To All My Fans, With Love, From Sylvie

by Ellen Conford

  “If I can sleep in the back seat of a car, I can sleep in a chair.”

  “All right, have it your own way. It won’t be long now anyway.”

  He took off his jacket and hung it in the closet. He started to undo his belt, then looked over at me. I guess I had a pretty shocked expression on my face, because he sort of shrugged and buckled it up again.

  “At least give me a little kiss, Sylvie,” he said coaxingly. “After all, we’re engaged. There’s nothing wrong with kissing your fiancé.”

  I nodded. I couldn’t very well refuse that. He held me by the shoulders and I took a deep breath, like I was getting ready to dive into a swimming pool. I held it while he pressed his lips against mine, gently at first, but then harder and harder until I pulled away when I couldn’t hold my breath anymore.

  “You better stop, Walter. You don’t want to get carried away.”

  “I’m already carried away,” he panted. “I just wish you’d get carried away too. Kiss me again, Sylvie.” He pulled me against him and started running his hands down my back. I squirmed out of his arms.

  “Walter, if you don’t stop I’ll walk out of this room right this minute.” And I would, too, even if I didn’t have the slightest idea where I’d go or what I’d do.

  He must have known I meant it because he said, “Sylvie, you are the most—virtuous girl I ever ran into.” He sounded really annoyed about it.

  “You’re a Bible salesman, Walter,” I reminded him. “Would you marry a girl who wasn’t good? And besides, a couple of days ago you didn’t think I was—virtuous—at all.”

  “Well, I misjudged you,” he grumbled.

  “I think a Bible salesman ought to be virtuous too,” I said sternly.

  “Will you stop harping on that?” he snapped. “Just because I peddle Bibles doesn’t mean I don’t have needs.”

  He lay down on the bed and put his hands behind his head. I turned off the lamp. The sun was just coming up and it was pretty light in the room, so I pulled the window shades down.

  I sat back in the orange plastic chair. It wasn’t very comfortable. I looked over at Walter on the bed. His eyes were still open and he was staring up at the ceiling. I wished he’d gotten a room with two beds. But why should he? He thought we were getting married in a couple of hours.

  I was so tired I wanted to lie down and go to sleep.

  I shut my eyes and tried to think. I had to forget about being tired, I had to forget about sleeping. I had to figure out a plan. And I only had a few hours left.

  Think, I told myself, think. You got yourself into this, Sylvie Krail, and no one but you can get you out of it.

  And that’s the last thing I remember before I fell asleep sitting up in the orange plastic chair.

  Chapter 14

  When I woke up, Walter was lying under the bedspread, snoring. I jumped out of the chair, wondering what time it was, and how I could have let myself fall asleep like that when I was supposed to be thinking.

  I peeked out the window, just moving the shade up a little bit; it was bright and sunny. It must be pretty late. Walter would probably wake up any minute.

  I had to do something. I could just walk out of the Lucky Silver Horseshoe Motel and disappear in the crowds, but then what? I didn’t have any money, and even my hatbox was locked in the trunk of Walter’s car. I looked over at the night table. There were no keys on it. Walter must still have them in his pocket.

  Maybe I could borrow some money from Walter. While he was asleep. He said he’d buy me a dress anyhow, so if I just borrowed as much as he would have spent on the dress . . .

  But I couldn’t kid myself. That wouldn’t be borrowing, that would be stealing. Even if I could get to his wallet without waking him up, I couldn’t take his money. No matter what his reasons were, he’d already gone to a lot of trouble and expense for me. It was bad enough that I’d let him think we were going to get married without stealing from him on top of it.

  I could tell him the truth. The whole truth. Why I deceived him the way I did, why I had to go to California, why he was my only hope. And then ask him for one more bit of help—just enough money to get to Los Angeles and live on until I got a job.

  That would never work. Why would he give me any money? He’d just think I’d lied to him and used him, and he’d be angry that I wasn’t going to marry him after all he’d done for me. I’d seen Walter angry in the Blue Grass Motel. I didn’t want to see him angry again.

