Wallpapers For Girls Quotes

Megan placed the eye loupe over the toile. Hoping to decipher the texture and composition she moved the loupe ever so meticulously. “This is so detailed.” A blue green eyeball suddenly stared back at her and blinked. Megan gasped.

Lyly placed her fingers over Patrick’s mouth. “Hush,” she whispered. “It was because of me and my family that you suffered-” Patrick’s arms closed around her. He placed his warm lips over hers. Her mind whirled and her heart pounded.

Each time a person’s essence was captured, the copper pot glowed. Not once did the happy couples notice the pot as Joroku’s golden nails carved the intricate design. Just like when he cut the silhouette for Lyly and her friend, Patrick. They were too much in love to feel their souls bleed.

Lyly screamed and ran to Tyler. “I can’t let you go until I tell you.” “Tell me what?” Tyler asked. “You’re the coolest boy I ever met. I will never forget you. I dreamt of a boy with two different colored brown eyes, and that boy showed me the way home. It was written in the stars, Tyler,” Lyly said. “I will remember you forever.

The rolled toile slowly climbed up the bathroom wall. Tearing the chewed gum into pieces, the little green arms and hands secured the toile to the wall. Soon, the two-foot by five-foot, green and yellow, Tuscany toile was displayed for view. Now, the toile just had to wait for the boy to wake and step a little closer.

She was incomparable in her inspired loveliness. Her arms amazed one, as one can be astonished by a lofty way of thinking. Her shadow on the wallpaper of the hotel room seemed the silhouette of her uncorruption.

When I was a little girl,' I said, sitting down, 'the wallpaper in my room had pictures of Noah's story.' [...] You know what's weird though? It's weird that the ark would be such a kids' story, you know? I mean, it's...really a story about death. Every person who isn't in Noah's family? They die. Every animal, apart from two of each on the boat? They die. They all die in the flood. Billions of creatures. It's the worst tragedy ever,' I finished, my voice tied off by a knot in my chest.[...] 'What the hell,'I said, 'pardon my language, was that doing on my wallpaper?

After hearing the boy scream, the cats formed their pyramid in front of the glass door. Belle turned the handle while Harry and the others pushed the door open. They scrambled in and searched the room and small bathroom and shower. Bombarded with the boy’s scent, the cats continued to search. He had to be somewhere. A knock on the door startled the animals. Belle ran to the door and sniffed. “Food,” she whispered. “Must be for the boy.” “We must find that boy,” Harry said. “If the human enters, they will find us. Quickly, everyone, show time!” One-by-one, the cats crawled under the bed sheet and maneuvered between the opened books. “Just as in The Catman’s act,” Curry said, trying not to snicker. “Hush!” Belle scolded. Two moved upward, two downward, two to the right, and three to the left. Belle and Harry crouched in the middle. Allie crawled to the pillow and poked out her back and head. With her ears lowered, only her straggling black hair could be seen.

When the tornado dwindled, a bolt of lightning streamed from Master Joroku’s sleeve. It wrapped around Patrick as if a noose. A flash and Patrick was yanked from Lyly’s arms. Patrick faded into the darkness then reappeared as a black mist. No wait … a cat! A black cat with glowing copper eyes. Joroku swiped his hand along the floor and Lyly’s feet jerked out from under her. She hovered delicately for only a moment over the paper. As Joroku moved his hands, Lyly spun as freely as a spinning wheel. Several times she twirled. As if with no friction, Lyly spun faster and faster. Joroku pounded his hand into the air and Lyly was sucked into the cloth paper. Lyly was gone.

