To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie

by Ellen Conford

  “Open the door, Sylvie! Open the door this instant!”

  I didn’t answer.

  I never spoke another word to Mr. or Mrs. O’Connor.

  I sat straight up in bed all night, staring at the dresser.

  The next afternoon, Miss Jenks, the social worker, came to take me to “Aunt Grace” and “Uncle Ted” Tyson.

  So like I say, I don’t know why Aunt Grace and Uncle Ted took me in, what with the reputation I had from the Framers and the O’Connors. Especially since I was the first foster child they’d ever had. And why they’d want to trust someone like me—or the kind of person they must have thought I was—with their six-year-old twin daughters was another thing I couldn’t figure. Aunt Grace talked a lot about “Christian charity,” so the only thing I could think was, maybe taking me was a way of making Brownie points with God.

  Anyhow, after a couple of weeks they told Miss Jenks they couldn’t believe I was the same girl she’d told them about.

  Well, I wasn’t. I hadn’t been the girl she’d told them about in the first place. That had been an act. I really am a very good actress, which is why I know I can get in the movies. It takes more than just a pretty face. More than just a beautiful face, even. It takes talent, which I proved I have.

  “Sylvie, Ed Sullivan is on! Sylvie, come on and watch Ed Sullivan with us! Maybe Señor Wences’ll be on!” Honey and Bunny both came rushing into my room.

  “Is it that late?” I felt sort of groggy. Somehow the afternoon had passed after I stopped counting hours. I had missed supper. I must have fallen asleep.

  “Sylvie, come on!” Bunny said. “You’ll miss the famous people in the studio audience. Maybe James Dean’ll be there.”

  “James Dean is dead, Bunny. He can’t be in the studio audience.”

  “Maybe President Eisenhower then.”

  “He’s in the hospital. Remember? You prayed for him.”

  “Maybe the prayers worked. Come on, Sylvie, you have to watch with us. You always watch with us.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  They each took one of my hands and practically pulled me out of bed. I looked at them in their seersucker nightgowns, their blond curls frizzy from the heat and their bath.

  I hugged them against my hips. Next week, when I wasn’t here, would they miss me? Would they wonder where I was?

  Maybe some Sunday night they’d be watching Ed Sullivan and the camera would pick out a famous face in the audience and Ed would say, “And over here we have that up-and-coming new star—” and Honey and Bunny would start screaming, “It’s Sylvie, it’s Sylvie!”

  Only, by then I wouldn’t be Sylvie anymore.

  After eleven o’clock tomorrow morning, I’d never be Sylvie Krail again.

  Chapter 3

  “Sylvie, I really don’t like to go off and leave you alone like this.”

  “Oh, Aunt Grace, you’ve left me alone before.”

  “But not when you’re sick. It’s different.”

  “You can leave me Mrs. Reemer’s number and I can call you if I need anything. I don’t want you to miss your canasta game on account of me.” I used my sick-but-brave voice again. She had to go to that canasta game.

  “Well, that’s true. I’m only ten minutes away, after all.”

  “I’m a big girl, Aunt Grace. You know I can take care of myself.”

  “I guess you can. And if you’re still feeling bad when I come home, we can call the doctor then.”

  “Sure, that’s right. You go and have a good time. I know how you look forward to your canasta.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Oh, there’s Betty already.” Aunt Grace patted her hair and tugged at her turquoise pedal pushers. She ran to the twins’ room and called out the window. “I’ll be right there!”

  She came back into my room. “I’ll see you later, dear. I hope you feel better. You just rest and take care of yourself.”

  The doorbell rang again.

  “I must run.” She fluttered her fingers at me and hurried out of my room.

  “Good-bye, Aunt Grace,” I said softly.

  I waited until I heard Betty Kramer’s car pulling away, and then I jumped out of bed. The first thing I did was to run downstairs and make myself a bologna sandwich, because I was starving from not having eaten anything but toast since yesterday. I could only finish half of it. I guess I was too nervous to eat. I filled up much faster than I thought I would.

