The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (42 page)

and I went to high school together. Can’t I even talk to an old

friend?”

“Well, yes,” he said uncertainly.

He would have said more, but Sissy said, “Well, good,” and

strode off down the riverbank. She couldn’t help it and it wasn’t

fair, but Peewee’s touch made her skin crawl.

An uppity woman, with enough research, will find a way.

Rule Number Fifty-eight

The Southern Belle’s Handbook

C h a p t e r 1 9

Sissy climbed up on the bandstand where Ida May Thompson

was overseeing the setting up of the speaker’s platform. Even if

Parker was chasing Clara, Sissy thought, she wouldn’t let that stop

her. She was going to do what was right and help that girl, no mat-

ter what. She kissed her aunt and asked nonchalantly, “Uncle Tibor

here yet?”

“Oh, heavens, no,” said Ida May, wiping her forehead with an

immaculate lace handkerchief she kept in the breast pocket of her

shirtwaist dress. “I don’t expect him until it’s time for his speech.

He’s going to make a real dramatic entrance,” she confided with a

little laugh.

That was not good news. Sissy had Clara’s essay in her straw

handbag and she wanted to present it to Tibor today, when he was

feeling rich after his first full day on the campaign trail. Tibor took

good care of his contributors, and he took their contributions in

cash.

Then she had an inspired idea. Smiling her best flower-of-Southern-

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 7

womanhood smile, she said, “I’d be proud to sit up here on the

platform.”

Ida May blinked. “I didn’t think you all saw eye to eye.”

“Well, I admit Uncle Tibor and I have had a few
ideological
dif-

ferences, but family comes first, don’t you think?” Ida May looked

as if she didn’t know what to think, so Sissy rushed on. “Being a

Thompson and all, I want to show my support.”

Ida May smiled graciously and said, “I think you’d better not,

dear.”

Sissy looked at her smelly shorts. She pressed down the collar of

her white shirt and said, “I’ll have plenty of time to run home and

change. I’ll put on my best Episcopalian dress, okay?” When it

didn’t look like it was going to be enough, Sissy added she’d wear

a hat.

“It’s real sweet of you to offer, honey, but we’re going to be pretty

crowded up here.” Ida May handed her a program of the evening’s

festivities. Then she turned back to the Thompsonettes, who were

positioning the American flag over a sign that read, A VOTE FOR

THOMPSON IS A VOTE FOR PATRIOTISM.

Disgusted, Sissy left the platform and lit a cigarette. She started

to chuck the program when something caught her eye and a tiny

smile curled around her lips.

At the refreshment stand, she bought herself an orange Nehi and

poured half of it out. Then she went over to where Belle Cantrell

was watching Marilee and playing gin rummy with Felicity

Fairchild, her oldest living friend. They were talking about the can-

didate and reminiscing about the old days when they expected that

once women got the vote, they would naturally vote for each other.

And that would mean an end to war and other assorted ills like

inferior education and poor health care, which men seemed to

think were not worth serious consideration.

Sissy opened her picnic basket and filled the pop bottle back up

with Peewee’s vodka. Belle looked up from her cards and wanted to

know what she was doing. “Just getting a drink.”

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“What are you up to, Sissy?”

“Nothing.”

“Belle, you sound just like your mother used to,” her octogenar-

ian partner said. “Let the girl have a drink.”

“Thank you, Miss Felicity,” Sissy said, watching her scoop up

Belle’s discard.

Belle peered at her granddaughter. “Nobody drinks vodka and

orange pop.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Sissy.

She heard a triumphant “Gin!” from Felicity and Belle’s com-

plaints about being taken advantage of. Sissy knew how much Belle

hated to lose. She took after her.

She walked up to the revival tent and stopped to chat a minute

with the choir. Then she opened the tent flap and looked inside. Up

at the pulpit Brother Junior was packing up. There was an angry

energy in his movements. Betty Ruth stumbled around after him.

“I thought you’d be proud of me! It was my own composition.”

When she received no response, she continued, tears welling up in

her eyes. “I was praising the Lord!”

“Singing filth from the pulpit?”

A tear coursed down Betty Ruth’s cheek. “I took the words right

out of the Bible. They’re the words of the Lord.”

“When you’re on my pulpit you’ll sing the words from this hym-

nal, you hear!” Brother Junior thumped a worn blue book. “My

mission don’t need no ‘creativity.’ ” He said the word as if he were

saying depravity.

“But those songs are so dull,” Betty Ruth wailed.

He slammed the hymnal on the altar. His voice was low. “Are

you gonna behave like a preacher’s wife or the whore of Gentry

High!”

A shocked inhalation of breath and then another wail. “Junior!”

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 9

“You’re getting hysterical again,” he said. Contempt dripped

from his lips like molasses.

Betty Ruth reached into her large straw basket purse and pulled

out a bottle of pills.

Brother Junior grabbed them out of her hand. “Pull yourself

together. I won’t have you embarrass me tonight.” And with that,

he strode out of the tent.

Betty Ruth sat down on the edge of the platform and gave vent to

all the rage and shame that were galloping in tight confused circles

around the paddock of her mind. She pulled a giant-sized bottle of

Hadacol from her bag and began to open it when she saw someone

walking down the center of the aisle.

“Here, you want some of this?”

Betty Ruth shrunk back, hiding the Hadacol, squinting through

her tears.

“It’s me, Sissy.” When Betty Ruth still looked confused, she

added, “Sissy Thompson.”

“Sissy!” Betty Ruth screamed, jumping up, stumbling against her.

“Is it really you?” She hugged her. “I haven’t seen you in an age.”

Sissy didn’t correct her, she just offered her the pop bottle. Betty

Ruth took a big swig and a look of pleasure deep and fervently

desired came over her face. “This is what we used to drink in back

of the football stadium during practice!”