POCKET-SIZED FEMINISM The only other girl at the party is ranting about feminism. The audience: a sea of rape jokes and snapbacks and styrofoam cups and me. They gawk at her mouth like it is a drain clogged with too many opinions. I shoot her an empathetic glance and say nothing. This house is for wallpaper women. What good is wallpaper that speaks? I want to stand up, but if I do, whose coffee table silence will these boys rest their feet on? I want to stand up, but if I do, what if someone takes my spot? I want to stand up, but if I do, what if everyone notices I’ve been sitting this whole time? I am guilty of keeping my feminism in my pocket until it is convenient not to, like at poetry slams or my women’s studies class. There are days I want people to like me more than I want to change the world. There are days I forget we had to invent nail polish to change color in drugged drinks and apps to virtually walk us home at night and mace disguised as lipstick. Once, I told a boy I was powerful and he told me to mind my own business. Once, a boy accused me of practicing misandry. You think you can take over the world? And I said No, I just want to see it. I just need to know it is there for someone. Once, my dad informed me sexism is dead and reminded me to always carry pepper spray in the same breath. We accept this state of constant fear as just another part of being a girl. We text each other when we get home safe and it does not occur to us that our guy friends do not have to do the same. You could saw a woman in half and it would be called a magic trick. That’s why you invited us here, isn’t it? Because there is no show without a beautiful assistant? We are surrounded by boys who hang up our naked posters and fantasize about choking us and watch movies we get murdered in. We are the daughters of men who warned us about the news and the missing girls on the milk carton and the sharp edge of the world. They begged us to be careful. To be safe. Then told our brothers to go out and play.

Tyler knelt and rummaged through the empty waste basket.  He frowned. No glasses and no gum. “Wait a minute…” He walked up to the hanging toile and stared at it. What’s going on this looks like Aunt Meg’s wallpaper… Tyler stepped closer. He rubbed his hand over the paper and nothing happened. As he tried to pull the paper from the wall, two smaller greenish hands grabbed Tyler’s leg and pulled.

He had dreamt about a dark-haired foreign boy. This boy held the key to the undoing of their demise. He had carried his curse for too long. Time was short, the alignment was coming. The vivid dream had spoken to him about Florence. As the sun overshadowed the top of the open-air coliseum, the light briefly hit his three golden symbols. He would need to cover them before he was spotted. Glancing around, he found what he needed. He rolled through the mud until he was coated. On the outside, he was Celestial KittyCat — a black, scrappy, alley cat with a golden brand on his side. A brand of a sun, a star, and a moon all in alignment. On the inside, he was still Patrick, and his heart still yearned for CallaLyly. He scowled as he thought about the curse that was planted by a mystic from the Far East over two and a half centuries ago.

KENNA ROWAN’S PLAYLIST 1) “Raise Your Glass”—P!nk 2) “Dynamite”—BTS 3) “Happy”—Pharrell Williams 4) “Particle Man”—They Might Be Giants 5) “I’m Good”—The Mowgli’s 6) “Yellow Submarine”—The Beatles 7) “I’m Too Sexy”—Right Said Fred 8) “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”—Justin Timberlake 9) “Thunder”—Imagine Dragons 10) “Run the World (Girls)”—Beyoncé 11) “U Can’t Touch This”—MC Hammer 12) “Forgot About Dre”—Dr. Dre featuring Eminem 13) “Vacation”—Dirty Heads 14) “The Load Out”—Jackson Browne 15) “Stay”—Jackson Browne 16) “The King of Bedside Manor”—Barenaked Ladies 17) “Empire State of Mind”—JAY-Z 18) “Party in the U.S.A.”—Miley Cyrus 19) “Fucking Best Song Everrr”—Wallpaper. 20) “Shake It Off”—Taylor Swift 21) “Bang!”—AJR

How else could we identify another weirdo or outlier? These symbols intimated a belief system, a way of thinking not just about music but about school and friends and politics and society. It was also a way to separate yourself, to feel bold or try on boldness without yet possessing it. A little inkling of the nonconformist person you could be—you wanted to be—but weren’t quite ready to commit to. I papered my walls with band posters and what little I could find in mainstream magazines about alternative and punk, maybe a picture of Babes in Toyland from Spin or Fugazi from Option. The iconoclast images and iconography covered my room, a jarring contrast to the preppy blue-and-white-striped wallpaper I’d insisted on in elementary school. I resented the parts of myself that were late to adopt coolness, late to learn—I wanted to have always possessed a savviness and sophistication, even though I clearly had neither.

