SYLVIA
An early bloomer, Sylvia became, as a teen-ager, Fairvale's proverbial Blonde Bombshell. Too hot for high school, Sylvia traversed the town's highways and byways to test her mettle, find her bliss, and determine the exchange value of her favors. Once word hit the street that she was on the market she became the object of a hot pursuit that was rife with fierce competition: more than one late-night brawl could be traced to the effects of her glamour.In that in the places Sylvia went to find herself no one saw her as a high school student, she soon forgot to see herself as one as well. Moving too far too fast, Sylvia found herself out of her depth. Certain interested parties that operated on the edges of the polite society that Sylvia was skirting became aware of her activities and formed a view that she was a force without direction; a rich, unexploited vein of raw-material; and, furthermore, that it was time she was put to work.
When confronted with the reality of these forces, of which, hitherto, she had been entirely ignorant, her first instinct was to flee, to leave town and not look back. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized how little she knew; and that of life outside of Fairvale how she knew even less. Among the men of Fairvale upon whom she had tested her powers was Abe, who owned and ran the soda fountain/snack counter where, on any given afternoon, a group of students from her high school could be found hanging out. While she herself had never had any interest in Abe, she could not help but notice the effect her presence had upon him, and could not resist the occasional flirtatious gesture. For reasons she herself to this day does not fully understand, Sylvia turned to Abe in her hour of need. Managing to linger one day at closing time, she broke down sobbing as she confessed her dilemma. Abe, whose mother had just died, was at that time a seething cauldron of unresolved and conflicting emotions. The addition of Sylvia's outpouring of emotion to his already volatile mix caused him to boil over; Abe was overwhelmed by emotion. He too broke down in uncontrollable sobbing. Together they stared at the abyss. Although few words were spoken at that point, much passed between them. Sylvia returned early the next day. Abe asked her if she would like to work the soda-fountain after school. Sylvia agreed.
Having discovered that where the road she had started down was taking her was someplace she most definitely did not want to be, Sylvia knew that she had to change course. She knew too that there was no going back; that an illusion filled perspective on her future life, while still available to the majority of her peers, was no longer an option for her. What was necessary was a middle path; a compromise with life. This she found in her emerging relationship with Abe. The attentions of an older, accomplished man who was not without respect in the community provided her with an outside affirmation of her worth at the same time that it supplied her with a shield against those forces the interest of which her prior activities had engaged and which she now wished to deflect and discourage.
Sylvia's transition to the middle path was not a cut and dried process, but more of a step by step ordeal; indeed, an argument could be made that the transition was never fully completed, despite Sylvia's eventual marriage to Abe and the birth of their son, Isaac. There remained a part of Sylvia that could not be subsumed into the roles of wife, mother and shopkeeper; that rebelled, demanding complete and unmitigated freedom. By and large Sylvia managed successfully to keep this aspect of her being hidden from herself as well as from those around her, but at those junctures when this facet of Sylvia's personality emerged she found herself seized by an impluse; first, simply to flee, then, failing that to commit some transgression that would precipitate her expulsion from her place in society, thereby effectively cutting her loose. These moments became filled with a tumultuous inner conflict that invariably left a bitter aftertaste, yet, up to the present time, she has always managed to put the genie back in the bottle and continue on as before.