Leaving Cold Sassy (9780547527291)

by Burns, Olive Ann

  ***

  It was a good thing that Olive Ann finished five chapters and got them sent off that May, for just a week later shooting began for the TV movie version of Cold Sassy Tree, and every day brought new visitors and distractions. The movie company set up camp in Concord, Georgia, a little town about seventy miles from Atlanta that Olive Ann said hadn’t changed since the Civil War. Olive Ann and Andy had been invited to be on site for the filming, but they had to decline. As it happened, though, a close friend was hired to be the dialect coach, and he kept them supplied with regular briefings from the front lines.

  “I wish you could see the beehive of activity in Concord,” Charles Hadley wrote. “The production office, set up in a lovely old home, is awash in traffic of stars, crew, secretaries, producers, make-up artists, wardrobe people, etc. Out front a sign says ‘Welcome to Cold Sassy Tree, population 586.’” For Olive Ann and Andy, Charles Hadley’s “secret communications” were almost as good as being there in person, for he took time from his own busy schedule to describe the scene and all the goings on. “Strickland’s old country store now reads ‘Blakeslee,’” he wrote, “and tons of dirt have covered the paved street in front of it. Set designers have transformed the interior into something marvelously 1906! All is about ready for the turkey trot come Wednesday. Costumes from London are being fitted, hairdos and beards are appearing. Poor Lightfoot has undergone a chopping that left her near tears. Both she and Will T. begin the shoot with the cemetery kissing scene on Tuesday and are scared to death. They should be—I’m having trouble getting the Yankee out of their speech and there has been so little time to work. Effie Belle, Alice Ann, Mrs. Predmore, and Mr. Means, however, are a hoot! It is all ultra-exciting to see this huge operation in full swing. You would burst with pride if you could see how beloved and famous you are. Can there be a soul left who doesn’t know your name? I do get so much mileage out of telling that I know you in person!”

  Cast and crew members alike took advantage of breaks in the filming to come to Atlanta to meet Olive Ann. She welcomed them all, signed their well-thumbed copies of Cold Sassy Tree, and listened to their accounts of life on the set. When she first read the movie script, Olive Ann had been surprised and disappointed that all vestiges of Southern dialect had been removed. Even the rhythm of Southern speech—which she had worked so hard to capture precisely—had been lost. Olive Ann was sure Cold Sassy Tree was such a success in part because she had put every line to the supreme test by having Andy read the manuscript aloud. Whenever she was fussing over a tricky bit of dialect, she would listen carefully as Andy read, making changes as he went so that every sentence sounded right. Now the film producers seemed ready to disregard her efforts. “The script was written as if everybody in Cold Sassy was educated and had at least an A.B.,” she said when she saw it. Grandpa Tweedy’s “Good goshamighty, she’s dead as she’ll ever be, ain’t she?” had become “Good gosh almighty. She is as dead as she is ever going to be.” Not only was the poetry gone, but so was the authenticity. “Southerners are just too lazy to say that many extra words,” Olive Ann pointed out. She quickly realized that she would be wise to take Chester Kerr’s advice concerning the film—namely, Be happy that a movie was made at all, and don’t waste a moment’s time or energy fretting over the final product. That done, Olive Ann was able to enjoy both the film itself and the people who worked on it. For a brief time, she even became something of a Hollywood celebrity, a role which amused her thoroughly.

  Certainly having actors and actresses in for tea was a good way to divert one’s attention from red and white blood cell counts or the rough spots in Chapter 7, and it was good for the ego, too. Olive Ann was delighted when two visiting actresses greeted her with “You couldn’t have been born in 1924; you don’t have a wrinkle!” One afternoon Faye Dunaway herself came to call—an event staged mainly for the benefit of some national reporters and photographers. The story of the movie star making friends with the author of Cold Sassy Tree did result in some fine publicity, but Andy’s version of that memorable day was by far the most entertaining. Later Olive Ann even sent a copy of Andy’s account to Faye.

