The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc

by Loraine Despres

  Maybe that was what the religious people meant when they talked about forgiveness. Sissy had always thought they meant loving 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 swimming next to her.

  “You’re so stuck up, Parker Davidson,” she said, looking at him 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 carried them away from the fairgrounds, the river became deserted and the sounds of celebration died out. They listened to the lapping 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 underbrush. 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.

  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 partners 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 bitterness 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 begging. “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.

  “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 Bourrée’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 lightness 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 serious 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.

  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 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.

  Chapter 19

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

  Rule Number Fifty-eight

  THE SOUTHERN BELLE'S HANDBOOK

  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 matter 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-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 differences, 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 candidate 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.”

  “What are you up to, Sissy?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Belle, you sound just like your mother used to,” her octogenarian 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 complaints 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 hymnal, 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!”

  “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 whispered.

  “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?”

  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.”

  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.