I say is someone in there?’ The voice is the young post-New formalist from Pittsburgh who affects Continental and wears an ascot that won’t stay tight, with that hesitant knocking of when you know perfectly well someone’s in there, the bathroom door composed of thirty-six that’s three times a lengthwise twelve recessed two-bevelled squares in a warped rectangle of steam-softened wood, not quite white, the bottom outside corner right here raw wood and mangled from hitting the cabinets’ bottom drawer’s wicked metal knob, through the door and offset ‘Red’ and glowering actors and calendar and very crowded scene and pubic spirals of pale blue smoke from the elephant-colored rubble of ash and little blackened chunks in the foil funnel’s cone, the smoke’s baby-blanket blue that’s sent her sliding down along the wall past knotted washcloth, towel rack, blood-flower wallpaper and intricately grimed electrical outlet, the light sharp bitter tint of a heated sky’s blue that’s left her uprightly fetal with chin on knees in yet another North American bathroom, deveiled, too pretty for words, maybe the Prettiest Girl Of All Time (Prettiest G.O.A.T.), knees to chest, slew-footed by the radiant chill of the claw-footed tub’s porcelain, Molly’s had somebody lacquer the tub in blue, lacquer, she’s holding the bottle, recalling vividly its slogan for the past generation was The Choice of a Nude Generation, when she was of back-pocket height and prettier by far than any of the peach-colored titans they’d gazed up at, his hand in her lap her hand in the box and rooting down past candy for the Prize, more fun way too much fun inside her veil on the counter above her, the stuff in the funnel exhausted though it’s still smoking thinly, its graph reaching its highest spiked prick, peak, the arrow’s best descent, so good she can’t stand it and reaches out for the cold tub’s rim’s cold edge to pull herself up as the white- party-noise reaches, for her, the sort of stereophonic precipice of volume to teeter on just before the speaker’s blow, people barely twitching and conversations strettoing against a ghastly old pre-Carter thing saying ‘We’ve Only Just Begun,’ Joelle’s limbs have been removed to a distance where their acknowledgement of her commands seems like magic, both clogs simply gone, nowhere in sight, and socks oddly wet, pulls her face up to face the unclean medicine-cabinet mirror, twin roses of flame still hanging in the glass’s corner, hair of the flame she’s eaten now trailing like the legs of wasps through the air of the glass she uses to locate the de-faced veil and what’s inside it, loading up the cone again, the ashes from the last load make the world's best filter: this is a fact. Breathes in and out like a savvy diver… –and is knelt vomiting over the lip of the cool blue tub, gouges on the tub’s lip revealing sandy white gritty stuff below the lacquer and porcelain, vomiting muddy juice and blue smoke and dots of mercuric red into the claw-footed trough, and can hear again and seems to see, against the fire of her closed lids’ blood, bladed vessels aloft in the night to monitor flow, searchlit helicopters, fat fingers of blue light from one sky, searching.

I'm not a child, Grandpa Vance. Wallpaper doesn't change on its own." Instead of arguing, he asked, "What did it change to?" As if he didn't know. "Butterflies. Crazy butterflies!" "Just think of that room as a universal truth," Grandpa Vance said. "How we see the world changes all the time. It all depends on our mood.

The first thing she noticed when the light popped on was that the wallpaper had rows and rows of tiny lilacs on it, like scratch-and-sniff paper, and the room actually smelled a little like lilacs. There was a four-poster bed against the wall, the torn, gauzy remnants of what had once been a canopy now hanging off the posts like maypoles.

You asked what the wallpaper was in Mom's old room. It's lilacs." "Ah. It was always flowers, usually roses, when she was a little girl. It changed a lot as she got older. I remember once it was lightning bolts on a tar-black background. And then another time it was this scaly blue color, like a dragon's belly. She hated that one, but couldn't seem to change it.

The light from the moon shone along the door casing and spread across the walls a few inches inside, far enough for her to suddenly notice that the phases-of-the-moon wallpaper she'd been living with all week was gone. It was a now curious dark color she couldn't quite make out, punctuated by long strips of yellow. It looked almost like dark doors and windows opening, letting in light. The wallpaper was usually some reflection of her mood or situation, but what did this mean? Some new door was opening? Something was being set free?

The butterfly wallpaper was now gone. It had been replaced by a moody, breathless wallpaper of silver, sprinkled with tiny white dots that looked like stars. It made her feel an odd sense of anticipation, like last night. Grandpa Vance couldn't have come in last night and done this. Did it really change on its own? It was beautiful, this wallpaper. It made the room look like living in a cloud. She put her hand against the wall by her dresser. It was soft, like velvet. How could her mother not have told her a room like this existed? She'd never mentioned it. Not even in a bedtime story.

