The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc

by Loraine Despres

  “Me?”

  “I want to take you with me. I thought you knew that.”

  Sissy stood perfectly still. “How was I supposed to know that? I thought you’d gotten tired of me.”

  “Girl, I’m not letting you go.” He took her arm and led her away from the crowd. He felt the nearness of her body.

  When she spoke again, her voice wavered. “What about my children?”

  “Bring them. They’ll be our children,” he said.

  “And Peewee?”

  He paused for a moment and then said, “Don’t bring him.”

  Sissy didn’t smile.

  They walked down toward the river where the bonfires leaped and sparked against the night sky. He had to explain, make her understand. But Parker had never been a salesman, he’d never talked anyone into doing anything. He’d never had to. Especially not women. They’d always wanted him. Except Sissy. But Sissy was the only one he wanted, the only one he’d ever wanted. He knew the next few moments would be the most important ones in his life.

  For once he wanted to say something romantic, even poetic. As they walked downhill in silence, he tried to rehearse. I want to build a house for you. He did, but he couldn’t just say that. Where was the poetry? He had to think of something more persuasive. If a man finds a woman he can love for as many years as I’ve loved you, it’s like he’s been given a gift from God. Ugh. He couldn’t say that. Suppose she laughed. But he couldn’t let her go again. Not back to the toad.

  They stood on the edge of a broad beach. Their feet sank into the deep sand. He could smell the soft fragrance of wood smoke as the bonfires blazed in the distance along the riverbank. She turned to him. Her face glowed in the dancing firelight, her red hair tumbled over her forehead, and the wind pushed it over her cheek. It was now or never. “Say yes,” he said.

  “You want me to just pick up my kids and run off and live in sin with you in Boston?”

  “I want to marry you, Sissy. Haven’t you figured that out?”

  She shook her head. “Marriage is the root of all suffering.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never been married to me.” And then he began to talk. Sissy listened as words spilled out of his mouth and swirled around them in the wind. He’d be making big money. He’d take care of them all. Build them a house. In a few years they’d be able to travel. Finally he got to the romantic part. He’d never wanted to be tied down to anyone else, because of her. That’s why he’d been so wild and free. And Sissy realized he’d come back for her. He loved her. He’d always loved her.

  A warmth swept over her. She felt it pulsating though her body. She wanted to bathe in it. Stop it! The Voice of Reason ordered her. Think! You’ve got to stop feeling and think.

  A dark cloud of smoke from the bonfires along the wooded banks whirled up and covered the moon.

  Think. She willed herself to go numb with the same numbness she’d experienced when she’d first heard her mother had died. Think. Don’t feel. Sissy took refuge inside a crystal dome. She had to get her thoughts together. After a moment, she lifted it a crack to test what was coming at her as Parker talked. A warm excitement enveloped her. She was loved and wanted! He thought she was special. Not some piece of trash, but special. Then she heard the voice of her conscience: you can’t do this to Peewee. You tricked him into marrying you. You can’t take his kids away from him now. She remembered him jumping into the gravel pit to save Marilee. His pride introducing Billy Joe to Parker as his son. His look of gratitude when she took up for him in front of Bourrée. What would he do without her? She thought about the way Peewee looked at his father’s table. His mute suffering, like a rabbit trapped in a hunter’s headlight. She couldn’t abandon him. She’d taken a vow, for better or for worse. And she’d broken it. She’d been unfaithful, but she hadn’t deserted him. She hadn’t made him suffer. Not ever. She pulled the dome down firmly. But a tiny echo bounced around in the crystal and whispered, if she didn’t go with Parker and he left her, she’d have nothing to get up for in the morning.

  “What do you say?” he asked.

  Sirens wailed in the distance. She didn’t answer.

  “They want me to leave tomorrow.”

  “No!” she heard herself scream. She saw flames from other bonfires shooting up through the trees.

  “They need me right away or not at all.” He looked into her eyes and came as close to begging as he ever had in his life. “Come with me, Sissy. Dammit, you know I’m the man you should have married.”

