The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc (49 page)

river had cut into it and a lot of the trees were gone to make way

for “improvements.”

Where Belle Cantrell had set up a folding chair in the shade

was now a sun-bleached Little League field. A cement slab had

been poured in front of the stage, with metal chairs set into it.

They made clacking noises as people scrambled to find a seat,

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because there were not nearly enough to accommodate all those

who had come to celebrate one of their own in the United States

Senate.

No one was swimming in the river on this crisp autumn day.

And there were no Irish marching bands in leprechaun hats nor

maroon-robed choirs singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but

there was a piano onstage and the high school band was setting up

next to it, scraping chairs and making anticipatory toots. Sissy

looked at those shiny-faced boys and girls in their purple and gold

uniforms and suddenly it came over her that at least half of them

were black, as were the voters sitting in the metal chairs and stand-

ing behind them.

Then she saw him, coming from the parking lot. He waved as he

hurried toward her. Sissy felt that little leap in her heart that she

always felt when they’d been apart for a few days. She watched him

move stiffly around the crowd. The easy grace he’d once had was

gone and the dark brown hair was now gray, but he had the same

strong features, high cheekbones, and prominent nose. In a couple

of minutes he was with her.

“I was afraid I wouldn’t make it in time,” Parker said, bending

over her to give her a kiss.

When Peewee glanced up and saw his father enter the Par-

adise, he saw Bourrée’s nostrils flare, saw that familiar look of con-

tempt, and at that moment, he must have realized that killing Sissy

and Parker wouldn’t be enough. Not nearly enough. Sissy hadn’t

made his whole life a misery. And Parker was an afterthought.

It was his father who’d raised him in the sink of humiliation and

laughed about it. Peewee’s hand shook as he pressed his finger

against the trigger. The squeeze was such a little thing. Just the fleet-

ing pressure of the forefinger of his right hand was all it took.

Bourrée was thrown back into the wall. His head cracked the

knotty pine paneling. The holes in the wood dripped blood as he

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slid to the floor. A roar rolled out of his mouth and his breath

became shallow.

Peewee traced his fall with the barrel of his revolver. “It’s all your

fault!” he screamed and this time his hand didn’t shake.

Parker pushed Sissy to the floor and rushed Peewee. If he’d had a

knife or a broken bottle or a blunt instrument, Parker could have

taken it from him. Easy. But Peewee had a.38 Chief’s Special, and

he got off a second shot that hit Parker, but didn’t stop him. His

third shot hit the ceiling as the ex–football player tackled him,

knocking the revolver out of his sweat-slick hand. It scuttled across

the floor into a table as Parker slammed Peewee into the bar and

knocked him to the floor. Sissy heard the crack of a bone breaking

and heard Peewee scream.

She grabbed the gun and, as Bourrée had taught her all those

years ago, quickly emptied out the chambers. There’d be no more

shooting today, she vowed, pocketing the shells.

She heard Rosalie calling for an ambulance. Then she saw Bourrée

groaning on the floor. She thought about going to him. Instead she

reached for Parker, who was crossing the room to see if she’d been shot.

“I’m okay,” she said, but her voice was shaky. Parker helped her

to her feet, keeping his eye on Peewee.

That’s when she saw the blood seeping through Parker’s shirt.

“My God, you’ve been shot!”

Parker looked down. “I guess so.” He tried to smile to reassure

her, but she saw he was sweating. Her heart hammered in her ears

as she opened his shirt. But the bullet had only grazed his side. She

felt her whole body flood with relief. She picked up the ice pack to

stop the bleeding. But Parker never took his eyes off Peewee, who

was pulling himself up with his right hand.

Peewee stumbled over to the man who’d belittled him his whole

life and so casually betrayed him. He held his throbbing left arm in

his right as he stood triumphantly over him.

“Who taught you to shoot, boy?” Bourrée whispered.

Suddenly Peewee’s expression changed. Was that a note of admira-

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tion in his father’s voice? Peewee couldn’t be sure. He’d never heard it

before. He dropped to his knees. Bourrée’s hands fluttered and jerked.

When the sheriff arrived, Peewee was sitting on the worn

plank floor, holding Bourrée in his arms, desperately trying to stop

the bleeding with his good right hand.

Outside an ambulance wailed. Peewee wailed too, but it was too

late.

He had killed his own father.

Hugh wrote his daughter a firsthand account of the funeral. Wid-

ows from all over the South came and wept copious tears. In fact,

the only dry-eyed woman in that crowd of wailing mourners was

Miss Lily. She had a kind of relieved look on her face as they low-

ered Bourrée’s coffin into the ground.

The trial was a sensation. Juries understand about a man shoot-

ing his wife. It was only natural. But killing his own father—and

the D.A.’s campaign manager to boot—that was something else.

For the first time in his life, Peewee saw his picture in the paper

and in the New Orleans and Baton Rouge papers too. He was

secretly glad no one believed he was insane, even temporarily. He

was sentenced to seven years in the state penitentiary for man-

slaughter, with time off for good behavior. He got out in four. His

behavior had always been very, very good.

Amy Lou Hopper took it as her mission to save his immortal

soul. She visited him every Sunday, bringing him baskets of baked

goods. And when she raised her voice in prayer, thrusting her fer-

vent prow right up against the visitor’s screen where Peewee’s hand

was pressed, he had his first vision of heaven.

At first Sissy enjoyed “living in sin” up in Boston. But Parker

didn’t like it and the kids hated it. So Sissy gave in, filed for divorce,

and married Parker.

