She climbed down. “This should do it,” she said, holding out the big bottle.
“Yeah, it should.” Peewee reached for the sixteen-ounce bottle and brushed the tips of her breasts by mistake. He looked at her, startled.
But instead of being offended she asked, “Anything else?”
Oh yes, but Peewee said only, “You got some of that Lava soap?”
“Sure do.” She reached down for it and Peewee watched almost in pain as her chest brushed the top of the counter. When she came up, both of their faces were flushed. She pushed aside a stray hair that had come loose from her lacquered, blond upsweep and presented him with a bar of soap and a little tube.
“What’s this?”
“A free sample.” Their eyes met. “It’s for a man who works with his hands.”
Peewee pulled his hands down and hid them behind the counter.
“It’s supposed to get under your fingernails and get them real clean. It’s a problem for all my customers who work hard,” and she said “work hard” as if that were something to be proud of. Peewee felt a wave of gratitude and the band around his forehead loosened. They stood there looking at one another. Peewee watched a little rivulet of perspiration find its way in between these two mounds that made up her wonderful prow.
“How’s Sissy?” Rowena Weaver asked, coming up behind him.
Peewee swung around, feeling like he’d been caught at something. “She’s fine, doing real fine.”
“Be sure to say hello for me,” Rowena said.
“I surely will.” Peewee tried to remember the woman’s name.
“Speaking of Sissy…” Amy Lou began.
“In the old days, they used to shoot the messenger,” said her father.
“What?” asked Peewee, but Lester had moved on to fix a display in the back of the store. Peewee turned to Amy Lou and saw her eyes were shining.
There was an eager insistence in her words. “You know the other afternoon, oh, it must have been six weeks ago, you remember? When we was coming out of choir practice and you asked if I’d seen Sissy, well, I seen her all right.”
Peewee didn’t remember asking Amy Lou anything and he didn’t want to hear this. He’d been hearing innuendos all over town, but he didn’t put any stock in them. He couldn’t. Because if they were true, it would mean that Sissy didn’t love him and maybe never had. And that would mean nobody had ever loved him in his whole life.
“As you know, I am not one to carry tales, but I couldn’t help seeing the two of them. We open the church window for the breeze. I mean they was sitting there drinking in front of God and everyone.”
“Drinking?” asked Peewee.
Amy Lou nodded sympathetically. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, but she was sitting out there on your front porch half-naked in some skimpy little dress, drinking in the middle of the afternoon with Parker Davidson. Did you know he was back?”
Peewee nodded. “She told me it was Cokes.” Sissy had explained about Parker’s tool belt and he believed her. He knew she was a flirt, but he also knew she’d never actually been with another man, not that they weren’t after her. They were after her, they were after her all the time, and like she said, she chose him. Well, that was something to be proud of. Hell, all you had to do was look at the kids to know she’d never messed around. They were LeBlancs though and through. Of course they hadn’t had a kid for six years, but what was he thinking? She was too eager for the connubial bliss he provided. No, he’d worry when she started getting headaches. But if she was drinking while he was at work, well, that was something else. One thing Peewee couldn’t stand was a female drunk. “She said they were just drinking Cokes,” he repeated.
Amy Lou tucked up her stray hair with her long, polished talons and leaned toward him, her breasts floating centimeters above the counter and inches away from his burning fingers. “Well, it must have been. Far be it for me to call your wife a liar, Peewee. All I saw was a couple of glasses filled with a dark liquid and …two people, Sissy and Parker.” She lowered her voice and said confidentially, “They were having a real good time, drinking whatever was in those glasses. It could very well have been Cokes,” she said with no conviction whatsoever in her voice.
The front door chimed. “I’d keep it down,” said Rowena meaningfully to Amy Lou, because Parker Davidson had just walked in the door. The two women watched silently as the ex-football star strode through the drugstore. The floor shook beneath his feet. This was the first time Peewee had actually seen Parker since he’d come back to town and he looked a lot bigger than Peewee had remembered. The band around his forehead tightened.
“You look like you could use some of that tonic right now, Peewee,” Rowena said.