  The photographer had come a few days in advance to scout the location and plan his shots; Faye was expected on Sunday at five. “By Sunday afternoon,” Andy wrote, “we had white magnolias at one end of our antique white sofa and white hydrangeas at the other; tables were waxed and excess books and magazines banished out of sight. Things did look good, if I say so myself. Until the photographers came back. I told them they could move anything. They had enough equipment to cover half of the dining room floor. They moved furniture to install strobe lights on top of the cornices over the windows and the tall clock on the mantel. They strung extension cords from the garage to the back of the garden to have some blue hydrangeas in the background for a possible cover picture outdoors.

  “Then they shot Olive Ann in bed, with her tiny dictating equipment and the red telephone and pages of manuscript. They shot her in the living room, with those bookshelves in the distance, and in the dining room with a photograph of her real great-grandfather hanging on the wall beside the grandfather clock.

  “Then we started waiting for Faye.”

  The writer from Southpoint magazine, which had orchestrated this momentous meeting, confided that Miss Dunaway’s requirements included a hired limousine, a suite at the Ritz-Carlton for the night, and $800 worth of make-up. Once Faye arrived, the writer explained, her German make-up artist would require two hours to get the star ready to be photographed. Olive Ann joked that she had done her own make-up and that it had taken ten minutes. At quarter of seven, a long black Cadillac pulled into the driveway at 161 Boiling Road. As Andy told it, “Doug [the writer] went out to tell Faye the arrangements—I was to open the front door, introduce her to Olive Ann, and get out of the way. The black driver got out first. Then out stepped a man who must have seemed to Doug like the enemy climbing out of the Trojan horse; he was a writer from TV Guide who had had two hours to interview Faye in the limousine at Doug’s expense. Then Faye got out, wearing a white T-shirt, rumpled gray slacks, and a wind-blown (air-conditioner blown?) blond wig. Doug must have thought, where did my $800 go?”

  Faye said she would have to go inside and change her clothes before the meeting, so Olive Ann and Andy hid in the kitchen while Faye and her assistant disappeared into the back bedroom, carrying a boxful of clothes and a large make-up case. “When Faye reappeared,” Andy wrote, “she wore neat gray slacks, a tailored plaid jacket, and Miss Love’s blond wig, made of real human hair by the German artist and beautiful. With those cheekbones, Faye could look beautiful in anything, and now she really did.”

  The writer guided Faye back out the front door, Olive Ann and Andy emerged from the kitchen, Faye dashed back in and threw her arms around Olive Ann as the photographer flashed away. According to Andy, Olive Ann and Faye chatted for the next hour or so like old friends while the reporters took notes and the photographers took pictures. A young TNT vice president arrived dressed in a tuxedo, with a glamorous blond woman on his arm; Olive Ann’s sister and brother-in-law set out a gallon of iced tea and sliced some cake; the writer from TV Guide slipped away; and, in the last light of day, everyone descended to the backyard, where they swatted at mosquitoes while the photographer tried to get a shot worthy of a magazine cover. Faye began to scratch, but Olive Ann and Andy weren’t bothered a bit. “Fortunately those biting insects hate people who are taking chemotherapy,” Andy wrote.

  By the time the filming was over and the Hollywood folk had packed up and gone home, Olive Ann and Andy were ready to settle back into what he called their “un-star-studded normalcy.” Still, that summer of 1989 was a happy one, and all of Olive Ann’s letters brimmed with movie news and wedding plans. “We really did enjoy all the visits,” Olive Ann wrote, “and that afternoon with Faye was like a three-ring circus.” She mentioned Andy’s anemia and his difficulties with chemotherapy, of course, but there was no way for dista
nt friends to know just how weak he had become. His own letters, as the account of Faye Dunaway’s visit attests, were full of vitality and humor. As one close friend of Andy’s later wrote, “No one ever knew when he was in pain, because that’s the way he wanted it.” “If you smile,” Andy always said, “no one will know.” He did admit to Celestine Sibley, a long-time friend and fellow newspaper writer, that he was “too weak to dig holes in the backyard, as I would like to, and almost too weak to walk up our not-too-steep driveway from the backyard.”

