Part 27 (2/2)
”I missed you, too, girl. You are a sight for sore eyes.”
I gave Ella a parting hug, picked up the Diet c.o.kes, and held the elevator for Patti.
Back at the Porgy House it was as dark as pitch and maneuvering the uneven ground with Patti's luggage was a bit of a minefield.
”Don't you have a porch light?” Patti said.
”Right? You're not the first person to make that remark. John said he was going to get me one and then we never got around to it. Well, so far.”
I opened the door and flipped on the light switch, illuminating the exhibition room and my piano. Patti stepped inside, put her bags down, and looked around. I went back to the kitchen and turned on the light there, too, and in the back bedroom.
”Holy cow,” Patti said. ”This is a little weird. All this stuff?”
”It grows on you. You want a Diet c.o.ke?” I said. ”Come see the kitchen.”
”Coming!” Patti walked right in and the first thing she did was open the oven door to inspect the insides. ”Cate?”
”Wild, isn't it?”
”Totally. Ain't no way I'm leaving here without baking something in this baby.”
”Be my guest,” I said. I held a Diet c.o.ke can in one hand and a cold bottle of white wine in the other. ”Your call.”
”Just gimme all the grapes and n.o.body gets hurt,” she said.
I giggled and began the process of twisting out the cork.
”I'm good for about twenty minutes and then I am going to pa.s.s out facedown like a starfish.” The cork came out with a loud pop! ”Love that sound!”
”Me too,” she said. ”You have to be dead on your feet.”
”Pretty much,” I said, handing her a gla.s.s. ”Here. Cheers!”
”Yeah, here's to Aunt Daisy getting the h.e.l.l out of that place in one piece p.r.o.nto.”
”I'll drink to that,” I said and we hoisted our gla.s.ses again. ”Pretty scary, right?”
”Scary as h.e.l.l,” she said.
”And here's what's worrying me . . .”
I told Patti that besides the small concerns I had about Aunt Daisy's business, which she agreed to help me look into the next day, I was becoming more and more worried about her estate. Did she have a will, an executor, a plan? What would become of Ella if she went first and how did Aunt Daisy want her own eventual demise to be handled?
”I mean, those two operate like they're thirty-five,” I said.
”True but I can't imagine this world without Aunt Daisy in it,” Patti said.
”Me too,” I said. ”But either we're going to bury her or she's going to bury us.”
”Look, she's a very smart woman. I'll bet she's got a will and an executor and she probably has even picked out the outfit, including a hat and gloves.”
”Maybe. I hope you're right.”
”I want everyone to have cake and champagne at my funeral,” she said. ”Lots of lovely cake!”
”Does Mark know this? I mean, I'll try to remember it but I don't plan on going anywhere until I'm two hundred years old and I don't know how good my memory will be then.”
”Probably best if I write it down somewhere, huh?”
”Yeah.”
”Okay, we're hilarious. So give me the short version of what's happening with lover boy.”
”He's wonderful.”
”Not that short. Elaborate, please?”
”He's trying to turn me into a playwright.”
”Now there's a practical career. Is he nuts?”
”Right? Well, look, I'm also getting more involved with Aunt Daisy's business so I can pay the rent when I rent something. When she decides to pay me, that is. Anyway, writing a play is just an old dream of mine. And I came up with this idea.”
”Let's hear,” Patti said and sat down at the kitchen table.
”So, I'm living here in Dorothy Heyward's house . . .”
”Why don't you refer to it as Dorothy and DuBose's house?”
”I'll get to that. Anyway, John says you know, you really should go down to the historical society and read all her papers. So I did.”
”And you found what? Are you falling asleep?”
”No, actually, I'm getting a second wind here. Probably the sugar in the wine. Who knows? Anyway, what I found in all those boxes and files were lots and lots of contradictions.”
She refilled my gla.s.s and hers. I pulled a box of white cheddar Cheez-Its from the pantry closet, opening it and dumping a pile of them on a paper towel.
”G.o.d, I love these things,” she said, eating a handful.
”Me too. In my old life we would've been picking these out of a Steuben bowl.”
”And they wouldn't taste as good, either. Okay, gimme some contradictions.”
”Well, there are all these recipes for soups and stews for a nickel a serving and two cents a serving.”
”So they were broke? Writers starve. Everybody knows that.”
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