"Oh, please. Come on. What do you think I'm going to do? Rewrite it?"

"No. You might, I don't know, laugh at me and think I'm stupid."

"Never. I would never laugh and I know how brilliant you are."

"Well, let me just try to read it through and spell-check it and then we'll see."

"How many pages have you got?"

"Twenty-two."

He whistled low and long.

"When did you start writing?"

"This morning. I'm waiting for the carpenter. Wait! What if he came and left?"

"Just call him. I'll tell you what. I'll go pull the back off of your piano like I said I would, you polish your pages, and then I'll read while you get dressed."

"What?" I looked down at my lap. I was still in my pajamas.

We lost it, laughing and laughing until we had tears rolling down our faces.

Then he said the magic words, "This is why I love you, Cate."

"You do?" Did I hear him correctly?

"Yeah, a lot, in fact."

"So, how come you never told me?"

"I thought you knew."

"I might faint."

He kissed my cheek. "You polish and I'm going to work on Cunningham."

Well, how was I supposed to concentrate on anything now besides the fact that John Risley just told me he loved me? My mind was spinning. What did it mean that John loved me? People love chocolate and opera and cars and a great movie or a song. Was it all the same? Of course not. But did it mean he wanted to marry me? No, you big crazy, I told myself. Or did he want to just keep going as we were? Well, I wasn't going to blow this historic moment by bringing any of my neurotic thoughts up to him. That was why women got called pushy and I wasn't going to wear that nasty label. Oh, I told myself, just be happy, will you? Breathe. Relax. Breathe some more.

I checked the spelling and grammar about ten times and I was ready to print.

"Hey, Cate?"

"Yeah?"

"Come here! You're gonna want to see this!"

I hit the print b.u.t.ton and went out to the living room.

"Come around here," he said.

There, written in black ink on the inside of the back of my piano, were the signatures of George Gershwin and DuBose and Dorothy Heyward and underneath George's signature it read, Folly Beach, June 1934.

"Oh. My. G.o.d!"

"Do you realize what this means?" he said.

"Yeah, that either the one at the museum is a fake or Gershwin rented more than one piano?"

"Bingo. Is this another sign of karma or what? Plus, do you have any idea how much this thing could be worth?"

I shivered from head to toe. Karma.

"More than it was yesterday, that's for sure. I need a gla.s.s of water and I think I'm hungry. Do you want a sandwich or something?"

"It's almost three o'clock. I ate. You didn't eat?"

"No, I, well, I guess I was so preoccupied that I forgot."

"Wow, I may have created a monster, Igor."

"Oh, you're a riot," I said and smiled. I went to get a banana and thought, writing! What a great way to lose weight!

I picked up the twenty-two pages from the printer and gave them to John, who was still sitting on the floor, marveling at the fact that I owned a piano actually used and signed by Gershwin and the Heywards.

"I'm going to go change," I said.

"Isn't this incredible?"

"Yep."

Well, the discovery was phenomenal but I wasn't telling anyone about it except Patti and the kids and Aunt Daisy and Ella. It would be good for John's students to see it, because it would add more authenticity to the whole Porgy House story and bring it all to life. I wondered then if the museum's piano was signed as well. It didn't matter really. Mine was. What a piece of luck!

I was dressed and putting on some makeup and I heard John coming up the steps.

"Cate?"

"Yeah? It's terrible?"

"No, Cate. It's absolutely wonderful. I'm gonna put the curse on you now." He walked over and put his right hand on my shoulder. "G.o.d save you, you're a writer."

"Oh, John! You really think so? I'm so happy!"

"Just keep writing. I wouldn't change a word."

So I did.

February finally turned into March and flowers were in bloom everywhere you looked. John's wife, Lisa, pa.s.sed away and John felt terrible.

"What did you tell them to do? I mean, did you make arrangements?"

"I told them to have her cremated and to send me the ashes."

"Oh, John. I'm sorry, baby."

"It's okay."

"So, what are you going to do with her ashes?"

"I don't know. I guess I'll keep them in the closet until I figure that out."

"Look, when you get them, we'll pick a nice windy day and maybe we'll go down to the beach across from the Morris Island Lighthouse and let her spirit fly. If you want, I can probably even find a willing member of the clergy to put a blessing on them?"

"You'd do that for me?"