Peewee nodded. Amy Lou reached under the counter for a little beaker that could be mistaken for a shot glass. He broke open the bottle of Hadacol and Amy Lou poured him a two-ounce dose of the patented secret formula: sugar syrup, a smattering of vitamins, iron, and one-hundred-proof alcohol.
Peewee was thirsty after a day on the roads, and he could feel the warmth of the liquid as it flowed into his chest. He was breathing easier now. He took another dose and felt the band pop right off his forehead. To hell with Parker. He was no threat. Like Sissy said, she dumped him in high school.
“You want another?” Amy Lou asked.
“Think I should?”
“Half a dose couldn’t hurt; it’s tonic.” Amy Lou poured him an ounce and went over to the soda fountain and brought him back a glass of water over cracked ice.
Peewee downed it. The drugstore became a warm and friendly place. The smells of the sweet syrups and ice cream mixed with the smells of dark oiled woods and medicinal agents brought back layers of memories. His eyes made another foray at the spectacular prow displayed before him. Inches away. His fingertips were itching to brush it once more.
“Can I do anything else for you?” Amy Lou asked.
Peewee’s eyes shot up. Could she read his mind? “No, thanks, this will be fine.” But he was contemplating what she could do for him when the door chimed again.
A voice called cheerfully, “Yoohoo, Amy Lou.” Wobbling a bit in her ankle-strapped spike heels was Sister Betty Ruth Bodine, her full skirt aflutter with ruffles, her hair done up in a blue bow.
Amy Lou sighed and climbed back up on the stool and reached for another bottle of Hadacol.
“Make it the giant economy size, sugar,” said Sister Betty Ruth.
“How’s Brother Junior? I heard something about a radio show,” said Amy Lou, without turning around.
“You heard right. He’s gonna be spreading the word of the Lord far and wide. ‘Speak forth the words of truth and soberness,’ Acts 23, verse 25,” she said. “And while you’re up there, sugar, make it two bottles, I don’t want to risk running out. I can’t tell you what a blessing a dose is now and then.”
The tonic was making Peewee feel gregarious and belligerent at the same time. He left the ladies and headed over to the prescription counter. The more he thought about it, the more pissed he was that Gentry’s greatest football star and war hero hadn’t even bothered to say hello. Maybe they hadn’t been exactly friends, but they had gone to high school together. The least he could have done was wave. “Hey, Parker,” said Peewee when he got close enough, and added for conversation’s sake, “What you doing here?”
Parker hadn’t noticed Peewee.
“Here you go,” said Lester, handing him a package of Trojans. But Parker, frozen at the sight of Peewee coming at him, shook his head and Lester slid the condoms right back under the counter.
“What’re you getting?” asked Peewee.
Parker didn’t even flinch. “Aspirin,” he said in a deep, sure voice. The way things were going with Sissy—or not going, he hadn’t even seen her in three weeks—aspirin would be more useful anyway.
“Here you are, boy, double strength. I figured you’ll need it.” The pharmacist handed him a big bottle.
“Th
anks, Lester.” Parker took out his wallet.
Peewee picked up the bottle of aspirin, pretended to study it, and said, as if it were an afterthought, “Found your tool belt.”
This time Parker flinched; in fact he positively winced. Lester watched them, fascinated.
“Did you?” asked Parker trying to recover his composure, but his voice was no longer deep. It cracked.
“Sure did.” Peewee felt great. And he was taking such pleasure in making his high school nemesis, the Big Man on Campus, squirm.
Parker had no idea what Sissy had done with his tool belt and was afraid to ask. Peewee wasn’t about to give anything away. Lester was all ears and wished they’d hurry up and get on with it.
Finally, Parker said, “Thanks, Peewee.” His voice was deep and resonant again. “Couldn’t remember where it had got to.”
“My front porch,” said Peewee.
“Right,” said Parker, “I remember now. I was working right outside your house and your wife was kind enough to offer me a glass of water. I must have forgotten it. It was a real hot day.”
“I heard it was a Coke.”
“Uh?”
“The way I heard it, you and she were sitting on the porch drinking Cokes.” His eyes were tight and suspicious.
