He nodded, and after a few more words of encouragement, kissed her on the forehead and went back to his bedroom in the front of the house. Sissy took a deep breath and locked the door after him. When his footsteps died out, she turned off the light and pulled up the window shade. The cigarette was still glowing in the dark. Bourrée must be leaning against the big live oak tree in the backyard. Waiting. For her. She turned the light back on, opened her window, and unlatched the screen. Then she went to her bed and arranged herself in a Lana Turner–type pose. Waiting for him. But he didn’t move. What did he want? An engraved invitation?
Finally, when she couldn’t stand the suspense any longer, she buttoned her new royal-blue coat over her nightgown, turned off her light, and slipped barefooted out of the window.
“Bourrée,” she hissed. “You better get out of here, or I’m gonna call the sheriff and tell him there’s a peeping Tom in my yard.”
He snorted. “You talking about that show you just put on? Hell, girl, I didn’t need to peep. You were exposing yourself to God and country.”
“You think the sheriff is gonna believe that when he catches you in my yard?”
He grabbed her and pushed her into the old live oak. “Stay away from my family, you hear.”
She could almost taste the tobacco and alcohol on his breath. She tossed her head. “How you gonna make me? You gonna tell Peewee what you did to me in the woods? How you took my virginity and…” But she didn’t have a chance to finish.
He stuffed his tongue into her mouth, shutting her up, choking her. She tried to turn away but he had her against the tree. She felt the jagged bark pressing through her hair, but she wasn’t sure she really wanted him to stop. If he’d just quit choking her. Finally he let her up for air.
“Come on, Bourrée,” she begged, “don’t be like that. Be sweet.”
“What do you want?” His voice was as cold and damp as the night air.
Sissy shivered. “I just want us to be like we were. That’s all.”
His pale eyes flickered over her as if he were appraising a pile of lumber. Just a hint of a snicker escaped the edges of his mouth before he grabbed her coat, ripping off the buttons, rending the material.
“Don’t! You’ll ruin it!”
But he didn’t pay any attention. He yanked the coat, tearing it from her body.
“Bourrée, for God’s sake…”
“Shut up,” he growled, throwing the coat to the ground, leaving her exposed and shivering. He pushed her back against the tree, and pinning her there with one hard hand to her breast, he pulled up her short nightgown with the other. But where he was gentle before, he was rough now, and fumbling. “Is this what you want?” he snarled as he unzipped his fly and rammed himself into her. She tried to scream, but he slammed her head into the tree and silenced her with the heel of his heavy hand, pressing on her windpipe. Sissy felt the gnarly trunk make welts in her back as she twisted and shoved trying to get away. “Is this what you want?” he repeated. She was so dry, she felt her skin tear. She was beating on him now, trying to force him away. But he increased the pressure on her windpipe as he ground his body into hers, thrusting and jabbing and pressing harder and harder on her throat so that screaming was out of the question. She had to struggle to breathe. Then he made a quick grunt and pulled out, dripping along her leg and over her fallen coat.
“Is that what you want, little girl? You want me to come over every now and again to service you?” Sissy shook her head. “Then stay away from me and mine, you hear?” He pinched her cheek hard between his fingers and, baring his teeth, kissed her off.
Chapter 15
Beware of other people’s plans for your own good.
—Belle Cantrell, Sissy’s grandmother
UNNUMBERED RULE, THE SOUTHERN BELLE’S HANDBOOK
SISSY STAYED AWAY. She stayed away from the whole family and nursed her hatred. She’d never hated before, but Bourrée had taught her how. She felt defiled. Peewee had been upset, of course, when she told him she had to give him back his pin. She tried to push him in Amy Lou Hopper’s direction, sang Amy Lou’s praises, but he wouldn’t budge. After going out with the head cheerleader, Amy Lou must have seemed too low rent for him. Instead, his pale blue eyes, filled with the silent reproach of a wounded bird, followed Sissy in class and around school until she thought she was going to scream.
“Who wants to translate the first two lines?” asked Miss Martine, pacing around the class.
