Peewee drifted off. Thoughts of his parents gnawed on him through his dreams. It was only natural, he guessed, for them to keep on seeing their youngest as a kid, but why’d they have to see him as such a dumb kid? He knew his father had been partial to his oldest son, which was understandable, and Miss Lily had always doted on the second. Peewee had come upon them as a surprise, the product of one of his father’s drunken nights on the town. Bourrée had referred to it more than once. “There’s love children and there’s liquor children.” He’d even introduced him as “the mistake of the litter.” Peewee had spent the rest of his life trying to make it up to them, to please them, especially Bourrée, but he never succeeded.
To hell with them, he thought. He was a man now, with a family of his own. But nobody seemed to appreciate that. Not even Sissy. Especially not Sissy. He didn’t understand why she and his father were at each other’s throats all the time. He guessed they just naturally didn’t like one another. And he couldn’t blame either one of them. But then why was she always telling him the children needed to see their grandparents?
A woman is a mystery, he decided. He remembered somebody famous had said that once, or something like it. Well, it was true. And dammit, it was time she started appreciating him for the man he was and started treating him with respect. After all, he busted his butt all week, standing in the sun with a bunch of niggers just so she could put food on the table. It might not be his house, but he was the man around here. He had his rights.
AFTER THE CHILDREN were put to bed, Sissy went into her closet for her nightgown. When she came out Peewee jumped her. She turned, laughing.
He kissed her hard, pushing her against the door. She stumbled back.
“Cut it out, Peewee!” She tried to move away.
His arm came out and stopped her. His breath was stale with the beers he’d drunk before and after supper. “Why can’t you just relax and enjoy it?”
“Because you’re pushing me into the doorknob.”
“Oh.” He eased up so she could slide along the wall. He stayed right in front of her, though, and began rubbing up against her like a goat in rut.
Sissy thought it made for a nice change.
Besides, it would take her mind off Parker. Maybe for good and all. She remembered how she felt when she saw Parker again, when he was pushing her up against the sink. She could feel that way about Peewee. She knew she could. Rule Number Twenty-one: One man’s as good as another, she reminded herself. But when Peewee unzipped his pants, she had to push him away. “What’s the matter,” he taunted, “you turning frigid on me?”
“Now, sugar, you know I’ve never told you no. And I’m not gonna turn you down tonight.”
Dammit! There she goes again! That’s not what he wanted. He wanted to take her. To force her to do his will. He didn’t want her to do her damned duty.
“I’ve got to get myself ready,” she said.
“You look ready to me.” He was pulling up her skirt.
She kissed him on the cheek and tried to push his hands down. “Sugar, hold on!” He didn’t stop. “I just can’t handle another pregnancy.” That didn’t seem to bother him at all. Southern Belle Handbook Rule Number Four: When a man gets hot, all the blood rushes from his head, taking his brain cells along for the ride.
He had her skirt all bunched up and was working on her panties. “Okay, if you want another baby, just go ahead.” He was going ahead. “But you’ll have to take a second job, ’cause otherwise we just won’t make it.” That stopped him for a moment, and a moment was long enough for Sissy to make a run for the bathroom.
She locked the door and stood looking around her, stunned, as if she’d forgotten what she was there for. Then she pulled out the drawer where she kept her diaphragm hidden from her children and from Peewee. He knew she wore it, but didn’t want to see it, saying the mechanics took away the thrill. A lot of things took away the thrill for Peewee. She was sure the Southern Belle’s Handbook had something to say about that. But she didn’t have time to think about it.
She heard him at the door. She knew he hated being locked out. He wanted her to touch him, to keep up his interest. He put his head to the door. “Sissy,” Peewee called in a gentle singsong, “I’m waiting.”
“And I’m hurrying.” She had to race against time. She grabbed a tube of jelly and spread a big gob of it all around the rubber disk, coating the edges so it would seal. Then she took off her panties and braced one leg on the edge of the tub.
