The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc

by Loraine Despres

  Parker had given his parents an ultimatum: he was taking Sissy or he wasn’t going. They gave in. They had to. Refusing his awards would be an insult to the town. They had a business to run.

  Sissy’s parents gave in, too. They thought seven weeks was long enough. Besides, Hugh was covering the dinner for the paper.

  Sissy was excited about her date with Parker, and was looking forward to all the attention they’d get when she walked into the banquet on his arm. The whistles and the catcalls and the applause.

  But she was uneasy, too. When they’d gone out before she had been a girl. Now she was a woman. A fallen woman. Would Parker be able to tell? Boys all claimed they could. And Parker had such high standards. She wasn’t sure she could live up to them anymore. Sissy felt her heart racing. She didn’t want Parker to abandon her, too.

  “I guess you have a date with Parker.”

  Sissy nodded and saw his face fall. Saw him slump down into himself. She didn’t know why, but she hated to see this boy suffer. It was like watching one of these birds Bourrée shot but hadn’t quite killed.

  She glanced out onto the field. The first string was all piled up on top of each other. Parker was on the bottom and couldn’t see her. She took Peewee’s fallen face into her hands. “I’m sorry.” Those light blue eyes of Bourrée’s stared at her, but so sadly. She kissed Peewee gently on the lips, just to make him feel better.

  Peewee felt a shock go straight through him. He squeezed his eyes shut and threw his arms around her. He heard whistles blow. He felt how soft her body was, felt her breasts pushing right into his chest. He tilted his pelvis to touch her, just to feel her against him, but instead felt her step back and try to push away. Of course she was trying to push away, his brothers had told him good girls had to pretend not to like it. But he held on, just like they told him to. He felt her long fingers on his shoulders, pushing. But he wasn’t ready to let go.

  Suddenly, Peewee was flying. His feet weren’t even touching the ground.

  Parker Davidson had him by the collar. “Get your cotton-picking hands off her!” Parker yelled, shaking him like wet laundry.

  “Put him down,” Sissy said.

  Parker glared at Sissy. One fist twisted Peewee’s collar, the other was poised to slam into his flesh.

  “Parker, you stop it this minute, you hear!” She stamped her foot.

  Peewee couldn’t hide his delight as he kicked Parker Davidson in the shin, jerked out of his grasp, and dropped to the ground. “You heard the lady,” Peewee gloated.

  Parker pulled back and slugged the ugly, puffed-out toad in the belly. He felt him fold up over his hand. He brought his right up fast and felt his bare knuckles connect with the toad’s cheekbone. He heard the crack as he knocked him to the ground, crushing his glasses. But it was over way too fast. The toad was too easy. He didn’t put up a fair fight. Parker stood over the curled, quivering body and felt his foot ache to connect with the round toad head. He pulled back his cleated boot.

  Sissy jumped between them; her eyes blazed a deep green. “For God’s sake, Parker, you want to kill him?”

  Parker knew he’d never wanted anything so much in his life. His foot ached to connect and squash this cowering, gelatinous mass. But Sissy stood in front of him and stared him down.

  Suddenly, Parker was horrified at what he’d almost done. Sissy! He was awed and nauseated by the power she had over him. He stood very still, shaking, trying to control himself, not knowing what to do with his hands.

  “Now you just calm down,” she said, but she was proud as she could be. She’d always had plenty of boys after her, but they’d never fought over her before. Not that Peewee was much of a fighter. “My goodness, you didn’t have to half kill the poor boy, we were just…”

  But Parker didn’t let her finish. “I saw what you were doing, Sissy. You think I’m stupid?”

  “Of course not, sugar,” she said, going toward him, putting her hands on his shoulders. He threw them off. “You don’t think there’s anything between Peewee and me, do you?” She was incredulous. The thought was ridiculous.

  Parker didn’t answer. Instead he grabbed his class ring, which she wore on a chain, and snapped it right off her neck.

  “Parker!” she called. But he turned and ran back onto the football field.

  She put her hand to her throat and rubbed it. She hadn’t wanted to break up with Parker. She tried to think of a way around it. But a feeling of numbness was setting in. Everyone she cared about was abandoning her. She couldn’t deal with so much loss. She welcomed numbness.

