Aphrodite Rising

Chapter #19 - Lauren - Down Memory Lane

I was completely drawn in by Sylvia's story, even moreso now that she had begun to tell me about my favorite part, the romantic part, that I lost all awareness of time. We spent the afternoon poring through her scrapbooks and photographs, things that brought so much more of a sense of reality to the characters in her story. To me, until that day, they seemed like exactly that, an elaborate cast of characters in an unwritten novel; people whom I had little idea of what they looked like, their features entirely dependent on how Sylvia described them and how my imagination interpreted it.

I now had concrete evidence that these were real people and not some fabrication, people who were significant enough to be in the story of Sylvia Jameson. To be honest, the only person that I knew in all of the photographs, other than Sylvia herself, was James Hampton. He was as handsome in the pictures as he had been in his films, perhaps even a bit more because these showed his real personality. In them, I could see how my grandmother had become so enamored with the both of them, and I could see a resemblance to the old photos I had seen of my grandfather.

The first album Sylvia pulled out to show me was from her childhood and sparsely put together. I could tell that she had taken time in her life to write down memories in the loose pages. There was a single photo of her as an infant, all bright-eyes and round-cheeked sitting in a crib, hugging a ragged doll. She told me she thought she was about nine months old in that photograph. In another, one with her mother and father in it, they were all young and happy, holding hands and standing in a field. It was evident in this one that she took after her mother in looks, the same delicate features, same build, except she'd inherited her father's curls. Sylvia's eyes filled with tears as we looked at that photo, her finger gently grazing the glossy surface over their faces.

The rest of the album was filled with photos taken later in life by her aunt, Melinda. There was one in a cottage garden, hiding amongst giant sunflowers, then posing in a wooden rocking chair in the corner of a room while pretending to read a book with a mischievous smile. It was rounded out by a family portrait. "This is me," Sylvia said as she pointed to the gap-toothed, grinning, gangly child in the middle. "And then Aunt Melinda and Uncle Henry." Melinda was held in the crook of Henry's arm, her head rested on his shoulder, her free hand cradling her pregnant belly, her smile glowing. She was nearly identical in feature to Sylvia's mother, except her hair was much darker, her stature slimmer and more petite. Henry was in uniform, a handsome man, though the shadow of his hat nearly covered half his face. He had a prominent jawline, deep-set eyes and a wide smile that revealed everything a person would want to know about him. It revealed him to be a genuine man, good-natured, truthful, caring. The three of them stood on a platform with ships in the background. "This was the last time we saw Uncle Henry," Sylvia explained. "He'd had a fellow sailor take it right before they left for duty." She stared at the picture, as though contemplating saying something else, like she had forgotten a detail. Finally, she sniffled, "I feel bad because Georgie never got to meet her father."

The other albums were centered on Sylvia's career, their contents consisting mostly of portfolio photos, playbills, cast snapshots and press photos for plays she'd been in, as well as newspaper clippings and reviews. I skimmed through these, having seen a majority of it already, either in my grandmother's own scrapbook or from my own research in the library.

Sylvia had a story for everything, which she told animatedly. Here was one photograph where she wore her favorite dress and it brought her good luck, another in which she had hated the photographer because he'd gotten her angles all wrong, and yet another where she related that she'd had a bit too much to drink and that's why she appeared glassy-eyed.

"Sylvia," I asked as I finished perusing the last of the albums she'd handed me, "Do you have any photos of Georgie, Angela or Gerard?"

She smiled and got up from her seat, leaving the room and disappearing around the corner, silently, leaving me to wonder if I had asked something I shouldn't have. Soon enough, though, she returned carrying an enormous, leather-bound album. The pages had gold gilt edging that was old enough that it was beginning to flake off as it was handled. "I was saving this one for last," she said quietly as she set it down on my lap. "This is the rest of my story."