There was life in that bright room. Sissy longed to join them. She saw herself sashaying right up to the table, pulling up a chair, and saying in a deep, rich voice, “Deal me in, boys.” That would knock the Southern Belle’s Handbook all to hell. It wasn’t fair that men could go out and drink and gamble and raise all kinds of hell without hurting their reputations, and the only place a woman could go at night was to church or the PTA and listen to Amy Lou Hopper and Carmalina Sangebina honk their horns. Of course that was Rule Number Fifty-one: Life’s always harder for a woman. That’s why we have to give it a bunch of little shoves and shakes, always taking care the buzzer doesn’t ring and the lights don’t come on screaming Tilt!
She saw Bourrée get up and stretch. Tibor’s voice came through the window. “Did you all hear the one about the nigger who wanted to be President.” A chorus erupted: “That’s an old one.” “Well, I haven’t heard it.” “It’s as old as Methuselah.” “Why don’t you just shut up and let the man tell his story?” Bourrée peered into the darkness and looked in Sissy’s direction. She couldn’t tell if he recognized her or not, but she stepped on the gas and lit out of there anyway.
She really should go on home. She had responsibilities. But some nights your responsibilities are the last things you want to face. She decided to make that Rule Number Fifty-seven.
She’d cross the tracks and go on over to Vista Drive, not that there was anything to look at, but it was a little higher and the air was scented with pine trees. She’d only sit for a minute, just until she caught her breath.
And that’s how she found herself putting on her lipstick in the starlight, across the street from Parker Davidson’s.
She switched off the engine. Fireflies flickered and danced in front of her windshield. The piping of the cicadas filled the night. When she was a child she thought their shrill call was the stars singing.
She took a deep breath and the clean scent of pine filled her head. She was beginning to feel better. She lit a cigarette. As long as she was here, she might as well return Parker’s key. She wasn’t going to use it.
But the house was dark and closed up. Where was he? She laid her head on the back of the seat and tried to blow smoke rings. He might be over at the Paradise, but she couldn’t exactly go looking for him there. Not to give him back his key.
She got out of the convertible and threw her cigarette down on the cement, grinding it under her high-heeled sandal. The fireflies took off and danced across the street to Parker’s. She drummed her long fingers on the side of the car. Maybe she should go on home. The PTA meeting would be breaking up soon, if Amy Lou had any compassion on those afflicted with a sense of civic duty, an affliction Sissy felt fortunate not to share.
An old Chevy with HOPPER’S DRUGS painted on the door wheezed around the corner under the streetlight. Oh, holy flaming shit! She’d forgotten Amy Lou’s parents lived on Vista Drive. That’s all she needed was for one of them to find her standing across from Parker’s house, like some hormone-crazed teenager.
Sissy stepped onto the curb and ducked down behind the car. The old Chevy wheezed right by. She started to stand up when a porch light went on.
“Hello? Who’s there?” Betty Ruth Bodine stumbled onto her front porch in a fuzzy robe, her hair in big curlers. “Get away from me, you hear?” Her words were slurred.
Sissy remembered how Betty Ruth had loved her whiskey in high school. But she’d taken the pledge when she married Brother Junior Bodine. Brother Junior was dead set against drinking, dancing, and going to the picture show on Sundays.
But Amy Lou Hopper—who, besides being president of the PTA, helped out in her father’s drugstore—had let it be known that Sister Bodine was partial to the calming effects of a new kind of pill some doctor in Baton Rouge prescribed to rid her of her anxiety attacks. From the look of the way she was stumbling around, Sissy guessed Betty Ruth was real partial to those pills.
“Get going, you hear. Get out of here,” Betty Ruth called, holding on to the porch rail to keep from falling down the stairs.
Sissy didn’t know which was worse: she could stand up, identify herself, and kiss the last shred of her already shredded reputation good-bye, or she could remain crouched next to the car and risk Betty Ruth confusing her with a prowler and calling the sheriff.
