The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (41 page)

head, graceful strands of Spanish moss waved to her. She closed her

eyes and held her face to the sun. As she drifted along, she gave her-

self up to the dark water. It played gently with her hair and licked

the soles of her feet.

She didn’t see Bourrée’s black Cadillac parked next to the bridge

spanning the river. Nor did she see Bourrée standing on that bridge,

waiting for her. She felt the shiver of a cold shadow only as she

drifted under it.

“Sissy!” She felt a hand hook her inner tube and jerk her

toward the shore.

She opened her eyes. Bourrée was silhouetted upside down

against the bright sky. For a brief moment, she saw him as she’d

seen him all those years ago. He was in an inlet, hidden by bushes

and moss-covered cypress trees from the rest of the river.

“What do you want?” she asked warily.

He turned her around, brushing her knee. He had kicked off his

sandals and waded into the water. He was still wearing his green-

and-red Hawaiian shirt printed with parrots. The river water dark-

ened the material and stuck the parrots to his belly, but he still

didn’t take it off.

“You’re smelling better.”

“Not like a skunk in heat anymore?”

She lay before him as if on a platter, knees and chest in the air. He

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 7 9

whispered, “Not like a skunk. We’ll find out about the rest, won’t

we?” He ran his hand over her cold thigh.

“Cut it out, Bourrée.” She pushed him away.

But he pulled her inner tube closer. “I’m giving you another

chance, chère.”

Sissy laughed. “You’re what?”

“I’m giving you your last chance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

Bourrée’s face became purple. He growled. “What’s the matter,

that clipped-dick football player of yours keeping you plugged up?”

He clutched her thigh with one hand and drove his other hand up

inside the crotch of her bathing suit.

“Stop it, damn you!” she yelled, and kicked him in his big

stomach.

Bourrée grunted. His eyes went cold. He jerked her out of her

inner tube. He was still a lot stronger than she was. “I’m getting

tired of this, Sissy. You get your hot little butt into that car.”

Sissy was incredulous. “Just like that?” She started to laugh

again.

Bourrée seethed with rage. “Just like that.” He squeezed and cut

off the circulation in one of her arms.

“Let go of me, Bourrée, or I’ll scream so loud those widows

and orphans you’ve been stealing from all these years are going to

hear me.”

He grabbed her hair and pulled her against him. She could feel he

was hard as he pressed his cold, wet belly against her. “You know

you want it. You’ve been angling for it for years.”

Sissy screamed and screamed again.

Picnickers deserted their fried chicken and potato salad and ran

through the woods. Swimmers pressed against the current and

floaters abandoned their inner tubes and converged on their inlet.

But all they saw was Sissy and Bourrée standing waist-deep in the

river glaring at each other.

“False alarm, folks,” Bourrée said in a jovial voice that barely

2 8 0

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

masked his rage. “This little girl here thought she saw a water moc-

casin.”

“I was wrong,” said Sissy, not taking her eyes off him. “It was

just your garden variety snake.”

As Sissy floated downriver, away from the man who’d taken

her innocence, the Hallelujah chorus went off in her head. She felt like

a spellbound princess who’d finally broken free. Turning the tables

on all those fairy tales, she’d shattered the enchantment by refusing

to kiss the frog. Said, Don’t be ridiculous. That was all it took: the

courage to say no. Suddenly she had a giddy thought. Maybe those

fairy tales were simply propaganda put out by aging frogs because

princesses, real princesses, wouldn’t have anything to do with them.

Sissy realized she’d wasted half her life on resentment and

dreams of revenge—and, she had to admit, a mixed-up, crazy kind

of longing for something she never really had. Real freedom comes

from no longer caring.

Maybe that was what the religious people meant when they

talked about forgiveness. Sissy had always thought they meant lov-

ing thy fellow bastard again. But now, she realized, it could mean

just letting go. She turned that over in her mind.

Letting go is the best revenge. It frees your heart for much more

satisfying pursuits.

Bourrée was neither wizard nor warlock nor tempting Satan. He

wasn’t even the incarnation of all that was wicked and wonderful.

He was just a small-town philanderer, hiding his spreading girth

beneath a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt, preying on the loneliness of

women and the innocence of young girls.

She’d been gripping the inner tube, but now she let her hand trail

in the water. She closed her eyes and drifted.

A hand touched hers. “Thinking about me?” Parker was swim-

ming next to her.

“You’re so stuck up, Parker Davidson,” she said, looking at him

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 8 1

from the corner of her eye. “What makes you think I was thinking

of you?”

“You were smiling.”

They floated downstream side by side, not touching, but she felt

his nearness in the ebb and flow of the water. As the current car-

ried them away from the fairgrounds, the river became deserted

and the sounds of celebration died out. They listened to the lap-

ping of the water and the music of the birds frolicking in the

branches above them.

“Let him kiss me with kisses of his mouth, For his love is better

than wine . . .” Betty Ruth’s voice, sweet and clear, reached them as

they drifted toward Brother Junior’s tent.

Parker pulled up under the bridge that led to the revival meeting.

“Come on, we have to talk.”

He helped her out of her inner tube and guided her up the bank,

deep into the pine, sycamore, and swamp maples.

“I sat under his shadow with great delight, and his fruit was

sweet to my taste,” sang Betty Ruth.

Parker led Sissy to a leafy sanctuary, lit by dappled gold and green

sunlight. The dark scent of wildflowers rose around them from the

mossy ground. The music from the revival meeting hushed. “No one

will disturb us here,” he said, taking her chin in his hand. He was

studying her face as if trying to memorize it.

“What?” Sissy asked. Instead of answering he kissed her gently.