Sissy kept her head down, avoiding all eye contact. In the front row Amy Lou’s and Doreen’s hands shot up. Doreen had already grabbed Parker and was clinging to him like ivy.
For the first couple of weeks, he hadn’t dated anyone else, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with Sissy, either. She’d tried all the wiles in the Southern Belle’s Handbook, and made up new ones, but none of them worked with Parker.
Then Doreen moved in. She managed to be there all the time now, hanging on to his arm, wearing his letter sweater. And he was so attentive. He seemed to adore her. Sissy figured it was her own fault for being such a fool. She tried to make up some rule that would cover her foolishness and warn her in the future, but all she could think of was: don’t give up a good man for a bad one, although that seemed pretty obvious.
She wondered if he “respected” Doreen. She sure hoped so. She couldn’t stand the thought of Parker making love to someone else. Especially not someone whose face she knew.
Miss Martine ignored the upraised arms and called, “Betty Ruth.”
“Huh?” Betty Ruth looked up very carefully so as not to disturb the steel mallets of her hangover.
“You did prepare this lesson, didn’t you?”
“Oh yes, ma’am.” All around the class there were titters. Rumor had it that Betty Ruth had stayed on at the football field after practice and had taken on the team. That hadn’t happened, of course, but she had lured five of the players over to her house. What had happened there nobody knew. Boys are such liars. That should sure go somewhere in the Southern Belle’s Handbook as a warning. Sissy decided to make it Rule Number Fifteen. Coach had declared Betty Ruth off-limits for the rest of the season and was pressuring Miss Robbie to kick her off the cheerleading squad.
“Page seventy-two, read the first two lines.”
Betty Ruth bent to her task, sounding out each syllable of “Au Clair de la Lune,” in a language resembling nothing spoken on this planet.
Sissy flipped to the calendar in the front of her notebook. She was due over two weeks ago.
She studied the calendar. She’d missed two months last summer after her brother died. Her mother had said that was normal, not to worry. But in June it couldn’t have meant anything unless someone spotted a star in the East. And it was unlikely that the Lord, even if He wanted to beget a Second Coming, would pick the Virgin Sissy. Of course, she reminded herself, she wasn’t exactly eligible for that title anymore.
But she and Bourrée had always been careful. After the first time, he’d always worn a rubber. She remembered how it looked when he rolled it on over his red… Sissy brought herself up sharply.
She checked the calendar again, counting backward. The last time— up against the oak tree—was the night of the Awards Dinner, which was, oh my God, four weeks ago. She didn’t want to think about that time. She felt raped, except you couldn’t call it rape if you’d been having sex with the man, could you? Besides, he’d say, she’d asked for it, and she knew she had, but she hadn’t asked for that! Not that! She tried to remember if he’d worn anything or not. Oh, Jesus, she couldn’t have gotten pregnant from that! It was too awful.
She was probably just upset like last summer. But last summer her breasts didn’t hurt all the time and she wasn’t so sleepy.
“Sissy.”
Sissy jerked her head up. “Ma’am?”
“Translate the next two lines.”
Sissy looked at her book.
“Page seventy-two.”
“Yes, ma�
�am. I know.” The class was watching. She didn’t want to look like a dope, but she couldn’t figure out what was she doing sitting here in neat rows with her whole life crumbling in front of her. French words like black bugs scuttled across the page.
“Start with ‘Ma chandelle est morte …’ Do you know what that means?”
“My candle is dead?”
Miss Martine winced. “My candle has gone out. Now read.”
“Ma chandelle est morte…” Sissy parroted and then slowly… “‘Je n’ai plus de feu …’ I don’t have any more light.” What did this stupid French song about dead candles have to do with her? Things were happening to her own body. She was having trouble buttoning the waists of her skirts, she felt like a big old balloon and she had to sit still and read this crap.
Miss Martine walked over to Sissy’s desk and closed her book. “That’s quite enough. Sissy and Betty Ruth, I want to see you both after class. Now, mes enfants, ‘Au Clair de la Lune’ wasn’t written to torture us, it’s a beautiful French folk song. Can anyone sing it?”