But it wasn’t prowlers that worried Betty Ruth. It was Satan. She’d worried about him ever since that hot afternoon when Brother Junior had led her, dressed in white, into the river to save her immortal soul. In her heart, Sister Betty Ruth had never been convinced the baptism had taken. And recently, as Brother Bodine’s ministry had thrown them in the limelight—a radio show was in the offing, where she’d have to sing—she’d become convinced that Satan could read her heart, knew about her fake conversion, and lay in wait for her day and night.
Anxiety staged sneak attacks at Betty Ruth from every corner and rooftop and she needed more and more of those bitter white pills to fend them off. For Betty Ruth the price of eternal vigilance had become exhaustion.
Suddenly Betty Ruth dropped to her knees. “Lord have mercy on me!” she cried into the night, before starting a rousing chorus of “Onward Christian Soldiers.”
The next day she would proudly tell everyone who would listen about her personal encounter with Satan, and how calling out the Lord’s name had sent him scurrying across the street. It was true she hadn’t gotten a good look at him, but she’d distinctly heard his cloven hooves going clickety click against the pavement.
A SMART GIRL can’t just sit on the porch and wait for her life to start, Sissy thought as she ran through the fireflies in Parker’s yard. She’d make that Rule Number Forty-four. The scent of jasmine was everywhere. As the pungent white flowers swayed in the breeze, she began to think maybe she wouldn’t give Parker back his key tonight. There was something so ungrateful about returning a gift.
She started up the old wooden stairs when suddenly a large dog exploded through a dog door onto the screen porch growling and barking. Sissy jumped down into the front yard and began backing out until she realized that the dog making all that racket was a big orange and white Brittany spaniel. She had never seen a killer spaniel. “Good boy, come on, that’s a good dog,” she said, clapping her hands. He calmed right down and started beating his tail, which seemed like a real good sign, until she tried to go up the steps again, which set off another chorus of snarls and much gnashing of teeth. Sissy had come too far to let a spaniel stop her.
She picked up a big stick, swung open the screen door, and yelled, “Fetch!”
The big dog pointed at the stick sailing out toward the street. He bounded off the screen porch and scooped it up. Proud of his enormous accomplishment, he returned and leaped at Sissy, who slammed the screen door in his face. The dog pressed his nose against the screen and let out a little moan, wagging his tail like crazy. “Okay, okay, come on.” Sissy opened the door and scratched his head. They entered the house together.
She’d never been in any man’s house alone before. A delicious sense of sin surged through her body. She walked around the living room, looking at the haphazard collection of rented furniture, feeling her skin move under her silky nylon dress.
She searched for pictures of women, but found none. In fact Parker had no pictures at all, except of his mama and daddy. There were no knickknacks from his travels, no profusion of possessions that marked a house a home. Except for his dog, Parker traveled light. Wild and free. Sissy experienced a sinking feeling. He was all set to drift away. “Good,” she said and was surprised she’d said it out loud. She didn’t want anything permanent anyway. She just wanted an adventure. God knows she needed one.
She wandered into his bedroom with its manly decor of wall-to-wall mess and sat down on the bed. Maybe she’d wait for him under the covers. Just imagining the look on his face made her giddy with excitement. She pulled back the spread, but the sheets were so gray and disgusting Sissy didn’t want to venture into them, at least not alon
e.
She went back into the living room and flopped down on his brown Naugahyde lounger. The pungent odor of creosote surrounded her, bringing back memories that made her skin damp in her hot little nylon dress. She fanned herself with her skirt, but the sleeves were sticking to her arms. And then Sissy was possessed with a wonderfully wicked idea. Don’t you do it, said her sensible voice. But even as the voice played in her head, a naughty smile drifted over her lips. She unzipped a navy blue zipper and pulled her little PTA dress over her head and threw it in back of her on the green pile carpet.
