The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (10 page)

crazy.”

“Makes a lot of people crazy,” he said, eyeing Parker. I can’t

believe I got myself into this, Sissy berated herself as Tibor crossed

the finish line, “protecting both races from mongrelization.” Parker

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 6 3

looked dumbfounded, which comforted Sissy, but surprised her

too. She figured her uncle was just your garden variety bigot.

Parker ought to be used to them by now.

Parker turned to say hello to Buster Rubinstein. The Davidsons

and the Rubinsteins were the only Jewish families in Gentry when

she and Parker were growing up, and subject to endless speculation

among the kids, especially in seventh grade after a visiting evangel-

ist had proclaimed amid an orgy of foot stomping and speaking in

tongues that to get into heaven you had to save at least three souls

and bring those benighted heathens to Jesus.

Suddenly, Parker became a hot commodity. He was the only kid

anybody knew who wasn’t already a Christian. Sissy would see him

in intense conversations around the school yard with different boys

and girls. She’d watch them press literature into his hands and

watch him read it. But in the end he was a great disappointment to

the faithful. He withstood their most fervent spiritual assaults.

They then turned their attention to the senior Davidsons and

Rubinsteins, filling their mailboxes and covering their lawns with

religious tracts.

Sissy’s father warned her not to join the general harassment,

although until that moment the idea had never entered her head.

Then he gave her a little lecture in comparative religions. The

upshot was that neither Jews nor Muslims were heathens. She duti-

fully brought these pearls to school, but the kids didn’t care. Jews

were going to hell and it was their duty to save them.

But resistance to conversion was about all the Rubinsteins and

the Davidsons had in common. With their department store, the

Rubinsteins were busy with the movers and shakers. Sissy had

heard that Buster contributed heavily to her uncle’s campaign. But

she didn’t know if it was out of friendship or because Buster was

afraid of Tibor and his constituency of bigots.

She knew a gang had tried to run Buster’s family out of the parish

during the early years of the century. The shoot-out between the

Rubinsteins and the J.O.C.s (Just Our Crowd) was part of Gentry’s

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legend, as was old man Rubinstein’s declaration, “Nobody runs me

out of my home.”

Nobody ever did. The old man got richer and richer. When he

died, he left Buster half the business property in Gentry and con-

trolling interest in the bank.

At first, all Buster wanted to do was enjoy his inheritance. When

she was a little girl, Sissy heard her parents talk about the wild par-

ties and all-night drunks, with people dancing on ice cubes at the

Rubinsteins’ big old house with the white columns out front and

over an acre of lawns and gardens. Politicians, sportsmen, and even

an urbane Catholic priest were rumored to have attended. But since

Buster’s wife had taken ill, the house parties stopped. Buster’s enter-

taining had diminished to card games in his office with his buddies.

The Davidsons, Parker’s parents, were quieter, not to mention

poorer. They kept to themselves. She wondered if both families

were trying to prove that Jews weren’t as clannish as some people

said. If so, it worked.

Her father-in-law told her that Buster, as a leading citizen of the

town, had been approached to join the newly formed Ku Klux

Klan. Bourrée thought that was a killer. “Those fools don’t have the

sense to know who they’re organized to hate.”

Buster had declined, of course, but there was talk that he got

some of his employees to join and keep the lid on things.

Parker started to ask Buster about his wife when Tibor reared

up again, promoting the “values of the American family.” Sissy

wondered which would go first, her uncle’s bigotry or his friend-

ship with Buster. And then she wondered if friendship wasn’t too

big a word.

But she didn’t have much time to speculate, because Bourrée took

her bare arm and pulled her aside. “You bribing my grandchildren,

chère?”

She had to remind herself to breathe. People called Bourrée

LeBlanc a lot of names, but stupid wasn’t one of them. “Why,

whatever gave you that idea?”

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 6 5

“It’s not their birthday, and it’s too hot for Christmas.”

Southern Belle’s Handbook Rule Number Three:
When caught

red-handed, lie through your teeth
. “Why, Bourrée, you have the

most astonishing imagination.” She fluffed up her hair with her

long freckled fingers and then sighed, “Of course I’m not bribing

them, but I’ve just got to find some way to keep them busy this

summer. That’s all.”

He seemed to buy that. Sissy began to breathe automatically again.

Men are so easy.

Then Bourrée smiled a tight, mean smile and, with her arm still in

his grip, cast an eye toward Parker and asked, “What you doing

this summer that’s so important?”

Sissy would have gladly strangled him, and to make matters

worse, that was the moment Chip chose to come strutting in with

his chemistry set, piled high with additional beakers and chemicals

from the hardware department. “We’re ready!” He saw his grand-

father and went to him for a hug. “Hey, Pawpaw. You gonna take

me shooting this Saturday?”

Bourrée let go of Sissy. “Sure am, boy. We gotta try out my new

shotgun.”

Chip grinned, looked around, and recognized Parker. He hesi-

tated for what seemed to Sissy an awfully long time, and then he

smiled his grandfather’s tight, mean smile. “This should keep me

quiet all summer long.”

Parker turned on him and gave the boy a hard look. Chip stum-

bled back into his grandfather. Bourrée squinted from one to the

other, which was when Sissy decided her best position was out.

“Excuse me, gentlemen. But I’ve got to see to my children.” She

started to put the dress away.

“Take it, Sissy,” Buster said.

“Oh no, I couldn’t . . .”

“Go on, try it on at home. If you don’t like it, just bring it back.

You know your credit’s always good here.” In spite of the chipped

mannequins, Buster hadn’t kept Rubinstein’s the biggest store in the

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

parish for nothing. “Tell you what, the merchandise looks so good

on you, I’ll let you have it for twenty percent off.” He smiled expec-

tantly.

