon reappear. He never did. And besides, Addison held Mark at a polite arm’s length, because in his mind, he had no peer. He had liked Mark well enough but he probably believed his issues with declining global markets, international currencies, and what other troubles a Jedi like him had to endure and solve were far too complicated for someone like Mark, a mere podiatrist, to comprehend.

It was after Russ married Alice and Sara moved to Los Angeles that the most dangerous aspects of Addison’s transformation began to materialize. He stopped sleeping regular hours and his normal voracious appetite seemed to disappear. He lost a staggering amount of weight. And he was frequently out of the house until late at night. And the outbursts began. I heard him raging for hours on the telephone with his partners. Like a lot of men, Addison didn’t hesitate to raise his voice if he felt like it, especially in business, but this rage was something different, frightening. It was as though he had developed some kind of an evil personality disorder. I began to suspect he was using cocaine or something like cocaine. He had to have been. Or some kind of pills? But when he left for the office and I searched his office at home, his bathroom, and his drawers, I could find nothing. I looked under the mattress, in the toes of his shoes, and behind the books in his study. I read the labels of everything in his medicine cabinet and looked them up on the Internet. Not a speck of anything untoward. If he was abusing drugs, I couldn’t prove it.

So what then was the source? I had seen him pitch tirades before but they had always blown over pretty quickly. Not lately. This anger was smoldering, always right under the surface, ready to explode. Anger became his new way of dealing with his life. Sure the economy was terrible, but the recession couldn’t last forever, could it? I worried deeply and constantly. Sure he had always had a quick temper but never like this. I was afraid he was going to have a stroke or a heart attack.

As fate would have it, about a year ago, he became fanatical about his health, complaining of every ailment in the Merck manual. Good, I thought, now he’ll get some help. And he did. Not a week went by that he didn’t visit a doctor of one sort or another to medicate everything from his ears (tinnitus) to his big toe on his right foot (gout). He swore he’d clean up his diet but Addison following any of these doctors’ orders didn’t last long. The gastrointestinal specialist told him to give up lunchtime martinis and hard liquor of every kind, that his liver and esophagus were turning on him. For a short period he was sober but then I heard him say to someone laughingly that he didn’t give a rip—not exactly the language he used—that he would send someone over to a Chinese prison and just buy a liver from some coolie on death row if he needed it. He thought it was a riot to look upon the horrified faces of his politically correct listeners. He bellowed with laughter, recounting his outrageous conversation with his doctor. I was mortified over and over again by his behavior and even his partners’ wives, some of the most calcified, impervious women on earth, even
they
began to regard me with sympathy. I was so glad our children were out of the house by then so they didn’t have to witness their father’s slide into madness.

It just went on and on. His pulmonary physician told him he had to give up cigars, that his blood pressure was dangerously high, and I wouldn’t even want to tell you what he said about that. Addison’s humidors were bulging with imported Cohibas that he fully intended to smoke. Needless to say, his cholesterol was out of control, too, just like every other aspect of his life. Addison continued to drink what he wanted, eat what he wanted, and to smoke whenever the mood struck. No one could make Addison listen. No one could tell him what to do. In the end, still in charge, he died on a day of his own choosing. Ironically, all of these terrible habits had not killed him. Addison had the final word. He always did. If he had listened to his doctors’ advice, maybe he could have dealt with his stress in a healthy way and he’d still be alive.

I looked around at the small crowd of people, shivering from the cold. Suddenly, it seemed that their jaws were tight and their faces unsympathetic. Was I imagining this? No. If that’s how they felt, why had they come?

Amen.

The service was abruptly over, Pastor Anderson stepped over and shook my hand, and everyone stared at me. I had my arm around Sara then. My poor daughter had wept an ocean of tears.
Look what you’ve done, Addison. Look what you’ve done.
I just wanted to scream. I invited Pastor Anderson back to the house but he begged off. The weather, he said. I knew he was rushing back to that hot young thing he had married recently. Judi was her name and there wasn’t a woman in our church who didn’t want to be her. I thanked him for everything and thought, Gosh, everyone has a purpose in their life except me.

As Pastor Anderson turned and walked away, Addison’s blond twenty-two-year-old secretary was the first one to approach us.