Peewee was pacing around the bedroom. He picked up a beer that was getting warm by the side of the bed and chugged it down. What was taking her so long? He stroked himself to keep himself up. Dammit, this was her job. A man shouldn’t have to do this to himself. Stories came floating into his head about going blind. Of course he knew they weren’t true. She was just mocking him.
Sissy carefully squeezed the slippery diaphragm into an oval just as…
Peewee smacked the door. “Time to come out!”
She jumped. The diaphragm shot up in the air and stuck to the ceiling over the tub.
Peewee was pounding now. Sissy watched the rubber disk vibrate with every blow. Saw the rim quiver. Keep on pounding, Peewee, she willed. Keep it up. But he didn’t.
“Sissy, what the hell’s going on in there?”
“You wouldn’t believe it.”
She climbed up onto the rim of the old claw-footed tub, trying to grip its curved edge as best she could with her bare feet, and batted at the sloping ceiling with her fingertips. She thought maybe the rubber disk shuddered a little with the breeze, but it was still inches beyond her reach.
She grabbed a towel off the rack, flicked it in the air, and fell— hitting her head, scraping her knee against the faucet and her elbow on the side of the tub. The diaphragm, however, remained securely in place.
“What happened?” Peewee wondered if he should break down the door.
“Don’t worry, honey, I’m just fine. I won’t be but a minute.” She turned on the tap to wash off her scraped knee.
Peewee sunk down on the bed, his head buried between his hands. She was taking a bath!
Then as if reading his mind, her voice purred through the closed door, “Now, sugar, don’t get discouraged. Just go on and take off your clothes and lie down on the bed and I’ll be in there as soon as I can.”
SISSY STOOD IN the center of the water-slick tub flicking a towel up at the diaphragm, which held on to the ceiling with the determination of glue. But she was even more determined. She raised herself to her tiptoes and gave the towel a mighty bat. Close. The next strike was closer. Then Bingo! The tip of the towel swept across the sloping ceiling and knocked the diaphragm down behind the claw-footed tub.
When Sissy finally emerged from the bathroom, ready for action, smelling of White Shoulders cologne, Peewee was lying in bed with his eyes closed. She saw he was a little limp. But he was also naked. The Southern Belle’s Handbook would say that’s a good sign. “Peewee,” she whispered, planning to give him a strip tease. She ran the palm of her hand over the soft bristles of his crew cut. “Peewee.”
He opened his eyes, grabbed her, pulled her down onto the bed, and rolled over her. “It’s about time.”
She wound her arms around his neck and licked his ear, feeling his body come to attention. She waited for hers to respond, but before she could get going, he had her skirt up and was jabbing, desperate to enter her.
“Cut it out, Peewee, you’re not digging a hole.”
He stopped.
She smiled and began to stroke him. “I’m a girl, remember? You’ve got to take your time with girls.”
Peewee sighed. Why couldn’t he ever do what he wanted? Why were people always telling him what they wanted?
He pulled down her peasant blouse, gave one breast a resentful kiss, and then tickled her “down there.” He stuck in his finger and wiggled it around. He remembered a marital guide advising the husband to think of it as an inkwell. He got a little “ink�
�� on his finger, spread it around, and then popped right in with the next jab. At last.
Sissy closed her eyes and tried to remind herself, This is my husband. The man who married me and gave me his name. The man whom I promised to love, honor, and obey. But the weasel in the stain above her bed seemed to slide down from the ceiling. It crawled over her, panting and sweating. She blinked her eyes open to banish it from her imagination.
“That was real fine,” Peewee said with a contented sigh, sprawled on top of her now. “Just right.” He rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom to wash off.
Too bad speed sex isn’t an Olympic event, he’d win the gold hands down, Sissy thought as she stared up at the ceiling. The weasel had slipped back into its place in the water stain above their marital bed.
Peewee returned with a satisfied smile. He tumbled into his side of the bed, turned over, and began to snore away all those beers.
Listening to him, Sissy traced the weasel’s grin in the brown stain and felt her resolve flow out of her like tap water.
Chapter 7
A girl can stand just so much virtue.
