Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [85]
“It’s okay,” I said, in between some unbelievable groping and struggling for breath. “They’re really cheap.”
“I’ll buy you a dozen tomorrow,” he said and ran his mouth down the side of my neck.
“You don’t have to,” I said and let him pull my sweater over my head.
“But I want to,” he said while I unbuckled his belt and unzipped his trousers, with every intention of checking out the goods. Bad girl, I thought. Things appeared to be in working order.
“I know you do,” I said and thought, screw it if he never calls me again.
And that was it. We hurried to the bedroom where I slept, kicking off shoes, pants, his shirt . . . we were shedding as we went, hands everywhere . . . I pulled back the covers as fast as I could and rushed around to the far side.
“Where are you going?” he said.
“I just thought . . . you know, that’s your side and this is my side? What?”
“You come right back over here,” he said, looking very serious and breathing pretty hard. “You can pick your side later.”
“Right!” God, I was so awkward. But it didn’t seem to matter except in that split moment.
I wondered if the neighbors could hear the bedsprings squealing and making a racket or us moaning, screaming the occasional Oh! Yes! God! I had a fleeting thought that the bed was going to collapse as it rose and fell in rhythm like the bass on a Barry White CD, the headboard banging the wall like twenty hammers. Would I have to repaint? I got my leg tangled in the sheets and he ripped them away and threw them all on the floor along with all the pillows. It was insane. All I can tell you is that about an hour later, when I was lying there in the crook of his arm, covered in sweat, glad to be alive, dying for a glass of water and smelling like something only Satan would recognize, I had an important realization. When doing this dance, it was a far better decision to let John Risley take the lead. Whew.
Chapter Nineteen
Setting: The Porgy House in the music room at the piano.
Director’s Note: Photos of book jacket of The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes, the “Summertime” lyrics, the MacDowell parlor, Marjorie Flack, Janie Scriven Heyward, Eugene O’Neill, and Pearl Buck on the backstage scrim. Voice of DuBose comes from off-stage.
Act II
Scene 5
Dorothy: I thought it might be important to tell you one last detail about my mother-in-law, Janie, because DuBose was an honest man and I know he would want the facts set straight. When our Jenifer was a little girl, Janie would make up stories for her, like grandmothers do all the time. But there was one in particular that Jenifer loved her to tell over and over again. It was called “The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes.” The last time we were at the MacDowell Colony, we were all gathered in the parlor, quite happy, listening to each other telling stories and applauding loudly after each impromptu performance. Then DuBose got it in his mind to tell a children’s story. He had everyone in the palm of his hand as they heard about the struggle of the poor little rabbit to become an Easter Bunny and how wonderful it was when she did. Afterward a good friend of ours, the illustrator Marjorie Flack, came up to us and insisted that DuBose write it down. Well, he did and it only took him two hours to do it! Of course, Marjorie illustrated it and Houghton Mifflin published it and it’s the only book by DuBose that never went out of print. It’s also the most money he ever earned in two hours. Anyway, I just thought the old girl should get her due. The Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes was completely Janie’s creation but DuBose was given the credit. She never complained one bit. She knew that anything she could do to further DuBose’s reputation and his earning power was good for all of us. It was the one and only issue on which we always saw eye-to-eye.
And while we’re on the subject of credit being given to the right people, we need to talk about some