In the backroom of Mysteryscape!, I sip espresso and gaze around me.  Velvet curtains hang in the doorway and on the wall.  Red brocade shades adorn the brass lamps.  I sit in a leather chair and think, I could live in this room!

On the walls, pictures of Hollywood sirens have been hung.  Above me is Theda Bara, wistful and alluring.  I’ve sat beneath Ms. Bara many times.  She speaks to me.  She says, Live!  Love!  Laugh! and I look into her eyes and see only sorrow.  I wonder about the sound of her voice.  She never appeared in anything but silent films.  I see the appeal in that.  Only communicating with look and gesture — with the grand sweep of a hand, or the slight turn of a cheek.

Perhaps, after all, she whispers these words:  Hush now, you’ve said enough.  Rest.

Or maybe, like the staring angel in the Gillespie Cemetery where my mother’s people sleep, she says nothing at all.

Theda Bara was born Theodosia Burr Goodman, on July 29, 1885. She died on April 7, 1955, three months before I came into this world.