Sylvia

12/'05

As I walked up to Nancy and Jake’s house from my car I felt a particularly strong chill go up my spine. The cozy ranch house that Jake had bought right after the wedding looked somewhat ominous with the sun setting behind it. I looked into their bay window from the porch and saw a little girl, about five or six, waving to me from inside. I waved back, smiled, and rang the doorbell.
Seconds later Jake swung the door open.
“There she is!” he said with a smile. He had grown a goatee since the wedding and I almost didn’t recognize him with his several gray hairs. Had it really been that long since I’d seen them? “Thanks for coming, it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without you,” he said with a small chuckle.
“Oh, here, let me bring that into Nancy…” he said, taking the foil-covered dish of cornbread.
“Honey, who is it?”
“It’s Allison, sweetie” he called back, “Here, let me get your coat.”
I handed Jake my coat and was about to greet Nancy in the kitchen when I felt a tug on my skirt. I looked down and saw the little girl from the window staring back at me with eyes so wide they looked evil and innocent at the same time. Just then Nancy entered, greeted me and gave me a hug.
We laughed for a while at the awkward sight of each other. I laughed at the growing soccer-mom pouch that protruded beneath her apron and she probably laughed at the wrinkles under my eyes. There were no words about the (had it been seven?) Christmases without any cards or gifts, the calls that were never returned, or the drunken nights we had no doubt both spent with our real loved ones revealing one another’s embarrassing dorm room secrets from college. All of it was gone. Nancy had called me and invited me to Thanksgiving, and here I was.
“Oh, Allison, this is our daughter, Sylvia, I don’t believe you two have ever met.”
“Pleased to meet ya!” Sylvia said, extending her hand up to me.
“Well, aren’t you polite?” I said in the same voice one would use to address a dog. I had no experience with kids and had completely forgotten that Nancy and Jake had one. I shook her hand and pretended to be interested in her little
pig-tails and the mustard stains at the corners of her mouth.
“Do you wanna see my dolls? They’re in the basement,” Sylvia asked.
Before I could make something up about having to go to the bathroom or helping Mommy with dinner, Jake and Nancy had put the words “Suuuuure” and “Let’s go!” right into my mouth and were shoving me towards the basement.
Sylvia bounded ahead, yelling “hurray!” and jumping down the last the steps into the florescent basement.
Still at the top, holding onto the doorframe for dear life, I leaned back to Nancy, whose elbow was digging into my back and whispered, “Nancy! You know kids make me nervous…”
“Oh No! She’s really smart. Besides, she likes you! She’s never been this nice to anyone who comes over…I’ll finish up cooking and we’ll call down to you guys in a few…Have fun now!”
Again, before I could protest, I had been pushed on to the first step and was faced with a closed door.
“Come on, Come on!” Sylvia was yelling from the bottom of the steps. The hideous reflection of the lights brought even more of that evil look into her eyes. She waved a Barbie doll in the air. “Come on, Come on!”
I grasped both sides of the wall, sighed, and cautiously descended. I felt like the clicking of my own high heels on the wooden steps was like my death-march to the chair. I kept thinking I was crazy, “Why am I so petrified of kids?”
When I reached the bottom of the steps and turned left, I saw that Nancy and Jake spared no expense in turning the basement into a kids’ wet dream-wonderland. Evidently, little Sylvia didn’t just like dolls, but every possible toy imaginable. There were train tracks that wrapped around the entire room with a little automatic locomotive that she could actually sit in, a huge assortment of gigantic stuffed pandas in the corner, board games everywhere, G.I. Joes, coloring books, everything. All Sylvia wanted to show me were her dolls.
She had a giant chest open and was wildly throwing little plastic brunettes, redheads, and blondes over her shoulder. I did my best to dodge, but caught a Malibu Skipper right on the chin. “Aw, fuck!” I yelled, and quickly covered my mouth.
Sylvia paused, and with her back still turned said “Mommy says we’re not supposed to swear…”
“I’m sorry, Sylvia…It’s just…you hit me with one of your dolls and…”
She turned around quickly, her pig-tails slowly following, smiled and said, “It’s okay!” Then she spun right back around and continued digging. I gave her back a look of contempt and rubbed my still throbbing chin. I sat down on the bottom step.