I'm the one who's different." "A princess, you mean?" She pinched his arm lightly as the carriage turned onto rue Dauphine. "Not a princess." Belle's refusal to take the title marriage to Lio would have afforded her was a touchy subject between them. He mercifully let it go. "But certainly not the girl you were then." She turned her attention to the wallpapered panel of the carriage, tracing the embossed flowers with the tip of her finger, unwilling to let him see her smile falter once more. She didn't know how to explain that she would always be that girl, that no titles or fine clothing would change her. In her bones, she was a poor, provincial peasant who had risen far above her station.

Women are pretty much people, seems to me. I know they dress like fools—but who’s to blame for that? We invent all those idiotic hats of theirs, and design their crazy fashions, and, what’s more, if a woman is courageous enough to wear common-sense clothes—and shoes—which of us wants to dance with her? Yes, we blame them for grafting on us, but are we willing to let our wives work? We are not. It hurts our pride, that’s all. We are always criticizing them for making mercenary marriages, but what do we call a girl who marries a chump with no money? Just a poor fool, that’s all. And they know it. As for Mother Eve—I wasn’t there and can’t deny the story, but I will say this. If she brought evil into the world, we men have had the lion’s share of keeping it going ever since—how about that?

I still have no choice but to bring out Minerva instead.” “But Minerva doesn’t care about men,” young Charlotte said helpfully. “She prefers dirt and rocks.” “It’s called geology,” Minerva said. “It’s a science.” “It’s certain spinsterhood, is what it is! Unnatural girl. Do sit straight in your chair, at least.” Mrs. Highwood sighed and fanned harder. To Susanna, she said, “I despair of her, truly. This is why Diana must get well, you see. Can you imagine Minerva in Society?” Susanna bit back a smile, all too easily imagining the scene. It would probably resemble her own debut. Like Minerva, she had been absorbed in unladylike pursuits, and the object of her female relations’ oft-voiced despair. At balls, she’d been that freckled Amazon in the corner, who would have been all too happy to blend into the wallpaper, if only her hair color would have allowed it. As for the gentlemen she’d met…not a one of them had managed to sweep her off her feet. To be fair, none of them had tried very hard. She shrugged off the awkward memories. That time was behind her now. Mrs. Highwood’s gaze fell on a book at the corner of the table. “I am gratified to see you keep Mrs. Worthington close at hand.” “Oh yes,” Susanna replied, reaching for the blue, leatherbound tome. “You’ll find copies of Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom scattered everywhere throughout the village. We find it a very useful book.” “Hear that, Minerva? You would do well to learn it by heart.” When Minerva rolled her eyes, Mrs. Highwood said, “Charlotte, open it now. Read aloud the beginning of Chapter Twelve.” Charlotte reached for the book and opened it, then cleared her throat and read aloud in a dramatic voice. “’Chapter Twelve. The perils of excessive education. A young lady’s intellect should be in all ways like her undergarments. Present, pristine, and imperceptible to the casual observer.’” Mrs. Highwood harrumphed. “Yes. Just so. Hear and believe it, Minerva. Hear and believe every word. As Miss Finch says, you will find that book very useful.” Susanna took a leisurely sip of tea, swallowing with it a bitter lump of indignation. She wasn’t an angry or resentful person, as a matter of course. But once provoked, her passions required formidable effort to conceal. That book provoked her, no end. Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom for Young Ladies was the bane of sensible girls the world over, crammed with insipid, damaging advice on every page. Susanna could have gleefully crushed its pages to powder with a mortar and pestle, labeled the vial with a skull and crossbones, and placed it on the highest shelf in her stillroom, right beside the dried foxglove leaves and deadly nightshade berries. Instead, she’d made it her mission to remove as many copies as possible from circulation. A sort of quarantine. Former residents of the Queen’s Ruby sent the books from all corners of England. One couldn’t enter a room in Spindle Cove without finding a copy or three of Mrs. Worthington’s Wisdom. And just as Susanna had told Mrs. Highwood, they found the book very useful indeed. It was the perfect size for propping a window open. It also made an excellent doorstop or paperweight. Susanna used her personal copies for pressing herbs. Or occasionally, for target practice. She motioned to Charlotte. “May I?” Taking the volume from the girl’s grip, she raised the book high. Then, with a brisk thwack, she used it to crush a bothersome gnat. With a calm smile, she placed the book on a side table. “Very useful indeed.