  She saw Parker hurl himself into two of Gentry’s biggest tackles as in a dream. She figured she might as well enter a convent as far as her social life was concerned. None of the boys would want to take out Parker’s girl, even if he didn’t want her anymore, not after she’d humiliated him. Especially not after she’d humiliated him with Peewee LeBlanc.

  Peewee rolled onto his feet, holding his stomach. He was very shaky, but there was pride in his voice. “You broke up with Parker Davidson for me?”

  “I guess,” Sissy said, not paying him much attention. Memories of the fun she and Parker had had together flooded her senses. She thought about how sweet he’d been the night Norm had died. A lump began to grow in her throat. But even that was getting numb.

  “Wanta go steady?”

  That brought her up short. Sissy Thompson going steady with Peewee LeBlanc? The idea was ludicrous. All she’d ever wanted was for his father to find out about them. No, she’d wanted Bourrée to see them together, so she could have the delicious pleasure of watching him squirm as she took his son’s hand and kissed him on the cheek. That’s all she’d thought about since the day at the sawmill. She’d tried for a week to get Peewee to ask her to study at his house, but so far he’d resisted. There was always some stupid reason why he couldn’t take her over there.

  “What do you say?” His face was turning the color of eggplant destined for the garbage. Sissy reminded herself that his face had gotten that color fighting over her, so it was incumbent on her to find some way to let him down easy. She put on her saddest face and then she saw Bourrée’s pale blue eyes looking at her above all that bruised and swollen flesh. “I guess that was a pretty dumb idea, huh?”

  “It wasn’t dumb, Peewee. I don’t want you to think that.” Her voice was soft, comforting. Why did this boy’s suffering touch her so?

  “You mean you might!”

  She shrugged. He waited, holding his breath. The left side of his face was puffing up.

  “We’d better find some ice for you right away.”

  “Sissy, say you will. Please.”

  He was begging her. She’d never had a boy beg her before. It was not an unpleasant experience.

  She saw Parker slam himself into the defensive line and run over three tackles. She’d never get him back. It was hopeless. The lump was gone. She was completely numb.

  “What do you say, Sissy?”

  It didn’t have to be forever, she thought. “You really want to go steady with me, Peewee?”

  “You know it!”

  “Would you introduce me to your parents?”

  BOURRÉE AND MAURICE liked to celebrate the end of the work week at the Paradise. This Friday, an old-time Negro band was playing the songs of their youth. The bar was warm and crowded. On the dance floor, everyone was making the most of the Golden Rule and doing unto others what they would have done unto them. So Bourrée found leaving wasn’t the easiest thing in the world.

  He lurched out of his truck onto his driveway, humming a song from his youth about the right key, but the wrong keyhole. He was late for supper, but he didn’t care. He wasn’t in the mood to care about much of anything until he walked in his front door and saw Sissy sitting on the couch in deep conversation with his wife. He grabbed the door frame and hung on for balance. He was glad he was already drunk.

  Miss Lily, her plump cheeks trembling, asked, “You have trouble finding your way h
ome?”

  Bourrée looked from his wife to Sissy with poker eyes.

  Finally, Miss Lily said, “You know Hugh and Cady Thompson’s girl?”

  Bourrée made a sound that neither admitted nor denied anything.

  Sissy stood up politely, held out her hand, and said how much she’d been looking forward to this meeting. His touch sent a jolt of electricity through her and shut her up. Miss Lily chattered on about the rug and static electricity. Bourrée smiled a tight, mean smile. “You just happen to drop by?” he asked as Peewee came into the living room with a tray of Cokes. The boy faltered and the glasses tottered and clicked together when he saw his father.

  “I invited her, Daddy.” Bourrée heard the eagerness in his son’s voice and that note of pride. Pathetic.

  “Peewee asked Sissy to go steady with him. Isn’t that sweet?” Miss Lily said.

  Bourrée stumbled and sat down hard in Miss Lily’s antique chair. He turned to his son and kept his voice low. “You what?”