Rule Number Ten
THE SOUTHERN BELLE'S HANDBOOK
SISSY SHIFTED HER weight in the hard wooden seat. She was back in her grade school auditorium listening to Amy Lou Hopper present the candidates for next year’s PTA executive board. That woman exercised her jaw more than most people exercised their whole bodies. Sissy had heard that the girl Amy Lou’s husband ran off with was a student from the Training School for the Deaf. Couldn’t blame him.
Sissy shifted again and tried discreetly to pull out the little metal end of her garter belt, which had given up on her stocking and had embedded itself firmly in the flesh of her thigh. She’d like to meet the man who invented nylon stockings: hot in summer, cold in winter, and ripped before you got them out of the package. She was sure it was a man. No woman would have inflicted so much suffering on herself in the name of decency. He probably thought they looked sexy. Why do men think women are their most attractive when they’re cramped, pinched, and constrained? she wondered. We don’t ask guys to wrap themselves in nylon and totter around on high heels to attract us. Maybe it’s that little overlay of pain we have to endure that gets their sadistic juices going. Rule Number Forty-nine: What men find sexy is what women find uncomfortable.
The applause snapped her out of her reverie. Amy Lou was introducing Carmalina Sangebina, candidate for PTA president. Besides being an outstanding mother of six, a loving daughter, and an enthusiastic wife, Amy Lou assured them that Carmalina was a woman of sterling character, with the courage to do the right thing in the face of adversity, and yet Carmalina was a team player, a consensus builder, and a brilliant negotiator. Hell, Sissy thought, Carmalina is wasting her time in Gentry. She ought to go directly to Washington and take care of the Communist threat, before lunch.
Carmalina took the mike from Amy Lou. They looked so proper and serious in their pastel summer dresses and their lacquered hair, like two big Buicks parked side by side. The candidate spread her lips into a smile that would bring pride to any Buick grille and began talking about the threat comic books posed to the morals of our youth.
All Sissy had wanted was to get out into the cool of the evening, away from the house, away from the kids, away from Peewee. But her only excuse was this stupid PTA meeting, where the stifling air was being fouled by the high-minded exhaust from Amy Lou Hopper and the grinning Carmalina.
The woman next to her fanned herself with her purse, filling Sissy’s nostrils with the sickening mixture of Evening in Paris cologne and sweat. Sissy wished she were in Paris this evening. Hell, she’d settle for Shreveport. Anywhere but home or this mildewing auditorium filled with perspiring mothers, who must be as bored as she was. She wished she had their knack of not letting on. Southern Belle’s Handbook Rule Number Forty-eight: A proper Southern belle never lets others know how bored she is. Well, it’s something we can all aspire to, Sissy thought with a sigh. The woman next to her caught her sigh and smiled sympathetically.
Amy Lou recaptured the mike and waxed lyrical about the next candidate. Sissy’s heart was beating, her breath was getting short, and her garter belt was killing her.
The next candidate was not smiling when she rolled up to the podium. She was much too worried about the younger generation, “who are our hope and our future, but who are beset by a myriad of temptations which can only lead them down that slippery slope with its inevitable slide into…” and she paused for effect, “juvenile delinquency!” That was it for Sissy. The trouble with this group was there wasn’t enough delinquency—juvenile or otherwise. She looked over at her co-conspirator and found she’d disappeared.
Sissy stood up. She wanted to scream, run for the exit. Instead, she excused herself politely as she climbed over acres of laps and ran up the aisle.
Outside, the evening air was warm and moist and made her skin feel soft and sinful. The night-blooming jasmine crawled all along the fence and exhaled sweet, pungent odors, filling her body with an inarticulate longing. An owl called to her.
She walked across the parking lot and opened the door of the secondhand red convertible that Peewee had so adamantly opposed.
He’d explained that since they already had a pickup, a convertible would be an extravagance they didn’t need. He’d also explained how a sedan was safer and much more practical for a family of five. Sissy should start acting her age, take on the responsibilities of motherhood, and accept Miss Lily’s used Oldsmobile.
