The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (36 page)

ored neighborhoods were inoperative here. Sissy was about to

break the law. No white woman could even admit to being at Aunt

Sarah’s. To accuse a colored boy of doing something to her there

was unthinkable. This boy knew it. “A girl like you ain’t got no

cause to get your neck all poked out. It ain’t like you was a good

girl.” He smiled. His gold tooth glinted in the dangling kitchen

light. “You is more a good time girl.”

She had to think. But how could she with the rain beating on the

tin roof and the screams coming from the other room and her heart

racing and her head pounding? “Come on, girl, I’ll do you real

fast.” He grabbed her wrist. Sissy pulled back. “Hey, sweetmeat,

don’t you know it’s your last chance? Once my mama gets through

with you, you ain’t gonna want it for some time to come,” he said,

toying with her hair.

“Leave me alone!” She tried to wrench out of his hold, but she

couldn’t.

He smiled and licked his lips, running his eyes over her body.

“You ain’t never felt nothing like my gemstones.” Still holding her

wrist, he jerked her hand to his fly. Sissy pushed him backward. But

before she knew what hit her, she was on the floor. The drain board

from the sink came with her, spewing silverware all around her. She

screamed. She tried to kick, but only managed to hit the trash can,

scattering the bloody newspaper.

He had her pinned down, his hands on her wrists, straddling her

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thighs. Maybe she could shame him. Filling her voice with con-

tempt she said, “Let me up, you fool. Are you so pitiful, the only

way you can get a girl is to rape her?”

He was laughing, reveling in his power. “It’s not the only way,

sweetmeat, but it’s a good way, a mighty good way!” He rubbed

himself against her and pushed up her skirt. Then beneath the

laughter and the screams still coming from the back room, Sissy

heard her true voice, calm and sure, telling her what she had to do.

Kicking and flailing, she reached around under the sink. When it

was clear there was no way she could buck him off, she let go, her

muscles became soft, no longer fighting him. As soon as he felt that

he said, “That’s right, girl, relax. You gonna enjoy yourself tonight,

for sure.” He took his hand off her wrist to unzip his fly and then,

fondling her breast, said, “If I’m lying, I’m dying.”

In a flash, Sissy had the butcher knife in his crotch, poking his

bare skin. “Get up, boy, if you take any stock in those gemstones of

yours. Get up!” she screamed.

She knew he could probably take the knife away from her, he

might even use it to kill her, but she was prepared to give as good as

she got. With that sure knowledge shining in her face, he just shriv-

eled up and jumped away from her.

“Hey, gal, all you had to say was no. I don’t want nothing you

don’t want to give.” He was zipping up his pants when Sarah

stepped out of the back room, her hands dripping with blood. She

threw the boy up against the wall, screaming at him about being

crazy and ruining her business and getting himself lynched. Then

she called for Sissy.

But Sissy didn’t turn back. She was running through the rain, her

coat and purse left behind, her oxfords caked with mud. The

butcher knife was still in her hand. Belle Cantrell’s words were

pounding away with each step. “You’ve got to take your life in

your own hands.”

She came to the Negro bar and pushed her way inside. The

warmth and the music calmed her, comforted her. But the music

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and dancing stopped abruptly and was replaced by tension as

everybody watched this white girl with a bloodstained butcher

knife. The crowd parted and let her through.

A waitress in a tight red dress stepped in front of her. “You look-

ing for somebody?”

“Just a telephone.”

“You don’t need that in here.”

Sissy looked down and saw the butcher knife was still in her

hand. She hesitated for a moment and then decided she wasn’t giv-

ing it up. Not yet. She dropped the knife by her side, but held on to

it. “You got a phone?”

The waitress pointed to the far side of the bar. The band struck

up again, playing slow and soft. The piano sounded like the rain

outside, the snare drums followed. But nobody danced. The bar-

tender came out from behind the bar and stood in back of her, a

towel wrapped around his arm. He eyed her knife. Sissy asked him

for a nickel.

She fingered the hilt of the knife, enjoying the power it conferred

upon her as she dialed the LeBlanc residence. She prayed for Bour-

rée to pick up. She didn’t know what she’d say to Miss Lily. But a

male voice answered.

“Oh, thank God. You’ve got to come get me right away.”

“Sissy, is that you?”

“Peewee?” He sounded just like his father.

“It is you. Oh, my gosh!” He was so nervous he began to babble.

“Boy, oh boy, this is my lucky night. Guess what, I got a B on my

history test? I was afraid I’d flunked it. It must have been all the

studying we did together that did it. I remembered a whole bunch

of stuff I never thought I’d remember.”

He went on and on like that until Sissy screamed, “Peewee!”

He quieted down then and asked her why she called.

“I’m in trouble. I need you to come and get me.”

Once a girl says yes, it’s almost impossible to go back and say
no. Boys who respected your wishes before become hard

of hearing.

Rule Number Nine

The Southern Belle’s Handbook

C h a p t e r 1 6

Sissy didn’t set out to trap Peewee and make him think the

baby she was carrying was his. At least that’s what she told herself.

But when he parked Miss Lily’s Buick on the side of Highway 10

and lunged at her, she welcomed his attention. At first. She needed

someone to hold her and Peewee wanted her so much. It felt nice.

Then when things heated up, she tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t

stop like normal boys would when she pulled his hand away. He

just kept on. She knew she could fight him off and he’d respect her

for it, but Sissy just wasn’t up to a fight. So she lay back on the long

front seat, her head and shoulders against the door, and just let him

kiss her and stroke her and tell her he loved her. It wasn’t so bad. It

wasn’t so good either.