"John? I'd do anything for you. You know that. I love you."

I did. I surely did.

And as threatened or promised, depending on your point of view, Aunt Daisy and Ella put on their vagabond shoes and started combing the globe. They sent me postcards from everywhere. I especially loved the ones from Egypt that were pictures of them riding on camels.

They spit! That was all Aunt Daisy wrote on the card. Cla.s.sic Daisy McInerny.

And while they were away, I collected their mail, paid their bills, and took care of the dozen houses that were someday to be mine and Patti's. I hoped that day was never going to come.

By the middle of March, Alice was throwing up all the time but still gaining an alarming amount of weight. She cried all the time and Russ, who had become poor Russ, had his hands full. I walked the beach with Alice and tried to tell her that her feelings were normal. But I think all she heard was that her pregnancy wasn't special and that she wasn't the only woman in the world who ever had a baby.

"If she wants to sulk, let her sulk," Patti said.

"I don't think it's healthy, Patti, and it's not good for Russ, either."

"Then maybe you can find a nice way to remind her she has a husband who needs a healthy wife and a happy home?"

"Oh sure!" I laughed and said, "Tell you what. Since she's your niece-in-law, you have every right to have an opinion. So why don't you call her up and tell her that?"

"Are you kidding? I like my life. You think I want that little crank to come up here to New Jersey and kill me?"

"My poor son," I said.

"Truly. He carries a heavy cross. Say, how's your play going?"

"Oh, Patti, I am so nervous about this. I finished it. I mean, I stopped working on it because John said it was ready and that I was just whaling on a dead horse. Anyway, John loves it, and of course, I never could have written this without him."

"He helped you a lot, huh?"

"Well, yeah! He didn't actually write it, I did that, but he helped tighten it up, you know, he made suggestions."

"Well, good! You know what? It sounds like he's the Dorothy to your DuBose, you know, as writing partners?"

"Yeah, he sort of is! So then he wrote a letter and submitted it to the Office of Cultural Affairs, because he wants to produce it in a little black box theater at the College of Charleston."

"And he can't do it if they don't approve it?"

"I'm not sure how it all really works but if it's going to be advertised in all their printed materials it has to be accepted. So I'm waiting to hear if it's worthy."

"Worthy? G.o.d! What a scary word! I'd be a wreck, too. So when do you hear?"

"I guess when they make up their worthy minds."

"Ugh. Well, you call me the second you hear anything, okay?"

"Listen, if they say yes, you'll hear me screaming the whole way to Alpine. If they say no, you may as well take my number out of your speed dial."

"They're going to say yes, Cate. I can feel it in my bones."

"Wouldn't that be a dream?"

And it was but not the dream I expected. I was just coming back from the Next Stop Morocco, a house next to the Washout, where all the surfers went or I should say hung out. It was the last property Aunt Daisy acquired before she retired and hit the road. John's car was parked in my yard. I hopped out of the Subaru and there he stood with a bottle of champagne and the most incredulous expression I'd ever seen on his face.

"What's up? Did you hear? You heard! They said . . . what? Tell me!"

"You are one amazing woman," he said, shaking his head and smiling.

"Why? Tell me, you stinker!"

"So, I'm sitting in my office eating a tuna salad sandwich on whole wheat and the phone rings. It's not just some flunky calling me it's Ellen Dressler Moryl, the director of the entire Office of Cultural Affairs."

"And?"

"And she tells me who she is and all that, like I don't know, and then she says, so, Professor Risley? How wed are you to producing this play Folly Beach at the college? And I say, I think it's a fine first effort, don't you? Emerging voice and all that stuff. And she says, Oh, yes, yes! But I happened to mention it to one of my colleagues from the Dock Street Theater and they just went crazy to put it up themselves! You see, the Dock Street is a little bit excitable when it comes to anything about DuBose and Dorothy . . ."

"Wait! Stop! Are you telling me that the Dock Street Theater wants to present my play?"

"Yes."

"For real?" I think I was squealing then.

"I'm still the director but, ma'am? You are the cat's a.s.s! I knew you could write! I just knew it!"

He put the champagne down on the steps, grabbed my arms, and swung me around.

"They love it?"

"They adore it!"

My heart was pounding so hard I thought I had better sit down, so I sat on the bottom step.

"I am . . . I'm completely shocked! I don't even know what to say."