  Sissy went to help Peewee with the tray. “Peewee popped the question this afternoon.” She displayed her green-sweatered chest with Peewee’s service pin hooked over her left nipple. Bourrée examined her chest and saw the color rise in her face. She was looking at him like an alcoholic who’s taken the pledge and then sees a bottle of whiskey. This little girl was going to be more trouble to get rid of than he’d ever thought. Not that he’d ever given it much thought, especially when she was sitting on top of him, naked to the world, grinding her little butt into him. But he had to think about it now.

  He watched Sissy sit on the couch and pull Peewee down next to her. And saw that fool boy beam. “You knew I was seeing your son, didn’t you, Mr. LeBlanc?”

  Bourrée’s lip curled. “Now how was I supposed to know that?”

  “Why, Peewee,” Sissy teased. “You bad boy. You’ve been keeping me a secret.” And then in a confidential tone to Miss Lily, she said, “He’s so sly. He’s been over to my house every night this week. Since Tuesday, anyway.” Rule Number Twenty-two: A man always wants a girl another man has. That’s why God made up His rule against coveting your neighbor’s wife. He knew men could hardly stop themselves.

  Bourrée growled softly.

  “Now, Bourrée,” Miss Lily said, “you may be drunk as a dog, but that doesn’t give you any call to act like one. I’m sure you’re as happy as I am that Peewee found himself such a nice girl.” She patted Sissy’s knee.

  “Is that true, Mr. LeBlanc?” Sissy asked, and he knew she wanted to see him squirm.

  “I don’t know. Are you a nice girl?” He looked her in the eye and his lips curled.

  Peewee was mortified. “Daddy!” he wailed.

  Miss Lily shook her head in disgust. “Well, I’d better go see about my roast.” She hefted herself off the sofa slowly and with some difficulty.

  “Oh, let me help,” said Sissy as she left the room behind the older woman.

  Bourrée watched Sissy sashay out of the room in her modest gray-flannel skirt. But he wasn’t thinking modest. He was thinking how it cupped her ass. His nostrils flared.

  Peewee rubbed his palms on his pants and said, “Bert brought girls home all the time, and you were always nice to them. Real nice.”

  “This one isn’t for you, son.”

  Peewee’s voice broke. “What’s wrong with her? You think she’s too pretty for me. Is that it?” He was fighting tears.

  Oh, Christ, Bourrée thought, the boy’s suffering again! Teenagers just aren’t fit to associate with the rest of humanity. There ought to be some kind of pen you could lock them up in when they turn thirteen and hold them there until they reach twenty. Then he thought about Sissy swinging her hips around in the kitchen. He imagined her bending over to get some onions. Maybe he’d just lock up the boys. Let the girls out when you had a use for them. “You been fighting over her?”

  Peewee touched his swollen face and grinned proudly. “I took on Parker Davidson. He’s the captain of the football team.”

  “Then you’re a bigger fool than even I thought. That girl’s nothing but trouble.”

  “How would you know?” Peewee’s voice was sullen.

  “Trust me on this one.” Bourrée wasn’t even aware of the smug tone in his voice. “Just dump her. With a girl like that, you don’t have to worry about letting her down easy. Just let her down.”

  “You go to hell!” yelled Peewee.

  Bourrée came back loud and clear. “Don’t you use that tone of voice to me, boy!”

  And Peewee crumbled. Bourrée had won.

  But when Miss Lily told Sissy to call the men in for dinner, she caught Peewee by the hand and said, “I’m having such a good time!” Then she kissed him on the cheek, and turning her deep green eyes on Bourrée, added, “Miss Lily asked me to come for dinner every Friday night.”

  PEEWEE WAS KISSING her good night. He’d been at it for what seemed like forever, although it had actually been less than a minute. Sissy tried to pull out of the embrace, but he wouldn’t let go. His lips were wet and soft and he was holding her tight in his skinny arms, rubbing up against her. The image of a weasel popped into Sissy’s head. Peewee slipped his hand under her green sweater. She tried to push him away gently, so as not to hurt his feelings, but he held her tight. She put her hand over his and shoved it down, but his hand immediately crawled back up over her slip. His insistent fingers endeavored to get inside her bra. Touch her skin. She shuddered and tried to pull his hand out, but he grabbed her nipple. That’s when she hit his chin with the heel of her hand, ungluing his lips from hers.