That we never allowed," answered Somel quietly. "Allowed?" I queried. "Allowed a mother to rear her own children?" "Certainly not," said Somel, "unless she was fit for that supreme task." This was rather a blow to my previous convictions. "But I thought motherhood was for each of you--" "Motherhood--yes, that is, maternity, to bear a child. But education is our highest art, only allowed to our highest artists." "Education?" I was puzzled again. "I don't mean education. I mean by motherhood not only child-bearing, but the care of babies." "The care of babies involves education, and is entrusted only to the most fit," she repeated. "Then you separate mother and child!" I cried in cold horror, something of Terry's feeling creeping over me, that there must be something wrong among these many virtues. "Not usually," she patiently explained. "You see, almost every woman values her maternity above everything else. Each girl holds it close and dear, an exquisite joy, a crowning honor, the most intimate, most personal, most precious thing. That is, the child-rearing has come to be with us a culture so profoundly studied, practiced with such subtlety and skill, that the more we love our children the less we are willing to trust that process to unskilled hands--even our own." "But a mother's love--" I ventured. She studied my face, trying to work out a means of clear explanation. "You told us about your dentists," she said, at length, "those quaintly specialized persons who spend their lives filling little holes in other persons' teeth--even in children's teeth sometimes." "Yes?" I said, not getting her drift. "Does mother-love urge mothers--with you--to fill their own children's teeth? Or to wish to?" "Why no--of course not," I protested. "But that is a highly specialized craft. Surely the care of babies is open to any woman --any mother!" "We do not think so," she gently replied. "Those of us who are the most highly competent fulfill that office; and a majority of our girls eagerly try for it--I assure you we have the very best." "But the poor mother--bereaved of her baby--" "Oh no!" she earnestly assured me. "Not in the least bereaved. It is her baby still--it is with her--she has not lost it. But she is not the only one to care for it. There are others whom she knows to be wiser. She knows it because she has studied as they did, practiced as they did, and honors their real superiority. For the child's sake, she is glad to have for it this highest care.

Moscow can be a cold, hard place in winter. But the big old house on Tverskoy Boulevard had always seemed immune to these particular facts, the way that it had seemed immune to many things throughout the years. When breadlines filled the streets during the reign of the czars, the big house had caviar. When the rest of Russia stood shaking in the Siberian winds, that house had fires and gaslight in every room. And when the Second World War was over and places like Leningrad and Berlin were nothing but rubble and crumbling walls, the residents of the big house on Tverskoy Boulevard only had to take up a hammer and drive a single nail—to hang a painting on the landing at the top of the stairs—to mark the end of a long war. The canvas was small, perhaps only eight by ten inches. The brushstrokes were light but meticulous. And the subject, the countryside near Provence, was once a favorite of an artist named Cézanne. No one in the house spoke of how the painting had come to be there. Not a single member of the staff ever asked the man of the house, a high-ranking Soviet official, to talk about the canvas or the war or whatever services he may have performed in battle or beyond to earn such a lavish prize. The house on Tverskoy Boulevard was not one for stories, everybody knew. And besides, the war was over. The Nazis had lost. And to the victors went the spoils. Or, as the case may be, the paintings. Eventually, the wallpaper faded, and soon few people actually remembered the man who had brought the painting home from the newly liberated East Germany. None of the neighbors dared to whisper the letters K-G-B. Of the old Socialists and new socialites who flooded through the open doors for parties, not one ever dared to mention the Russian mob. And still the painting stayed hanging, the music kept playing, and the party itself seemed to last—echoing out onto the street, fading into the frigid air of the night. The party on the first Friday of February was a fund-raiser—though for what cause or foundation, no one really knew. It didn’t matter. The same people were invited. The same chef was preparing the same food. The men stood smoking the same cigars and drinking the same vodka. And, of course, the same painting still hung at the top of the stairs, looking down on the partygoers below. But one of the partygoers was not, actually, the same. When she gave the man at the door a name from the list, her Russian bore a slight accent. When she handed her coat to a maid, no one seemed to notice that it was far too light for someone who had spent too long in Moscow’s winter. She was too short; her black hair framed a face that was in every way too young. The women watched her pass, eyeing the competition. The men hardly noticed her at all as she nibbled and sipped and waited until the hour grew late and the people became tipsy. When that time finally came, not one soul watched as the girl with the soft pale skin climbed the stairs and slipped the small painting from the nail that held it. She walked to the window. And jumped. And neither the house on Tverskoy Boulevard nor any of its occupants ever saw the girl or the painting again.