She told herself she got the idea for the deceit the next day, when

she heard Peewee bragging about his exploits to Newton Car-

ruthers. She was on her way to cheerleading practice, trying to fig-

ure out what to do next, when she heard them talking about her as

she rounded the corner of the cement bleachers where they had

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ducked out of sight behind the equipment shed. She heard Peewee

say, “Then she let me go all the way.”

Sissy quickly stepped back and listened as Newton said, “You are

such a liar, boy.”

“I am not.” Then Peewee went into such smutty detail that Sissy

was furious. How could he tell those things about her! She was just

about to give him a piece of her mind when he said, “And she didn’t

even make me use a rubber.”

“Are you crazy! What if you get her in trouble?”

There was a hesitation and then Peewee said, “Well, hell, I’d

make an honest woman out of her. I bet you wouldn’t kick Sissy

Thompson out of your bed.”

“You’re stuck on her, aren’t you?” There was wonder in New-

ton’s voice. “Aren’t you?”

Sissy imagined Peewee’s ears getting red and then she heard him

say belligerently, “What if I am?”

That’s when Sissy’s inner voice spoke up and said her choices

were hard, but she had them.

She hadn’t much wanted to repeat the experience with Peewee,

after the first time, but she found it was hard to tell him no and

make it stick. Peewee wanted to make love all the time, if what

they did in the backseats of cars could be called lovemaking. At

first she thought she could teach him. And Peewee was a very will-

ing student.

Bourrée had shown her all kinds of things she could do to give a

man pleasure, so every time they went out Peewee was always eager

to “mess around.” But the night she tried to show him what he

could do for her, he was genuinely shocked. “Sissy, nice girls aren’t

supposed to like it. A girl does it for a man because she loves him.”

She tried to do it just for him, but all too often when they parked

out by the cemetery, the image of a weasel slipped in between them,

grabbing her with skinny arms, sticking his weasel hand between

her legs. Only those pale blue Bourrée eyes could banish the dis-

gusting beast.

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She remembered a Sunday school teacher telling her that com-

panionship and shared interests were what made a good marriage.

Sex took up only a small percentage of the time. Sissy hoped she

was right. She and Peewee got along fine. He was so happy picking

her up after practice, so proud to walk through the halls holding

her hand. It was always flattering to be adored, Sissy thought. And

she sure wasn’t looking for love.

It probably didn’t exist anyway. Just lies they put in songs. Unless

what she had with Bourrée was love, and if it was, she didn’t ever

want any more. She still thought about Parker a lot, but that was so

confusing. She’d felt happy, really happy with him. But was that

love? She’d always heard love was about suffering and singing the

blues. She decided to forget about everything else and concentrate

on companionship with Peewee.

Then one afternoon after school, she saw Bourrée’s truck parked

down the street from her house. Her heart started racing and her

knees didn’t want to bend.

But it was at that moment she finally understood all those rules

her mother and grandmother had laid down for her. They weren’t

just to kill her fun. Good girls have a kind of power. Holding her

head straight and concentrating on her posture, she walked right by

him. He called her name. She pretended to be deaf. A deaf girl with

the posture of a queen.

And there was nothing he could do! He couldn’t jump out and

grab her, force her screaming into his truck, force her to go with

him back to Aunt Sarah’s. Not on a street filled with houses and

children and bicycles.

Yes, a girl has power, if she’s prepared to take it. And a girl who

obeys all the rules, or pretends to, is safe. Even the rules on proper

behavior didn’t seem so ridiculous. They were her mother’s and her

grandmother’s way of helping her keep her self-respect. That’s

when Sissy realized the Southern Belle’s Handbook did more than

help her attract men—it was her survival manual.

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She started accepting Peewee’s invitations to Sunday dinner with

the family. It was the main thing she had to look forward to now—

sitting there, her hair shining, dressed like a princess, watching

Bourrée squirm.

She had missed the homecoming prom. It would have been too

humiliating to stand in the back of the gym and watch them crown

Parker king and Doreen his queen. But when the American Legion

threw a Christmas party for the young people, she decided to go.

She knew it would be her last dance.

Peewee was thrilled to escort her in her beautiful green taffeta

evening dress, which Sissy had let out in home ec. Earlier that week,

she’d confided in him that she’d missed her period, but they’d have

to wait another couple of weeks before she could take the rabbit

test. She told him it must have happened the first time they were

together and that proved how incredibly potent he was. Rule Num-

ber Eighteen:
Flattery works
.

Of course he was scared, but he was proud, too. He wouldn’t

mind word getting around that he was the boy who knocked up

Sissy Thompson. His plans for the future were vague, but he’d

always expected he’d marry sometime. Nothing wrong with now.

In his heart he knew he’d never get another shot at a girl like Sissy.

Peewee had never been much of a dancer. He simply didn’t hear

the beat. But tonight he wanted to dance every dance with her, to

show the other guys.

For Sissy, who loved to dance, dancing with Peewee was torture.

Toward the end of the evening, Parker cut in, and when he took

Sissy in his arms and held her against him in perfect time to the

music, she remembered what slow dancing could be like.

“How you doing?” he asked. She felt pain radiating out through his

clothes, caressing her. He still cared for her! It gave her an unexpected

thrill. For the first time she realized she didn’t have to marry Peewee,

she had other choices. All they’d have to do was sneak off now. They

could do it in the parking lot. She counted the weeks. It was still