“That’s right.”

And then a look of fear. “Did you put vodka in it?” she whis-

pered.

“Of course.”

Panic spread over Betty Ruth’s face. “I took the pledge.”

“Oh,” said Sissy, as if she hadn’t heard.

“I swore no liquor would ever pass my lips again.”

“Well, God can’t blame you if you didn’t know.” Betty Ruth

didn’t seem so sure of that, so Sissy continued, “He’s not that mean,

is He?”

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The preacher’s wife answered with the passion of a convert.

“God is infinite in His grace.”

“Well, there you are,” said Sissy, and saw the shadow of the old

Betty Ruth briefly cross her friend’s face as she put the Hadacol

back in her purse.

A few minutes later, the two women were splashing their feet in

the river and talking over old times. “I never used to cry,” Betty

Ruth said. “Now, it’s like that’s all I do.”

“Maybe you should go easy on that tonic.”

“But I get so nervous.” Betty Ruth eyed the Nehi.

“Here.” Sissy handed her the bottle.

“I can’t! Not now that I know what’s in it,” Betty Ruth wailed,

taking out her Hadacol.

“How much alcohol does that stuff have?” Sissy asked, setting

the Nehi down between them.

“That’s different. It’s a tonic.”

Sissy took the Hadacol away from Betty Ruth. “It smells awful.”

“Terrible.” Betty Ruth giggled. “And it tastes worse, like cough

syrup.”

Sissy made a face.

Betty Ruth picked up the pop bottle and began to caress it

absentmindedly in her hands. Then she held it to her nose and

inhaled the smell of vodka. “Oh, Lord, this is tempting.”

“I always said,
The good Lord wouldn’t have made temptations

so attractive if He didn’t expect us to give in to them every now and

then
.” Rule Number Thirty-four, Sissy said to herself.

Betty Ruth giggled and inhaled again. “Junior would have a fit.”

“Looks to me like he will anyway, so you might as well get some

fun out of it.”

“Sissy, you’re terrible.”

“Oh, come on, Betty Ruth. If you’re good all the time, you miss

all the drama of repentance and forgiveness.”

“That’s so true,” said Betty Ruth, studying her friend with new

interest. “I didn’t know you and Peewee was religious.”

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 9 1

Sissy held her tongue and watched what happened next. Betty

Ruth licked the mouth of the bottle. Then she looked over at the

tent, where the volunteers were working in the hot sun.

“They’ll never know. Nobody drinks vodka with orange pop.”

Betty Ruth bit her lip with anxious excitement. “You won’t tell?”

“Did I ever?”

Lights long since extinguished sparkled in Betty Ruth’s eyes. She

took the bottle of Nehi and vodka and tipped it down her throat.

The sun had set and the carnival lights were all aglow when

Hugh Thompson swung his old Ford into the fairgrounds parking

lot for the official kickoff of his brother’s campaign for United

States Congress.

A poster flapping in the wind proclaimed, TIBOR THOMPSON FOR

THE AMERICAN FAMILY. The candidate, white-haired and avuncular,

smiled down on the crowd, displaying perfectly matched capped

teeth. Hugh shook his head at his brother’s cynicism. Why didn’t he

proclaim himself the Great White Hope and be done with it? But

what Hugh hated most was not his brother’s ruthless bid for power,

nor even his racism, but his own complicity as editor-in-chief of the

Avenger
in not having the courage to point a finger at him and try

to pull him down.

But was it cynicism, after all? Maybe Tibor had deluded himself

into the belief that he was protecting the family, that he offered

them the last bastion of the American way of life as they had

known it as boys. It was a long time since the brothers had been

able to talk.

Hugh had heard rumors that Tibor’s first televised campaign

foray was going to be like no other in the history of the parish, per-

haps in the history of the country. But as he walked toward the

bandstand, he was unprepared for the triumph of kitsch that

awaited him.

The Gentry High School Marching Band playing “It’s a Grand

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Ole Flag” moved through the audience up the center aisle, led by

eight drum majorettes in blue-and-white star-spangled T-shirts and

little red-and-white-striped skirts, performing a synchronized Twirl

of Fire. The audience went wild, especially those seated on the aisle

as fingers of flame dropped into their laps.

As the drum majorettes mounted the steps, their flaming batons

held in a final salute, Hugh whipped out his camera. He knew he

was being manipulated, but he was a newspaperman. As soon as he

got his shot the Gentry gymnasts cartwheeled onto the stage and

formed a human pyramid between the blazing columns of batons.

Hugh moved in for a better angle.

Then an arc light switched on. He heard a roar in the sky. A twin-

engined plane flew over and disgorged a female parachutist in a

short cheerleading skirt with TIBOR THOMPSON emblazoned across

her bottom.

Newspapermen snapped their shutters as television cameras

whirred. Hugh saw that even the photographer for the New

Orleans
Times-Picayune
couldn’t resist the shot, and his paper was

backing Tibor’s opponent. The photographer was standing on a

chair.

Caught in the arc lights, the plane ejected its passenger too soon,

and instead of tracking her descent onto the top of the human pyra-

mid in front of the American flag, the cameramen traced her

descent right into the river.

The entire audience leaped to their feet and rushed down to the

water’s edge. At least half the men jumped in, pushing and shoving

and pulling on the silk and cords until the parachutist, who was

only in chest-deep water, started thrashing about, gasping for air.

The photographers were having a field day when Ida May pulled

victory out of the jaws of debacle. “Make sure you get pictures of

all our brave young men,” she called, and cajoled until the heroes

climbed out of the river to pose along with the parachutist, who

had been lucky enough to survive each and every rescue attempt.

Hugh put a fresh roll of film into his camera with a sigh. The

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