I’ll write you a note a day,” Peter says suddenly, with gusto. “That’ll drive her ass crazy.” I write down, Peter will write Lara Jean one note every day. Peter leans in. “Write down that you have to go to some parties with me. And write down no rom coms.” “Who said anything about rom coms? Not every girl wants to watch rom coms.” “I can just tell that you’re the kind of girl who does.” I’m annoyed that he has this perception of me, and even more annoyed that he’s right. I write, NO DUMB ACTION MOVIES. “Then what does that leave us with?” Peter demands. “Superhero movies, horror movies, period films, documentaries, foreign films--” Peter makes a face, grabs the pen and paper from me, and writes down, NO FOREIGN FILMS. He also writes, Lara Jean will make Peter’s picture her phone wallpaper. “And vice versa!” I say. I point my phone at him. “Smile.” Peter smiles, and ugh, it’s annoying how handsome he is. Then he reaches for his phone and I stop him. “Not right now. My hair looks sweaty and gross.” “Good point,” he says, and I want to punch him. “Can you also write down that under no circumstances can either of us tell anyone the truth?” I ask him. “The first rule of Fight Club,” Peter says knowingly. “I’ve never seen that movie.” “Of course you haven’t,” he says, and I make a face at him. Also: mental note, watch Fight Club.

Instead, she curled up into ball and stared at the pink wallpaper where a potrait of her as a child stared back at her.That girl was smiling and happy.She had a family. Now she had none.

It seemed the whole district of them was out, playing, flouncing, and at first glance they appeared mainly to resemble chandeliers with added lusciousness such as golden brocade and embossed wallpaper. By the time I did go out, all the streets were overrun with them: beribboned, besilked, bevelveted, behighheeled, bescratchy-petticoated and in pairs or else alone but pretending to be in pairs, waltzing and periodically crashing over. Meanwhile, the little boys, oblivious of the little girls, temporarily too, suspending operations against that army from "over there" - owing, probably, to the current absence of that army from "over there" - were taking turns at being good guy in their new play of the latest martyr killed recently in the political problems: Renouncer Hero Milkman, shadowed, set upon, then gunned down in their usual cowardly fashion by that murder squad spawned by a terrorist state.

Cecily.” His gaze wandered from her unbound hair to her disheveled gown, to her fingers still laced with Luke’s. “I . . . I was just about to go searching for you.” “There you are!” Portia called from behind him. “Come in, come in.” She lay swaddled in blankets on the divan, with her bandaged leg propped on a nearby ottoman. Brooke sat beside her, balancing a teacup in either hand. Cecily turned to Denny. “I’m sorry to have worried you, but . . .” She squeezed Luke’s hand for courage. “You see, Luke and I—” “I understand,” he replied. The serious expression on his face told her he did understand, completely. To his credit, he took it well. He turned to Luke. “When will you be married?” “Married?” Portia exclaimed. Cecily sighed. Just like Denny, to take his responsibilities as her third cousin twice removed— and only male relation in the vicinity— so seriously. But did he have to force the issue now? Certainly, she hoped that she and Luke might one day— “As soon as possible.” Luke’s arm slid around her waist. Cecily’s gaze snapped up to his. Are you certain? she asked him silently. He answered her with a quick kiss. “Well, then. When can we be married?” Brooke directed his question to Portia. “Married!” Blushing furiously, Portia made a dismissive gesture with both hands. “Why, I’m only just learning to enjoy being a widow. I don’t want to be married. I want to write scandalous novels and take dozens of lovers.” Brooke raised an eyebrow. “Can that be negotiated to lover, singular?” “That,” she said, giving him a coy smile, “would depend on your skill at negotiation.” “What an evening you’ve had, Portia,” Cecily said. “A brush with death, a proposal of marriage, an indecent proposition . . . Surely you have sufficient inspiration for your gothic novel?” “Too much inspiration!” Portia wailed, gesturing toward her bandaged foot. “I am done with gothics completely. No, I shall take a cue from my insipid wallpaper and write a bawdy little tale about a wanton dairymaid and her many lovers.” “Lover, singular.” Brooke flopped on the divan and settled her feet in his lap. “Oh,” she sighed, as he massaged her uninjured foot. “Oh, very well.” Luke tugged on Cecily’s hand, drawing her toward the doorway. “Let’s make our escape.” As they left, she heard Denny say in his usual jocular tone, “Do me a favor, Portia? Model your hero after me. Just once, I should like to get the girl.

