Read The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc Online
Authors: Loraine Despres
Tags: #Loraine Despres - Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc 356p 9780060505882 0060505885, #ISBN 0-688-17389-6, #ISBN 0-06-050588-5 (pbk.)
and . . .” But she didn’t have a chance to finish.
He stuffed his tongue into her mouth, shutting her up, choking
her. She tried to turn away but he had her against the tree. She felt
the jagged bark pressing through her hair, but she wasn’t sure she
really wanted him to stop. If he’d just quit choking her. Finally he
let her up for air.
“Come on, Bourrée,” she begged, “don’t be like that. Be sweet.”
“What do you want?” His voice was as cold and damp as the
night air.
Sissy shivered. “I just want us to be like we were. That’s all.”
His pale eyes flickered over her as if he were appraising a pile of
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lumber. Just a hint of a snicker escaped the edges of his mouth
before he grabbed her coat, ripping off the buttons, rending the
material.
“Don’t! You’ll ruin it!”
But he didn’t pay any attention. He yanked the coat, tearing it
from her body.
“Bourrée, for God’s sake . . .”
“Shut up,” he growled, throwing the coat to the ground, leaving
her exposed and shivering. He pushed her back against the tree,
and pinning her there with one hard hand to her breast, he pulled
up her short nightgown with the other. But where he was gentle
before, he was rough now, and fumbling. “Is this what you want?”
he snarled as he unzipped his fly and rammed himself into her. She
tried to scream, but he slammed her head into the tree and silenced
her with the heel of his heavy hand, pressing on her windpipe. Sissy
felt the gnarly trunk make welts in her back as she twisted and
shoved trying to get away. “Is this what you want?” he repeated.
She was so dry, she felt her skin tear. She was beating on him now,
trying to force him away. But he increased the pressure on her
windpipe as he ground his body into hers, thrusting and jabbing
and pressing harder and harder on her throat so that screaming was
out of the question. She had to struggle to breathe. Then he made a
quick grunt and pulled out, dripping along her leg and over her
fallen coat.
“Is that what you want, little girl? You want me to come over
every now and again to service you?” Sissy shook her head. “Then
stay away from me and mine, you hear?” He pinched her cheek
hard between his fingers and, baring his teeth, kissed her off.
Beware of other people’s plans for your own good.
—Belle Cantrell, Sissy’s grandmother
Unnumbered Rule, The Southern Belle’s Handbook
Sissy stayed away. She stayed away from the whole family
and nursed her hatred. She’d never hated before, but Bourrée had
taught her how. She felt defiled. Peewee had been upset, of course,
when she told him she had to give him back his pin. She tried to
push him in Amy Lou Hopper’s direction, sang Amy Lou’s praises,
but he wouldn’t budge. After going out with the head cheerleader,
Amy Lou must have seemed too low rent for him. Instead, his pale
blue eyes, filled with the silent reproach of a wounded bird, fol-
lowed Sissy in class and around school until she thought she was
going to scream.
“Who wants to translate the first two lines?” asked Miss Mar-
tine, pacing around the class.
Sissy kept her head down, avoiding all eye contact. In the front
row Amy Lou’s and Doreen’s hands shot up. Doreen had already
grabbed Parker and was clinging to him like ivy.
For the first couple of weeks, he hadn’t dated anyone else, but he
wouldn’t have anything to do with Sissy, either. She’d tried all the
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wiles in the Southern Belle’s Handbook, and made up new ones,
but none of them worked with Parker.
Then Doreen moved in. She managed to be there all the time
now, hanging on to his arm, wearing his letter sweater. And he was
so attentive. He seemed to adore her. Sissy figured it was her own
fault for being such a fool. She tried to make up some rule that
would cover her foolishness and warn her in the future, but all she
could think of was: don’t give up a good man for a bad one,
although that seemed pretty obvious.
She wondered if he “respected” Doreen. She sure hoped so. She
couldn’t stand the thought of Parker making love to someone else.
Especially not someone whose face she knew.
Miss Martine ignored the upraised arms and called, “Betty Ruth.”
“Huh?” Betty Ruth looked up very carefully so as not to disturb
the steel mallets of her hangover.
“You did prepare this lesson, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.” All around the class there were titters. Rumor
had it that Betty Ruth had stayed on at the football field after prac-
tice and had taken on the team. That hadn’t happened, of course,
but she had lured five of the players over to her house. What had
happened there nobody knew.
Boys are such liars
. That should sure
go somewhere in the Southern Belle’s Handbook as a warning. Sissy
decided to make it Rule Number Fifteen. Coach had declared Betty
Ruth off-limits for the rest of the season and was pressuring Miss
Robbie to kick her off the cheerleading squad.
“Page seventy-two, read the first two lines.”
Betty Ruth bent to her task, sounding out each syllable of “Au
Clair de la Lune,” in a language resembling nothing spoken on this
planet.
Sissy flipped to the calendar in the front of her notebook. She was
due over two weeks ago.
She studied the calendar. She’d missed two months last summer
after her brother died. Her mother had said that was normal, not to
worry. But in June it couldn’t have meant anything unless someone
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 2 3 1
spotted a star in the East. And it was unlikely that the Lord, even if
He wanted to beget a Second Coming, would pick the Virgin Sissy.
Of course, she reminded herself, she wasn’t exactly eligible for that
title anymore.
But she and Bourrée had always been careful. After the first
time, he’d always worn a rubber. She remembered how it looked
when he rolled it on over his red . . . Sissy brought herself up
sharply.
She checked the calendar again, counting backward. The last time—
up against the oak tree—was the night of the Awards Dinner, which
was, oh my God, four weeks ago. She didn’t want to think about
that time. She felt raped, except you couldn’t call it rape if you’d
been having sex with the man, could you? Besides, he’d say, she’d
asked for it, and she knew she had, but she hadn’t asked for that!