Sissy had set her jaw and was actually making up a bed for herself on the living room couch when she remembered the advice her mother had given her while she was cleaning her wounds after a knock-down-drag-out fight Sissy had had with one of the neighborhood boys. She was eight years old, beaten and bloody, but unbowed. “Sugar,” her mother had said, “I know you were right and you know you were right, but a lady shouldn’t have to fight to get what she wants.” Years later, Sissy had made that Rule Number Twenty.
So she’d crawled back into their conjugal bed, kissed her husband, and asked him not to pay her any mind. Women get funny around that time of the month. She’d be pleased to have Miss Lily’s Oldsmobile, as long as it was in her name. She wanted something of her own.
The day after the papers were signed, Sissy drove her very first car over to Parish Motors and told Sammy Rutledge she wanted to trade it for a convertible. When Sammy asked what kind, Sissy told him: red.
The test drive was more than satisfactory. Sissy was ready to close the deal. Sammy offered her a chocolate doughnut. She set it in front of her on his desk and watched him pick up the phone. Was this how it was done? She’d never bought a car before. Who was he calling? He dialed the Department of Roads. He wanted to check with her husband. “Standard operating procedure,” he told her.
Sissy put her hand on his. “Sammy, we grew up together,” she said, leaning over until he could imagine he might be able to see right down her shirtwaist dress. Doughnut crumbs fell out of his mouth. Then she added in a low, conspiratorial voice, “I want it to be a surprise for Peewee, when he gets home from work.”
It was.
He nearly had a fit. It was the wrong make or model or something. He got out old copies of Car and Driver and Popular Mechanics and showed her a whole bunch of statistics. Horsepower, turning ratio, 0 to 60. Sissy put on her most serious face and studied all the pages he thrust at her. And then when he was finished she said, “Sugar, I’m sure you’re right, but you know, you can’t pay too much attention to numbers when you’re talking about a red convertible.”
Sissy reached into her purse for the car key and found the other key still there. Well, she wasn’t going to do anything about it, not tonight. She was going straight home. But as she pulled out of the parking lot, a vague feeling of anxiety began to surface. Even though she was driving with the top down, her hair blowing in the wind, she had trouble catching her breath.
She drove past the high s
chool, turned down Hope Street, and saw Peewee through the window surrounded by the kids watching television. She meant to stop. She would stop just as soon as she could catch her breath. No sense in going home until she’d calmed down. Peewee would want to know what was the matter, why was she home so early, and she didn’t have anything to tell him. Nothing was the matter!
She drove slowly around the block. The silent houses and carefully tended gardens made dark silhouettes against the star-lit sky. Here and there a porch lamp shone upon rosebushes, a child’s tricycle left in the yard, a pink wrought-iron flamingo.
Inside those silent houses people slept or prepared to sleep. People who voted in the elections, ran businesses, paid their taxes, and thought they owned the town.
Suddenly Sissy had a revelation. The real owners of these houses never paid taxes. They didn’t care who was elected or whether business failed. And they numbered in the millions. They came out on hot, muggy nights like this. They were the cockroaches that swarmed over summer sidewalks wiggling their antennae and slipping through tiny cracks in the floorboards to march across silent rooms into kitchens, where they ate the grease above the stove and invaded the cereal in open boxes. They shared their dominion with the snakes slithering up from the damp earth through knotholes, crawling around the bedposts into carefully laid-out slippers. But the majority was held by the termites who built whole colonies inside the walls themselves, excavating chambers for their queen, producing thirty thousand eggs a day, every day, hatching nymphs and warriors to undermine the antebellum mansions and simple three-room shacks that held their sleeping humans.
Sissy didn’t turn back into her own street. She couldn’t face the thought of putting the children to bed, kissing her husband.
She turned right on New Century Boulevard and crossed the tracks on Grand. The stores in the business district were dark and empty. Only Buster Rubinstein’s office was lit up. She caught a glimpse of Bourrée and Uncle Tibor and some other men playing poker. She pulled up next to the tracks. The light was shining on Bourrée’s back, darkening his already dark and cynical features. He cast a giant shadow as he pulled in the pot and finished up a joke at the same time. She heard some raunchy laughter followed by cries of “Pass the damn whiskey!”
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc Page 8