And then. Astonishing. Again. As she was skipping up the back stairs on her way to the attic bedroom to fetch something, something innocent - a book, a handkerchief, afterwards she would never remember what - she was almost sent flying by Howie on his way down. 'I was looking for a bathroom,' he said. 'Well, we only have one,' Ursula said, 'and it's not up these-' but before the sentence was finished she found herself pinned awkwardly against the neglected floral wallpaper of the backstairs, a pattern that had been up since the house was built. 'Pretty girl,' he said. His breath smelt of mint. And then again she was again subjected to pushing and shoving from the outsized Howie. But this time it was not his tongue trying to jam its way into her mouth but something inexpressibly more intimate. She tried to say something but before a sound came out his hand clamped over her mouth, over half her face in fact, and he grinned and said 'Ssh,' as if they were conspirators in a game. With his other hand he was fiddling with her clothes and she squealed in protest. Then he was butting up against her, the way the bullocks in the Lower Field did against the gate. She tried to struggle but he was twice, three times her size even and she might as well have been a mouse in Hattie's jaws. She tried to see what he was doing but he was pressed so tightly against her that all she could see was his big square jaw and the slight brush of stubble, unnoticeable from a distance. Ursula had seen her brothers naked, knew what they had between their legs - wrinkled cockles, a little spout - and it seemed to have little to do with this painful piston-driven thing that was now ramming inside her like a weapon of war. Her own body breached. The arch that led to womanhood did not seem so triumphal any more, merely brutal and completely uncaring. And then Howie gave a great bellow, more ox than Oxford man, and was hitching himself back together and grinning at her. 'English girls,' he said, shaking his head and laughing. He wagged his finger at her, almost disapproving, as if she had engineered the disgusting thing that had just happened and said, 'You really are something!' He laughed again and bounded down the stairs, taking them three at a time, as though his descent had been barely interrupted by their strange tryst. Ursula was left to stare at the floral wallpaper. She had never noticed before that the flowers were wisteria, the same flower that grew on the arch over the back porch. This must be what in literature was referred to as 'deflowering', she thought. It had always sounded like a rather pretty word. When she came back downstairs a half-hour later, a half-hour of thoughts and emotions considerably more intense than was usual for a Saturday morning, Sylvie and Hugh were on the doorstep waving a dutiful goodbye to the disappearing rear end of Howie's car. 'Thank goodness they weren't staying,' Sylvie said. 'I don't think I could have been bothered with Maurice's bluster.' 'Imbeciles,' Hugh said cheerfully. 'All right?' he said, catching sight of Ursula in the hallway. 'Yes,' she said. Any other answer would have been too awful.

Each night my father counts backward from 100 like a shepherd climbing down meadow by meadow the Alps. Since his stroke he does this, he says, so his mind holds still, so it freezes, a suspect, hands on the wallpaper. That way it is there with his cane the next morning. When your mind runs away, well, it stashes parts of your real life forever, the names of lakes, the pretty faces of girls. When that happens, you count on nothing, a patch of sun on a green carpet, new snow on a roof framed by curtains. You call the woman “Nurse” and wonder why she cries. It is still a life, that chair between the cashews and windows. Then one day Bang! Doesn’t your mind come waltzing home, made up clown-style, sloshing memories like confetti in a pail? And don’t you take your life in your hands, counting out good times, counting out bad, marking time backward so it’s understood? Whatever you’re missing, he says, it’s what you don’t miss. Listen, he says, that sound in the old high ceilings of the house, not ice in the eaves, no man’s voice, no echo either... Only the wind, counting toward zero.