“Could be,” said Parker, wondering what else Peewee had heard. He pulled out a bill to pay the druggist when a tattered picture cut from an old high school yearbook fell out. Parker slapped his hand down over it and tried to cover with a large theatrical cough. Lester brought him a glass of water and a knowing look.
“What was it?”
“Oh, just an old…” Suddenly Parker stopped himself. Peewee hadn’t seen the picture, he was still talking about what he and Sissy were drinking over two weeks ago. As if anyone cared. And then Parker had an idea, an idea that would solve his immediate problems, an idea so good he began to feel giddy. Palming the picture and putting it behind Peewee’s back with an affectionate arm on his shoulder, he said, “Tell you what, let’s go on over to your house and ask Sissy. Maybe she’ll remember.”
Peewee started. “I don’t know, Parker, Sissy doesn’t like me bringing people home at the last minute.”
“Oh hell, boy, I wouldn’t stay for dinner. I’ll just say hello and pick up my tool belt. I’ll even pick up a six-pack. What do you say?”
“Watch out for Satan!” Sister Betty Ruth had just consumed a couple or three shot glasses of tonic and was wobbling over to the prescription counter.
“We will,” Peewee said.
“We’ll make it our constant concern,” said Parker gaily, trying to get his mouth straight.
“Don’t you laugh, Parker Davidson. Satan is walking abroad on the streets of Gentry. I’ve seen him going toward your house and heard his cloven heels.”
Parker remembered what a terror Betty Ruth had been in high school and was filled with sadness at what she’d become. “Go easy on the tonic, Betty Ruth,” he said as Lester brought out a bottle of Miltown and put it in the bag with her Hadacol. Betty Ruth looked up at him and the ghost of the girl she’d been drifted across her face. But only for a moment.
“He’s right,” said Lester, his freckled hands resting in the pockets of his white pharmacist’s jacket. “I’d be seeing the devil, too, if I were mixing this stuff with alcohol.”
“Lester Hopper, you take that back. You know as well as I do that I haven’t touched a drop of liquor since I took the pledge and I won’t listen to your lies about my tonic. The formula’s a secret, so there! Satan is putting those ideas into your head. Why, this stuff is as sweet as baby syrup.” She turned to Peewee. “I told you Satan was abroad.”
“Come on, Peewee,” said Parker with his best good ol’ boy aplomb.
Peewee still hesitated. “I don’t think tonight’s such a good idea.”
“Well, at least let me pick up my tool belt.”
Peewee didn’t know how he could deny him that, especially since he’d brought it up.
Parker put his arm around Peewee’s shoulder and said confidentially, “Besides, when you get a chance to save an old schoolmate from Satan, you gotta take it. Sister Betty Ruth says he’s stalking my house at this very minute.”
Without realizing it, Peewee had slipped back into the boy he was in high school, the boy who would have done anything to be accepted by Parker Davidson and the crowd he hung around with. And now this same Parker Davidson had his arm around him and was begging for an invitation to his house. What the hell, might be a good thing to let him see him in the bosom of his family. Once he saw how happy they were, he’d quit sniffing around Sissy.
SISSY SHOOK A couple of drops of Tabasco sauce into a bowl of beaten eggs and then tossed in as many pieces of chicken as would fit. A cigarette dangled out of her mouth and moved around as she talked. Clara, her hands protected by yellow rubber gloves, stood at the sink washing iceberg lettuce and drying each lettuce leaf separately on a clean dish towel. They were discussing Yankee men.
Clara wasn’t supposed to be working this late, but she’d stayed, as she’d done for the past two weeks. Sissy suspected she was practicing her “white folks” speech and was glad to have her.
Sissy hadn’t realized how lonely she’d been. People had always called her a man’s woman. At first, when she was in high school, she’d been proud of that. It sounded cool. But who’s a man’s woman supposed to hang out with once she’s married? If she hangs out with men they call her a lot of other names, and she sure didn’t crave the company of those church ladies from hell—Amy Lou Hopper or Sister Betty Ruth Bodine.
