The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (11 page)

sat in during all those humiliating meals of his childhood.

“What kind of child was she, Pawpaw?” Billy Joe asked.

Peewee managed to tell his own son to sit up straight and mind

his business.

“What did I say?” demanded Billy Joe.

Miss Lily pursed her lips. She adjusted the venetian blinds, which

were caught in her new lace curtains. Light like prison bars fell

across the room. “It was real sweet of you to bring the kids to chil-

dren’s services at our church this morning, Sissy. Real sweet. I

mean, your being Episcopalian and all.”

“One’s as good as another, I expect,” said Sissy, wiping up some

milk Marilee had spilled. But when she stood up and saw Miss

Lily’s horrified stare, she hurried to add, “I mean, when you praise

the Lord it doesn’t matter whose house you do it in.”

Miss Lily nodded. Bourrée caught Sissy’s eye, a tight smile on his

face.

Sissy ignored him, told her mother-in-law to sit down, and

headed back into the kitchen. Sissy didn’t mind hypocrites so much,

she was used to them. What she hated was the way they had of get-

ting you to join them.

She pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen and

inhaled the rich smell of roast chicken. She had decided on church

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 7 1

as a means to strengthen her resolve to remain good and faithful.

She’d sat through the service in a reverie, enjoying the flowers and

the music and the rich vibrations of Brother Junior’s voice, hardly

noticing that she was planning Peewee’s funeral—after he died in a

tragic accident, of course, due to no fault of hers. It wasn’t that she

wanted him out of the way. She was just imagining herself in black,

simple and dignified, wearing her grandmother’s pearls.

She bent down and opened the oven door. A blast of heat hit her

in the face. All the time she was in church, Parker Davidson was

walking the streets of Gentry.

She took the chicken out of the oven and set it on Miss Lily’s

heirloom silverplate platter. Being good and faithful sure wasn’t all

it was cracked up to be. She wondered what Parker was doing right

now. She knew she wasn’t being rational, but she felt abandoned.

She was thinking of Parker as she carried in the platter of

chicken, but she snapped out of it when she heard Bourrée ask Pee-

wee, “They give you that promotion you been angling for, boy?”

Peewee’s ears went red and the blush spread up through his

blond crew cut. He scrutinized his plate and shook his head.

Sissy’s eyes blazed as she set the platter in front of her father-in-

law. Bourrée knew Peewee had been passed over. She and Miss Lily

had discussed it the week before. She rushed in to rescue her hus-

band. “The only reason Daryl Morrison got that job is his family

owns half the parish. Everybody knows that. He’s got the IQ of

swamp gas. And the personal charm to match.” The children gig-

gled. Peewee looked at his wife with gratitude. She sat down next to

him and patted his hand. She never could stand to see him suffer.

Then at Miss Lily’s urging, they joined hands and Marilee said

grace. As the child thanked God for all His blessings, Sissy listened

to the heavy, machine-made lace curtain flapping in the breeze from

the air conditioner. It sounded like a man walking.

As soon as the prayer was done, Bourrée was at it again. “They

still got you working on the highway with the niggers?”

“Bourrée!” said Miss Lily.

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“I’ll thank you not to use that word in front of my children,”

Sissy said.

But Bourrée just smiled.

Peewee looked up at his father. Sissy was reminded of a rabbit

trapped in a hunter’s flashlight. “Only when Norbert isn’t around,”

he mumbled. “Road work’s his job.”

“Looks like it’s your job, too.”

Sissy couldn’t stand it. She knew Bourrée was bored at these fam-

ily gatherings, but she’d be damned if she’d let him take it out on

her husband. Rule Number Fourteen, Southern Belle’s Handbook:

The best defense is a diversion
. She kissed her husband on the cheek

and entwined her long, thin fingers through his. “Peewee works so

hard for me and the children. Don’t you, sugar?” She ruffled his

crew cut. Then she glanced over at her father-in-law to see if her

diversion was working. She wasn’t disappointed.

Bourrée growled softly as her long, freckled fingers caressed Pee-

wee’s fingernails, blackened with tar.

“What do you want, Sissy?” Bourrée asked as he raised the carv-

ing knife.

To make you suffer. But she said, leaning over toward the bird

until her scoop-necked blouse slipped off her shoulder, “I’ll take a

thigh.”

Their eyes locked. Bourrée laughed.

“One thigh coming up. What about you, Peewee? You want the

drumstick?”

Sissy saw Peewee wince. He was a child again, a child who had

grown up in a family of five and had taken what was plunked on

his plate. “Sure, Daddy, anything will be just fine.”

“I get dibs on the other!” yelled Chip.

“No, me!” cried Marilee.

“I said it first, didn’t I, Pawpaw? I said it first!” insisted Chip.

Bourrée nodded to Chip, his favorite. “That’s right, son. You said

it first.”

“But I’m the girl,” whined Marilee.

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 7 3

“Give them both to the children,” Peewee said.

“Yay!”

“You sure, boy?”

“Please,” said Peewee. He pulled his hand away from Sissy’s.

Miss Lily passed around the plates of snap beans and mashed

potatoes. Bourrée carved off a piece of what looked like mostly skin

and bone and put it on his son’s plate.

“Look, Daddy,” said Marilee. “Pawpaw gave you the wish-

bone.”

“He sure did.” Peewee turned to his father, a pleased expression

spreading across his face. “Thanks.”

Bourrée paused and, giving his son a bland look in return, said

to his granddaughter, “I figure your daddy needs all the help he

can get.”