Not that! She tried to remember if he’d worn anything or not. Oh,
Jesus, she couldn’t have gotten pregnant from that! It was too
awful.
She was probably just upset like last summer. But last summer
her breasts didn’t hurt all the time and she wasn’t so sleepy.
“Sissy.”
Sissy jerked her head up. “Ma’am?”
“Translate the next two lines.”
Sissy looked at her book.
“Page seventy-two.”
“Yes, ma’am. I know.” The class was watching. She didn’t want
to look like a dope, but she couldn’t figure out what was she doing
sitting here in neat rows with her whole life crumbling in front of
her. French words like black bugs scuttled across the page.
“Start with
‘Ma chandelle est morte . . . ’
Do you know what
that means?”
“My candle is dead?”
Miss Martine winced. “My candle has gone out. Now read.”
“Ma chandelle est morte . . .”
Sissy parroted and then slowly . . .
“ ‘
Je n’ai plus de feu
. . . ’ I don’t have any more light.” What did
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this stupid French song about dead candles have to do with her?
Things were happening to her own body. She was having trouble
buttoning the waists of her skirts, she felt like a big old balloon and
she had to sit still and read this crap.
Miss Martine walked over to Sissy’s desk and closed her book.
“That’s quite enough. Sissy and Betty Ruth, I want to see you both
after class. Now,
mes enfants, ‘
Au Clair de la Lune
’
wasn’t written to torture us, it’s a beautiful French folk song. Can anyone sing it?”
Amy Lou’s hand shot up. “I can, Miss Martine.”
Who cares? thought Sissy. Who gives a flying fart? She tried to
ignore the growth that might be forming inside her, pushing out
her stomach. This tiny growth with Bourrée’s face growing inside
of her.
God wouldn’t let this happen to her. Okay, so she hadn’t obeyed
all
His commandments. She ticked them off as best she could
remember them. She hadn’t killed anybody, and she didn’t steal.
Well, hardly ever, except that time when she copped the orange lip-
stick at Rubinstein’s, but she’d dropped the price into the collection
plate at church the following Sunday. And there was the time she
borrowed Norman’s penknife, but that didn’t count. Okay, it
counted. Honor thy father and mother, don’t use the Lord’s name in
vain, keep the Sabbath holy, don’t covet, don’t bear false witness,
adultery . . . okay, she’d broken most of them, but she’d never
killed anyone. She’d kept the most important one. And she’d never
had another God before Him. She hadn’t even been tempted to
break that one. She couldn’t believe she’d been really bad. Not bad
enough for this, Lord.
She was supposed to go to college in the fall. Her parents had
been saving up for it her whole life. She’d be the first girl in the
whole family on both sides to go. Her grandmother had been talk-
ing about it since she was in diapers.
“Ma chandelle est morte, je n’ai plus de feu/Ouvre moi la porte
pour l’amour de Dieu.”
Amy Lou sang out in pure, clear notes.
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 2 3 3
* * *
in the yard, when the sound of the phone made her leap. She
headed for the door. “Honey, it’s Peewee,” said her mother. Sissy
slumped back down on her bed. She’d been waiting for the phone,
but she hadn’t been waiting for Peewee.
Her mother’s gaunt figure in her flowered dress appeared in the
doorway. The dress was too big for her now. She asked in her gen-
tle voice, “Aren’t you going to talk to him?”
Sissy shook her head. “Tell him . . . tell him I’ve run away to
Hollywood. If he wants to contact me, he’ll have to get in touch
with . . . Clark Gable.” She made a grand gesture she’d seen in
some movie, but faltered in the middle.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Sissy turned back and watched the sheets
flap in the wind. The clothesline was strung up in front of the live
oak tree.
Cady sat down next to her daughter, exhausted. Belle had named
her after Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but it hadn’t worked. Sissy knew
all her mother wanted, all she’d ever wanted, was to be a good wife
and mother.
Sissy felt her thin hand on her shoulder. It was all she could do
not to shrink back. “Why do you always think there’s something
wrong with me! There’s nothing wrong with me!
I’m
fine.”
The New Orleans surgeon who’d removed Cady’s cancer in
August was still optimistic, but Sissy thought her mother looked
terrible.
Pain spread across Cady’s face, but she didn’t raise her voice.
“What do you want me to tell the boy?”
Sissy had stopped and talked to Peewee at school that afternoon.
All she’d wanted was for him to quit looking at her like that. She
hadn’t meant for him to call. She wondered what would happen if
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she abandoned the Southern Belle’s Handbook and told the truth
for a change. It would feel so good. “Just tell him he makes me
want to puke.”
Cady sighed and went back to the phone. Sissy heard her trying
to make up an excuse to save Peewee’s feelings without actually
telling a lie. For God’s sake, either tell him I think he’s vomitous or
lie creatively, Sissy willed. Don’t just shilly-shally somewhere in
between, feeling all virtuous about yourself. Sissy didn’t feel virtu-
ous about herself at all.
She went to the mirror. If only she had X-ray vision. She stared at
her stomach and concentrated, trying to divine what was going on.
Had her own body, like her mother’s, betrayed her? Were cells
floating toward one another and sticking, massing together, grow-
ing some alien being inside her?
Friday after French class, she’d taken the car, driven to Amite
all by herself, and found a doctor who didn’t know her family. Now
she had to wait around to find out what happened to some rab-
bit she’d never see. She was unclear what her urine would do to it,
but she wished it well. It was funny to think that her life and the life
of a rabbit hung by the same chemical thread. On the theory that
God didn’t like you to pray for yourself, she considered praying for
the rabbit. But she thought better of it. Any God stupid enough to