  I could give up.

  I could go to a police station and tell them who I was and the police would call Aunt Grace and Uncle Ted and they’d come and get me and take me home.

  Home. Robin Lane. Aunt Grace. Honey and Bunny.

  Uncle Ted.

  Suddenly I realized I wasn’t hearing Walter snoring anymore. I whirled around to look at the bed. He’d turned over onto his side. I stood there, frozen, not even breathing, waiting to see if he was waking up. But he didn’t open his eyes and in a moment he was breathing deeply and evenly, his arm wrapped around the pillow like it was . . . like it was me.

  I grabbed my pocketbook from the dresser and tiptoed to the door. Whatever I was going to do, I knew I couldn’t stay here. I turned the doorknob very gently, hoping the door wouldn’t creak. I looked back at Walter. Maybe I ought to leave him a note, apologizing, explaining things, thanking him.

  But he might wake up any minute. There was no time for a note.

  I opened the door just enough to let myself out. It didn’t creak. I closed it softly behind me.

  And felt like I’d stepped into a furnace. The sun was blazing; I thought it must be a hundred degrees. It was even worse than Arizona, where we’d stopped yesterday. It was worse than anything.

  I leaned against the room door. I felt a little dizzy. The cars in the parking spaces sort of shimmered and looked wavy in the sunlight. I thought I’d better stand there for a minute until I got used to it.

  I took out my pressed powder compact and my lipstick from my pocketbook. From what I could see of myself in the little mirror, I didn’t look too bad. I’d just washed my hair yesterday and put it in the French twist again. The angel wings were holding up okay. All my cosmetics were in my hatbox, so I could only put on the pressed powder and lipstick. I didn’t think I looked eighteen, even with the French twist.

  I wished I had some other clothes to wear. I’d rinsed out my boat-neck top and put on my one other clean blouse yesterday, but I was still wearing the same black capri pants.

  How could I find a job looking like this?

  I didn’t know where to go, but I knew I couldn’t just stand there against the door. Any minute Walter might wake up, find I was gone, and open that door to look for me.

  I started walking. I didn’t know which way to walk, but what difference did it make? I went past the doors to the rooms, past the office, and turned right. There was another motel across the street. It had a giant pair of dice on the roof and the sign read, LUCKY 7-11 MOTEL. I wondered if everything in Las Vegas was named after things to do with gambling.

  There weren’t nearly as many people around this street in the middle of the day as there were on that street we’d stopped at before sunrise. I guess there weren’t any places around here to gamble. All I saw were motels, a drugstore, a little grocery, and a liquor store.

  I crossed the street. The Lucky 7-11 Motel had a pool on the side. There was nobody around except two little kids splashing in the pool and a guy in a turned-down white sailor cap sitting near the diving board.

  I think I would have given anything for a bathing suit at that minute. The kids were ducking each other and screaming, and splashing water around, and the sun was beating down on my head and I was almost tempted to jump in that pool with all my clothes on and start splashing with them.

  I walked around the side of the pool and stood near where they were playing.

  “Hey, you’ll get wet!” the guy in the sailor cap called.

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “
I hope I do.”

  “Why don’t you put on your suit and hop in?”

  “I’m not staying at this motel,” I said.

  He looked around, as if someone might be watching, then pulled himself up and walked toward me. He was all tan and muscley, with dark, dark hair on his chest and legs. He was about the same height as Walter, but when he got up close I could see he was much younger. And much better looking, too. I sort of stared at him.

  And he stared back.

  “Listen,” he said softly, “they don’t care who uses the pool. It doesn’t matter if you’re not staying here.”

  I wondered why he was whispering if they didn’t care, but all I said was, “I don’t have a bathing suit anyway.”

  He looked me up and down and I got embarrassed and annoyed, like I always do when that happens.

  “Just as well,” he said finally. “You’re so light you’d bum in five minutes.”

  “I wish you’d stop looking at me like that.” I turned a little away from him and pretended to watch the kids in the pool.

  “I’ll bet you’re used to it.”

