The Night Sister Page 10

  It was raining. Rose and Sylvie shared an umbrella, while Fenton let the rain fall on him, small beads collecting on his freshly oiled hair and leather jacket. Main Street was crowded, thick with people of all sorts; they’d had to park the old Chevy pickup truck on the other side of town and walk in.

  “What’s happening?” Rose asked. “Is there a festival or something?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Fenton reminded her. “It’s something big. Something your sister’s going to love.”

  What about me? Rose wondered. Will I like it, too? Her teeth had started to ache from the cold, sweet milk shake. Her toes felt pinched, because she’d worn her good Sunday shoes. As exciting as it all was, she was getting tired and cold.

  Sylvie, on the other hand, danced through the crowd, face flushed with excitement.

  “Hey,” Fenton called to her, “you stick with your little sister, here. I don’t want anyone to get lost. Your parents would never let me take you out again.”

  Reluctantly, Sylvie came back and took Rose’s hand, squeezing it a little too tightly before pulling Rose along like an uncooperative dog. Pest, her grip seemed to say.

  Fenton had asked Mama if he could take Sylvie into Barre. “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” he’d said. Mama agreed, but insisted they bring Rose along, too. Though Sylvie had protested, Mama was firm.

  Now, up ahead, bright lights swept across Main Street and the sidewalk. All Rose could think of were the stories her father told of spotlights over Europe during the war, used to light up enemy aircraft.

  “Are we at war?” Rose asked, suddenly frightened. Was that why everyone was out on the streets? Was there a squadron of German bombers on the way, ready to destroy Vermont? An atomic bomb could do that, Rose knew. Her daddy had told her about them, about what had happened when the United States bombed Japan, leaving a mushroom cloud where a city had been.

  When a bomb like that hits, her daddy told her, there’s nothing left; people just turn to vapor. It sounded like something out of one of Fenton’s science-fiction books, not anything that could happen in real life. She tried to imagine it: a whole human being, flesh and blood and bones, turned to vapor, a puff of greasy smoke, something you could take into your lungs and hold there.

  Without warning, Sylvie grabbed her sister’s jacket, jerking her back.

  “What’s happening?” Rose asked, angry and frightened. She’d been pulled off balance, had nearly fallen on the wet sidewalk. The worst part was, Fenton hadn’t noticed and was now far ahead, lost in the thick crowd in front of the Paramount Theater.

  Sylvie tugged Rose back out of the street, into a small, dark alley between two brick buildings. Was she right? Were they at war, and here was brave Sylvie, saving her young sister from disaster? Rose started to duck down, to cover her head with her arms, but Sylvie pulled her up.

  “Look,” Sylvie said, turning Rose’s head so that she was facing across the street.

  “What?” Rose asked.

  “Don’t you see him?” Sylvie asked.

  Rose stared a minute, scanning the crowd through the drizzling rain. On the other side, amid the jostling strangers, stood a familiar figure: their father in his long black coat, hat cocked on his head.

  Friday night was his bowling night, and he’d left the house before they did, carrying his black bowling bag. But now here he was on Main Street in Barre, and Rose saw he wasn’t alone. There was a woman with him, holding his arm, leaning in to say something to him. She had red hair and wore a green coat with matching hat. Whatever she said made their father shake his head, then smile.

  “Who is that?” Rose asked.

  “Daddy.”

  “Well, I know that!” Rose snapped. “But who is he with?”

  Sylvie didn’t answer.

  The woman their father was with leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.

  Rose blinked, and blinked again, more slowly, watching them go in, then out of focus as her eyelids closed.

  Now it was almost as if a bomb really did go off. The pavement seemed to shift, and there was a dull roaring in her ears. She dropped the paper cup, and the top flew off, what was left of her milk shake flying everywhere, covering Rose’s good shoes and tights.

  “Come on,” Sylvie said, tugging Rose back into the throngs of people, heading for the theater. “Before he sees us.” Sylvie pulled Rose along.

  “There you are!” Fenton called, pushing through people to get to the girls. “Good grief, I thought I’d lost you. I was about to start panicking. Where were you?”

  “Sorry, Uncle Fenton, we got caught up in the crowd,” Sylvie said.