The dog was making such a racket, she didn’t hear Parker’s car door slam, but she heard him making crunching sounds in the gravel driveway. The Naugahyde against her bare skin felt like a great big sticky hand. She couldn’t believe she was doing this. She was actually going to have an adventure after all these years. She arranged herself in her black lace push-up bra and slung one leg decorously over the arm of the chair, so her black garter belt would peek through the slit in her half slip.
She looked up at the door as he entered, sort of over her shoulder. She was gratified to see the surprise on his face.
“My God, Sissy!” But the delight she’d expected to accompany his surprise didn’t materialize.
And then she saw why.
Following him through the door, actually holding his hand, was a redheaded mulatto whore.
The two women stared at each other.
The mulatto snatched her hand away and said, “I don’t know what you had in your mind, Parker Davidson, but I don’t do things like this!” Her voice was filled with the fury of betrayal.
Southern Belle Handbook Rule Number Seven: When humiliated a lady should always fall back on her pretensions. “You all don’t have to worry about me,” Sissy said, pulling herself up with the dignity of a great lady. “I don’t want any part of your…” she paused, “shameless activities.” So saying, she bent over to pick up her modest PTA dress and felt her stocking pop right out of her black lace garter belt. She grabbed her clothes and raced into the bedroom. The dog raced with her, panting, but Sissy slammed the door on the lot of them.
“Wait a minute, Sissy, I can explain,” came Parker’s muffled voice through the door.
“How?”
“Yeah, Parker, how you gonna do that?” Sissy heard the other woman ask.
Sissy was trying not to cry. Dammit, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction. How dare he give me a key and then come home with a whore. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face over and over until she cooled down—well, cooled down a little. Let’s face it, she wasn’t cool. All she was, was wet. She looked into the mirror and saw black rivulets of mascara running down her cheeks and felt the tears of mortification rising again. What was she doing standing around in her underwear in Parker Davidson’s squalid little bathroom rubbing her face with his mangy towel? Southern belles didn’t do things like this. That’s what the handbook and ladylike behavior are all about, to save you from humiliation. She’d make that Rule Number—oh hell, she was in no mood for numbers.
She emerged from the bedroom with her head held high like a queen. And tripped over the dog. Parker caught her. “Sissy, I know this isn’t what you expected…”
She cut him off. Wrenching herself out of his hands and slapping the key on his oak coffee table, she said, “It’s really none of my business if you want to consort with prostitutes!”
The other woman, who looked hardly older than a teenager, had been staring with unconcealed curiosity. Now she advanced on her. “What did you call me?”
There was something very familiar about her. Sissy couldn’t place her, but she was sure she’d seen her before. Well, she wasn’t going to let some teenage hooker intimidate her. “Excuse me, I didn’t know you’d be so touchy. What do you want to be called? A goodtime girl? A lady of the night?”
The younger woman swung back and would have landed a punch if Parker hadn’t grabbed her arm. But Sissy was mad enough to take on both of them. So Parker grabbed her arm, too.
“Ladies!”
They struggled for a moment and then the girl dropped it. “You’re not worth fighting over, Parker Davidson. Just drive me home like a gentleman and I won’t bother you again.”
“Clara’s no prostitute,” Parker said to Sissy, and introduced her to Clara Conners.
Sissy eyed her warily. She sure doesn’t sound a prostitute. Doesn’t look like one either with those prim white gloves. But that could only mean one thing, Parker’s having an affair with a colored girl. And maybe that’s worse. Maybe that’s a whole lot worse! “It’s really none of my business,” Sissy said, heading for the door. The girl was staring at her again, making Sissy uncomfortable.
“Dammit, Sissy, don’t take on like that,” Parker said, reaching for her shoulder, turning her to him. “When you married Peewee, I didn’t take a vow of chastity.”
Sissy jerked out of his grasp. She saw the logic in what he said, but logical was the last thing she was feeling. “You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’ll let you all go to it, then.”
