The Night Sister

Rose was talking to me, but she sounded far off, like a bug. Little and buzzing and insignificant. Even Fenton, marvelous as he is, seemed to fade away.

I tried to talk to you, to shout up and say that I was the girl who’d been writing you the letters, but there were so many people, and it was noisy. I was sure I would be crushed. You looked at me, though. I’m sure of it. And for that one second I wondered if you knew I was the girl who’d written you from the little motel in Vermont.

Fenton has promised to take me to see The Trouble with Harry if Mama and Daddy will allow it. I’ve seen quite a lot of movies, but none of yours. Not yet. But from now on, I’ll find a way to see them all, even if I have to sneak into the theater through the back door (something Fenton told me some of the boys do when they don’t have money to go to a show).

I wanted you to know all this. And I wanted to thank you. Because, even though we didn’t really meet, seeing you, just standing outside the Paramount tonight, has given my life new direction.

I hope that one day, when I am in Hollywood, I can meet you to thank you in person.

Sincerely yours,

Miss Sylvia A. Slater The Tower Motel





328 Route 6


London, Vermont





Rose


“You awake, Sylvie?” Rose asked.

They were both in their twin beds. The radio, a new Zenith Daddy had given Rose last Christmas, played on the bureau between them, Bill Haley and the Comets rocking around the clock. Sylvie loved to fall asleep listening to the radio. She said sometimes the music followed her right into her dreams.

“Mmm-hmm.”

“What do you think it means—Daddy and that lady?”

Sylvie was a quiet a minute; the radio announcer came on, telling the weather. Frost warning. Chance of showers tomorrow.

“I’m not sure,” Sylvie said at last. “But I know one thing—he didn’t mean for us to see them together.”

“But who is she?”

“I’ve never seen her before,” Sylvie said.

“I feel like I have,” Rose said, thinking. There was something familiar about her—the red hair, the coat she was wearing. Had she been a motel guest? A friend of Mama’s from town? “We should ask Daddy about her.”

“No!” Sylvie said, exasperated. “We should pretend it never happened. Pretend we didn’t see anything. Most of all, we shouldn’t say a word about it to Mama.”

“But…”

“No ‘but’s. Do I have to hypnotize you to make you forget? Because I will.”

Rose cringed, ducked beneath her covers. “No. I won’t say anything. I’ll forget all about it.”

The thing is, Rose thought as she lay there in the dark, listening to Frank Sinatra now, the more you concentrated on trying to forget something, the more you couldn’t get it out of your head.

“Fairy tales can come true,” Frank promised, his voice soft and velvety, like the inside of a fancy jewelry box.

“Try not to worry,” Sylvie said, her voice gentle again. “Really. It’ll all be okay.” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as Rose.

Rose fell asleep and dreamed she was walking in a cornfield. At first, Oma was with her, holding her hand. Then she was alone again. She kept walking, going down row after row, trying to find her way out. Sylvie was there, too. Rose could hear her, but couldn’t see her.

“Sylvie?” she called.

She heard a rustling up ahead and moved forward, through the leaves of corn that scratched at her skin and cut into her face. The corn seemed alive, angry, and Rose didn’t want to be there anymore.

A crow was perched on an ear near the top of a stalk of corn just ahead of her, its black reptilian toes clinging, claws digging into the green husk. Rose froze. There was something familiar about the crow. It looked right at her, and she was sure she knew it somehow.

Then the crow cocked its head and winked one glistening, black eye.

“You’re getting very sleepy,” the crow said, only it was Sylvie’s voice inside the crow’s caw. “You couldn’t open your eyes now even if you tried.”