My grandparents purchased a big old apartment building in Union City when I was a kid. The building had previously housed performers and actresses working for an eminent, French film studio across the street, but the movie lot was long gone, and the apartment structure was unused. After my grandparents transformed it into a three-floored family home, they inhabited the first floor, presented my parents the second floor, and rented out the third. This ingenious plan satisfied everyone – extra income for my grandparents and privacy for my parents with quick access to grandma whenever the occasion.
The couple on the third floor was unusually quiet. Extremely quiet. Maybe it’s because I overheard my parents talking or maybe it’s because I overstuffed my head with too many drama novels, but I soon acquired the notion that the wife of the man renting the third floor was a hermit. My parents never saw her, and when it was time to pay the rent, it was the man who traveled to the ground floor to converse with my grandparents. We all considered the unsocial lady a bit peculiar, but school activities and work quickly drove her out of my mind – at least for awhile.
At the new house, bedtime was nine p.m. sharp. Since my bedroom, which dad had recently painted light pink, was opposite the staircase, I could see the stairway clearly when lying tucked up in my bed for the night. So when a blonde female in a fancy, golden dress moved gracefully past my room and toward the third floor staircase one warm night, I blinked for a moment in shock. Subsequently, I realized it must be the reclusive wife of my upstairs neighbor, and I relaxed. She looks like a model, I thought as I drifted off to sleep, and that pretty dress was to die for.
After that, I saw the blonde lady, walking past my door to the staircase, more and more often. Most of the time, she donned the golden dress although sometimes she sported a purple or white or pink outfit with lovely lace or embroidery – I loved all of her clothes. One summer night, she roamed right into my room, offered me a sweet and somewhat nostalgic smile, and went into the closet. That astonished me because I began to wander if there was a secret staircase in my closet, leading to the third floor. As the first rays of the sun pierced the horizon the following morning, I tried but failed to locate the stairway. Since my walk-in closet was fairly large and I had errands to run, I didn’t question my qualms, and hurried downstairs for breakfast.
Over the years, I saw the pretty woman, who would usually take the main staircase, amble into my closet a few more times. Each time when she enters my room, she would first offer me a coy smile before drifting into the closet. It was a pleasant salutation and I would almost always, or so I thought, groggily return a grin and a drooping, two-fingered wave. Eventually, after the third floor couple moved out, my grandparents sold the apartment building to my aunt. My grandparents and my parents decided to move to a grand house in the suburbs. A month afterwards, my aunt stormed into our house, distressed. I casually sat in the kitchen, eating chocolate chip cookies and listening quietly, hoping neither my grandparents nor my parents would notice me and send me away while they discussed “grown-up” matters.
“I cannot believe you, of all people, would sell me a haunted building!” My aunt ranted.
“What do you mean that it is haunted?” My grandpa inquired while scratching his grey beard. Then my aunt explained, in detail, regarding the ghostly lady who meandered up the staircases almost every night, and who sometimes entered the closet of my old room.
I gaped at her in wonder. Didn’t the couple on the third floor leave the building long before she moved in? So the blonde woman was a ghost? I felt that it was time to speak up and informed my parents and grandparents concerning my own ghostly sightings.
“Of course, I never felt threatened or frightened in any way when I saw the ghostly woman. My memories of her are all pleasant ones,” I added.
Through old photographs of female stars of film studios, my family identified the ghost as Sydney White, and further research revealed that my closet had been the dressing room for her. Although I was dismayed that there was no secret stairway, this clarified why the ghost sometimes walked into the closet.
To this day, I still don’t know why the ghost of Sydney White saunters the corridor of her old home. Perhaps it is to remind herself of a blissful phase in her life or perhaps it is to revisit and guard her theater. All I know for sure is that her mesmeric smile would always haunt my mind and her beautiful dresses would always leave me awestruck.
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