  I turned back to him. “That doesn’t mean I like it.”

  He smiled, a sort of apologetic little grin. “No, I guess not. Sorry. I’ve never seen you around here before.”

  “We just got here last night. This morning, really.”

  A blond woman came out of one of the doors of the motel calling, “Johnnie! Barbara! Come on out of there now.” The kids yelled, “No! No!” and ducked under the water.

  “I hope they weren’t too much trouble, Vic,” the woman called.

  “No trouble at all.”

  Vic, that was his name. I guessed he was supposed to be watching the kids. Was he a baby-sitter or something?

  “Johnnie! Get out of that pool this minute!” the woman yelled. “Barbara, I mean it. Come on, now, I have a surprise for you.”

  “I’ll get them out, Mrs. Benson,” Vic said. He jumped into the pool right next to the kids and made a big roaring sound. They screamed and giggled and tried to splash water in his eyes.

  “The giant whale is coming to get you!” he roared. “The giant whale is coming to get you!” They jumped up and down, shrieking with laughter, and he grabbed them around the waist, one in each arm.

  “The giant whale got you! The giant whale is throwing you back on shore!” He leaned over the edge of the pool and put them both down gently on the tile next to the rim.

  Their mother grabbed them before they could jump back in.

  “Thanks, Vic.” She pulled the kids into their room and slammed the door.

  I was laughing as Vic got out of the water.

  “My whale imitation,” he said, shaking the water off. “It slays the audience. Come on, you better get in the shade.”

  We walked over to a table with a big green umbrella over it. We sat down on two green iron chairs. It wasn’t really any cooler under the umbrella, but at least the sun was out of my eyes.

  “Are you their baby-sitter?” I asked.

  “More like their keeper,” he laughed. “No, not really. I’m the pool attendant here. I keep the pool clean, take care of things, make sure nobody drowns, all that jazz.”

  “That sounds like an interesting job.” It didn’t really, but I didn’t know what else to say, and I wanted to keep talking to this boy.

  He was a boy, I realized, but not young. I thought he must be about nineteen or twenty. I was sure he wasn’t in high school. He was much more mature than any of the boys I knew.

  “It’s not my life’s work,” he said. “Just a summer job. And the tips are pretty good—at least when people are winning. Who’s ‘we’?”

  “What?” I didn’t know what he meant.

  “You were telling me, ‘We just got here last night.’ Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Oh. Walter and me.”

  “Who’s Walter? For that matter, who are you? No, tell me who Walter is first.”

  “It’s a long story.” I looked out at the pool.

  “There’s no one in there,” he said. “I have plenty of time to listen.”

  “Tell me about yourself first,” I said. I felt very shy and self-conscious. And I felt something else, too. I felt like I did when I wanted Jim to kiss me under that tree in Kentucky. I wondered again if a person can tell when you feel that way? Jim must have been able to, because he was going to kiss me before we were interrupted. Could Vic tell too? I began to be really embarrassed. I stared down at my lap, afraid to look him in the eye.

  “Won’t you even tell me your name?” he asked. “No, let me guess. I’ll bet I can guess it.”

  “No you couldn’t,” I mumbled.

  “I have amazing psychic powers,” Vic said, in a spooky sort of voice. “I see all, know all.”

  I looked up, startled. Could he really read my mind? Did he know what I was thinking about him?

  He got this funny look on his face for a second and frowned a little, but then began talking in that phony spooky voice real fast.

  “Of course, it’s coming, it’s coming. Your name is . . . Esmeralda.”

  I giggled. “It is not.”

  “All right, all right, no, don’t tell me, I’ve got it... Euphronia.”

  “No!”

  “I don’t understand it. My psychic powers have never failed me before. Let me concentrate. . . .”

  I was giggling so hard now I must have sounded like one of those little kids in the pool, but I couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t want to stop myself. I don’t know why, but it was fun to feel like a six-year-old.

  “I know it begins with an E . . . Ernestine!”

  “No! And it doesn’t begin with an E.”

  “I don’t suppose it’s Rumpelstiltskin?”

