Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [75]
Act II
Scene 4
Dorothy: I remember like it was yesterday. No change in the weather. No change in our moods, either. Our ship had yet to come in. We had consumed vast quantities of split-pea soup, more from boredom than from hunger, and we didn’t know what to do with ourselves.
DuBose was as sulky as I had ever seen him and Jenifer was whiny. I thought I might go a little crazy. Cabin fever, I thought, that’s what we’ve got. A colossal case of cabin fever. But it was cold and drizzling outside and no weather in which to send her out to play. She would catch her death and then give it to us!
Then I remembered the theater I had when I was a little girl. It was made of cardboard as were all the characters. Every day I wrote a new play and made new characters, forcing my family to attend the performances. I would make one with Jenifer and we would while away the hours reenacting fairy tales until the sun came out. Brilliant!
I remembered that I had some corrugated cardboard boxes whose present use was to hold old clothes I intended to take to the church for the poor. I dumped the contents of one of those boxes on the bed in the room downstairs opposite the kitchen and rattled through the kitchen drawers until I found my serrated knife. I cut off the flaps, turned it upside down, and cut out almost all of one side leaving some edges to be like stage wings. Then I cut a hole in the top of the box, through which I could lower my cardboard characters like puppets, their backs secured to pencils with tape.
I searched the pantry for some paint and all I had was some poster paints, old pots of red, blue, and yellow, almost dried up from neglect. I boiled some water, added a little bit to each pot, and shook them like mad. Then I covered the kitchen table with newspaper and called Jenifer.
“What is it, Mommy?” she said.
“We’re opening a theater!” I announced and put her to work, painting the building in red and blue stripes with yellow stars scattered all around.
Her eyes lit up and she clapped her hands. Jenifer was delighted. Here was my child, whose attention span was about as short as it could be one minute and in the next she was lost in space, completely absorbed in our project. That short attention span and spaciness would cause her trouble later on and all through her life. But then? We passed that afternoon and so many others, stretched across the living-room floor on our stomachs, lost in the world of princesses and every fantasy a childhood could hold. When all our stories were exhausted, we began to make up new ones. DuBose watched and listened, applauding at the end of each performance, praising Jenifer’s ingenuity and natural gifts he claimed she inherited from me.
“No doubt you’ll have a spectacular theatrical life, little one!” he said.
“Oh, no, Daddy. That’s your life and Mommy’s. I’m going to be a ballerina,” Jenifer said with solemn determination and then she rose on her toes, pirouetting across the room.
Fade to Darkness
Chapter Eighteen
The Moon
“What? I can hardly believe it!” Aunt Daisy said, practically breathless, having thrown herself back in her chair from the news, slapping her hand across her heart.
I had suggested to Alice and Russ that it would be thoughtful and yes, respectful to take a ride out to Folly to tell Aunt Daisy and Ella the news in person. I had called Patti and told her myself and she almost fainted.
“So, they have a sex life,” she said deadpan.
“Apparently,” I said and we broke into a fit of laughter.
“My God. Now what? Are you going to get a blue tint for your hair?”
“You know, I’ve got a body part you can kiss, too!”
So the next evening, before I met up with John, we were all gathered in Aunt Daisy and Ella’s kitchen, sitting around the table eating, what else, but a freshly baked pecan pie, still warm from the oven. We were all going to be diabetic soon but nonetheless, I had called ahead to Ella and begged