  “Well, you’re just in time. Look—they’ve arrived.”

  “Who?” Rose gasped, wondering for a split second if he could possibly mean Daddy and the red-haired woman.

  A platform had been set up in front of the Paramount Theater, and spotlights illuminated the sidewalk and street. A string of shiny new cars with a police escort had pulled up out front.

  “What’s happening? Who’s here?” Sylvie asked, perched on tiptoes.

  Rose struggled to see over the heads of the people in front of her, and Fenton, seeing her distress, lifted her up and put her on his shoulders, though she was really much too big for such things. But she didn’t mind. From up there, she had a perfect view.

  From the lead car stepped a large, jowly man, with close-cropped gray hair, wearing a black suit. He stopped and waved at the crowd. A woman from the car joined him: she was young and beautiful in a dark-blue dress with a deeply scooped neckline. A mink stole was draped over her shoulders.

  “Oh! It can’t be! It can’t be, but it is!” Sylvie exclaimed.

  “Who is it?” Rose asked.

  “It’s Alfred Hitchcock,” Fenton said. “One of the most famous movie directors in the world. And see that actress with him?” Fenton said. “She’s the star of his new picture. Her name’s Shirley MacLaine. Beautiful, isn’t she?”

  Shirley MacLaine waved graciously to the crowd, smiling, her pearl earrings glistening in the spotlights.

  “They’re from Hollywood,” Sylvie gasped as the director and actress were ushered through the crowds toward the platform. Sylvie pushed in closer to the street, as if being magnetically pulled toward the cars.

  “The movie’s called The Trouble with Harry,” Fenton explained. “They’re having the world premiere tonight, here, because it was filmed up in Craftsbury. A little taste of Hollywood right here in Vermont. You remember this, Rose. This here is something you’re going to be telling your grandchildren about—the day Alfred Hitchcock came to Barre for a movie premiere.”

  Sylvie had made her way through the crowd to the base of the podium, where a man was introducing Alfred Hitchcock and Shirley MacLaine.

  Rose watched in fascination as Sylvie stood—eyes wide, face strangely blank, slack-jawed—staring up at the director and movie star, as if, for just this once, she was the one hypnotized.

  Mr. Alfred Hitchcock

  Paramount Studios

  Hollywood, California

  September 30, 1955

  Dear Mr. Hitchcock,

  Tonight, my uncle Fenton brought me and my sister Rose to Barre, and we stood in the crowd along Main Street and watched you and Miss MacLaine go into the Paramount Theater.

  It was the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to me in my whole entire life. I stood next to the platform. You and Miss MacLaine were close enough to touch.

  My daddy always says that there are moments in our lives, moments that change everything.

  I never understood what he meant until tonight.

  When I saw you and Miss MacLaine earlier, I knew, I just knew, that one day, whatever it takes, I would come to Hollywood and be in the movies.

  The idea hit me so suddenly and so hard that I actually couldn’t breathe for a minute. There I was, standing along Main Street, with my uncle and little sister behind me, and I couldn’t get any air. I saw everything in a whole new way. Like
I’d been living this upside-down life, and suddenly things were right-side-up and the whole world in front of me made sense.

  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.”

  I can speak the language of crows, Rose thought, excited.

  “Poor Rose,” the Sylvie crow cawed. “Always looking for ways to be special. But you’re just an ordinary girl. A plain, ordinary girl. No talents at all.”

  When Rose opened her eyes, she instantly remembered where she had seen the red-haired woman, the one who had kissed Daddy’s cheek. She’d been here once, at the house. Rose remembered coming home from school one day in the spring when Sylvie had to stay late for band practice. The woman was coming out of the house with Daddy.

  “This is your mama’s friend Vivienne,” Daddy told her, and Rose got the sense that he was mad at her for being there—that they were in a hurry and Rose was holding them up.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Rose said, and the woman smiled and took Rose’s hand. She wore a lovely hat with bits of lace worked in, and a green sweater set that matched it perfectly. Her cheeks were powdered, and her eyes were rimmed with smudged, coal-black liner. She was beautiful. Almost as beautiful as Mama.

  “I hear you’re quite a talented girl,” Vivienne said.

