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
Chapter Four
Needs a Plan
The windshield wipers scraped and strummed across the glass in an irregular rhythm, back and forth, back and forth. It was driving me crazy. I barely remember the trip back to the funeral parlor to pick up our car, or the ride back to my house, but I would be haunted by the sound of windshield wipers shaving away ice for the rest of my life. My brother-in-law, sweet Mark, just herded us like a small flock of weary sheep from the limo to our SUV. He and Patti did the driving from that point on. What I do remember is that we were nearly silent for the duration. What were my children thinking? First,
we were numb with shock and grief and now we were numb with another load of shock. Affairs left and right? A mistress with a condo? A baby? What other secrets did Addison have? What had Shirley Hackett meant? What else on God’s green earth could possibly happen? All I wanted to do was go home and have this day push itself into the past.
I was never so happy to have an enclosed garage as I was that horrible day. Little blessings. Little blessings. What a dreadful, horrible day it had been. Surreal. The garage doors tumbled down behind us and clunked with a kind of finality not unlike a guillotine. The underside of the cars were encrusted with salt and sand from the roads. I don’t know why I thought about that except it had to be from habit. If Addison ever saw anything like that, he would have a panic attack and rush his cars to the drive-through brushless car wash to rinse the offending mess all off to the last spec of grit. His precious vehicles could not be exposed to corrosion. I looked at the wet tire marks on the floor of the garage and the thick mud, sprayed and spattered all along the fenders, and thought, screw it. Let them all rot and see if I care.
I went up the few steps to the door and stepped into the mudroom and then into the kitchen. Suddenly, I felt sweaty and achy. My coat was too hot, my feet ached from the damp cold, and I was feeling thoroughly miserable. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep for a thousand years.
My old friend, Richard Millman, who owned a catering company called Contemporary Foods, was waiting. He had promised to deliver sustenance and, true to his word, he was there himself with a couple of his longtime waiters. Immediately, he helped me with my muddy coat, folded it over his arm, and then he hugged me. It was out of character for Richard to be that familiar, even though we knew each other well. We had planned dozens of parties and special events together over the years for one organization or another and had suffered plenty of disasters together. One May years ago, the night before a benefit for the New Jersey Symphony, a storm came up carrying unpredicted, uninvited, and very unwelcome sixty-miles-per-hour winds that blew down the tent we had set up for 480 people. Chairs were broken, sound equipment destroyed, racks and racks of glasses smashed to smithereens . . . He just called me and said with all the serenity of the Buddha, “We have a little issue with the tent, Cate. You got a minute?”
Richard was always the consummate pro, completely calm and collected. But today was not like any other day, and I could sense from the shaky and hesitant sound of his voice that he was feeling unusually emotional. Natural disasters were one thing, death was bad enough, but suicide? Suicide destabilized everyone in ways that are difficult to understand, because for all the survivors, it is often impossible to comprehend why someone would do something so rash, so final, for any reason whatsoever. And was any part of their decision to end their life your fault?
“God, Cate, I’m so sorry. If there’s anything I can do . . .”
“Thanks, Richard. I’m so glad you’re here. Especially in this terrible weather, I had thought that maybe you wouldn’t be able . . .”
“A blizzard couldn’t stop me from coming.” He shook my son’s hand, sorry, Russ, and then took my daughter’s hand in his and when he looked at her wretched face, he added, “Oh, Sara, I’m so sorry.” This was a man who clearly knew heartbreak, something about him that I had never before considered. I wondered what had happened in his life and then I thought that he might just have been born with empathy. Empathy was often an underrated quality—especially by the kinds of sharks with whom Addison did business. They thought empathy made you soft and soft made you less commercial and less commercial made you a big fat stupid loser with a capital L. Nice.
“Thanks, Mr. Millman,” she said, slipping off her coat with Mark’s help.
“There are a few visitors in the living room,” Richard said and quickly gathered all our wet coats. He then excused himself to hang them up somewhere to dry.
“He’s such a sweetheart,” Patti said. “Come on, Mark.”
Patti and Mark went in to see who was there.
“Oh, Mrs. Cooper! I’m feeling so terrible. I can’t imagine how you’re coping with all this. Are you all right? Can I make you a cup of tea?”
It was Albertina, my housekeeper/friend/confidante/savior of the last five years. To my surprise, she was wearing a dark, wine-colored, wool knitted dress, heels, and makeup, instead of her usual gray cotton shirtwaist dress and white apron. I had never seen her wear lipstick, and I was taken by how very pretty she was. And young. Or maybe it was that on that day I felt particularly ancient.