  I took a shower and sprinkled myself all over with Cashmere Bouquet. I wished I had time to shampoo my hair, but it would have taken too long to dry. Even though I don’t have oily-type hair, I like to wash it twice a week to keep it looking its best, and I hadn’t shampooed since Friday. But I had to settle for just brushing Minipoo through it. I figured it would be all right since I wasn’t wearing it loose, but in a French twist, which makes me look at least eighteen.

  I pulled the suitcase down from the top of the closet. I nearly dropped it on the floor, it was so heavy. I put on all the crinolines and my pink dress and clipped my white pop beads around my neck. I pulled out the bottom drawer of the desk and yanked the envelope from the back. I put it inside the zipper pocket of my straw pocketbook.

  I took a long, careful time with my makeup. I put on pressed powder and some rouge and black mascara and curled my eyelashes so they’d look even longer and more dramatic. I dabbed some “Strike Me Pink” lipstick onto my brush (all the stars tell you a lipstick brush is an absolute must) and outlined my lips. I filled them in with the lipstick, then blotted them on a tissue.

  I stood back and looked at myself in the mirror. I looked like I could be in the movies, I thought. And with my French twist and my gloves and my white slingback heels, I definitely looked eighteen. Maybe even twenty.

  I lugged the suitcase and hatbox downstairs and put them next to the front door. In the kitchen Aunt Grace kept a pad that has “Shopping List” printed on it, with a little pencil attached.

  I sat down at the table with the pad and wrote my good-bye note.

  Dear Aunt Grace,

  I’m going to my mother. I found out she is in a place in Rochester and I have to see her. I’m sorry to fool you like I did about being sick but it was the only way. Thank you for everything and don’t worry about me. Say good-bye to the twins and Uncle Ted for me.

  Sincerely yours,

  Sylvie Krail

  I left the note on the table and went to call a taxi.

  This was going to be the only tricky part of my plan. If Mrs. Bates next door saw me getting into the taxi with my suitcase, she’d know something was up. Betty Kramer was our neighbor on the other side, and she was with Aunt Grace at Millie Reemer’s, and the neighbors across the street probably didn’t know where Aunt Grace could be reached because she wasn’t all that friendly with them.

  But Mrs. Bates always did her laundry on Mondays, hanging it out on the turn-around clothes pole in the backyard, so I was hoping that’s where she’d be when the taxi came.

  The taxi company said the cab would be here in fifteen minutes. I told them I had to catch a train, and they said not to worry, the next train to the city wasn’t for half an hour, so I sat down in the chair next to the front door to wait.

  I thought that note was pretty smart. Like I told my mother in the letter, I had a very good plan of how to get away without being found and that note was part of my plan. Everybody would be looking for me all the way to Rochester, and I wasn’t going in that direction at all. By the time they realized I wasn’t in Rochester, I’d probably be in California. And they’d never think to look for me in California.

  I couldn’t sit still. Here I had planned this trip for months, years almost, and it was finally only ten minutes away from beginning, and I thought I’d die waiting for that last ten minutes to go by.

  It wasn’t so hot today, which I was glad about, because when it’s very hot I sweat and my bangs get all limp and the angel wings on the side droop until they’re flat. (Some people call them
devil wings instead of angel wings, which I think is funny, that they should be called opposite things.) Anyway, they’re like Brenda Starr in the comics wears her hair. They’re not really bangs, they sort of swoop up and back on each side of my forehead. Some people have to set them to make them go that way, but my hair just waves there naturally.

  I went to the kitchen to get some Kool-Aid and I thought, This is the last time I will ever see this kitchen. Part of me felt a little sad about leaving Aunt Grace and the twins, but I was too excited about my new life and my career to think about much else.

  I was almost tempted to leave a separate note for Uncle Ted, telling him the real reason why I was leaving, which he probably could guess anyway, but Aunt Grace might find it.

  There was another reason I had to leave, but I could never tell that to anybody. Especially not to Uncle Ted.

  A car honked twice outside. The taxi had come. I ran to the front door and threw it open. I hoped no one else would come to their front door at the sound of the horn.

