The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (19 page)

guess most girls carry something like it around with them in their

heads.”

“I don’t,” said Clara.

“Really? And you’ve done so well.” Sissy paused for a moment and

thought about it. “What do you turn to when you get in trouble?”

Clara shook her head.

“Gosh. I’ve been making up rules since before I was your age.”

She peered into the paper bag to check the chicken and then shook

it some more. “It’s gotten to be second nature. For example, Rule

Number Three:
When caught red-handed, lie through your teeth
.”

She dropped the coated chicken into the sizzling lard.

Clara didn’t say anything. Then seeing Sissy watching her, she

smiled and mumbled something noncommittal and patted each let-

tuce leaf with another clean towel. It wasn’t until Sissy pressed her

that she said, “It sounds kind of devious.”

“Well, of course,” said Sissy, dropping some more chicken into

the brown paper bag. “That’s the beauty of it.”

Clara turned the tap on hard and rinsed out the sink. Then she

took a box of cleanser and began scrubbing away at an old stain.

Sissy regretted having told her about the handbook. Now she felt

she had to justify herself. She dropped the freshly coated chicken

into the skillet and jumped back as the oil popped around her. “It’s

sort of like being colored. I mean colored people have their devious

ways, don’t they?”

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 1 2 5

Clara didn’t look up from her work, but Sissy could see her lips

were pressed together. “No, ma’am.”

“Come on, when a white man calls you a bad name, well, I’ve

never heard a colored person say”—Sissy pulled herself up and did

an imitation of her grandmother—“I will not have you use that lan-

guage in my presence.”

Clara couldn’t help giggling.

“And when a white woman asks you to do something you don’t

want to do, you all don’t look her straight in the eye and refuse.

No, you just get mumbly and you know”—Sissy searched for the

right word—“colored.”

“That’s just self-protection.” Clara’s eyes blazed.

“Exactly.”

“White women aren’t treated like coloreds.” Clara ran her

gloved hands under the tap. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

“Maybe not,” said Sissy. “But it’s still a man’s world. And
any

woman who thinks she can get a man to do anything by going at

him head-on is a fool
. Rule Number Ten. My mama always said,
A

smart woman never lets a man know how smart she is.
That’s Rule

Number Twenty-eight.” But Sissy thought she might drop that one.

It just attracted dumb men.

Clara didn’t say anything for a few moments. She peeled off her

gloves and laid them out on the drainboard to dry.

“It’s just something I do to keep myself occupied. You know

advice I give myself.” Sissy felt uncomfortable.

“You say you remember all the rules?” Clara asked.

“A lot of them.”

“Why don’t you write them down?”

Sissy stopped. Her cigarette felt overcharged. She took it out of

her mouth. “Whatever for?”

“To help other girls.”

“And give away all my secrets?” Sissy asked, flicking her ciga-

rette. But she was flattered that someone thought she had some-

thing to write about.

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“I know a lot of girls who could use them.”

“Really?”

Clara nodded.

“I’ll think about it.”

“If you need any help with the writing, I made real good grades

in English.”

There was a hopeful, almost pleading note in Clara’s voice. Sissy

was surprised to hear it. Her face was hot with excitement. But then

the voice she took for reality nagged in her head. Who’re you kid-

ding? Look at your life.

Clara turned on the oven. “You want me to make you some of

my grandmama’s shortenin’ bread?”

“I always wondered what that was. I mean, I know the song.”

Sissy’s voice was flat.

“Biscuits.”

“Sure, go ahead.” She was silent as she watched Clara scoop two

cups of flour out of the chipped blue and white canister and add a

pinch of sugar and salt.

Maybe someone would benefit from reading the handbook after

all. There are a lot of women out there who are hopeless when it

comes to men. But the handbook’s mostly common sense.
Everyone

likes to feel good about themselves. Especially men. You just kind of

help them along. And when they feel good about themselves, they

naturally feel good about you.
Damned if she hadn’t thought of

another rule. She’d number it One hundred and one. She wondered

why men didn’t have these strategies to make women feel good. They

don’t have to. It’s a man’s world. They get to earn the money. We get

to stand around with our hands out. They get to make the calls. We

get to wait by the phone. And without noticing when she started,

Sissy found herself turning the chicken and thinking about Parker.

It seemed so unnatural for him to be right here in Gentry and

never to see her. Not that she wanted to see him exactly. Okay, who

was she kidding? She made up another rule,
A girl has to be honest

with herself or she’ll never get anything out of life but a palace 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 1 2 7

lies.
She liked that, it was almost poetic. She remembered a play on

educational television where the heroine kept talking about castles

in the clouds, or were they castles in Spain? Anyway, a palace of lies

was worth writing down. And it wasn’t even devious. Clara would

like that. She wondered if Rule Number Sixteen was free. Maybe

she ought to write them down just to keep track. She thought about

telling Clara when she remembered, To thine own self be true. That

was Shakespeare, wasn’t it? Okay, so she wasn’t original, but at

least she was in good company.

Clara came out of the pantry with a box of baking powder. Sissy

watched her measure out two and a half teaspoonfuls. What

exactly do I want from Parker, anyway? I wouldn’t even take his

last call. Of course I never expected it to be his last.

You want him here, a voice in her head whispered. But not really

here, not now, not in the kitchen with Clara. That wouldn’t make

any sense. Here, said the voice loud and clear. “You never told me

why you took up with Parker,” Sissy said aloud.

