"She pointed to the entrance of a Woolworth's shop."
"So we went into the Woolworth's, and immediately I felt much more cheerful. Even now, I like places like that: a large store with lots of aisles displaying bright plastic toys, greeting cards, loads of cosmetics, maybe even a photo booth. Today, if I'm in a town and find myself with some time to kill, I'll stroll into somewhere just like that, where you can hang around and enjoy yourself, not buying a thing, and the assistants don't mind at all."
This takes me back to some good times. I don't know if it's just a woman thing, but my friends and I love going to places like this. Before we could drive, my friend Mary would ride her bike to my house, and then we would walk to CVS and Kroger and just look around or get candy. Even now, I will call a friend and we'll go on a Target run just because. It seems to be good bonding time.
"I'd already turned into the aisle - one with fluffy animals and big boxed jigsaws - before I realised Ruth and Chrissie were standing together at the end of it, having some sort of tete-a-tete."
1) I was excited that I knew this meant face to face. French has proved itself useful to me.
2) I can now use the book for quoi de neuf this year. Score.
"It wasn't obvious, but the longer we kept looking, the more it seemed he had something."
I was really convinced that they weren't even going to see Ruth's possible. So even I got that giggly feeling when I was reading this part. It's really cool that they could have seen her actual model - kind of like an adopted child finding their biological parent. In the end, it wasn't her model, but the idea was just really enticing.
"Tommy's making jokes about some passers-by, and though they're not very funny, we're all laughing."
My friend Brooke and I wrote down almost all of our inside jokes in a notebook once (we call it the Quotebook ). We showed a friend a couple of them, and as we were crying from laughing, she looked at us like we had mental disabilities. This reminded me of that.
"But she just kept walking, a dozen or so steps ahead, than went in through a door - into "The Portway Studios." "
Every fall, my mom and I pick one Sunday to go to Nashville in Brown County when the trees change color. We always go to one store that is full of paintings. The atmosphere described in the book matched that of the store we visit so exactly; now I can't read the book without picturing that store as the setting for The Portway Studios.
"I remember thinking then how different they actually were, Chrissie and Rodney, from the three of us."
I felt like Kathy was trying to suggest something more with this quote, but I'm not sure what. Maybe it's what set them apart? I guess it could have been that they went to Hailsham, or that they were just getting used to living at the Cottages, or that they all just had better attitudes than the veterans. I'm not sure, but the quote just provoked thought for me.
"We're modelled from trash. Junkies, prostitutes, winos, tramps."
What is a wino? An alcoholic?
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