The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (48 page)

ach. He was drowning in it. He wondered why he bothered to go to

work in the morning.

“It’s like I told you, right? Am I right?” Chip asked, hopping.

Hot tears of shame trickled from Peewee’s eyes. He heard a

mean little snort. He raised his head and saw Chip had Bourrée

with him.

Tibor had been waylaid by some voters at the corner of Grand

and Progress. He slapped one on the shoulder and shook hands

with another, but he was keeping his eye on Bourrée and Peewee in

front of the bar on Progress Street.

Bourrée looked at this sniveling son of his, and something mean

rose up inside him. It was like with a cockroach. It don’t bite, but

you stepped on it all the same. People said they spread disease. But

in his entire life, Bourrée had never heard of anybody catching

cockroach fever. No. He knew better. You stepped on a cockroach

to hear the shell crackle under your boot. “Stop blubbering, boy.

For once in your life act like a man.”

“She cheated on me, Daddy.”

“Pitiful,” Bourrée said under his breath. “What’d you expect?

You married the town pump.”

“You take that back!” Peewee’s voice was high and out of con-

trol. “Before we got married, she swore to me she’d never slept with

Parker Davidson. And she never went with anybody else before me.

Not steady. And her daddy was real strict.” His voice trailed off.

The pavement quivered with mirages.

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 9

Bourrée eyed his son with contempt. It was time the boy faced

facts. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a quarter, and gave it

to Chip. “Run around the corner and get me a newspaper.”

“Awww, Pawpaw!” Chip whined.

Bourrée knew the boy didn’t want to miss a minute of the drama

he’d launched. “You do as I say.” And then he leaned down as if to

a conspirator. “I don’t expect no change.”

The teenager sped off, passing Tibor, heading toward the bar.

When Bourrée figured Chip was out of earshot, he turned back to

Peewee. “Fine boy,” he said.

“Do you know something about my wife that I ought to know?”

Peewee strained to make his voice strong and manly, but it quivered

like the sidewalk.

“Only that you sure as hell wasn’t the first.”

Tibor came up behind Peewee and laid a comforting hand on his

shoulder.

Bourrée savored the moment. It had always stuck in his craw that

another man claimed to be the father of one of his sons. Of course,

he’d realized how convenient it was at the time. But times change.

“Now, I don’t know about these other kids of yours, but I was the

one that stuck that first baby into her belly.”

“You goddamn liar!” Peewee screamed, and tried to punch his

father in the stomach, but Tibor grabbed his arms from behind and

held them.

“Now, you just calm down, you hear me!” the D.A. said.

Bourrée breathed into his son’s face. “What do you think I was

doing out in the woods that year you was whining to go duck hunt-

ing? Playing with my dogs? When did you start diddling her? Count

the months, boy.”

Peewee let out a sharp cry and began to shake. “Chip was pre-

mature!”

Bourrée and Tibor exchanged amused looks. “Mighty big pre-

emie,” Bourrée said. Peewee looked like he wanted to kill his father.

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

Bourrée just stared his son down until he crumpled and Tibor let

him go.

Bourrée adjusted his white shirt, remembering how Sissy looked

lying there in her short, little cheerleader skirt, her legs covered

with goose bumps, her panties pulled halfway down. And how she

felt all young and tight when he crawled on top of her. “Now she’s

giving it away to that clipped-dick in the bar.” He should have

drowned the bitch yesterday.

Bourrée saw the rings spread under his son’s arms. He could

smell the sour sweat of rage. Bourrée remembered the bucket

Parker had thrown at him. Total war. “At least you could take care

of that mutt that’s sniffing around under her skirt.”

“Do what you have to, Peewee. No jury in the parish would con-

vict a man for standing up for his rights,” the district attorney said.

“Hell, I don’t believe you’d even be indicted.”

Bourrée watched the D.A. take Peewee aside and walk him down

the street. He saw him pat the younger man on the back and send

him across the tracks to Rubinstein’s.

Sissy grabbed her purse and tossed in her cigarettes. “Let’s

get out of here,” she said. But as she headed for the door her ankles

wobbled in her high-heeled sandals and she stumbled against a

scarred wooden table.

Parker helped her to a chair. “I’m okay,” she protested, “really.”

But she didn’t try to get up. The nervous energy that had propelled

her through her pain all morning had deserted her. She looked up at

Parker and said, “Give me a minute, okay?”

Parker smiled until the corners of his brown eyes crinkled. “You

can have the rest of my life.” He brought her a bourbon and Coke

over a glass filled with cracked ice.

* * *

Peewee walked past Rubinstein’s windows jammed with pres-

sure cookers and lawn mowers. A rifle hung on a rack in the back

of the display. But all Peewee saw was his own reflection.

He walked into the sporting goods department, where Buster was

standing around, talking to the salesclerks. He pulled up his belt,

which had slipped below his belly, and said, “Hey, Peewee, gonna

do some duck hunting this year?”

“I expect so,” said Peewee.

“How can I help you?” Buster stepped behind the oak display

case and took out a key. He helped Peewee to a Smith and Wesson

.38 Chief’s Special and a box of cartridges. He put the sale on Pee-

wee’s bill.

Peewee loaded the pistol and stepped out into the street. The heat

suffocated him. The bourbon beat a tom-tom in his brain. She’d

stolen everything. Even his own father. His heart pounded in his

temples and his feet felt heavy, but the excitement of a loaded gun

in his hand drove him on.

Out in the country, the
Panama Limited
hurtled down the Illi-

nois Central tracks, heading for Chicago.

Sissy heard its early rumblings in the bar and tried to stand. Ros-

alie made an ice pack and wrapped it in a bar towel. Parker held it

to Sissy’s burning neck.