  The dry wind whipped around her. She wanted to go with him. She would go with him, but what about Peewee! The acrid smell of smoke filled her nostrils, choking her. She was in turmoil. How do you make a decision like this? “Call me tomorrow.”

  “My phone’s already turned off.” Then he hesitated and added, “And yours is tapped.”

  “What?” She moved away from him and heard the rattling of dry leaves on her crystal shell.

  “They’ve been listening to us all summer.” He grinned. “We’re a public disgrace.”

  Sissy felt smothered. What was she doing in this little town? She had to go with Parker. Then she saw Peewee’s face. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

  “Where?”

  She just shook her head.

  Parker cast about for a place to meet. “They’re showing my house.”

  “The Paradise. Nobody’ll be there in the morning.”

  “Ten o’clock. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “But, Sissy, if your answer is no, don’t…” He hesitated. “Don’t show up.”

  “Parker…”

  He just shook his head. “I’ll wait until ten-thirty.”

  Before she could say anything Harlan and Betty Ruth ran out of the woods straightening their clothes. Harlan was furious. “That damn politician set the forest on fire.”

  Betty Ruth was happy and more rational than she’d been in years. Harlan had convinced her the fire was in no way retribution for her sins. “It was Tibor Thompson, not the devil,” she told Sissy, laughing.

  Suddenly, they were surrounded by firemen stringing hoses, distributing buckets and shovels to any able-bodied men they could find. They told Sissy and Betty Ruth to go up to the parking lot with the other women and children. Betty Ruth turned to go, but before Sissy could join her, Peewee and Bourrée, still on horseback, rode up together.

  Sissy saw Bourrée squint his cool blue eyes at Parker. She remembered the afternoon he shot a neighbor’s dog for sniffing around his breeding stock. He looked the same way now. He watched his son to see what he would do.

  But Sissy knew Peewee wouldn’t do anything. Pity swept over her. It was bad enough finding her in the woods with Parker again, but finding her here in front of Bourrée meant months, years of humiliation. She had never meant to humiliate him. She saw his lip quiver. His eyes looked at her like the eyes of a whipped puppy. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. And then Parker came gracefully to his rescue.

  “Hey, Peewee, Mr. LeBlanc. Glad you’re here. The fire department needs volunteers.” He handed Peewee a shovel. “Sissy offered her services, but I’ve been trying to convince her that a forest fire’s no place for a lady.”

  “He’s right. Your place is with Belle and the children,” said Peewee. He sounded so grateful to Parker for rescuing him in the eyes of his father.

  But Bourrée snorted and curled his lip. “What service was you offering this time, Sissy?”

  As he spoke, Sissy heard in his voice the bitterness she’d nursed for him all these years. She’d passed it on to him. A strange sense of elation came over her. A giddiness of power. But she pushed down those feelings. She knew how dangerous he could be. She said with injured innocence of a Southern belle, “Why, Bourrée, whatever are you talking about?”

  Parker looked as if he wanted to knock Bourrée off his horse, but he contained himself with throwing him a bucket and hitting him directly in the stomach.

  Bourrée’s nostrils flare
d. His horse reared up. Parker stood his ground. The two men had recognized each other. War was declared.

  Sissy knew she had to get out of there or hostilities would erupt. She lifted the hem of her choir robe and climbed the railroad ties leading to the parking lot.

  She turned at the first landing and saw flames shoot out of the trees. The horses whinnied and reared. Peewee’s horse took off before he could get hold of the reins, galloping out of control away from the fire, down the riverbank. Bourrée watched and then with cold resignation pulled his horse around and galloped after him.

  Smoke blew out of the woods and engulfed her. At first she couldn’t see the river and then she couldn’t even see the beach. The birds screamed as they flew madly overhead. The underbrush trembled with scampering, shrieking animals.

  Sissy ran up the steps, stumbling on the hem of her robe. The live oaks and pine trees crackled in the heat. A long finger of Spanish moss burst into flame, blocking her path. Burning leaves and moss swirled around her face in the wind.

  She turned coughing, gasping for breath. Her eyes burned and teared, blinding her. She ran back down the steps, when suddenly a strand of flaming moss dropped onto her choir robe.