Sissy spooned flour into a brown paper bag and shook salt and pepper into it. It was more than loneliness that made Clara important to her. Clara bustled around the house with a zest for life Sissy had almost forgotten. She was always up on a ladder, cleaning the molding around the high ceilings, washing the ceiling fans, or polishing the brass chandelier that hung over the dining room table. She made the scuffed hardwood floors shine and never tired of waxing and oiling the dark Victorian furniture. Coming from nothing, she was experiencing her first chance to care for beautiful things. Clara’s constant caressing of her furniture, arranging the antimacassars, smoothing out the flowered slipcovers, stirred in Sissy a desire to fix up her home, which had suffered from her long malaise. During Clara’s second week, they took all the oriental rugs outside, hung them on the line, and beat them. Marilee and Billy Joe joined them in a frenzy of satisfying swatting and whacking and smacking until they all felt empty and giddy and were covered in a rich layer of dust.
Best of all, Clara asked Sissy for advice. Except for her children, nobody ever asked Sissy’s advice anymore. It made her feel smart.
And they shared a daydream. Sissy thought of it as the Great Chicago Fantasy.
It had started the morning Clara brought the University of Chicago catalog to work and asked Sissy what some of the courses were: Advanced Semantics, Beginning Etymology, Epistemology. Sissy hadn’t had a clue, except she’d thought semantics had something to do with Jews. But a course on Advanced Jews hadn’t made much sense.
A moldy dictionary, holding up a leg of the couch, had not elucidated: “Pert. to a study of meaning. A branch of semiotics dealing with relationships of signs and symbols to the things to which they denote. See semasiology.”
“I know I’ve always wanted to learn about that,” Clara had said.
Then Sissy remembered her father had given the children an old set of encyclopedias. With Marilee looking on, the two women pulled them down from a high shelf in the boys’ room, wiped off the dust, and looked up semantics. Or rather Clara had. Sissy, with Marilee in her lap, had been busy with Volume C—Chicago—and then Clara had wanted to see that, too.
But the encyclopedia had been written in the thirties, so when Sissy took Marilee to see the story lady at the library, she checked out everything she could find on Chicago. The public library was open to all, but only whites could check out books.
Togeth
er Sissy and Clara pored over pictures of sailboats on Lake Michigan, concerts in Grant Park, and skyscrapers on Lake Shore Drive with smartly dressed people streaming out of them. Sissy imagined Clara riding along the shore of Lake Michigan on the back of a motorcycle driven by the stud in the soap opera. And then she put herself in Clara’s place and felt her auburn hair flying in the wind. But when she wrapped her arms around him, he always had Parker’s back and Parker’s shoulders and Parker’s waist.
They argued endlessly about what courses Clara should take, how to spend her weekends, and what to wear in the snow. Mysterious adventures in smoky jazz clubs beckoned.
Sissy dropped chicken parts coated with egg into the paper bag with flour in it, and shook it as she free-associated about all the Yankee men Clara would soon meet.
But that made Clara anxious. “I just hope I don’t make a fool of myself.”
“Oh, don’t worry.” And then without knowing why, she quoted Rule Number Eleven: Men find themselves the most fascinating subject of any conversation. When in doubt, let him talk about himself. It was the first time she’d ever told anyone about the Southern Belle’s Handbook or spoken a rule out loud.
“Handbook?”
“Well, it’s my own rules of behavior. You know, how to attract men and get them to do what you want. And most important, once you’ve got them, how to stop them from stepping on you. Seems like that’s been my curse since I was seventeen. I thought calling it the Southern Belle’s Handbook was sort of humorous. I guess most girls carry something like it around with them in their heads.”
“I don’t,” said Clara.
“Really? And you’ve done so well.” Sissy paused for a moment and thought about it. “What do you turn to when you get in trouble?”
Clara shook her head.
“Gosh. I’ve been making up rules since before I was your age.” She peered into the paper bag to check the chicken and then shook it some more. “It’s gotten to be second nature. For example, Rule Number Three: When caught red-handed, lie through your teeth.” She dropped the coated chicken into the sizzling lard.
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc Page 12
