The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (13 page)

fully tended gardens made dark silhouettes against the star-lit sky.

Here and there a porch lamp shone upon rosebushes, a child’s tri-

cycle left in the yard, a pink wrought-iron flamingo.

Inside those silent houses people slept or prepared to sleep. Peo-

ple who voted in the elections, ran businesses, paid their taxes, and

thought they owned the town.

Suddenly Sissy had a revelation. The real owners of these houses

never paid taxes. They didn’t care who was elected or whether busi-

ness failed. And they numbered in the millions. They came out on

hot, muggy nights like this. They were the cockroaches that

swarmed over summer sidewalks wiggling their antennae and slip-

ping through tiny cracks in the floorboards to march across silent

rooms into kitchens, where they ate the grease above the stove and

invaded the cereal in open boxes. They shared their dominion with

the snakes slithering up from the damp earth through knotholes,

crawling around the bedposts into carefully laid-out slippers. But

the majority was held by the termites who built whole colonies

inside the walls themselves, excavating chambers for their queen,

producing thirty thousand eggs a day, every day, hatching nymphs

and warriors to undermine the antebellum mansions and simple

three-room shacks that held their sleeping humans.

Sissy didn’t turn back into her own street. She couldn’t face the

thought of putting the children to bed, kissing her husband.

T h e S c a n d a l o u s S u m m e r o f S i s s y L e B l a n c 8 5

She turned right on New Century Boulevard and crossed the

tracks on Grand. The stores in the business district were dark and

empty. Only Buster Rubinstein’s office was lit up. She caught a

glimpse of Bourrée and Uncle Tibor and some other men playing

poker. She pulled up next to the tracks. The light was shining on

Bourrée’s back, darkening his already dark and cynical features. He

cast a giant shadow as he pulled in the pot and finished up a joke at

the same time. She heard some raunchy laughter followed by cries

of “Pass the damn whiskey!”

There was life in that bright room. Sissy longed to join them. She

saw herself sashaying right up to the table, pulling up a chair, and

saying in a deep, rich voice, “Deal me in, boys.” That would knock

the Southern Belle’s Handbook all to hell. It wasn’t fair that men

could go out and drink and gamble and raise all kinds of hell with-

out hurting their reputations, and the only place a woman could go

at night was to church or the PTA and listen to Amy Lou Hopper

and Carmalina Sangebina honk their horns. Of course that was

Rule Number Fifty-one:
Life’s always harder for a woman. That’s

why we have to give it a bunch of little shoves and shakes, always

taking care the buzzer doesn’t ring and the lights don’t come on

screaming Tilt!

She saw Bourrée get up and stretch. Tibor’s voice came through

the window. “Did you all hear the one about the nigger who

wanted to be President.” A chorus erupted: “That’s an old one.”

“Well, I haven’t heard it.” “It’s as old as Methuselah.” “Why don’t

you just shut up and let the man tell his story?” Bourrée peered into

the darkness and looked in Sissy’s direction. She couldn’t tell if he

recognized her or not, but she stepped on the gas and lit out of

there anyway.

She really should go on home. She had responsibilities.
But some

nights your responsibilities are the last things you want to face
. She

decided to make that Rule Number Fifty-seven.

She’d cross the tracks and go on over to Vista Drive, not that

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there was anything to look at, but it was a little higher and the air

was scented with pine trees. She’d only sit for a minute, just until

she caught her breath.

And that’s how she found herself putting on her lipstick in the

starlight, across the street from Parker Davidson’s.

She switched off the engine. Fireflies flickered and danced in front

of her windshield. The piping of the cicadas filled the night. When

she was a child she thought their shrill call was the stars singing.

She took a deep breath and the clean scent of pine filled her head.

She was beginning to feel better. She lit a cigarette. As long as she

was here, she might as well return Parker’s key. She wasn’t going to

use it.

But the house was dark and closed up. Where was he? She laid

her head on the back of the seat and tried to blow smoke rings. He

might be over at the Paradise, but she couldn’t exactly go looking

for him there. Not to give him back his key.

She got out of the convertible and threw her cigarette down on

the cement, grinding it under her high-heeled sandal. The fireflies

took off and danced across the street to Parker’s. She drummed her

long fingers on the side of the car. Maybe she should go on home.

The PTA meeting would be breaking up soon, if Amy Lou had any

compassion on those afflicted with a sense of civic duty, an afflic-

tion Sissy felt fortunate not to share.

An old Chevy with HOPPER’S DRUGS painted on the door wheezed

around the corner under the streetlight. Oh, holy flaming shit!

She’d forgotten Amy Lou’s parents lived on Vista Drive. That’s all

she needed was for one of them to find her standing across from

Parker’s house, like some hormone-crazed teenager.

Sissy stepped onto the curb and ducked down behind the car. The

old Chevy wheezed right by. She started to stand up when a porch

light went on.

“Hello? Who’s there?” Betty Ruth Bodine stumbled onto her

front porch in a fuzzy robe, her hair in big curlers. “Get away from

me, you hear?” Her words were slurred.

T h e S c a n d a l o u s S u m m e r o f S i s s y L e B l a n c 8 7

Sissy remembered how Betty Ruth had loved her whiskey in high

school. But she’d taken the pledge when she married Brother Junior

Bodine. Brother Junior was dead set against drinking, dancing, and

going to the picture show on Sundays.

But Amy Lou Hopper—who, besides being president of the PTA,

helped out in her father’s drugstore—had let it be known that Sister

Bodine was partial to the calming effects of a new kind of pill some

doctor in Baton Rouge prescribed to rid her of her anxiety attacks.