  I was laughing so hard now all I could do was shake my head.

  “It’s—it’s Sylvie,” I finally gasped.

  He turned his mouth down. “Oh,” he said, sounding disappointed. “I liked Euphronia so much better.”

  I wiped at my eyes with my hands. I’d laughed so hard I was practically crying.

  Then Vic leaned over and said, suddenly, “Sylvie, who’s Walter?”

  Before I even had time to think I blurted out, “He wants to marry me.”

  I was surprised I said it. I didn’t mean to tell Vic about that. I never should have mentioned Walter in the first place. I don’t know why I did.

  But if I was surprised, Vic was stunned.

  “Marry you? How the hell old are you?”

  “Eighteen,” I said haughtily.

  “Sylvie, I’ve been eighteen. You’re not eighteen.”

  “Well, going on eighteen. Practically—”

  “I’ve been seventeen too. And sixteen and fifteen and fourteen—”

  “I’m not fourteen!” I cried.

  He sat back in the chair and looked at me like he was sort of studying my face. I realized that when I said I wasn’t fourteen, I’d just about admitted what my real age was. But suddenly I felt I didn’t have to pretend with Vic. I didn’t want to pretend; I was tired of pretending.

  “Does he know you’re only fifteen?”

  “No. He thinks I’m going on nineteen.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I look a lot older with makeup!” I said indignantly.

  “I’ll bet. How old is he?”

  “I don’t know exactly. I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I guess in his thirties. Maybe thirty-five.”

  “Why do you want to marry a thirty-five-year-old man? A maybe thirty-five-year-old man?”

  “Well, I don’t, not anymore. I mean, I don’t think I ever really wanted to marry him. I just didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could finish high school.”

  I sighed. “I told you this was a long story.”

  “And I told you I had plenty of time. The pool is clean, the guests are busy at the slot machines; my boss is making sure the maid isn’t
stealing the towels. Go on. Tell me about Walter.”

  So I did.

  From the time I got on the Greyhound bus in New York, until this morning, I told Vic everything that happened to me. My wallet being stolen or lost, meeting Walter, selling Bibles, even about Jim. It was so easy talking to Vic, even though I’d never seen him before in my life. Maybe that’s why it was so easy.

  I didn’t tell him about anything that happened before I got on the bus. I just told him I was going to Hollywood to be an actress.

  He listened to the whole thing without saying a word, though his eyes seemed to get really dark and angry when I told him about the night in the Blue Grass Motel.

  When I was finally finished I gave sort of a weak little laugh and said, “It sounds kind of crazy, doesn’t it?”

  Vic took a deep breath and nodded. “Oh, yeah. Crazy. Why were you running away from home?”

  “I wasn’t running away,” I said nervously. “I was running to. To Hollywood. To be in the movies.”

  “You had a home in New York?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What do you mean, sort of? Did you live in a house? Did you have parents? Are you an orphan who just walked the streets for fifteen years and then hopped on a bus for Hollywood?”

  That’s when I burst into tears. I don’t know why, except maybe the word orphan set me off, but there I was, sobbing like I had a “Cry” switch and someone had just pulled it.

  Vic jumped out of his chair. “Hey, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  He put his arm around my shoulder. “Look, you must be exhausted. Come on, I know a place you can rest. It’s air-conditioned and everything.”

  I stumbled from the chair and followed him to the end of the row of doors. He opened one and pulled me inside. It was hot and stuffy, but he flipped a switch and I heard an air conditioner start up.

  “It’ll be cool in a little while,” he said. “I’m sorry there aren’t any sheets on the bed, but they never make this room up. The mattress is clean though, and on my lunch hour maybe I can sneak you in some linens.”

  “What if somebody comes?”

  “Nobody’ll come. They don’t use this room. The bathroom tile is all coming off and they have to put a whole new wall in there. Everything works, it just looks lousy. Why don’t you lie down and try and get some sleep. I’ll be back on my lunch hour—in about an hour and a half. I’ll bring you something to eat and some Cokes and we’ll talk about what to do, okay?”