Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [142]
“Oh, I know a few things . . .”
“Bad!” I said and then, “oh, John, I’m so nervous about tonight.”
“Don’t be. Sara’s got this baby nailed. All you have to do is show up and collect tons of applause and bouquets with your daughter.”
“And you, too, Mr. Director.”
“I only had the slightest hand in this entire venture, ma’am,” he said in what I think he thought was a Rhett Butler accent.
You see, this was one of the small peculiarities with theater people—they spoke in accents whenever they felt like it, leaving you to guess who they were imitating.
We went to Aunt Daisy’s and stayed for only an hour. Sara was anxious, too, so we thanked everyone, kissed everyone, and they all told us to go break a leg. Happily, we arrived at the Dock Street unscathed and before we knew it, our eight o’clock curtain time was gaining on us. I went backstage to kiss Sara for luck. She turned to me in her dressing room, and with her wig, makeup, and period dress, she was almost Dorothy Heyward in the flesh. I was dumbfounded.
“Well, darling, I just came back here to say knock ’em dead.”
“Thanks, Mom,” she said.
“Need anything?”
“No. I’ve got it all covered. And Mom?”
“Hmmm?”
“Thanks for this, you know, this chance.”
“My pleasure.” My eyes started to tear. “Okay then, I’ll be the wild one in the back row with Aunt Daisy and the gang.”
The theater was filled and the lights were going down. The stage manager was calling places and a few minutes later the curtain rose. Sara climbed out of Dorothy Heyward’s grave, brushed herself off, kissed her fingertips, and touched the headstone of DuBose right next to hers. Then she came down center stage and spoke.
“I married an actual renaissance man. Yes, I really did! The story I have to tell you is about the deep and abiding love we shared . . .”
Ninety minutes later the curtain fell, the audience was silent, and then, after what seemed like a year, there began the sound of thundering applause that grew so loud I started to cry. Sara took her bows, John his, and then they waved me up to the stage. People stood as I tried to make my way there without tripping or just falling out of my shoes and dissolving into a pool of relief. I couldn’t believe how well it had gone but it was true. They cheered, they even whistled, and I joined Sara and John onstage. Somewhere in the back of the theater a small woman arose from her seat, a small woman who was the clone of Dorothy Kuhns Heyward. She smiled at us, we acknowledged her, she saluted us, and she vanished in front of our eyes. I caught John’s and Sara’s faces and their eyes were wide in surprise. But we should not have been surprised. After all, this was the Lowcountry, where impossible becomes possible every single day.
Epilogue
September 2010
“Hey, I got here as fast as I could!” John said. “How’s Alice?”
“Screaming her brains out,” I said. “Poor thing, she’s waiting for the anesthesiologist to show up and give her an epidural. Poor Russ is in there, sweating. And she’s two weeks early. She’s probably scared to death.”
“Is her mother on the way?”
“Maureen? Last I heard she was trying to get a flight,” I said.
We were gathered in the lobby outside the emergency room where Alice was being admitted. They were going to move her up to labor and delivery as soon as they finished the paperwork.
“You want a bottle of water or something?” he said.
“Gosh, that would be great,” I said, “it’s only about a thousand degrees.”
“Yeah, and it’s not humid, either,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”
It was so humid that when I took off my sunglasses, there was water under my eyes. Even the hair on my arms, which wasn’t much more than light fuzz, was swollen and going in different directions. Never mind the hair on my head. It was a ponytail day, with gel.
Russ appeared from behind the swinging doors.
“Mom?”
“What’s the matter?”
“I can’t take it, Mom. She’s calling me things I didn’t even know she knew the names of!”
“Get back in there! This instant! All you have to do is listen! She’s going through it! She’s dealing with the pain the