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He was true to his word. He made big money in the construction

business and built them a house first outside of Boston and then in

Alexandria, Virginia, where Sissy and Clara got together again. The

younger woman was going to law school, marching for civil rights,

and discovering that black is beautiful. She introduced her cousin to

a whole new world. By now Clara was in love with a black activist.

Sissy let them—no, encouraged them—to organize civil rights

protests out of their new house in Alexandria.

But before they moved to Virginia, back in Boston, Sissy told

Chip that Bourrée was his biological father and the boy decided to

make her and Parker pay for the tragedy. He almost succeeded.

Until with Hugh’s and Belle’s help, they shipped him off to a South-

ern military academy where distraught parents sent their delinquent

sons to keep them out of jail. Chip loved it. He won all the medals

on the shooting range and wrote an honors paper on the strategic

benefits of poison gas. The school commander predicted a brilliant

future.

Chip joined the army right after graduation, when they promised

to assign him to a chemical warfare unit, and he rose through the

ranks. Sissy suspected he’d personally made the decision to deploy

Agent Orange, but she never had any solid information on that sub-

ject. The army sent him to college and he stayed in until his retire-

ment in 1980, when he went to work for a chemical company no

one had ever heard of, doing top-secret research somewhere in the

Middle East. He never married, never wanted to have anything to

do with his family, but Sissy never gave up trying.

Billy Joe got a football scholarship to Northwestern in 1961 and

discovered acting. He studied Shakespeare, Chekhov, and Ibsen in

college and then went to New York. He had his mother’s charm,

which served him well on the stage and in his many love affairs, as

he knocked around in regional theater. When he was thirty he fell in

love with a woman very much like Sissy, who was smart enough to

let him think he was chasing her. They married the next year, soon

had two children, and moved to Southern California. He played

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numerous roles in forgettable films and then after years of classical

stage training he found fame, at last, on a TV sitcom. He and

his family vacationed with his mother and Parker whenever his

schedule permitted, and his burgeoning celebrity lent a real air of

excitement when he was able to campaign in southern Louisiana

towns.

The stage was filling up with dignitaries. A woman with a lot of

teased blond hair sat down at the piano and belted out “America

the Beautiful” in a clear bluesy voice. It took Sissy a few minutes to

recognize Betty Ruth under all that hair. After her drunken foray in

the woods with Harlan, Betty Ruth wrote Sissy that she’d joined

Alcoholics Anonymous and had taken her own first step—by

divorcing Brother Junior Bodine. She’d played the piano and sung

in dives all over the South and in her later years had become a

revered figure in the New Orleans jazz scene.

Then the mayor announced the senator had arrived. The band

played “The Star-Spangled Banner” and the crowd stood and cheered

for their new United States senator, Gentry’s own Clara Conners.

Parker took Sissy’s hand, which was covered in age spots now,

but then so was his. He kissed her hand gently as Clara, with her

hair turning gray and her figure thickening, walked onto the stage.

Sissy thought how far they had come together.

Once Clara had enlisted her into the civil rights movement, Sissy

found she had a real talent for fund-raising. The Southern Belle’s

Handbook was a big help when it came to talking rich businessmen

into giving money to worthy causes. And later when Clara began

running for office, there was no cause Sissy felt more passionate

about than the rising political career of her cousin. A political

career Clara strengthened by her own judicious use of certain rules

in the Southern Belle’s Handbook. She also used it to great advan-

tage when she decided to marry the black activist she had loved for

so long. He was a handful, but she managed to keep him faithful

and supportive until his sudden death from a heart attack shortly

before her run for the Senate.

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Clara thanked the political establishment, her supporters, and

then said, “There’s one person I owe everything to, without whom

I’d never be standing on this stage today. Sissy Davidson, get up

here, girl.”

Sissy hadn’t expected this. She turned to Parker.

“Go on, honey, you deserve it.”

“Come on, Sissy,” the senator said. And the crowd cheered, “Sissy!

Sissy!”

Sissy mounted the stage as Clara talked about all that Sissy had

done for her. How she never would have had an education without

her, never would have had the funds to stand there before them.

Sissy’s cheeks were burning, but she felt that same wild rush of

energy she’d felt so many years before, when she stood on this same

stage and spoke to a very different crowd on Clara’s behalf.

Without letting her leave the stage, Clara told the crowd what

she intended to do up there in Washington, for Gentry, for the state,

and for the country. Sissy had heard it all before, when she’d helped

Clara write it. She looked out over the audience and saw Marilee

and the other campaign workers, those black-suited sisters in

mourning, hovering together at the edge of the stage. Sissy knew

most of them well. They were attractive, some of them even beauti-

ful, all of them intelligent and well educated, and most of them mis-

erable. Most of them lived alone.

For the first time in years, Sissy thought she just might take the

advice Clara had given her in her kitchen back in 1956 and write

the Southern Belle’s Handbook. God knows, these poor benighted

Yankee girls needed it. She’d seen the way they cut men down, not

even trying to make them feel good about themselves. Sissy had

long ago discarded Rule Thirty-seven,
Marriage is the root of all

suffering
. Her new Rule Thirty-seven said,
Marriage can be the root

of great happiness, when you marry the right man
.

She knew these bright, resourceful young women starved them-

selves diligently and worked out their bodies relentlessly, but they

had little real grace or understanding of courtesy. She’d comforted

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