  Those who knew Olive Ann and Andy had come to think of her as the invalid and of Andy as the ever-present, good-natured caretaker. That summer, almost imperceptibly, the tables turned. In July, Olive Ann’s doctor gave her permission to spend a quiet weekend at their mountain house. The house had been finished and uninhabited for two years, ever since Olive Ann had left there and ended up in the hospital, in August of 1987. Now, a weekend at Skylake seemed cause for celebration—they were in their beloved retreat at last, and even though she was still in bed much of the time, Olive Ann could begin to imagine a more normal future. “It is not the Write House yet,” Andy wrote, “but it will be!” They had furnished it with old pieces from 161 Boiling Road and, as Andy observed, “they look good with the natural white-pine walls, especially painted things like an old red-and-black chest from New England, a little blue blanket chest we use as a coffee table, and a black chair from Madison that Olive Ann sat in to write much of the book.” Andy had always planned to collect wildflowers and native shrubs from their property at Skylake and bring them back to Atlanta, to grow in what he called his “final wheelchair garden.” But, he joked, this was before he knew they’d have wheelchairs. Now, he wasn’t strong enough to dig holes and transplant shrubs, but he did walk all over the lot, examining every tree and flower, and thinking about the gardening he would do once his chemotherapy was over.

  Back in Atlanta, he read one gardening book after another, pored over seed catalogues, and made occasional visits to the nursery. We sent him gardening books from Houghton Mifflin, and he sent back enthusiastic reviews, happily correcting mistakes that had eluded our proofreaders. Olive Ann was working, too. In one letter Andy reported, “Yesterday O.A. had a fine time in bed going through her boxes of ‘goodies,’ words, ideas, anecdotes, and letters from the real Will Tweedy to Ruby Hight to see what she can use in upcoming chapters. This is one way she kept rewriting the first book, making it better. Believe me, she hasn’t left those first 113 pages alone, Katrina, so it’s a good thing you didn’t do extensive editing. But she loves the process.”

  Late in August Olive Ann and Andy considered a friend’s offer to drive them to Skylake again, but this time it was Olive Ann who looked at Andy and questioned whether he should make the trip. “I don’t think Andy’s up to it,” she confided. “He really has gotten very weak, and the low white blood count from chemotherapy has kept him from going places and doing things where there are people who might have a germ or virus to give away.” In the end, they did decide to make an overnight visit to the Write House. It was to be their last together.

  About a week before Andy’s final chemotherapy treatment, Steve and I spent an evening with Olive Ann and Andy and Becky. We arrived with a huge lasagna dinner, heated it up in batches in the microwave, and served it on their good china. Olive Ann looked almost like her old self, all dressed up and delighted to be presiding over a party in her own dining room. Andy conceded that the summer had been hard—but all that was behind him now, he assured us; the chemotherapy had worked its exacting magic once again, and now he expected to see some of his hair and some of his strength return. After dinner, Norma and Charlie appeared for dessert, and we all sat in the living room, telling stories and getting caught up on Cold Sassy Tree news. Olive Ann read a fan letter from B. F. Skinner, and admitted that it had pleased her as much as the one from a farm woman in Virginia, who had written to say that she’d named her prize hen Olive Ann. The mood was wonderfully festive. I was nearly seven months pregnant, so there were baby stories to tell, and Olive Ann and Andy were both in high spirits, looking forward to John’s October wedding and to the Atlanta premiere of Cold Sassy Tree, which would occur the same weekend. The wedding guests would be served Brunswick stew and barbecue on Friday night on Norma’s deck, and then attend the movie premiere the following day, where they would see Faye Dunaway herself arrive in a horse-drawn carriage. “It’s Ted Turner’s party, naturally,” Olive Ann said, “but it’s heaven-sent for entertaining wedding guests!” She and Andy planned to skip that celebration so that they could really enjoy the wedding.

  At one point in the evening, as Olive Ann was telling a funny anecdote she planned to use in Time, Dirt, and Money, I happened to look across the room at Andy. He was seated on the edge of his chair, leaning forward, his hands clasped between his knees, listening with full attention to Olive Ann’s every word. On his face there was a smile of pure delight. It was impossible to look at Andy and think of him as a sick man; he was a happy man—and that’s what showed. Later, Olive Ann told me that much as she had enjoyed that evening, the high point for her was just after they had closed the door behind us. Then, Andy took her in his arms and said, “Wasn’t that a wonderful party!”