  I grabbed my pocketbook and my hatbox and pulled my suitcase out the door. I closed the door behind me and hurried down the walk to the cab.

  I pushed the suitcase in the back before the driver could even offer to help me with it, and climbed in.

  “The train station,” I said.

  “Okay.” He shifted and the taxi squealed away from the curb. I looked back at the house, a little, salmon-colored box that was exactly the same as all the other houses on the block, except for the paint. I looked at the pink plastic flamingo on the front lawn. Nobody else on the block had a flamingo like that.

  No one seemed to be watching out their windows, so I turned around and stared straight ahead as we turned the comer of Robin Lane. I fixed my eyes on the taxi driver’s collar, and never once turned to look back.

  Chapter 4

  Dear Mom,

  Well, here I am on my way to California! My plan worked out just as well as I expected. I think I was really clever about “covering my tracks.” I ’m not bragging or anything, but I’ve seen enough movies to know how to “lay a false trail ” and that’s what I did. For instance, I left a note saying I was going to visit you in Rochester, which I wish I was, but of course I don’t know where you are, but I made them think I did. Then I had the taxi take me to the train station, but I didn’t take the train to the city, like I told the driver I was going to. Instead I took a bus to the city and the subway to the Greyhound bus terminal and bought a ticket to

  “My, I don’t know how you can write on a moving bus like that.”

  I covered up my letter with my hand and turned to the woman next to me. She was pretty old, but she had a nice face.

  “I can’t even read on a moving vehicle,” she said. “The letters start swimming around in front of my eyes, and first thing you know I’ve got one of my sick headaches.”

  We’d been riding for two hours. She must have been pretty bored, not being able to read and all. And with me sitting by the window, she didn’t even have any scenery to look at.

  I folded my letter and put it in my pocketbook.

  “Oh, don’t stop writing on my account,” she said. “I didn’t mean to bother you.”

  “That’s okay. I was finished anyway. Would you like to sit by the window for a while?”

  “Well, thank you, dear, that would be nice.”

  We switched places. “It’s such a long trip,” she said. “Maybe we could change every two hours.”

  “Okay.”

  She settled back in the seat and turned toward me. She hadn’t even peeked out the window. I guess she wanted to talk. I didn’t mind. I’d bought a movie magazine at the bus terminal, but I’d read the whole thing already.

  I bought it because there was this big headline on the front cover: JAMES DEAN DID NOT DIE! I couldn’t wait to read the article, so I sat right down on a bench in the waiting room and turned to the page where the story was, and of course it turned out that what they meant was James Dean’s memory lives on in the hearts of his fans. I was pretty annoyed, but there were a lot of pictures with the article, so that was something.

  Some of these magazines can be really sneaky. Like, for instance, I bought this magazine once because it had a story called “Why Tab Is Taboo to Me,” by Natalie Wood. Well, of course I thought it would be all about why Natalie wouldn’t get serious with Tab Hunter, even though all the magazines were running pictures of them on dates together, but what it turned out to be was that “Taboo” was Natalie’s nickname for Tab. It wasn’t so bad, though, even if it was sneaky, because there was a lot in it about Natalie and the kind of life she lives in Hollywood, and the actors she pals around with, like Nick Adams and Dennis Hopper and a lot of the younger up-and-coming stars.

  I got to thinking how maybe, once I started working in movies, we would become friends, Natalie and me, because we were almost the same age and even if she is a little older, everyone in Hollywood would think I was eighteen, because that’s what I was going to tell them. And I’d go around with her and have double dates and go to premieres together and meet all the teenage actors she knows.

  Maybe even Tab Hunter. That would be okay with Natalie, because in the article it said she was only good friends with him. They are like brother and sister, so she wouldn’t mind if I dated him, I’m sure.

  I’m not all that hot to go with Tab Hunter, though. He’s cute and all, but not one of my absolute top favorites. But I wouldn’t turn him down if he asked me out.

