http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renato_Poggioli
Two sundays ago:
C "looked like a Givenchy model from the neck down."
(she spoke at her father's funeral, which was a while ago now; I have no recollection of her words, just my own fear and the shape of the coffin)
Both of them felt her ugliness and his elegance, but between them they said not a word.
Her mother saved all the newspaper clippings of her articles because she thought C would be famous and also saved one from The Beauty Queen of Linane because the actress had the same temperament as her mother-in-law.
The monday before:
The bees made fervent love to the flowers.
The woman at the party-shop rifled through a plastic bin of multi-colored balloons until she found enough that were pink and lime-green. After inflating each one, she wound their ends with string and handed them to me, until my arm itself lifted upward. She had a silver tooth; I was taller than her; another woman came in and I apologized (it was two dozen balloons) but neither of them felt any sense of urgency. Her jeans were tight around her waist and her shirt tight around her biceps [everything small firm and square]. The other woman [she was looking for oilcloth] had the calm flabbiness that comes from being the elder in the family, and the cook.