The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (47 page)

When she was halfway down the block, Chip shot across the

street and hid behind the live oak. He was a spy on a mission and

the enemy was his mother.

Parker looked at the clock over the bar. Ten twenty-two.

She’d be there. He was sure of it. She had to be. There was still

plenty of time. He’d awakened at four-thirty that morning, worry-

ing about whether he was cut out for a settled life with a ready-

made family. What kind of husband would he make day in and day

out? What kind of father? Well, he was about to find out. In a few

hours he and Sissy and her kids would be together and for the rest

of their lives. It was terrifying.

By nine, in spite of the bandages around his palms and on the fin-

gers of his right hand, he was packed and ready to go. He had left

Sid in the yard. He’d swing by and pick him up on his way out of

town. At nine-thirty he was in front of the Paradise, waiting for the

place to open.

“You sure I can’t do something for you?” asked Rosalie, polish-

ing the bar. He moved his stool so he could watch the door.

Ida May Thompson was carefully cutting flowers in the front

yard of her pretentious house built of new brick, white trim, and

enough Doric columns to hold up the Parthenon in its heyday,

when she spotted Sissy all dressed up trotting down the sidewalk

in the middle of the morning. Gathering her flowers to her ample

breast, Ida May hurried up the stairs and into the house, and

banged the door behind her. She was sending a message to that

no-account niece of her husband. Sissy didn’t get the message. She

was too busy concentrating on putting one foot in front of the

other as fast as she could, but the pain and the heat were slowing

her down.

3 2 2

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

As she crossed Education Drive, Chip hid behind that same mag-

nolia tree that Clara had crawled into when she was six. Its leaves

were brown and twisted with blight now, but it still provided ample

cover for a spy.

Sissy checked her watch. Ten twenty-four and she had four and a

half more blocks to cover and only six minutes to do it in. Across

the street was the red-brick high school, where she and her girl-

friends had planned their Junior Prom, where she’d been chosen

head cheerleader, and where she’d cheered Parker on to glory. She

began to run as she’d run then, but each jarring step on the broken

pavement sent sharp pains through her feet and legs and into her

back. She had to slow down. She thought she heard someone in ten-

nis shoes running behind her but she didn’t look. She couldn’t look;

she didn’t have time to turn around, not now.

“Can I get you something, Parker?” Rosalie asked.

“I’m fine,” he replied, but he wasn’t fine. She should be here by

now, it was ten twenty-eight.

Sissy was passing Brother Junior Bodine’s white clapboard

Church of Everlasting Redemption. Music spilled out through the

open window, music so jazzy that at first Sissy didn’t realize it was

the opening strains of “Nearer My God to Thee.” And then she

heard Betty Ruth Bodine’s clear voice belting out the words. Betty

Ruth sounded more upbeat and assured than Sissy had heard her in

years. Then the music became all twisted in “Heartbreak Hotel,” as

the black hearse filled with teenagers roared by.

As soon as it was past, she hurried across Commerce Street. She

turned around at the corner and thought she saw a shadow dart in

back of the church. Was someone following her?

“Chip, is that you?”

Nothing. It was ten thirty-two. She didn’t have time to worry

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 3 2 3

about it. She hastened down the sidewalk lined with little one-story

cottages. Her back was burning with pain as her toes in her little

strappy sandals hit the searing pavement. Across the street was the

old parish cemetery where her brother Norman was buried, next to

her mother. The crape myrtle shading their graves spread its pink

blossoms over them. She felt a pang of guilt. She hadn’t visited them

all summer. She promised herself she’d take the children there

before she left with Parker. If Parker hadn’t left already. She looked

at her watch. It was ten thirty-three. Oh God, let him stay a little

longer. Please let him wait for me.

Chip followed his mother along the street, hopping fences,

hiding behind the wash flapping on the lines. He watched her go

into a fit of coughing and slow down. He noted with satisfaction

the dark circles spreading under her arms.

She began to wheeze. A stitch of pain dug into her side. What if

he’s gone already? He wouldn’t leave before I got there, said her

Voice of Hope. But what if he does? He’d said he had to leave

today. If he thought I’d stood him up, he’d be gone and I’d have no

way of reaching him. Then a thought, like a cloud she was trying to

banish, hung over her no matter how fast she walked. If he’s gone,

what do I do with my life?

The Paradise was cool but Parker wasn’t. He checked the

clock. Ten-forty. A bottle of JAX was going flat in front of him.

Untouched. A sick feeling spread over him. Sissy had suckered him.

Again. She was staying with the toad.

“Something wrong with your beer, Parker?” Rosalie asked.

He raised the bottle to his lips. The liquor tasted sour. The

minute hand on the wall clock clicked over to ten forty-one. Sissy

wasn’t coming. Okay, he could handle that. He was out of here.

But first, he’d give her a call at home. Maybe her burns were

3 2 4

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

worse than the doctor thought. Maybe she couldn’t leave the

house.

Red roses climbed over a picket fence, filling the street with

their fragrance. As Sissy neared the open gate the roses shivered and

dropped their pedals. A chicken stumbled out onto the sidewalk. It

gyrated in front of her, blocking her way, spraying some kind of

dark liquid. Sissy jumped back and saw the chicken’s head was cut

off. The dark liquid was its own blood.

A Negro cook ran out of the yard. “I hope you didn’t git no

blood on that pretty green dress of yours,” she said, catching the

bird. “Lemme have a look.”

But Sissy had already started to run around the corner into

Progress Street. She still had two and a half blocks to go. Her heels

made clicking and scraping noises on the burning cement.