  But anyway, like I was saying, being a real expert on movie magazines, I know some of them can be very misleading. I keep buying them anyhow, but for the real truth about the stars you can only depend on Photoplay and Modern Screen. You know if you read it there you’re getting the true facts.

  “I’m going to Springfield, Ohio, to visit my son and grandchildren,” the woman next to me said suddenly. “He’s an assistant manager at the Sears, Roebuck store. I go twice a year to visit them.”

  “How many grandchildren do you have?” I didn’t really care all that much, but I could see she wanted to talk.

  “Well, John has twin boys—”

  “Isn’t that funny!” I said without thinking. “I have—” I stopped myself just in time. I’d been going to tell her about Honey and Bunny and that would have been a big goof. What if the police managed to track me down to the Greyhound bus station, even though I’d done such a good job of faking them out? If they started questioning people who had been on Greyhound buses, and this lady told them about sitting next to a girl who talked about twins named Honey and Bunny, they’d be hot on my trail.

  “You have what? What were you going to say?”

  “Nothing. I was just wondering if we were ever going to stop anyplace. I’m kind of hungry.”

  She nodded. “I think we’re stopping in about an hour. You’ll be able to freshen up and get something to eat then. How far are you traveling?”

  Since she was getting off in Ohio, she wouldn’t know I was going to Los Angeles unless I told her. Just in case, I thought I’d better not give her my real destination. But besides Los Angeles, I couldn’t think where the bus might stop after Springfield. I’m not very good at geography and the only state I could think of between Ohio and California was Texas.

  “Texas,” I said. “To visit my aunt. They have a big ranch there.”

  “Really? Do they have cattle?”

  “Uh, yeah, but I think oil wells too.” The only thing I know about Texas is that James Dean’s last movie, Giant, is about this big ranch in Texas where they discover oil. I can’t wait for the movie to come out. James Dean was killed while he was working on it, so it’s the last James Dean movie there’ll ever be. Anyway, if I’d seen the movie already, maybe I would have known something more about Texas, but I hadn’t.

  “Oil wells. My, my.”

  I looked sideways at her. I don’t know if she believed that part about oil wells. Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe she thought I was making it
all up. Or maybe just bragging or exaggerating.

  “Actually, I think just one oil well,” I said. “I mean, they’re not really rich or anything.”

  “It sounds exciting.” She leaned her head back against the seat. “I think I’ll just see if I can catch a little nap before we make our stop.” She turned to look at me. “By the way, I’m Ruby Durban. Forgot to introduce myself.” She held out her hand.

  “I’m Venida Meredith,” I said, hearing how it sounded for the first time. I shook her hand.

  I wasn’t positive I would keep that name, but there was time to change it again before I got my first part in the movies.

  “What an interesting name. I don’t think I’ve ever known anyone named Venida before.” She settled back in her seat.

  That was good. That meant my name would be unique and memorable. I picked it from a hair-net advertisement in a drugstore. I’d stopped to have a Coke after I bought my bus ticket and the sign was right there in the front window: VENIDA HAIR NETS. I thought it was a very interesting name.

  I tried a lot of names with it while I was sipping at my Coke. Like Valli. I really liked Venida Valli, and the two same initials I thought was good, like Marilyn Monroe. Really eye-catching. Only there’s a singer, June Valli, and I didn’t want to get mixed up with her.

  Then I thought since Venida was such an unusual name, I ought to have a sort of exotic last name to go with it, maybe a French-sounding one, like Darcel. But there’s already an actress named Denise Darcel, so that was no good. Too bad, because I really liked Venida Darcel.

  Finally I came up with Meredith, because it sounded kind of smooth and like a name a rich person would have. And I decided that if I had such an unusual first name, I wouldn’t need an unusual last name too.

  Mrs. Durban settled back in her seat again and closed her eyes.

  I was glad. I didn’t want to get too friendly with anyone because I figured the less people noticed me, the better. The bus was only half full and I hadn’t spoken to anyone else besides Ruby Durban. I don’t even know why she took that seat, since there were some empty ones, so she could have had a window seat, but maybe she got bored without being able to read and wanted to be near somebody to talk to.