The Scandalous Summer of Sissy Leblanc — Loraine Despres

It's okay for a woman to know her place. She just shouldn't stay there.
-- Rule Number 59, The Southern Belle's Handbook

It's a steamy June afternoon in Louisiana, circa 1956, and Sissy LeBlanc is sitting on her front porch, wondering -- half seriously -- if she could kill herself with aspirins and Coca-Cola. She's been living in stifling old Gentry since the day she was born and trapped in a sham of a marriage to PeeWee LeBlanc since she was only seventeen. In short, she's fed up, restless, and ready for an adventure.

Sissy just never imagined temptation would come into her life that breathless summer day as she sat smoking on her porch swing. For although she may have been fixated on the taut muscles of the lineman shimmying down the telephone pole across the street, she hadn't allowed herself to imagine that he'd be none other than her high school sweetheart, Parker Davidson, who left town fourteen years before without so much as a wave good-bye. But suddenly, here he is, standing in her very own kitchen, sipping Coke over cracked ice and leaning in for a kiss that will stir up more excitement than Sissy could ever have imagined. . . .