  A week later, on September 17, 1989, Andy died. Olive Ann believed that she could accept almost anything, but she never expected that she would have to accept the death of her husband. If there was a “dying story” to tell here, it was that after all those years of nursing Olive Ann, Andy was the first to go. All summer, Olive Ann had looked forward to attending John’s wedding; it was to be her first real outing in over two years, and she had every reason to believe that Andy would be at her side. Now, she was going to his memorial service instead. She managed it, and afterward she invited family and friends back to the house. That afternoon, she admitted that she hadn’t slept at all the night before. Lying in bed, she realized that she had to decide whether life was worth living without Andy; it would be so easy to just give up now and follow him. By morning, she knew that wasn’t the answer. One by one, she told us, “I’ve decided that I want to live.” The way she said those words, there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that she meant them. Losing Andy took an enormous toll on Olive Ann, but his death did not diminish her zest for life. There were still too many things she wanted to do.

  A few days after Andy’s service, Olive Ann wrote a note to a little boy down the street who had come to offer his condolences. “Dear Clark,” it said, “it’s not easy to say good-bye to someone you love. It helps me to know that a boy like you cares that I am sad, and I want you to know that thinking about Mr. Sparks makes me smile. He enjoyed your visits. You brought sunshine into our house. Ask your mother to make this cake for your next birthday. It is big! It is so big you could ask 799 children to the party and still have a big piece left for your mom and dad and your brother and your sister. It makes 800 pieces of cake.” She enclosed a recipe that Andy had saved from the mess galley of the battleship U.S.S. North Carolina.

  In the weeks after Andy’s death, friends and relatives gathered round to make sure that Olive Ann was well taken care of. Characteristically, she thanked everyone with a letter—a letter that was also intended to let us all know that she would be all right. “Andy assumed he’d get well this time,” she wrote, “just like twice before. ‘If I don’t, it won’t be for not trying.’ In the spring, he laughed and said, ‘I know the chemo is working. It has taken most of my hair, my white cells, my red cells, and my energy.’ But he did beat the lymphoma, as it turned out, and despite having chemotherapy that last week he looked and felt better every day. What caused heart failure and death was an overwhelming infection that started with a chill late Saturday night. He died at 8:30 the next morning.

  “But we had a good year,” she continued. “There’s something to be said for living dangerously! We didn’t waste much time worrying, we cherished the fact that we were still together, we had some really good times with friends, got
to the mountain house twice, enjoyed hearing about the goings-on in our Sunday school class and with the Cold Sassy Tree filming, and our hearts were constantly warmed by all that was being done to help us.

  “Andy’s garden was never lovelier. And there was great joy in looking forward to John and Judy’s wedding. Sometime in July, on a bad day, he said, ‘If I don’t make it to the wedding, I want you to see that it goes on exactly as planned.’ I promised, but he was obviously so much better in general that I never once thought he wouldn’t make it. As planned, three weeks after he didn’t make it, the wedding took place in College Park at the home of Andy’s sister, Jane Willingham. The house was built by their grandfather in 1904, and their mother and father married there in 1912. It was a lovely day.

  “There is now something wonderful about knowing for sure that I can cope with whatever happens. Andy taught me how. It hasn’t been hard for me to accept that Andy has died, though I think I don’t quite believe it. It’s just that he has disappeared and I miss him. Acceptance doesn’t mean I haven’t cried—a lot. But I never have to remind myself that we had much to be thankful for, and I still do, most especially for our family, neighbors, friends, and doctors.”

  Olive Ann did go to John’s wedding, but by the time it was over it was clear that the stress of the preceding month had affected her heart. Some of the fluid had returned, and her doctor ordered her back to bed. Now, in addition to having to adjust to a world without Andy, Olive Ann had to get used to someone else taking care of her. There were decisions to make, financial affairs to settle, and tasks to be done—from finding someone to make her breakfast in the morning to cleaning out Andy’s closet. She hired a cook-housekeeper to come in five mornings a week, and she spent some time with her brother-in-law and an investment broker, organizing her finances and arranging for a regular monthly income from the Cold Sassy Tree profits. As Olive Ann wrote in a letter to John and Judy, “To have the money question sorted out for me and to have the housekeeper and cooking problems solved seems like huge progress and a lot off my mind.”