Amy Lou’s hand shot up. “I can, Miss Martine.”
Who cares? thought Sissy. Who gives a flying fart? She tried to ignore the growth that might be forming inside her, pushing out her stomach. This tiny growth with Bourrée’s face growing inside of her.
God wouldn’t let this happen to her. Okay, so she hadn’t obeyed all His commandments. She ticked them off as best she could remember them. She hadn’t killed anybody, and she didn’t steal. Well, hardly ever, except that time when she copped the orange lipstick at Rubinstein’s, but she’d dropped the price into the collection plate at church the following Sunday. And there was the time she borrowed Norman’s penknife, but that didn’t count. Okay, it counted. Honor thy father and mother, don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, keep the Sabbath holy, don’t covet, don’t bear false witness, adultery… okay, she’d broken most of them, but she’d never killed anyone. She’d kept the most important one. And she’d never had another God before Him. She hadn’t even been tempted to break that one. She couldn’t believe she’d been really bad. Not bad enough for this, Lord.
She was supposed to go to college in the fall. Her parents had been saving up for it her whole life. She’d be the first girl in the whole family on both sides to go. Her grandmother had been talking about it since she was in diapers.
“Ma chandelle est morte, je n’ai plus de feu/Ouvre moi la porte pour l’amour de Dieu.” Amy Lou sang out in pure, clear notes.
SISSY WAS SITTING in her bedroom, staring at the clothes drying in the yard, when the sound of the phone made her leap. She headed for the door. “Honey, it’s Peewee,” said her mother. Sissy slumped back down on her bed. She’d been waiting for the phone, but she hadn’t been waiting for Peewee.
Her mother’s gaunt figure in her flowered dress appeared in the doorway. The dress was too big for her now. She asked in her gentle voice, “Aren’t you going to talk to him?”
Sissy shook her head. “Tell him …tell him I’ve run away to Hollywood. If he wants to contact me, he’ll have to get in touch with… Clark Gable.” She made a grand gesture she’d seen in some movie, but faltered in the middle.
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” Sissy turned back and watched the sheets flap in the wind. The clothesline was strung up in front of the live oak tree.
Cady sat down next to her daughter, exhausted. Belle had named her after Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but it hadn’t worked. Sissy knew all her mother wanted, all she’d ever wanted, was to be a good wife and mother.
Sissy felt her thin hand on her shoulder. It was all she could do not to shrink back. “Why do you always think there’s something wrong with me! There’s nothing wrong with me! I’m fine.”
The New Orleans surgeon who’d removed Cady’s cancer in August was still optimistic, but Sissy thought her mother looked terrible.
Pain spread across Cady’s face, but she didn’t raise her voice. “What do you want me to tell the boy?”
Sissy had stopped and talked to Peewee at school that afternoon. All she’d wanted was for him to quit looking at her like that. She hadn’t meant for him to call. She wondered what would happen if she abandoned the Southern Belle’s Handbook and told the truth for a change. It would feel so good. “Just tell him he makes me want to puke.”
Cady sighed and went back to the phone. Sissy heard her trying to make up an excuse to save Peewee’s feelings without actually telling a lie. For God’s sake, either tell him I think he’s vomitous or lie creatively, Sissy willed. Don’t just shilly-shally somewhere in between, feeling all virtuous about yourself. Sissy didn’t feel virtuous about herself at all.
She went to the mirror. If only she had X-ray vision. She stared at her stomach and concentrated, trying to divine what was going on. Had her own body, like her mother’s, betrayed her? Were cells floating toward one another and sticking, massing together, growing some alien being inside her?
Friday after French class, she’d taken the car, driven to Amite all by herself, and found a doctor who didn’t know her family. Now she had to wait around to find out what happened to some rabbit she’d never see. She was unclear what her urine would do to it, but she wished it well. It was funny to think that her life and the life of a rabbit hung by the same chemical thread. On the theory that God didn’t like you to pray for yourself, she considered praying for the rabbit. But she thought better of it. Any God stupid enough to believe her motives were pure bunny love wasn’t worth praying to.