  In seconds, she could smell the cheap synthetic fabric ignite. She screamed and tried to pull the choir robe off. But the hook that held the vestment tightly around her neck was stuck. She grasped the collar in both hands and pulled at her throat. She was flailing, tearing at the robe, when she smelled the awful stench of burning hair. Her hair.

  She fell to the ground, thrashing about. But the dry pine needles beneath her ignited and Sissy found herself rolling in a bed of flame. Hysteria seized her throat and choked her.

  Strong arms reached through the flames. Parker lifted her out of the burning bed of pine needles and ran with her to the sand.

  He was coughing as he turned her over onto her stomach. She felt him beat on her back with his bare hands. He ripped through the choir robe and tore the burning garment away from the collar.

  His shirt began to smolder, but he ignored it as he rolled her over in the sand, picked her up and ran with her, stumbling across the deep, broad beach until he finally reached the water.

  After the first shock, the cold water eased the pain between her shoulders and comforted her. She began to breathe again. She opened his shirt to see if he’d been burned. But his chest was all right. She could feel the sand and ashes float away from her scalp. The river was washing them clean. He held her with the cold water rolling around them. Then she saw his hands. They were black and swollen. He was so worried about her, he hadn’t noticed.

  “I’ve got to find my children!”

  A fireman told them a first-aid station was set up in the parking lot.

  The air was filled with suffocating smoke and the screams of fire trucks arriving from all over the parish.

  HUGH HAD RUN down to the river with his camera to cover the fire for the newspaper, but Belle, Marilee, and Billy Joe were waiting together in the parking lot. Chip was standing by the road in deep conversation with an older boy wearing motorcycle boots who had a comb sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans. Sissy’s oldest son glanced up to see his mother soaking wet, her hair and clothes burned, appear out of the smoke. Then he quickly turned back to his conversation.

  “Mama!” called Billy Joe, running to her, followed by Marilee. “We were so worried!”

  “What happened?” the little girl asked, trying to wrap her arms around her mother, but Sissy gently pushed her away and took her hand.

  Parker followed Sissy up the path.

  Dr. Moore took Sissy into the first-aid tent and told Parker to stick around. He wanted to look at his hands. Parker assured him he wasn’t going anywhere.

  Billy Joe paced nervously in front of the entrance to the first aid tent, his face shut down, worried. Marilee paced with him. Belle watched them.

  Feeling his hands throb, Parker bent down to get some ice out of a cooler. Marilee sat next to him and began talking about her dog. Parker listened attentively, hunkering back on his heels, rubbing ice between his hands, as the little girl spun out a very long-winded story. He told her he was proud that she took such good care of her dog and Marilee just swelled with pride.

  Then Hugh came up from the river, blackened by soot and out of breath. The fire had been contained and there were no more injuries. Peewee and Bourrée were fine. They were staying to help the firemen mop up. He told Belle to go home. The smoke wasn’t doing her lungs any good. He’d take care of Sissy and the children. Belle said she’d check on her granddaughter in the morning.

  As soon as Sissy came out of the first-aid tent, her back bandaged from her shoulders to her waist and a light sheet thrown over her shoulders, Parker went to her.

  “I’ll drive you and the children home.”

  “No, I’ll be okay. I want him to look at your hands.”

  “Sissy…”

  “Parker, I can see you now,” Dr. Moore said.

  But Parker ignored him. “How do you feel?” he asked her.

  “I’ll survive. Go on, now.”

  Parker turned to Dr. Moore, who assured him that Sissy had suffered only first-degree burns thanks to his quick action. “Now let me see those hands.”

  “Go on,” Sissy said.

  “Tomorrow?” he asked.

  She hesitated and, giving him a noncommittal nod, gathered up her children. Parker watched as Hugh drove them out of the parking lot in Sissy’s red convertible before he turned back to the doctor.