  “Stop it!”

  “But we’re going steady,” he said, rubbing his sore chin. “I thought…”

  “I don’t care what you thought, I’m not that kind of girl!”

  “I know that, but if you love somebody…”

  Sissy groaned. “Peewee!”

  Over his shoulder she spotted a man moving in the dark, stepping out from behind a white oleander bush. Peewee nattered on about respecting her and a man’s natural desires. A car pulled out of a driveway, swinging its headlights over the yard, and she saw the silhouette of a short powerful body in a hunting jacket step back into the shadows.

  “I’ve got to go inside.” She quickly unlocked the door.

  “But…”

  “My daddy’s real strict.”

  “Just five more minutes,” he begged.

  “If I don’t go in now, he may not let me go out with you again. And I’d just hate that.”

  As she hoped, Peewee was too flattered to protest. Behind him, she made out Bourrée watching her. Well, she’d give him something to watch. She grabbed Peewee and kissed him, and for a brief moment even slid her hand down his back, patting his jeans as a parting gift. Then she shut the door firmly in his face.

  She straightened her clothes with a mild feeling of disgust and tiptoed through the house, turning off the lights. Her parents’ door was open.

  “Sissy,” she heard her mother call to her from the dark. Her voice was weak.

  “I’m real tired, Mama. You go on to sleep.” Sissy stood in the doorway, threw her mother a kiss, then sprinted down the hall into her own room and locked the door.

  She switched on her bedside lamp. The silk lampshade turned the room amber. She put Coleman Hawkins on the phonograph. She’d make Bourrée sorry he threw her over. She’d make him beg her to take him back. She could do it. She knew she could. And then she’d have someone again.

  She pulled up the shade and searched the darkness until she saw the light of a cigarette moving into the backyard. Bourrée had come back to her! Just like she knew he would.

  She pulled out the bobby pins and fluffed out her curls. Turning completely around she lifted the green sweater slowly over her head, showing off her long, lean torso in her pink lace slip. Then she twisted agilely to the side, unzipped a zipper, and stepped out of her gray skirt. Next she pulled up the pink lace slip, slowly, slowly, hesitating: showing tantalizi
ng glimpses of her thighs and panties, and then dropping the slip. Would she? Wouldn’t she? Finally she ripped it off and threw it on the bed.

  In the yard, Bourrée tipped a flask of whiskey to his lips and watched Sissy, lit by the amber glow of the bedside lamp, take off her pink bra one strap at a time, finally reaching around, unhooking it and exposing her young, firm breasts to the eyes of the night. The girl was trouble, pure and simple. He rubbed himself as he watched.

  COLEMAN HAWKINS MADE his tenor sax wail, as Sissy, wearing her pink panties, bent over to take off her socks. Finally, she stood up and slowly rolled down her underpants. She turned away from the window and admired herself in the full-length mirror on her armoire. Lightly cradling her breasts, drawing a circle around her red pubic hairs, sliding her hands sensuously over her flat belly. Then she turned and stood right in front of the window.

  “Sissy,” her father said.

  She jumped. Her father knocked on the door.

  “Just a minute.” She hurriedly slipped into a short, frilly nightgown, pulled down the window shade, and opened the door.

  Her father stood in his pajamas in the hall. He tied his plaid wool bathrobe around him and said, “Your mother told me you broke up with Parker today.” Sissy groaned silently. “You okay?”

  Sissy nodded. “I’m fine, Daddy. I guess seven weeks was just too long.” She hoped he wouldn’t tell her about the banquet. She couldn’t stand it.

  “You think it would help to talk about it?”

  Sissy shook her head. “No.”

  Her father shifted awkwardly in his leather slippers. He ran his fingers through his hair as if he were trying to figure out what to say. Finally he managed: “I wouldn’t let it get you down, honey. You know these breakups don’t usually last.”

  She looked into his gentle face with hope in her eyes. “Thanks.”

  “Sissy…” he began, but she quickly cut him off.

  “I just can’t talk about it. I don’t want to think about Parker. Not tonight. Okay, Daddy?”