Peewee left his parents’ home with a vague but nagging sense

of humiliation churning around in his stomach. He tried to wash it

away with Dixie Beer, six-pack after six-pack of Dixie Beer, while

helping Chip figure out ever more ingenious ways to combine haz-

ardous chemicals. Sissy had been at him for weeks to spend more

time with the boy. By suppertime, Peewee had managed to smooth

off the rough edges of the afternoon. Of course, he was also walk-

ing into the doorjambs, and Chip wouldn’t let him near his test

tubes.

Peewee opened the bedroom window. It had cooled down a little.

He adjusted the fan and lay down in the direct path of the breeze,

but his mind heated up as he bumped against the affronts his dig-

nity had suffered that afternoon.

His nickname, Peewee, had been given to him at just such a Sun-

day dinner. He stood a perfectly ordinary five feet eight inches now,

if he stood up straight, but his growth had come late. His father had

called him Peewee when he was only six years old and the smallest

boy in first grade, the smallest boy in the whole school. Miss Lily

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had reproached her husband, but Bourrée had just laughed and

warned her to stop babying the boy. Let him take care of himself.

But Peewee couldn’t. And for the rest of his life, the embarrassing

nickname stuck to him like tar.

Most people didn’t even know his real name was Peter. Every

year, the first day of class, he’d tell the teacher, “Call me Pete.”

Nobody ever did. But then nobody ever paid him any attention at

all, until Sissy.

“Don’t let it worry you. Just remember small men do great

deeds,” his mother had said more than once. He’d believed her and

had always meant to do great deeds—to show them all. But, some-

how, life got in the way.

Peewee drifted off. Thoughts of his parents gnawed on him

through his dreams. It was only natural, he guessed, for them to

keep on seeing their youngest as a kid, but why’d they have to see

him as such a dumb kid? He knew his father had been partial to his

oldest son, which was understandable, and Miss Lily had always

doted on the second. Peewee had come upon them as a surprise, the

product of one of his father’s drunken nights on the town. Bourrée

had referred to it more than once. “There’s love children and there’s

liquor children.” He’d even introduced him as “the mistake of the

litter.” Peewee had spent the rest of his life trying to make it up to

them, to please them, especially Bourrée, but he never succeeded.

To hell with them, he thought. He was a man now, with a family

of his own. But nobody seemed to appreciate that. Not even Sissy.

Especially not Sissy. He didn’t understand why she and his father

were at each other’s throats all the time. He guessed they just natu-

rally didn’t like one another. And he couldn’t blame either one of

them. But then why was she always telling him the children needed

to see their grandparents?

A woman is a mystery, he decided. He remembered somebody

famous had said that once, or something like it. Well, it was true.

And dammit, it was time she started appreciating him for the man

he was and started treating him with respect. After all, he busted his

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 7 5

butt all week, standing in the sun with a bunch of niggers just so

she could put food on the table. It might not be his house, but he

was the man around here. He had his rights.

After the children were put to bed, Sissy went into her

closet for her nightgown. When she came out Peewee jumped her.

She turned, laughing.

He kissed her hard, pushing her against the door. She stumbled

back.

“Cut it out, Peewee!” She tried to move away.

His arm came out and stopped her. His breath was stale with the

beers he’d drunk before and after supper. “Why can’t you just relax

and enjoy it?”

“Because you’re pushing me into the doorknob.”

“Oh.” He eased up so she could slide along the wall. He stayed

right in front of her, though, and began rubbing up against her like

a goat in rut.

Sissy thought it made for a nice change.

Besides, it would take her mind off Parker. Maybe for good and

all. She remembered how she felt when she saw Parker again, when

he was pushing her up against the sink. She could feel that way

about Peewee. She knew she could. Rule Number Twenty-one:
One

man’s as good as another
, she reminded herself. But when Peewee

unzipped his pants, she had to push him away. “What’s the matter,”

he taunted, “you turning frigid on me?”

“Now, sugar, you know I’ve never told you no. And I’m not

gonna turn you down tonight.”

Dammit! There she goes again! That’s not what he wanted. He

wanted to take her. To force her to do his will. He didn’t want her

to do her damned duty.

“I’ve got to get myself ready,” she said.

“You look ready to me.” He was pulling up her skirt.

She kissed him on the cheek and tried to push his hands down.

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“Sugar, hold on!” He didn’t stop. “I just can’t handle another preg-

nancy.” That didn’t seem to bother him at all. Southern Belle Hand-

book Rule Number Four:
When a man gets hot, all the blood

rushes from his head, taking his brain cells along for the ride
.

He had her skirt all bunched up and was working on her panties.

“Okay, if you want another baby, just go ahead.” He was going

ahead. “But you’ll have to take a second job, ’cause otherwise we

just won’t make it.” That stopped him for a moment, and a

moment was long enough for Sissy to make a run for the bathroom.

She locked the door and stood looking around her, stunned, as if

she’d forgotten what she was there for. Then she pulled out the

drawer where she kept her diaphragm hidden from her children

and from Peewee. He knew she wore it, but didn’t want to see it,

saying the mechanics took away the thrill. A lot of things took

away the thrill for Peewee. She was sure the Southern Belle’s Hand-

book had something to say about that. But she didn’t have time to

think about it.

She heard him at the door. She knew he hated being locked out.

He wanted her to touch him, to keep up his interest. He put his

head to the door. “Sissy,” Peewee called in a gentle singsong, “I’m

waiting.”

“And I’m hurrying.” She had to race against time. She grabbed a

tube of jelly and spread a big gob of it all around the rubber disk,

coating the edges so it would seal. Then she took off her panties

and braced one leg on the edge of the tub.

Peewee was pacing around the bedroom. He picked up a beer

that was getting warm by the side of the bed and chugged it down.

What was taking her so long? He stroked himself to keep himself

up. Dammit, this was her job. A man shouldn’t have to do this to