“Oh, Albertina, thanks but I’m all right, I guess. I’m so glad you’re here,” I said and gave her a hug, the kind of hug that girls give each other to demonstrate camaraderie and compassion.
“And just where else would I be at a time like this? I put my things in the bedroom on the third floor and I plan to stay the night. My sister is with my kids. She sends her condolences and she made you a flan.”
“She did? Gosh, thanks. That’s so nice. Well, I’m glad you brought your things. I sure don’t want you on the road in this weather.”
“No. The roads are too slippery. Too slippery for my old car anyway.”
“Yes,” I said and for some reason I felt like weeping all over again. Did my Albertina, the woman who changed my sheets and did my laundry, the woman who sat with me in the kitchen so often and listened while I worried about my children and their futures, the woman who knew almost every intimate detail of my household, did she know the truth about Addison and his many indiscretions? But I didn’t ask her to tell me what she knew and I knew then that for all the rugged terrain we had traveled in the past, this was one topic I would never discuss. Dignity had to be restored between us. It was enough that when she heard my hysterical screaming, she burst through the door of the family room and saw Addison’s lifeless body hanging there as well. She started yelling in Portuguese and literally almost dragged me away and into the kitchen where she called 911. She also called a piano repair company to come right away and collect my old piano to be completely cleaned and sanitized as Addison had left behind some, well, bodily fluids in the lower register of ivory and ebony keys along with a note that said, “I’m sorry.”
Instead of offering her my big SUV for the night, I just said, “Absolutely. Please stay.” I was thinking, We’ve had enough tragedy. Please don’t take a risk.
She nodded and said something about going to make herself useful by checking the fireplaces, to see if they were still burning, to add a log if it was needed, to throw some more salt on the walkway, and to check the powder room for hand towels, to be sure any arriving guests didn’t track that salt into my rugs. It was unusual for Albertina to babble to me about her intentions, but it made me think she must have been very rattled by the whole catastrophe. I couldn’t even remember if she had been at the cemetery, but assumed then that she had to have been, because of the way she was dressed. I wasn’t thinking straight. Obviously.
My fingertips were numb and I rubbed my hands together to get the blood circulating and searched Russ and Sara’s faces. And Alice’s.
“Okay, are we ready to see who’s here?”
“I just want to get this nightmare over with,” Sara said.
“Understandable,” I said and took a deep breath. “Me too.”
“It’s much healthier to let yourself grieve,” said Alice, my shrink daughter-in-law, who is the world’s authority on what there is to know about any kind of emotional malady and what to do to fix it. “Just let it all go!”
I heard Sara groan. “And just what makes you think we’re not grieving?” Sara said, ready to take her on. Sara kept her jalapeño-tempered inner pit bull on a short leash, but when it came to Alice, she showed some tooth.
“All right, girls,” I said. “That’s enough. Let’s go see our guests.”
“Look, excuse me but this is my area of expertise and as a professional . . .”
“Alice? Stop, okay?” Russ said and Alice’s furious mouth slammed shut but her face was
in flames. She squinted with her unfortunately beady eyes in my son’s direction and I thought it would not bother me a bit to reach over and give the sanctimonious inside of her upper arm a good and solid twisting pinch. I took a deep breath instead. After all, who was I to have an opinion about whom my son should love and marry? I only carried him for nine long months, brought him into this world after twenty hours of horrific labor, and took care of his every single solitary need for more than twenty years. What did I know?
Finally, we walked out together, swinging the door that led to the long butler’s pantry, across the dining room and across our large foyer, our heels clicking like the tiny hammers of a silversmith plinking against the cream-colored marble. The long distance from the kitchen to the living room was not lost on me. All those shelves stacked with dishes, goblets, serving pieces, vases, and every kind of serving accessory down to six different sets of knife rests and forty-eight old Sheffield fish forks and knives, all made of silver with mother-of-pearl handles. Forty-eight. When was the last time I’d had forty-eight people over for fish? I could not remember that we ever had. Suddenly I wondered how long I would stay in that house, because all at once the excess seemed completely ludicrous. I was a widow now. A widow who had just buried her husband today and had no idea what to do tomorrow. Becoming a widow had never occurred to me. But that simpler life had. I had a lot of thinking to do but not then. For the next few hours, I would play hostess to whomever braved the elements to stop over and offer their sympathy. And then I would plan.
The eight or ten people in the living room were old high school friends of Russ and Sara. Naturally, they offered their polite condolences to me and to all of us. I made all the small talk I could and then drifted into the dining room alone. I noticed that the rye bread on the turkey sandwiches was beginning to curl on the edges. Going stale, hard crust, inedible . . . like so many things. Everything had an end, unpredictable maybe, but certain.