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Show 3H3 about twelve,/in white blouse and blue shorts^ standing barefoot on the summer sidewalk in front of an apartment house, in her left hand the end of a jumprope. The girl had cropped brown hair which made her bony face seem bonier, seem older, so that the child's face somehow suggested the assault of age. She was standing with one foot turned in, vulnerably, her eyes downcast and looking slightly aside, as if away from something harsh and unbearable. She looked as if in the midst of play life had caught her. I was very moved by the painting while I was weak and feeling fragile ^ u jKaft.Sf.id. ^ , Arr*t4fy myself but ^ ^ ^ a i i w u i she didn't^like it, that it was too faddishly gloomy. "Look at her," she said. "Poor little bitch, she's just found out that life is a shit sandwich." "Isn't it?" "Ohhh," she said impatiently. "What do you expect, Eden? What if it is shitty, so what?" The painting had won a prize though and, after Amelia moved out, for KB company Rita said, she had hung the girl in her bedroom. After I foad moved out to the daybed and she back into her room, one afternoon I prowled in there, entering feeling something like an interloper but also looking around with pleasant anticipation. The bed had not been made, the covers pushed back and one of the pillows dented from her head. There was a clutter on the top of her bureau: a purse, a scattering of hairpins, a wooden box with a few pieces of costume jewelry, a lipstick, two.n*a*i!»b«o4 novels and three bottles n of perfume, one with an atomizer. The purse was empty except for hairpins, a stick of gum and folded tissues, one with lipstick on it. I sniffed each perfume: one was the scent I associated with her, the other two sat there unused. None were as distinctive as Amelia's Tabu. I leaned down to smell W H V w pillow and got very little odor, only the ghost of her smell. I started to pull out the top drawer on her bureau, stopped. What was I looking for? Just looking, just curious, but to open the/drawer felt too intrusive. |