“Lauren, thank you for coming,” I said. “You’ve met our daughter, Sara?”

“Yeah. I can’t believe he’s dead, and what he did, you know? I mean, he was so great back when we were together . . .”

“When who was together?” I said.

“Uh,
you
know,” Lauren said and then paused, her eyes growing wide. “You mean, you
didn’t
know?”

“Know what?” I said, the sordid truth dawning.

“Jesus, Mrs. Cooper, don’t look at me like that! I thought everybody in New Jersey knew it! It was all over Twitter last year! He hooked up with like every girl who ever worked in the office!”

“What?” I felt all the air rush out of my chest and I thought I was going to faint. Did she mean that Addison had sex with all of them? Little Lauren read my mind.

“Like we had a choice? If Addison Cooper wanted something, he got it and you know it! A bunch of us were gonna file suit for sexual harassment but now that he’s gone . . .”

“Mom!” Sara said. “Do something!”

“Lauren?” I was at a loss for words. “I think it’s time for you to leave. Now.” It was all I knew to say. If I had been in possession of my mind, I might have given her the back of my hand right across her face. Who was this horrible young woman? The Lauren I had known over the phone was polite and kind. True or not, how mean and unforgivably rude to say such a thing at Addison’s funeral.

I turned away from her and nearly knocked down Shirley Hackett, the wife of Addison’s most senior partner.

“I just wanted to say that, well, I feel for you, Cate.”

“Thanks, Shirley. This was such a terrible shock.”

“I’m sure. Between you and me, there are probably more shocks to come.”

“What do you mean? And where’s Alan?”

“Humph. Cate? I mean this in the nicest possible way, but if Addison had not died, Alan would’ve killed him. I came out of respect for you and the children but believe me, there’s no love lost with Alan.”

“Why? What in the world are you talking about? We’ve been friends for years!”

Shirley stood there and stared at me for what seemed like an eternity until finally she spoke again.

“We’re broke, Cate. Addison lost all our money and most of the firm’s clients. It’s going down the tubes. Chapter Eleven.”

“You’ve got to be wrong. You’re exaggerating.”

“Oh, my God,” Sara said.

“No, I’m not. Remember that gorgeous house we had in Upper Saddle River? Well, now instead of taking a Citation X to San Francisco for dinner I’m driving a used Kia. I’m shopping at the Pathmark and cooking ramen in a studio apartment in Tenafly.”

“What on
earth
are you talking about? When did all this happen?”

“Am I to believe that you don’t know
anything
about this?”

“Absolutely! I mean, I heard Addison wasn’t himself for the last year or so, and I knew things weren’t great at the firm but I had no idea!”

“Well, then, darling? You’d better brace yourself.”

She couldn’t have been more like the Oracle of Delphi if she’d shown up in robes and looked into a pool of water. As I turned to see who was tapping me on the shoulder, I got another slap in the face from my new reality.

“You’re Ms. Cooper, right?”

“Yes. Did you know my husband?”

“I sure did but believe me, I didn’t know he had a wife. Good thing I read the obituaries.” She reached in her purse and pulled out a small album of photographs. “Have a look.”

I flipped through them and there was Addison, with the woman before me and a baby boy of about two years old. The boy was the spitting image of Addison.

“Mom! What is this?” Sara said. “I’m gonna throw up!”

“Oh, my God,” I said. My head began to spin. How could all of this be happening?

“So, what I’m wondering is who has the mortgage on my condo? And who has the lease on my BMW? I mean, I’m sure he provided for us in his will . . .”

Sara, who had stood by completely dumbfounded, doubled over and began gagging. That was the last thing I remembered before the ground came up to get me.

Chapter Three

Setting:
The Porgy House downstairs drawing room. There is a bar cart, a penguin cocktail shaker, cocktail glasses, assorted liquors, and an ice bucket. In the corner stands an upright piano made by Cunningham Piano Co. and two comfortable armchairs.

Director’s Note:
When DuBose speaks, a head shot of him should cover the downstage scrim and a man’s voice is heard from offstage. Use a shot of the downstairs drawing room. Dorothy is now wearing a pretty silk dress.