From the look of the way she was stumbling around, Sissy guessed

Betty Ruth was real partial to those pills.

“Get going, you hear. Get out of here,” Betty Ruth called, hold-

ing on to the porch rail to keep from falling down the stairs.

Sissy didn’t know which was worse: she could stand up, identify

herself, and kiss the last shred of her already shredded reputation

good-bye, or she could remain crouched next to the car and risk

Betty Ruth confusing her with a prowler and calling the sheriff.

But it wasn’t prowlers that worried Betty Ruth. It was Satan.

She’d worried about him ever since that hot afternoon when

Brother Junior had led her, dressed in white, into the river to save

her immortal soul. In her heart, Sister Betty Ruth had never been

convinced the baptism had taken. And recently, as Brother Bodine’s

ministry had thrown them in the limelight—a radio show was in

the offing, where she’d have to sing—she’d become convinced that

Satan could read her heart, knew about her fake conversion, and

lay in wait for her day and night.

Anxiety staged sneak attacks at Betty Ruth from every corner

and rooftop and she needed more and more of those bitter white

pills to fend them off. For Betty Ruth the price of eternal vigilance

had become exhaustion.

Suddenly Betty Ruth dropped to her knees. “Lord have mercy on

me!” she cried into the night, before starting a rousing chorus of

“Onward Christian Soldiers.”

The next day she would proudly tell everyone who would listen

about her personal encounter with Satan, and how calling out the

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Lord’s name had sent him scurrying across the street. It was true

she hadn’t gotten a good look at him, but she’d distinctly heard his

cloven hooves going clickety click against the pavement.

A SMART GIRL can’t just sit on the porch and wait for her life to

start,
Sissy thought as she ran through the fireflies in Parker’s yard.

She’d make that Rule Number Forty-four. The scent of jasmine was

everywhere. As the pungent white flowers swayed in the breeze, she

began to think maybe she wouldn’t give Parker back his key

tonight. There was something so ungrateful about returning a gift.

She started up the old wooden stairs when suddenly a large dog

exploded through a dog door onto the screen porch growling and

barking. Sissy jumped down into the front yard and began backing

out until she realized that the dog making all that racket was a big

orange and white Brittany spaniel. She had never seen a killer

spaniel. “Good boy, come on, that’s a good dog,” she said, clapping

her hands. He calmed right down and started beating his tail, which

seemed like a real good sign, until she tried to go up the steps again,

which set off another chorus of snarls and much gnashing of teeth.

Sissy had come too far to let a spaniel stop her.

She picked up a big stick, swung open the screen door, and yelled,

“Fetch!”

The big dog pointed at the stick sailing out toward the street. He

bounded off the screen porch and scooped it up. Proud of his enor-

mous accomplishment, he returned and leaped at Sissy, who

slammed the screen door in his face. The dog pressed his nose

against the screen and let out a little moan, wagging his tail like

crazy. “Okay, okay, come on.” Sissy opened the door and scratched

his head. They entered the house together.

She’d never been in any man’s house alone before. A delicious

sense of sin surged through her body. She walked around the living

room, looking at the haphazard collection of rented furniture, feel-

ing her skin move under her silky nylon dress.

T h e S c a n d a l o u s S u m m e r o f S i s s y L e B l a n c 8 9

She searched for pictures of women, but found none. In fact

Parker had no pictures at all, except of his mama and daddy. There

were no knickknacks from his travels, no profusion of possessions

that marked a house a home. Except for his dog, Parker traveled

light. Wild and free. Sissy experienced a sinking feeling. He was all

set to drift away. “Good,” she said and was surprised she’d said it

out loud. She didn’t want anything permanent anyway. She just

wanted an adventure. God knows she needed one.

She wandered into his bedroom with its manly decor of wall-to-

wall mess and sat down on the bed. Maybe she’d wait for him

under the covers. Just imagining the look on his face made her

giddy with excitement. She pulled back the spread, but the sheets

were so gray and disgusting Sissy didn’t want to venture into them,

at least not alone.

She went back into the living room and flopped down on his

brown Naugahyde lounger. The pungent odor of creosote sur-

rounded her, bringing back memories that made her skin damp in

her hot little nylon dress. She fanned herself with her skirt, but the

sleeves were sticking to her arms. And then Sissy was possessed

with a wonderfully wicked idea. Don’t you do it, said her sensible

voice. But even as the voice played in her head, a naughty smile

drifted over her lips. She unzipped a navy blue zipper and pulled

her little PTA dress over her head and threw it in back of her on the

green pile carpet.

The dog was making such a racket, she didn’t hear Parker’s car

door slam, but she heard him making crunching sounds in the

gravel driveway. The Naugahyde against her bare skin felt like a

great big sticky hand. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She

was actually going to have an adventure after all these years. She

arranged herself in her black lace push-up bra and slung one leg

decorously over the arm of the chair, so her black garter belt would

peek through the slit in her half slip.

She looked up at the door as he entered, sort of over her shoulder.

She was gratified to see the surprise on his face.

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“My God, Sissy!” But the delight she’d expected to accompany

his surprise didn’t materialize.

And then she saw why.

Following him through the door, actually holding his hand, was a

redheaded mulatto whore.

The two women stared at each other.

The mulatto snatched her hand away and said, “I don’t know

what you had in your mind, Parker Davidson, but I don’t do things

like this!” Her voice was filled with the fury of betrayal.

Southern Belle Handbook Rule Number Seven:
When humiliated

a lady should always fall back on her pretensions
. “You all don’t

have to worry about me,” Sissy said, pulling herself up with the dig-

nity of a great lady. “I don’t want any part of your . . .” she paused,