“Buster, you are a devil. You know how I hate to pass up a bar-

gain.”

He just laughed.

Sissy wanted their attention off Chip and Parker, so she held the

dress up and turned, gauging her effect on her admirers. “What do

you all think? Can you all imagine me in this dress?” She glanced at

her father-in-law and realized with disdain, and a little pride, that

the son of a bitch was imagining her without it.

“It’ll look real good on you,” said Buster. “What do you think,

Tibor?”

“Real good.”

“Well, then, if you all insist.”She folded the dress over her arm

and quoted Rule Number Twenty-four: “
A girl has to look her best

while she’s still young enough to look real good
. Don’t you think?”

And with that, she put her other arm around her son’s shoulder and

turned to go. “Come on, honey,” she said.

Chip pushed her arm off and led the way past the hardware into

the children’s department.

The children wandered off while Sissy waited at the cash register.

She pulled her wallet out of her purse. Parker’s key dropped to the

floor just as Bourrée came up behind her. They bent down together,

but he scooped it up. “Is this an invitation, chère?” He dangled the

key just out of her reach.

Sissy’s heart was pounding. She straightened up and managed a

weak smile and made her voice purr. “Why, Bourrée, are you

angling for an invitation?”

“Why would I want to do that?” His eyes were blank, but there

was amusement playing around the corners of his lips.

Sissy looked at the guns laid out in the display case. It wasn’t the

first time she’d wanted to shoot him. Instead she grabbed the key

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 6 7

out of his hand and snapped it in her purse. Then, gathering her

children around her, she herded them out to the car.

Bourrée stepped onto the sidewalk and called after her, “I’d put

that key on a chain, if I was you, chère. Somebody get ahold of it

and anything could happen.”

“You’re right,” said Sissy. Then her eyes flashed over to Parker

getting into the telephone truck. “You’re right, cher, anything could

happen.”

Marriage is the root of all suffering.

Rule Number Thirty-seven

The Southern Belle’s Handbook

C h a p t e r 6

Bourrée LeBlanc sat at the round dining table, with his back

to the wall, sharpening his carving knife. The roses in the cut-glass

vase on the middle of the table trembled. In back of him, hunters

and dogs chased helpless foxes all over the wallpaper. He contem-

plated his son and his three grandchildren and wondered why, when

he’d raised three sons of his own, only Peewee, the runt of the litter,

was around for Sunday dinner. The others had left town long ago.

Miss Lily, his wife, waddled in carrying an enormous bowl of

mashed potatoes. She set it down and took off its flowered lid.

Steam rose up and hit her in her pretty face, now swaddled in

mounds of fat.

Bourrée watched with distaste as a drop of sweat ran down his

wife’s cheek, over her multiplicity of chins, to lodge between her

ample breasts. He turned his head, trying not to see her dab those

big, soft breasts with her napkin as Sissy came into the dining room

bearing a platter of snap beans.

She blew a lock of auburn hair off her forehead and felt her peas-

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 6 9

ant blouse cling to her. There was no air conditioning unit in the

kitchen where she’d been working with her mother-in-law, and her

whole body glowed damply from the heat. She wished she could

throw off all her clothes and jump into the river, feel the water

eddying over her, caressing her body, cooling off all her hidden

crevices. Instead, she had to spend the day all trussed up like the

Sunday chicken.

She bent over the table and put the platter on Miss Lily’s lace

tablecloth. Before she even looked up, she could feel her father-in-

law’s eyes searching beneath her scoop-necked peasant blouse. She

slowly hiked up the neck of her blouse and sensually fluffed out the

ruffles. Then she licked her lips with her little pink tongue. Eat your

heart out, you old coot.

A tight little smile spread across Bourrée’s face. Here it comes,

Sissy thought. But she was caught off balance when he turned to his

son and said, “Sissy tell you what she picked up at Rubinstein’s on

Thursday?” Peewee shook his head. Sissy glared at her father-in-

law, but he just smiled back. “That broken-down football player,

what’s his name?”

“Parker Davidson?” Peewee’s voice came out thin and high.

Just then Chip rushed in. “Pawpaw, you promised to show me

your shotgun. When you gonna do it?” Bourrée ignored him, but

Chip kept pressing with the same urgency that Sissy had heard

when he was following her around the gravel pit demanding a

chemistry set. “When, Pawpaw?”

“When I get good and ready,” said Bourrée, not taking his eyes

off Sissy.

For a moment Sissy felt grateful to Chip for trying to change the

subject. But then she realized he wasn’t protecting her. He was pro-

tecting a good thing. Did the boy expect to blackmail her forever?

“You didn’t tell me you saw Parker Davidson,” Peewee said.

Sissy shrugged. “Must have slipped my mind.” She set her jaw

and gave Bourrée a look to tell him to lay off. But Bourrée, with a

satisfied expression on his face, handed his carving implements to

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Chip so he could practice sharpening them. And Sissy made a tacti-

cal error. She forgot Rule Number Twenty-nine:
When a lady’s

actions are not beyond reproach, she never refers to them
. “I mean,

when you live in a town of twenty-five hundred people, you’re

bound to run into everybody all the time. So don’t you all let your

minds run rampant. I went with Parker before I started going out

with Peewee. We were just children then.”

“I remember what kind of child you was,” Bourrée said under his

breath.

Peewee’s head shot around. He stared at his father. Sissy waited

for her husband to defend her, but then she saw he couldn’t make

himself say anything, not while he was sitting in the same chair he’d