Act I

Scene 2

Dorothy:
At five in the afternoon, in perfect synchronicity, we would meet in the downstairs drawing room. Out came our silver-toned penguin martini shaker and our cut-glass ice bucket. And, as this was our greatest daily indulgence in the name of pleasure (at least one that may be spoken of in polite company), the time was reserved for reminiscing and grandiose daydreams. Dreams didn’t cost you a dime and what would life be without them?

The year was 1934 or 1935. It had been about ten years since DuBose left his insurance business and yes, I was the one who made him give it up. Our Jenifer was just a little girl then, I know that much. It doesn’t matter which year but I remember clearly it was one particularly bone-chilling February evening. Lord! It got cold on that beach! We were downstairs and DuBose was shaking the penguin like mad. He was mixing up Albert Farmer’s special recipe for mint juleps to cheer me up. I was feeling a little out of sorts. (Don’t worry; the recipe is in the back of your program.)

Where was I? Oh, yes. Mint juleps coming up! To be completely honest, I knew a good drink would also ease the pain of his arthritis. His arthritis was so terrible and had twisted the bones of his hands so badly that on the worst days they resembled claws. Please don’t say I told you—I wouldn’t offend DuBose for the world! To be honest, neither of us was blessed with the best of health but we were so attuned to each other that we practically felt each other’s aches and that seemed to help us endure.

I was usually a chipper soul, sometimes a little too chatty but almost always good-natured. But not that night. The combination of freezing damp weather and the dreary gloom of the fog, which blanketed the island? Well, it was as though the whole mess had leaked through the rattling old window frames and crept in under the uneven doorjambs like tear gas. I felt like indulging in a good cry. I sat at the piano and pushed back the cover over the keyboard.

DuBose knew I was really in the dumps when I sat down to play the piano. He began to shake the penguin in earnest. Although I had studied piano for years, I would surely never solo at Carnegie Hall. The music just wouldn’t come out of my fingers the way I heard it in my head! And let’s face it, I knew that the sound of me plunking out a tune was downright depressing to
everyone
within earshot. The neighborhood cats and dogs literally howled along with my music, which should tell you a lot.

I watched as DuBose hurried to pour two teaspoons of brandy on top of Farmer’s concoction that was, frankly, as close to a regulation julep as a monkey was to a snake. He dropped in a paper straw, which was a good idea, and handed me the frosty glass.

We touched the sides of our glasses, and, as always, muttered
cheers
and took simultaneous sips.

“Golly, that’s swell, DuBose. Thank you.” The man sure had a way with a cocktail.

“You’re welcome. Albert says we should repeat this exercise as often as our system demands.”

“Really? Not if you want your dinner tonight.” My husband was sure full of beans that night.

“Right you are.” DuBose looked into my eyes and smiled warmly. “Darling? Do you remember the days when we used to live in Mark Twain’s old house on Fifth and Twelfth in New York?”

“Of course I do. Why?”

“Do you think that someday, someone will live here and say that this is
our
old house? I mean, will they marvel to be
here
? Where
we
once were? With Gershwin? Writing grand music and having cocktails?”

He was too much! I burst into giggles then and now, just remembering. I gave him the devil, too. But good!

“Edwin DuBose Heyward! Of all the ridiculously arrogant things to suggest! Are you insane? In this modest little cottage? DuBose! Who cares about us? It’s
Gershwin
they’ll remember.”

It was the awful truth. George Gershwin would even be carved on our tombstones. But it had been
nine years
since he first contacted DuBose about turning
Porgy
into an opera. Gershwin stayed up all night and read the book. Woo hoo! Then he wrote DuBose to see if the operatic rights were free. They were, and for the next
nine years
we waited for Gershwin to fit us into his busy schedule! We’d already had the book
Porgy
staged as a play in 1927! (It didn’t make a fortune but it did make money and it got fabulous reviews and ran for 367 performances!)

“Yes, I imagine so but . . .”

“Any man who goes around saying things like
I write the greatest music in
America
won’t be forgotten so easily. I’ve never known someone in all my days with such ridiculous self-assurance.” He actually said that. Gershwin was an arrogant windbag. Sorry, but there it is.

But DuBose, never one to criticize, came to Gershwin’s defense.

