Sleeping City Girl

Once upon a time in a medium sized apartment on Beacon Hill in Boston, there lived a young man and his wife. The man spent his days working in a health care office in Chinatown surrounded by co-workers whom he liked very much with the exception of his boss, an evil, terrible woman who was definitely on the odd side. His wife was a nurse at Boston’s Beth Israel Hospital and, although she was very young, she had a very responsible position running the Intensive Care Unit and she enjoyed the respect of her fellow nurses.

The couple was, for the most part, very happy with their lives. There was just one thing missing, a child. After exhausting their medical options, they decided to adopt. Nearly a year after they contacted the Adoptions With Care corporation, a woman named Amy Mohan called them saying that a young woman had decided to put her baby girl up for adoption and that she would be going home with them in a few weeks. The couple was so happy that they went straight to the wallpaper store where they bought enough pink wallpaper with small white hearts on it to cover the walls of their spare room. By the time the little girl, who they named Kendra Mae, was ready to go home with them, they had completed the little girl’s room. The room, which still smelled of wallpaper paste was beautiful. The walls were covered with the pink wallpaper, the new hardwood floor was interrupted only by a soft heart shaped white rug and they even got a rocking chair that matched the deep mahogany crib and changing table. In the cabinets were extra blankets and a life time supply of diapers that had the wife’s favorite Disney characters on them.

They decided to throw a huge christening party for Kendra. All of the man’s and his wife’s family and co-workers were invited except for the man’s boss whom they deemed too odd and mean-spirited to expose their precious new daughter to. Everyone ooo’d and aaa’d at the baby girl with her bald head and emerald eyes. She was showered with gifts on the day of her party, in fact, she received so many stuffed animals, that she would be able to make her very own zoo and have some animals left over for a very nice tea party. However, the evil boss showed up with a gift for the child. This was no ordinary gift; it was a magical gift, finally proving to everyone that she was very odd. The boss cursed Kendra stating that upon her graduation from high school, she would take a sip of champagne that would throw her into a deep sleep of death for the rest of eternity. The man and his wife were so upset by this that they tried to catch the woman but she disappeared into thin air. They spent the next eighteen years telling Kendra that champagne was a nasty horrible drink that she should never try and preaching against under-age drinking.

The month before her graduation, Kendra tried to convince her parents that they should have a party for her but they were adamant that she would not have a party on the day of her graduation. Finally they bent and said she could have a party the night before as long as she promised not to drink any alcohol. Kendra was thrilled. She invited her whole family, all of her friends and many of her parent’s friends and, to her delight, everyone attended.

When she made her entrance from her room, everyone oohed and aahed at the beauty she had become. Her long brown hair was straight and nearly reached her thin dancer’s waist and her emerald eyes, surrounded by long dark lashes, shown out from underneath a few stray pieces of hair that had fallen in her face. She wore a green dress with a brown ribbon and matching heeled shoes that she and her mother had picked out the week before.

When the party was in full swing, Kendra went to the kitchen to bring out more carrots for the veggie platter and ran into an odd looking woman whom she did not recognize. Because the woman introduced her self as a former co-worker of her fathers who had attended her christening party, she smiled at her and thanked her for coming to the party. As she was leaving the room, the woman stopped her and asked if she wanted a sip of her champagne. Kendra smiled and shook her head saying her parents had forbidden it but the woman just laughed and said she wouldn’t tell. After taking a reluctant sip, she suddenly felt very tired and soon found herself climbing into her bed for a short nap. However, this was no short nap for the mysterious guest was the evil boss and the drink was the poisonous champagne. Once Kendra had closed her eyes, the whole city of Boston froze in the middle of what they were doing unable to awaken until she did.

Five years later, a young Prince impersonator named Alan came expecting to perform a show but found that there would be no audience because the whole city seemed frozen in time. He wandered the streets of Boston until he came to the famous Beacon Hill. As he walked the street he decided to enter one of the apartments. Once inside, Alan moved through the people who were all dressed very nicely and seemed to have been in the middle of a party. The cake on the table said “Congrats Grad” and next to it was an array of fruits, vegetables and dip. He searched for carrots because they were his favorite type of veggie, but found the carrots were all gone.

Alan walked to the back of the apartment and found the door to one of the rooms open. When he walked in he saw faded pink wallpaper with tiny white hearts on it, an old scuffed wooden floor with a white heart shaped rug covered in stains and in the corner sat an old mahogany rocking chair. But he barely noticed these details for there, in between the white sheets, slept the most beautiful girl he had ever seen . Her long brown hair was spread over her shoulders and her face was relaxed with sleep. She was so magnificent that Alan felt the need to serenade her sleeping form with the song “In Love” by prince. When he finished the song, he bent over and kissed her soft lips with tears in his eyes because he knew this sleeping beauty could never be his while she slept. A tear rolled off of his cheek and landed on hers and to his amazement, her long lashes lifted to reveal large green eyes. When she looked into his handsome face, Kendra fell instantly in love. In the background they heard the music and noise of the party resume as if it had never stopped. Holding hands, they left the bedroom and re-joined the party.

The young couple traveled to college together and after graduation, they were married and lived happily ever after in a small house in the suburbs of Boston.