  SISSY PUT MARILEE to bed and took a pain pill. She told Billy Joe to stop worrying. “The best thing you can do to help me is for you and Chip to go to bed.” He kissed her gingerly on the cheek and went into his room, where Chip was carefully setting out his test tubes for the next day. Sissy lay down and fell asleep flat on her stomach as soon as she hit the pillow. She woke up at 2 A.M., her back throbbing. In her head, all of her voices were holding a convention.

  She’d had very little experience making big decisions, wrenching her life out of its grove and sending it careening off into the unknown, so she didn’t know that her head wouldn’t be much use. She had to listen to the quiet wisdom of the heart. But even if she’d known, she couldn’t have heard it. The voices of her head were working overtime.

  Think! You can’t break up your family just because you have feelings for Parker, her Practical Voice said. You can’t take your children out of school, away from their friends, and leave their father over a feeling.

  But, sputtered another quieter voice, even if the feeling’s love?

  And then the Voice of Fear stepped in. For a month you and Parker were wallowing in forbidden love. Forbidden love is easy. So’s unrequited love. Intimacy’s hard. You think this “love” can survive it? Do you really believe you’ll feel the same after months, not to mention years of close contact? Look around and name all the happy couples you know. Sissy couldn’t honestly name one. Keep the memory. Cherish it, but stick with Peewee. The Voice of Fear won out. Sissy decided she couldn’t risk it.

  Besides, added the Voice of Guilt, think about Peewee. Think how he’ll suffer. She remembered how his lip had quivered when he saw her with Parker. She didn’t have the heart to hurt him.

  He’ll get along without you. Better. Came a whisper. Stop thinking about his lip and remember how he looked chugging after Amy Lou.

  Give me a break! said the Voice of Guilt. You don’t believe that.

  Sure I do, said the whisper. I’m not be-all and end-all. If I stay, he’ll never have a chance to feel really loved. He deserves that chance, doesn’t he?

  Yes! said Sissy’s true voice, at last. And so do I! I can’t let Parker leave without me. I’m going to Boston! Having made her decision, Sissy dozed off. Half an hour later she woke up again.

  Miss Practicality was screaming, or was it the Voice of Fear? What makes you think Parker will stick around? For the last fourteen years the man’s done nothing but run from responsibi
lity. What happens if he leaves you in Boston with three little children after you burn all your bridges? You can’t risk it. You’ve got to think about your children. You don’t even have a high school diploma.

  As soon as Sissy made up her mind, the chattering would begin and she’d make her mind up all over again. You have a duty, chatter, chatter, chatter. But what about me, don’t I count? Chatter, chatter, chatter. What about Peewee? I’ve already humiliated him. Chatter, chatter, chatter. What about Parker? What about his suffering? How will he feel if I reject him twice? She remembered his face at the Christmas dance when she told him she was going steady with Peewee. She remembered his face when she told him marriage was the root of all suffering and he said, How do you know? You’ve never been married to me. Maybe happiness was possible, after all. For both of them. Conversations got stuck in her head and replayed again and again, like a broken record.

  She finally fell asleep again. Around five, she woke up in screaming pain. Peewee, reeking of beer he’d drunk with the firemen, was climbing over her burned and bandaged back, trying to get inside her. He’d decided the time had come to assert his marital rights.

  Chapter 21

  Never marry a man who makes your skin crawl.

  Rule Number One Hundred and Three, a late addition to

  THE SOUTHERN BELLE'S HANDBOOK

  “GET OFF ME!” Sissy tried to push him away, but she was on her stomach and vulnerable. He held on like some little animal. “You’re hurting me.” He didn’t seem to care. He rubbed against her. “For God’s sake, Peewee, you’re pulling off my bandages!” Her skin was raw and burned where he touched her. “Stop it!”

  “What’s the matter? You’d rather fuck Parker Davidson in the woods?” He was in her now and pumping, his full weight pressing on her back. She was in agony.

  “You’re going to learn to treat me like a man!”

  “Get off, damn you!” She gave him a jab with her elbow. She tried to scratch him, kick him, anything. But he was on top of her back and she was helpless. She tried to roll over, to roll him off her, but he wouldn’t let her. She tried to slip out from under him, but he grabbed her by her shoulders. She started to scream. That’s when he pushed her head into the down pillow.