“Rest for a minute,” he said. “You’ve had a hell of a time.”

Red lights flashed and the railroad warning bell clanged.

Peewee stepped onto the tracks anyway. He felt them tremble,

heard the train coming in, but he didn’t pay any attention. His

glasses were so fogged up he couldn’t see. He took them off with his

left hand and rubbed them on his shirt. He thought about his wife

sitting on that clipped-dick’s lap and his face twisted at the memory.

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

“We were gonna tell you, Peewee.” He picked up his step. The rail-

road gates closed behind him. The
Panama Limited
shot through

the intersection and screamed.

Sissy felt the cold water from the towel filled with cracked ice

drip down her back, wetting her bandage as Parker rubbed it over

her neck, under her hairline. “I want you and the children out of

there, today.”

“Oh, Parker . . .” she began.

“I’ll pack you all up.”

Sissy sighed. She was so exhausted.

“There’s nothing left for you there except to torture one another.

How many more days of your life you gonna devote to that project?”

She reached for his hand. “Thank you.”

“You mean it?” His voice was eager.

“I can’t sleep there another night,” she said, stroking the fingers

of his right hand.

He bent over and gently kissed her hair. “I love you, you know.”

Sissy looked up at him. “I know.” She took the ice pack away.

She thought about sleeping all night next to Parker, waking up with

their legs entwined. She thought about them traveling together, see-

ing all those places he’d told her about. She wouldn’t let him feel

worthless or doubt himself ever again. She’d help him build what-

ever life he wanted, in Boston or Timbuktu.

He sat across from her and brushed her cheek. “Say it.”

She shook her head. She’d never told any man she loved him.

“You can say it, Sissy.”

She looked into those deep brown eyes and a shiver of excitement

went through her. She realized she was finally a woman. She was

taking her life into her own hands.

“Say it,” he whispered.

But she never did, because at that moment Peewee came back

into the bar with a half-cocked revolver in his hand.

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 3 3

Parker jumped up, knocking over his chair.

“Size don’t count for nothing now, you fucking Jew!” Peewee

raised the gun.

Sissy saw Rosalie duck behind the bar.

Parker tried to push Sissy behind him, but she was fed up with

men fighting over her.

“Now, just stay cool, sugar, I’ll handle this,” she said. Her heart

was pounding as she faced down that greasy black pistol. She knew

it was Peewee’s first real hold on power, but she placed her body

between the two of them anyway and held out her hand to her hus-

band. “Give me the gun, Peewee. You don’t want to shoot any-

body.”

There was an urgency in her voice and fear, but Peewee didn’t

hear. The blood was pumping in his ears. He hadn’t heard a word

she’d said since she’d called Parker sugar.

He saw that long freckled hand and thought about all she’d

taken from him, all she’d done to him. He wiped his left hand on

his pants, but he couldn’t wipe his right and it was sweating so

badly he could hardly hold the pistol. He looked at his wife cool

and pretty and aimed at her face.

A blast of hot air hit him.

Bourrée stepped through the door behind the lovers. He couldn’t

resist checking out what was going on. He smelled his son’s sweat

from across the room. Saw his hand tremble. Pitiful.

Peewee glanced up as his father moved past the targets. Their

eyes met. The air conditioner pounded.

Bourrée’s nostrils flared with contempt. The master puppeteer

willed his son to get on with it.

And Peewee obeyed.

The shot ripped a hole though the rest of their lives.

You can’t change the past, but a smart girl won’t let that

stop her.

Rule Number One Hundred and One

The Southern Belle’s Handbook

E p i l o g u e

Marilee tried to help her mother down the stairs. “You don’t

have to treat me like a cripple,” Sissy said, pulling away from her

briskly.

“You were faking, weren’t you?” Marilee asked. “You just

wanted a chance to sit on your old porch for a while, didn’t you?”

“I told you. When you get to be my age, doing what you want is

the only thing you have time for. Now, hurry up. We don’t want to

be late for the senator.”

Marilee turned the corner onto Hope Street. The Rubin-

steins’ big antebellum house had been torn down. A stucco apart-

ment block with aluminum-clad windows took up most of the lot.

Tibor’s pretentious brick monstrosity with all its Doric columns

was still standing, but the big magnolia tree where Clara had once

hidden was gone. The old high school was gone too, with its

pilasters and curlicues and engraving of “
Mens sana in corpore

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 3 5

sano
.” In its place was a two-story glass and cement building that

would be at home in any suburb of Los Angeles. Sissy sort of

missed the old school, which had housed so many of her memories,

but was sure that the students she saw with their backpacks and

baggy clothes pouring out of the classrooms, released early for the

victory celebration, undoubtedly preferred air conditioning.

Brother Junior Bodine’s white clapboard Church of Everlasting

Redemption had been replaced by a glass and stucco structure with

a soaring roof and a huge cross that caught the sun as it reached to

the heavens. “Looks like a lot of people have been real successful

finding Everlasting Redemption,” Sissy said.

Marilee didn’t say anything. She was still pissed at her mother

and concentrated on getting them to the fairgrounds.

Sissy looked to her right at the cemetery. She could see the crape

myrtle tree over the graves of her mother, father, brother, and

grandmother. “Honey . . .” she started.

“We don’t have time to visit dead people, Mama. The live ones

need us right now.”

Sissy laughed. “Sometimes you sound just like me.”

Marilee couldn’t suppress a smile. “Sometimes you drive me

crazy.”

“I know, sugar, that’s a mother’s job.”

Marilee laughed and, shaking her head, picked up her cell phone.

The senator was late.

Sissy, standing by the side of the stage, looked around at the fair-

grounds and thought about how it had changed over the years. The