Sissy had her hand on the doorknob when she heard the girl say, “Wait a minute. You don’t have no …I mean you don’t have any cause to be so stuck up. Don’t you recognize me yet?”
“Clara, I don’t think this is the place,” Parker said.
But Sissy ignored him. She was staring into the entry mirror. “My God!”
“It took you long enough,” Clara said. “You still think I’m a whore?”
“I hope not.” Sissy’s voice was soft and earnest. She took the young girl’s hand and brought her next to her. They stood together staring into the brown, speckled glass. The resemblance was remarkable: They had the same bone structure, the same brazen tilt of the head, practically the same fine nose. But Clara’s skin was a soft honey color and her naturally wavy hair wasn’t actually red— it was dyed auburn and cut like Sissy’s. And she was wearing a yellow sundress with a circle skirt!
Sissy couldn’t catch hold of her voice. Her father had been widowed a long time, and before that, her mother had been sick for years. He’d never had any public love affairs, and he’d lived alone a long time, so it stood to reason. But still. She guessed it would take some getting used to.
Finally Sissy managed to ask the question, but to her chagrin it came out in a rough whisper. “Are you my sister?”
Parker groaned.
“Are you?” Sissy’s voice took on an urgent note.
The girl hesitated and then said, “No, ma’am, we’re just first cousins.”
Parker shook his head. He knew he shouldn’t have risked bringing Clara home after he’d given Sissy the key. But it hadn’t looked like Sissy was going to use it. So when Clara called him, where else was he going to take her? Mixed couples weren’t exactly welcome in the local bars and restaurants. He remembered running across a mine field on an island in the Pacific while Japanese gunners shot at him. He wished he could go back there now. “Clara, maybe you’re right. Maybe I’d better take you on home.”
But the women ignored him. “I only have one uncle,” Sissy said.
Clara nodded, “I know. He’s my daddy.”
Sissy was stunned. “Uncle Tibor! The defender of racial purity?”
“Not around my mama, he’s not.”
“But he’s campaigning to uphold our glorious Southern traditions!” Her delight was clear in her voice. It was too delicious.
“I believe that’s one Southern tradition as old as slavery,” Clara responded coolly.
Sissy examined her cousin again. Only the tone of her skin and the width of her lips marked her as Negro and even these features could be explained away. She might be from South America or even Italy, maybe. In a logical society she wouldn’t be identified as colored. Sissy would bet she wasn’t technically mulatto—quadroon or octoroon was more like it. There were lots of white daddies in her family tree. “I’m sorry I called you a prostitute. It was horrid of me.”
The girl shrugged. “It’s okay,” she mumbled.
But Sissy knew it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t okay at all. She hated to think of herself as one of those Southerners who assume any pretty young colored girl with a white man is automatically a prostitute. “It’s just that I didn’t think Parker was in a…” She hesitated and then added, “A relationship.”
Parker broke in then. “Clara lost her job today. She was working for old man Fletcher at the funeral home. She thought I might know someone who needed summer help.”
“Is that right?” Sissy asked.
Clara didn’t answer directly. She looked down at her white gloves and said, “I do need a job until September.”
“She’s going to the University of Chicago in the fall,” Parker said with pride in his voice, moving in between the two women and leading them over to the sitting area.
“No kidding!” Sissy was impressed.
Clara nodded and sat primly on the couch next to the Naugahyde lounger. She crossed her legs at the ankles. Like a Catholic schoolgirl, Sissy thought. Or someone practicing for her debut.
“She won a full scholarship.”
He sounds so happy for her, Sissy thought as she prowled around the room, maybe I’ve misjudged him. Maybe his interest in this girl isn’t prurient after all. Maybe it’s philanthropic. Well, anything’s possible. She began to feel a warm glow toward her newfound cousin.
She moved over to the couch and ran her hand over the nubby orange upholstery. “Parker, would you get me a beer? And one for my cousin, too?”
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc Page 9