Sissy switched on the radio, but instead of music, the one clear station was filled with news of Germans and Englishmen slaughtering each other over in some unpronounceable place in Africa. She switched it off.
Shadows were filling up the silent room, but she didn’t bother to turn on the lights. She just sat there, waiting in the dark.
“ARE YOU SURE?” Bourrée had asked over the phone.
“I’m sure.”
There was a long pause, then: “Now, don’t you worry about a thing, little girl, I’ll take care of you.”
So here she was waiting for him again, in the rain. This time she was standing in front of the library in the dark, her raincoat buttoned up to her chin, burdened down with a stack of library books she’d chosen to give herself an alibi. Where was he? He said he’d be here right after supper. She remembered their last meeting under the live oak and she felt nauseous. But he wouldn’t be like that tonight. That time was her fault. She’d scared him by going over to his house like that. Tonight would be different. Wouldn’t it? She took a series of deep breaths, but the nausea wouldn’t go away.
The rain fell on her cheeks and dripped over her nose. She wiped her face with the back of her hand. Where was he?
She walked back and forth under the awning. No matter what other options she played around with in her head, since the first day she’d missed her period, she knew she would have to have an abortion. She was going to college next year.
But how? Girls died. Girls died in childbirth, too.
A year ago Sissy never thought about death and now it was all around her. Images from her favorite childhood story, “The Water Babies,” had invaded her dreams. Except these babies were floating faceup. Dead. Her brother Norman. Her mother. The rest of the dead babies were wearing her face.
Betty Ruth said she knew someone who went to a clinic in Mexico. But, my God, the whole country’s Catholic, and besides it isn’t even safe to drink the water down there.
Maybe he can fix it with some doctor around here. She’d heard about doctors who did abortions at night right in their offices. But it was supposed to be awful. She imagined the shades down, the lights dim, the doctor’s hands shaking, and everybody scared of getting caught, scared of what would happen if his hand slipped.
But Bourrée was connected. He could put a fix in at some hospital in New Orleans or Baton Rouge. Her grandmother had told her about doctors certifying it was for some kind of female problem. A
nd it was all perfectly legal. All you had to do was find the right doctor. Bourrée would know the one, if anybody would. They called it a “c and d” or a “d and c” or something.
Finally he pulled over in his old pickup. He reached across the seat and opened the door for her. “You look like a cat that just crawled out of a ditch.”
“Thanks for the compliment,” she said, climbing up into the truck. “It was nice of you to show up.”
“What’s a matter, sugar? Don’t you think ole Bourrée’s gonna take care of you?”
“Are you?” she asked hoarsely.
“I surely am,” he said as he drove through town. Sissy started to ask where they were going and then realized he was heading toward the creek. Is he taking me back there to ask me what I want to do? Or to talk me into an abortion? The memory of the night in her yard came back to her. He wouldn’t try to do that again. Not when I’m like this. She slid away from him and pressed herself against the door. But he didn’t seem to notice. Then he drove right past the Big Creek cutoff and turned onto a two-lane blacktop.
“Where’re we going?”
“To get rid of your little problem, sugar.”
“Tonight!”
“What’d you think?”
“I thought we were going to talk about it. Agree on a plan.”
“No sense pussyfooting around. The sooner you take care of it, the better. Besides, you don’t want that thing festering inside you any longer than absolutely necessary.”
“Where are we going?”
“Now, why don’t you just leave that to me.”
They drove past a Negro bar. Sissy could hear the band playing as if nothing at all important were happening.
Bourrée turned off the blacktop and onto a dirt road.
“There aren’t any doctors out here!” she screamed as the truck bounced and bucked over the ruts and potholes. He didn’t say anything. He just squinted through the rain at what was left of the road. An edge of hysteria was creeping into her voice, and a tic was making her leg jump. “You’ve got to take me back. I can’t do it tonight! My parents expect me to sleep at home.”
The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc Page 23