  “No, ma’am,” Rose answered. “You’re thinking of my sister, Sylvie. I don’t have any talents.”

  “We’ve all got talents, dear,” the woman said, smiling. “Some are more hidden than others. The trick, you see, is finding them.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rose said.

  Daddy seemed flustered. He whispered something to Vivienne, then took her arm and guided her down the steps.

  “Nice meeting you,” Rose called after her.

  “I’m sure we’ll see each other again,” Vivienne said. “Maybe then you can tell me what talents you’ve discovered.”

  Rose went inside, calling for her mother. But her mother wasn’t home. There was a note on the table saying she’d gone to the market and would be back soon. “Help yourself to a slice of pie,” it said.

  “I met your friend,” Rose said when Mama came through the door half an hour later, balancing two paper sacks of groceries from the A&P.

  “Who?”

  “Vivienne. When I came home, she was just leaving with Daddy.”

  “Ah,” Mama said, eyes narrowing. “Vivienne.” Then she turned and starting putting the groceries away, shutting the cupboard doors a little too hard.

  “Sylvie?” Rose called out in the darkness. “Are you awake?”

  Her sister did not answer. The radio was still on, but the station had gone off the air, leaving nothing but static, humming like an insect in the middle of the room.

  Rose crept past it to Sylvie’s bed, planning to shake her sister awake.

  “Wake up,” she said. “I remember! I remember where I know the lady from.”

  But her sister’s bed was empty; Rose’s hands grasped only the covers, still warm.

  “Sylvie?” she called again, though it was clear she was alone in the room.

  Rose padded out of the bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom. She pushed gently on the door, but when it swung open, she saw the bathroom was empty, the sink and toilet so bright white they almost glowed. Toothbrushes stood like little soldiers at attention in their holder. The sink faucet was dripping, each drop of water hitting the white porcelain bowl with an impossibly loud splash. Rose backed out of the bathroom and went down the stairs and into the kitchen, to see if maybe Sylvie was getting a drink of water or milk. She eased her way down the carpeted steps, her hand on the smooth wooden rail.

  When she got to the kitchen, there was still no sign of Sylvie.

  Rose stood on the cold tile; moonlight streamed through the curtained windows, making the white squares on the linoleum floor glow. Her cold bare feet looked like dark paws against the white floor. The dinner dishes were neatly stacked in the wir
e drainer, and Mama’s rubber gloves hung limply over the faucet. Behind the lemony scent of Mama’s cleaning products, she caught the spicy, tangy scent of the chili they’d had for supper. “Chili con carne,” Mama called it, which made it sound fancy, like something you’d order in a French restaurant, but really it was just ground chuck with canned tomatoes and beans.

  Rose went to peer out the window that looked out on the driveway and the glowing Tower Motel sign. Vacancy, it promised. And there, down near the tower, a figure moved in the shadows, its blond hair gleaming in the moonlight as a white nightgown fluttered around its feet.

  Sylvie.

  And she was heading into the tower.

  Rose hurried outside and carefully made her way across the driveway. The cold, damp gravel stabbed her bare feet, and the night air chilled her skin, giving her goose bumps beneath her flannel nightgown. She looked back at the house, checking the windows to see if a light had appeared in her parents’ bedroom. But no one stirred. She could smell wood smoke, apples, rotting leaves—all the wonderful fall smells that she found so comforting during the day. At night, they smelled like something spoiled.

  Rose reached the tower, which loomed like a giant in the moonlight. She was shivering now, her teeth chattering, and she could see her breath. She knew she should run back up to the house, crawl under her warm blankets, and forget the whole thing. But first she needed to see what on earth her sister was up to.

  Maybe Sylvie was sleepwalking. She’d seen that in a movie once. You weren’t supposed to wake up someone who was sleepwalking. Rose remembered hearing that somewhere. But how were you supposed to get them back to bed?

  “Sylvie?” she called out as quietly as she could, peering through the doorway of the tower. It reminded her of a gaping mouth.

  She listened. Silence.

  “Sylvie?” she tried again. “What are you doing?” The inside of the tower was blacker than black. Anything could be inside. Anything at all. Teeth. A tongue. Ready to swallow her up. Crunch her bones. Turn her to vapor.