“Now, now, little Dorothy. Isn’t that a trifle harsh? We both know that he actually
does
write the greatest music in America. We should speak of our benefactor with kindness.”

“Benefactor indeed. He’s been waltzing us around the barn forever, driving us to the point of near poverty. I’m tired of soup! And, oh, now!
Now
he wants to write the music for
Porgy
? When the wolf is practically at our door? He’s the Great Menace, DuBose.”

“Ah! My dearest little Dorothy, drink up. History will decide that question, will it not?”

“I think that greatly depends on who writes the history, DuBose. I really do. I just hope the right person writes our history.”

“May I freshen up your drink?”

I remember that I took a deep breath to calm myself. Ply me with bourbon, I thought. He was right. History would decide. But Gershwin had made us wait for so long! If we didn’t poke and prod him into getting on with the musical score for
Porgy and Bess,
we’d be living on beans and pump water soon. I would broach the subject so many times until DuBose got after him, but on that night I didn’t.

I simply said, “By all means. Thank you, DuBose, I feel better already. You are such a dear heart and truly, you are such a gentleman.”

“And you, little Dorothy, you are my sun, my moon, and my stars!”

“And you are mine,” I said and meant it.

In fact, I loved DuBose with a passion I have never felt before in my entire life. I had become the living embodiment of the woman who went whither he went, forsaking all, tolerating not just Gershwin but the clucking suspicions of the long-tongued matrons of Charleston, who said I would never be quite the ideal wife for this handsome descendant of South Carolina’s, no,
America’s
true aristocrats.
But!
they said,
she was so tiny and adorable and he was a diminutive and adorable man as well and oh my heavens, they could almost pass for twins!

Well, tut tut tut. I was smart enough to recognize that sort of talk for what it was—silly. I aspired to my own goals and, to be fair, in those days Charleston’s staid gentry
did
embrace their artists (to the extent they were ever overtly enthusiastic about anything), even if they did not and never would consider them to be peers. All their starch held little appeal for me in the first place. I never said one word about it, but they knew I didn’t want to be one of them. My attitude rendered me
interesting
.
A curiosity.

Don’t forget, DuBose and I weren’t the only writers in town. We shared the scene with other Lowcountry writers of aristocratic origins—Julia Peterkin and Josephine Pinckney in particular. They had broken rank with the ruling class and lived to tell the tales. And to write them, too. Didn’t Julia Peterkin win a Pulitzer for
Scarlet Sister Mary
? And Jo Pinckney, whose great-great-great-grandfather signed the Declaration of Independence with DuBose’s, broke convention by entertaining artists who visited Charleston from all over the country. In her home and
without
what some would have considered sufficient chaperone. Oh ho!

We were different, DuBose and I, from many other writers of the day. I much preferred the company of other forward-thinking writers and artists, which was why I liked Jo Pinckney so much. And it was that very frame of mind that led Jo and DuBose to get together with some others and form the Poetry Society of South Carolina way back in 1920. Now a poetry society may sound stuffy and boring to you but let me assure you, the Poetry Society brought every wild hare of the day to Charleston and we had a ball with them all!

But back to Mr. Gershwin. I was insightful enough to recognize George Gershwin for all he was—a monstrously talented man with a very healthy ego, who could or might, as though he was a big dry sponge, absorb all the credit for
Porgy and Bess
just by being so unforgivably comfortable in the glare of the limelight. The theatrical world shoveled critical praise at his feet, and he took bow after swooping bow. I didn’t blame him for that but I knew doing business with someone as successful as Gershwin could be a slippery slope. DuBose and I might be swallowed up into history and forgotten altogether.

I didn’t mind so much if the world didn’t give me credit as the playwright for
Porgy
. In those days it was still downright unthinkable that a woman from elsewhere, meaning anywhere north or west of the Lowcountry, could possibly understand the complicated relationships, the unusual customs, the issues of faith, the Creole language, and the deep passions of the Gullah people. But I did. Yes, by golly, I surely did. And I swore I would live out my days working for the credit that was due, if not for myself, for my husband. We had bills to pay like everyone else. I remember thinking,
Look out George Gershwin, I’ve got my eye on you. And please, let’s get this show on the road!

Fade to Darkness