She checked out the overhanging branches and dense under-

brush. Reassured they were sheltered from the eyes of anyone who

might happen to be standing around the revival tent or crossing the

bridge, Sissy slid her wet arms around Parker’s cold back and

traced a scar that crossed his shoulder to his heart. She’d never felt

such tenderness for him before.

The only way they could be seen was through a small gap

between the foliage and the bridge. And then only by someone

walking along the path on the deserted side of the river. However,

that’s where Amy Lou Hopper happened to be.

2 8 2

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

A smile of pure malicious pleasure spread over her face. She’d

been waiting for this all summer. She didn’t pause to see what

would happen next. With the tails of her man’s shirt flapping over

her blue jeans, she strode up the riverbank to find Peewee.

Sissy kissed a broad scar on Parker’s wet chest and again felt

the lightness. Now that she was no longer nurturing revenge, all

sorts of possibilities began to unfold in the hitherto obscure recesses

of her heart. “What did you want to tell me?”

“I have to leave town.”

Amy Lou found Peewee with a couple of buddies, building one

of the giant bonfires scheduled to be lit along the river that evening

to kick off Tibor’s campaign for Congress.

“I’ve got something to show you.” She made her voice sound

mournful, but she was licking her lips.

“What?” asked Peewee, who’d been tossing down Dixies and

wondering how long Sissy’s “headaches” were going to last. He

wasn’t all that anxious to give up the comfort of his buddies and

the ice chest filled with beer.

“You’ll see.” Amy Lou pulled him up and hooked his arm in

hers. He offered no more resistance because she squeezed his bare

arm right up against her magnificent prow.

Sissy extracted herself from Parker. Now that he’d “had

his way with her,” as the Southern Belle’s Handbook would say, he

was leaving! She shivered in the soft breeze.

She wasn’t listening when he told her about a Marine buddy who

was building a large subdivision outside of Boston. “He thinks his

foreman is stealing from him. He’s gonna try to convince his part-

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 8 3

ners to let me take over, run the whole job. He knows I can handle

it.” But all she heard was he was leaving her. She knew he’d never

wanted to get tied down, so she should have expected it. She was

just a pit stop on the racetrack of his life, after all.

“It’s a great opportunity and there’s nothing for me here.”

“Go, by all means,” Sissy said, but she couldn’t hide the bitter-

ness in her voice. “You’d be a fool to hang around here another

minute. You’re right. There’s nothing for you here.”

Peewee stumbled. It wasn’t easy to keep up with Amy Lou.

He thought about how comforting it would be to sit down right

here and lay his head on that pillowed breast. “What’s the rush?”

“You’ll see,” she said as she forged ahead.

Parker tried to explain. “I can’t spend my life playing ‘the

other man’ to Peewee LeBlanc. How do you think it makes me feel,

only
allowed
to see you on Saturday afternoons?”

Sissy loved those afternoons. They were completely outside of

reality, pure and unsullied by the drudgery of life. They should be

perfect for a man who doesn’t want to be tied down. Oh, what the

hell, you can’t hold a man who doesn’t want to be held. That

sounded like a rule for the handbook. Well, he won’t catch me beg-

ging. “I guess it’s time for you to move on. Things were getting

pretty boring, weren’t they?”

He shuddered as if he’d received a blow, but he kept his voice

casual. “Think you’ll find someone else to stimulate—what did you

call it—your raging hormones?”

“I guess,” she said, leaning wearily against a cypress tree. And

suddenly she was sick of pretending. “But I never did before.”

“No kidding?”

She shrugged, too tired to answer.

2 8 4

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

“You mean you never cheated on Peewee?”

“You’re the first, Parker.” Her voice was flat. “I didn’t tell you

because I didn’t want to scare you off.”

He chuckled and the sound had none of the meanness of Bour-

rée’s tight little snickers. It was soft and good to hear. He put his

arm on the tree and leaned over her. “I think you love me, girl.” She

shook her head. But he persisted. “I think you loved me all the time,

but about fourteen years ago, you just got distracted.”

A glow rose up through her. She began to understand the light-

ness she’d felt. Her voice was weak and shaky. “It’s possible, I

guess.”

He looked as if he wanted to dance and cheer and take her in his

arms. Instead, something caught his eye. He stood back, and with a

meaningful glance at Sissy, gave a nonchalant wave. Sissy turned as

casually as she could and saw her husband and Amy Lou Hopper

staring at her from across the river.

“Oh, Lord.” She nodded and smiled weakly. And then to Parker:

“I’d better go.”

“Meet me somewhere. I won’t know for sure about the job until

about eight tonight.”

“What?” He didn’t know? And then she wondered if the whole

job thing was just a ruse to make her admit her feelings. She

wouldn’t put it past him. Men!

“In back of the bandstand,” she said, stepping onto the bridge.

“And, Parker, I lied. I was never bored.”

“Me neither,” he said as he dove into the river.

Amy Lou could barely hide her disappointment at not catching

them in the act. “Looks like you and Parker were having a real seri-

ous discussion.”

“You have a problem with that, Amy Lou?” Sissy asked.

“Oh, my goodness no, I don’t have a problem. Why should
I

have a problem?” Amy Lou eyed Peewee.

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 8 5

Peewee wished he were somewhere else. Anywhere else. It was

bad enough that he had to find Sissy in the bushes with Parker, but

it was humiliating to have Amy Lou carry on like this about it.

Now if he didn’t do something she’d think he was a wimp, and

she’d never again press him to her wonderful prow. But what was a

man supposed to do? He lowered his voice manfully and grabbed

his wife by the arm. “What were you all doing?”

Sissy wrenched away from him. “Oh, for goodness sakes, Parker