Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [22]
“She’s right, Mark. It would be like, Oh, Mrs. Cooper, we see here that on such and such a day you sold twelve cases of pinot to so and so . . .”
“You know, you can stop all your robust agreeing with your sister any time now, Patti. I get the picture.”
“Oh, come on,” I said, seeing that Mark’s pride was nicked. “Have another doughnut. They’re good for you.”
“Right,” he said, defeated, and stuffed an entire jelly doughnut in his mouth.
“Look,” I said, “I’m going to sell my diamonds. They’ve got to be worth a nice chunk of change. And I’ve got about twenty thousand dollars in my safe.”
“Where’s the safe?” Mark asked.
“Behind a fake wall in the wine cellar.”
“You’d better empty that pronto,” he said.
“I’m going to do that this morning. There’s cash in the bank but I’m thinking anything with Addison’s name on it is going to be frozen.”
“Count on it. And everything else is held jointly, I imagine?” Mark said, turning his attention to the newspapers.
“Naturally,” I said and they rolled their eyes to the ceiling. “Stupid, I know.”
“A woman should always have her own FU money,” Patti said.
“You’re right. That’s what the twenty thousand is but in this situation it’s clearly not enough. I just need to get a job and find a nice little place to live and I’ll be fine.”
“Right. And what do you think you’ll do for a living?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t worked that part out yet. I’ve been a little busy.”
“True,” Patti said and smiled at me. “Well, if I were you I’d bail on this whole town. Maybe I’d even bail on the state. There’s no real reason for you to stay here anymore, is there?”
“Well, excuse me, but you’re here. And where would I go anyway?”
“Well, there’s Aunt Daisy, don’t forget. I talked to her right before the funeral. Did I tell you that?”
“Um, no. Wait, maybe you did. I can’t remember.”
“Poor thing. She was just sick about not being able to be here with you and the kids. But, with her broken foot, you know she can’t get around very easily or drive. Anyway, she needs somebody to help her with the Porgy House and all her other houses.”
Our aunt Daisy, who raised us after our parents died and considered herself to be my children’s grandmother, was something of a legend. She was known for her crazy hats and her even more colorful personality. Aunt Daisy purchased numerous rental houses over the years and had become the single largest property-holder on Folly Beach. I knew she had bought the Porgy House, which sounded like a good name for a butcher’s shop to me, and for the life of me I didn’t know why she would want such a funny little place. But it had historic value, as it was the place where Dorothy and DuBose Heyward composed the lyrics for Porgy and Bess with Gershwin. And it was true that she was getting older. Ella, her closest friend (read: life partner), had to be eighty-something, so she couldn’t possibly be much of a help.
“Why in the world did she ever buy the Porgy House? It’s so plain.”
“Well, she’s got her thing for Porgy and Bess, you know. She’s always been crazy for anything about the Gershwins or the Heywards and I think she’s got a little museum going or something like that. Anyway, you might want to pay her a visit for a while, you know, clear your head?”
All of this was certainly something to think about.
“And abandon this lovely climate?” I said sarcastically.
“Right?”
“No doubt some vitamin D would do me good.”
“That’s for sure. Mega doses. Hey, listen, you could help her with all those rentals, I think she has about twelve. That’s a lot to handle at her age.”
What would I do for a living? Like my daughter, I had that handy degree in musical theater, but I was a little long in the tooth to buckle up my tap shoes. But there were other