Parker put down the phone and went back to the bar. “Sure I

can’t get you something else?” Rosalie asked.

“No, thanks.” He threw her a dollar. Before she could make

change he was out the door.

The sunlight blinded him.

But not Chip, who caught sight of Parker, a block and a half

away, leaving the bar, turning away from them, and heading for his

car. Then Chip saw his mother pick up speed, run out into Com-

merce Street, dodging trucks and cars and Gentry’s lone taxi as

Parker opened the door of his MG. He saw the big man get into the

convertible and start the engine.

“Parker!”

Chip knew the man couldn’t hear his mother over the roar of the

engine. He saw Parker turn and start to back up and then jam on

the brakes. Saw him leave his car half out in the street, vault out of

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 3 2 5

the MG, and run to her. And he saw them go into the bar together.

Chip smiled. Knowledge is power, all right.

He dashed back to the house and into his room, where he

snaked under the bed and pulled out a box. On the outside was a

picture of his chemistry set, on the inside was the yellow sundress

with the creosote handprint that his mother had thrown in the

trash at the beginning of the summer. The dress he had sneaked

outside in the middle of the night to collect for just such a target

of opportunity.

Parker held her chair. The bar was dark. The aroma of bour-

bon and Coke filled her nostrils. The air conditioner beat a soft

drum solo. They were both strangely shy. She had already asked

him about his hands. He had already inquired about her back.

“I must look a sight,” she said, raising a fluttering hand to her

hair.

“Yeah.” He pulled up a chair so close their thighs touched.

Chip pedaled at top speed. The box with the dress was in his

basket. He dropped his bike in front of the old brick courthouse

that filled a whole block on Grand Street between Church and Edu-

cation. He went inside, looking for his father.

Parker leaned toward Sissy and touched her hair. His heart

was pounding in time with the air conditioner. “I was afraid you

wouldn’t come,” he said.

“I’m not fool enough to let you get away from me again,” she

said. Her eyes shone and caressed him.

Parker touched Sissy’s cheek with his fingertip. “You’re sure,

now?”

3 2 6

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

“I’m sure,” said Sissy, surprised at how sure she was. She took a

deep breath and all the chains that had wrapped up her existence

burst. She was finally free. “It’s time I had a life. And I want to

spend it with you.”

Parker let out a whoop and opened his arms. Sissy moved toward

them. They were her home.

Parker, careful of her bandaged back, pulled her onto his lap, just

as Peewee came through the door.

Outside, Chip leaned against the wall, under the wooden

overhang. He’d tried to squeeze in behind his father, but Peewee

had pushed him out. Sharp fumes of bourbon and Coca-Cola fil-

tered through the door.

He felt anxious. What if his daddy didn’t do anything? It would

be just like him. The boy paced back and forth in the shadows. He

thought about his chemicals running down the wall. He needed

someone on his side. Someone with some gumption.

He ran around the corner to Grand Street looking for his grand-

father and found him, just as he thought he would, at Thompson

Campaign Headquarters with the candidate, watching the Thomp-

sonettes paint campaign signs.

The candidate took him into his private office, where Chip told

Tibor and Bourrée everything. And as his mother had predicted, he

saw no reason to stick to the truth. “They was fucking right there in

the kitchen, Pawpaw, standing up!” Chip saw his grandfather’s eyes

become slits. “This is where he was feeling her up!” The boy held

up the yellow sundress. He gave it to the men so they could touch

the creosote handprint.

“In front of her children,” said the future congressman and

defender of the family.

“When?” asked Bourrée. His voice sounded constricted.

“Just about every morning. Soon as Daddy left for work, they’d

be going at it.”

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 3 2 7

“Corrupting the morals of her own children,” said the candidate,

shaking his head.

Bourrée’s face shut down. That’s why she stood him up in New

Orleans and humiliated him in the river yesterday. “A woman like

that don’t deserve to live.”

When Peewee entered the Paradise, the blast of sunlight

from the open door burned into Sissy’s vision. All she saw was Pee-

wee’s shadow. She jumped up and felt Parker stand up behind her.

Her heart was loud in her ears. She was afraid Peewee would find

some way to stop her. And then she saw his chin tremble. “Pee-

wee . . .” Even after what he’d done to her the night before, she still

hated to see him suffer.

Beads of sweat dripped into Peewee’s eyes. He wiped a tar-

stained hand across his forehead, and Sissy remembered how many

times those dirty hands had touched her and her skin crawled at the

memory.

“We were gonna tell you, Peewee,” Parker said.

Peewee looked like he wanted to jump the bigger man, knock

him down, but he checked himself and made an ugly sound that

had a
k
and a
y
in it.

Rosalie, behind the bar, handed him a drink. “On the house, Pee-

wee.” He picked it up and looked straight into Parker’s picture in

his high school football uniform, framed above the bar. Peewee

gulped the bourbon and Coke and slammed down the glass. It slid

across the bar out of control. Without another word or even look-

ing back at them, he walked out the door.

“Oh God, Parker, I didn’t mean for it to happen like that,” Sissy

said.

“I know.”

And then she thought about Peewee grabbing her shoulders, stuff-

ing a pillow over her face as he crawled over her tender back, bruis-

ing her skin, rutting and grunting. “But I can’t go back to him.”

3 2 8

L o r a i n e D e s p r e s

* * *

Chip was waiting for him in front of a neon sign that said PARA-

DISE LOST and DIXIE BEER. “You see ’em?” he asked with the excite-

ment of a boy who knows the right answer. But Peewee just stared

at his feet and shook his head. The blacktop, hot and bubbling, rose

to his throat. It bubbled up out of his mouth and boiled in his stom-