Clara reached into a cabinet and searched around until she found

Sissy’s aluminum sifter with the red wooden ball on its handle. She

made a big production out of sifting the flour and baking powder

into a pottery mixing bowl. Finally she spoke. “I told you he was

waiting for me when I came out of the funeral home.”

“Yes, but why’d you have anything to do with him?”

Clara shrugged and took a stick of margarine out of the icebox.

Sissy watched her chop it into the flour with two knives until the

dough was the consistency of coarse meal. “It gets real lonesome,

when all your friends are getting married and having babies and

you’re just waiting for your life to start.”

“What about the boys from your high school?” Sissy turned the

crackling chicken with a fork.

“It’s not easy for me.”

“Because you’re so light-skinned?” Sissy asked, hoping Clara

would take her into her secret world.

“Because I’m smart. Besides, I don’t want to mess with some boy

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telling me how much he loves me and asking me all the time if I love

him and begging me to forget about college. I’m getting out of here.

You know, some of the boys in my school are smart, too, but none

of them are going anywhere.” She made a hole in the center of the

dough and poured in milk.

“You still haven’t told me, why Parker?”

Clara stirred the batter with a big slotted spoon. “I don’t know.

Because he was nice to me. He listened like he was really interested

in what I had to say. And well, why do you like one man instead of

another? It wasn’t because he was white, if that’s what you’re

thinking. The last thing I want is to repeat my mama’s life.” She set

out a pastry board and sprinkled it with flour.

Sissy wondered if she simply couldn’t help herself. Or maybe she

was looking for a sweeter version of her daddy. She didn’t have

time to explore this thought, though, because Marilee crawled into

the kitchen, barking at them like a dog. Sissy told her to hush, so

the little girl picked up a rubber ball with her teeth.

“You don’t want to put that dirty old thing in your mouth,

honey,” Clara said. She looked relieved at the interruption.

Marilee crawled across the floor away from Clara, who caught

up with the child in the corner and took away the ball. It was cov-

ered in drool. The child snapped at her and growled. Then she

scooted around the room, barking and howling until Sissy flicked

her cigarette in the general direction of an ashtray and said, “For

Lord’s sake, let her have it. My grandma always said a little good,

clean dirt is nature’s own homeopathic medicine.”

Marilee panted in agreement. Clara went back to the sink and

washed her hands. She shook her head at the white folks’ foolish-

ness, but she wiped off the ball and threw it across the kitchen

where Peewee caught it as he opened the door.

“Hey, Peewee.” Sissy moved her cigarette-filled lips to the side so

he could kiss her cheek as she dropped fresh pieces of chicken into

the pan of hot, sizzling lard.

Peewee turned to Clara. She was letting her hair color grow out

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 1 2 9

to minimize the resemblance, but Sissy suspected Peewee wouldn’t

notice anyway. When a man believes it’s only right and natural for

physical characteristics to determine every aspect of a person’s life,

from where he goes to school to where he’s buried, this same man is

not likely to acknowledge, even to himself, that his wife looks like

their Negro maid. “Think you could stay and serve tonight?” he

asked Clara and then added with pride, “We’re having company for

dinner.”

“Thanks for giving me so much warning,” Sissy said indignantly.

“Would it be too much for me to ask how many you invited or

what you expect them to eat?”

But before he could tell her, Marilee set up a terrible racket, bark-

ing and growling as she ran into the living room.

Parker walked ac ross the front porch. Anxiety was churn-

ing in the pit of his stomach. What was he going to say when the

children recognized him? This was insane, but he’d run out of

strategies. He’d never actually gone after a woman before. They’d

always come to him. Even Sissy. Especially Sissy. He smiled as he

remembered her setting her sights on him, looking at him out of the

corner of her eye, arranging to bump into him accidentally on pur-

pose, books spilling in the hall between classes, dropping by the

shoe store when he was working there. Not that he hadn’t had his

eye on her all along, but he’d appreciated the encouragement. He’d

never had anything to do with a married woman, but this seemed

different. He’d known her before. If she’s happy, I’m gone, he

promised himself as Peewee opened the door.

“Come on in, boy.”

Parker handed him a six-pack of beer and slapped him on the

shoulder, but what he said was drowned out by Marilee.

“Arf, arf, arf!” she shrilled, when she saw the way this dangerous

man was looking at her mother. And then she saw her mother run

her tongue over her lips and straighten her halter.

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Peewee saw it too, but he didn’t let it register.

“Arf, arf, arf!” Marilee screamed. All the fear she’d felt when she

saw this enormous man with his arms around her mother came

back to her. She looked up along his legs, up to his crotch where the

material of his light summer slacks was bunching above her. Her

barks, mixed with growls, were edged with hysteria.

Parker didn’t know what to do. He wanted to pick up this little

girl and soothe her, but of course he didn’t dare. Still he had to do

something before the whole purpose of the visit flew apart on him.

And then he saw Clara come out of the kitchen wiping her hands

on her apron. Oh shit, what’s she doing here? He thought she’d

have gone home by now! Was this going to be another squeeze

play? He nodded. She didn’t respond. Instead she checked the but-

ton at the round collar of her crisp white blouse.

“Grrr,” the little girl growled.

“Cut it out, Marilee.” Peewee’s voice was authoritative and loud

and did absolutely no good. He grabbed at her, but she was too

fast. She sunk her sharp little teeth right through Parker’s light sum-

mer slacks and into his shin.

He let out a high-pitched howl, startling the child, but she hung

on. His automatic response was to kick her right across the room,

but he restrained himself. What can a six-foot-two-inch man do