“Here she is!” Sylvia exclaimed, holding up a tiny wooden doll. “Her name is Sylvia!”
Real original.  This kid was beginning to irk me, but being thankful that she wasn’t launching the wooden one at me, I politely asked “and who gave you Sylvia?”
“My Nana!” she said, stroking the doll’s red hair, “look! She has brown hair just like mine!”
“Actually, sweetie,” I said, pointing to the doll, “I think little Sylvia’s hair is red.”
Sylvia dropped her hands to her side and drilled her beady little evil eyes into the center of my forehead. There was a long pause in which I glanced around the room quickly to see if there was any quick means of escape. Maybe a screen door I could dart out of and get to my car in case Sylvia decided to pull any “Village of the Damned” shit on me. Sadly, my only means of escape were the stairs, and with my heels on I would be easy pickings for the girl. I imagined myself screaming in terror as blood spewed out of Sylvia’s mouth and her head spun around, darting up the
steps, tripping and being devoured by the little girls’ gnashing teeth.
“Do you want to hold her?” she asked, her innocent voice bringing me out of the nightmare.
As she held the doll out, I laughed at myself for being so horrified of such a sweet little girl, and said “Sure…”
The doll looked like it had been in the family for years. For one thing, it was a solid piece of wood that had been wittled into two arms, two legs, a torso and a head. There were two dots and a half circle painted on the head made to resemble a smiley face. Red yarn had been glued to the head and it wore a cotton poke-a-dotted dress.
“Wow…” I said, “She’s…really pretty!”
Sylvia giggled and said “Prettier than you!”
I bit my lower lip and did my best to dig my fingernails into little Sylvia’s painted eyes.
“Give her back!” Sylvia shouted, suddenly abandoning her laughter for fear. She grabbed the doll and clutched it to her chest, once again drilling into my forehead.
“I’m sorry, Sylvia…”
“You don’t get to play with Sylvia anymore!” She said, putting it back in the chest, shutting it quickly and sitting on the lid.
“Damn…” I thought.
“Well, if you don’t want to play with me I guess I’ll go help your Mommy with dinner…” I said, not meaning to pull the reverse-psychology thing at all, but really just wanting to get the hell out of there. I stood up and turned to go up the steps.
“Wait!” She said desperately, getting up quickly and reproducing the doll from the chest.
“Oh no, Sylvia, it’s okay…I think playtime is over for me anyway, I’d better-“
“I want to take a picture of you with her!” She said, extending the doll.
“Um…well, alright,” I said, foolishly expecting her not to have a camera. I was made the fool once again, though, as Sylvia darted over to the panda patch in the corner and pulled a tiny Polaroid camera from around the stuffed animals’ neck.
“Okay, smile!” She said.
I frowned as the bulb flashed. It was brighter than I expected and was quite stunning mixed with the fluorescent lighting. I stumbled backwards, lost my balance in my heels and dropped the doll beneath me, bringing my own ass crashing right down on top of it. I heard a snap and felt the splinters in my right butt cheek.
I screamed, stood up quickly and immediately began trying to pull the splinters out. As my eyes cleared from the flash, I looked down and saw little Sylvia’s broken neck, still hanging onto the body by a splinter or two, smiling up at me. Sylvia saw too, but didn’t scream like I expected.
“Oh my God, Sylvia, I am so sorry…” I said, pulling the last of the splinters out of my ass.
Her drilling-eyes were back again, and she quietly walked over to little Sylvia, picked her up and brought her back to the chest, her head dangling from her body. She then calmly walked back towards me and started going up the steps. On the third step she stopped, turned around, and with her pig-tails slowly following, delivered the harshest bitch-slap I have ever received directly to my left cheek. I doubled back and fell on my ass again. The cold concrete floor of that basement was becoming quite familiar to me by now. My face burned, and was probably scarlet red. I looked up in horror as Sylvia slowly turned and went up the steps and out the door.
I heard her upstairs talking to Nancy, “Mommy! Mommy! When’s dinner going to be ready? I’m huuuuunnngrrry!”