He glanced around, as if taking in the surroundings for the first time. "Is this your childhood room?" he asked. "There's a lot of black." "Well, I didn't paint it that way until I was fourteen and capable of making cryptic comments about how I wanted my room to match my soul. When this was truly my childhood bedroom, it was perfectly normal, thank you very much. I had a wallpaper border with roses on it and an American Girl doll on the dresser and everything." "Let me guess." He narrowed his eyes at me. "Samantha." "Not all brunette girls needed to own a Samantha doll," I said, affronted. "But yes, it was Samantha. She had a really cool tartan cape and a valise and she stood up against child labor, so don't think she was just some prissy rich girl.

She left her mother in the living room and headed for her childhood bedroom, with its canopy bed and pink ruffles. Most kids had posters in their rooms, but Mom hadn’t allowed tacks to be stuck into her expensive wallpaper, so Frankie had framed art on her walls. A row of old stuffed animals sat along the top of her bookshelf. A pink ballerina jewelry box on the bedside table held junior and high school trinkets, probably a stack of senior pictures and prom memorabilia. You knew what was expected of a girl who slept in a room like this.

At eighteen, Lady Joanna ben Luke had a talent for being invisible. The night of the Coronation Ball, she applied herself to the task and blended into the yellow and gold wallpaper like a chameleon. Invisibility, unfortunately, did nothing to ease her physical discomfort. She surmised the seventh ring of Hell was not much hotter than the Palace ballroom tonight.

At eighteen, Lady Joanna ben Luke had a talent for being invisible. The night of the Coronation Ball, she applied herself to the task and blended into the yellow and gold wallpaper like a chameleon. Invisibility, unfortunately, did nothing to ease her physical discomfort. She surmised the seventh ring of Hell was not much hotter than the Palace ballroom tonight. Her brown eyes widened with dread as she felt a slow rivulet of sweat run down the inside of her arm. A covert glance confirmed it, wet armpits. Great, just great. Even if they dried, which was unlikely in this heat, silk stained. She resigned herself to keeping her arms plastered to her sides for the rest of the night, which did nothing to improve her mood or ease the pain from the corset stays. Those medieval torture devices were supposed to make her appear trim. Instead, they dug painfully into her soft belly and forced her ample bosom so high she was afraid one of the straining gold buttons was going to launch and put someone’s eye out. She couldn’t even take a deep breath, trussed up and sweating like a pale chicken ten minutes into the roasting cycle.

1) “Raise Your Glass”—P!nk 2) “Dynamite”—BTS 3) “Happy”—Pharrell Williams 4) “Particle Man”—They Might Be Giants 5) “I’m Good”—The Mowgli’s 6) “Yellow Submarine”—The Beatles 7) “I’m Too Sexy”—Right Said Fred 8) “Can’t Stop the Feeling!”—Justin Timberlake 9) “Thunder”—Imagine Dragons 10) “Run the World (Girls)”—Beyoncé 11) “U Can’t Touch This”—MC Hammer 12) “Forgot About Dre”—Dr. Dre featuring Eminem 13) “Vacation”—Dirty Heads 14) “The Load Out”—Jackson Browne 15) “Stay”—Jackson Browne 16) “The King of Bedside Manor”—Barenaked Ladies 17) “Empire State of Mind”—JAY-Z 18) “Party in the U.S.A.”—Miley Cyrus 19) “Fucking Best Song Everrr”—Wallpaper. 20) “Shake It Off”—Taylor Swift 21) “Bang!”—AJR

She lives in the coolest house. It’s really big and super modern. They even have a spa bath in the bathroom as well as a jacuzzi out by the pool. We talked about spending time sunbathing in her backyard as soon as the weather was warm enough. The lounge chairs that were scattered around the sides of the pool were so inviting that I had to try them out. Then when I found that they reclined right back, I lied there picturing myself during the summer months, just relaxing by that beautiful sparkling pool. Sara is so lucky! She seems to have pretty much everything a girl could wish for. Her bedroom has the prettiest pink wallpaper with a gorgeous white flower print as a feature wall. And her furniture is all white. She has a huge comfy bed with matching bedside tables. I’ve never known a girl our age to have a queen sized bed though. Even my parents only have a double bed and Sara’s bed seems enormous in comparison. The two hot pink chrome lamps that sit on her bedside tables are the coolest design and I just love the fluffy pink rug that spreads across the middle of her floor. And she even has

You have layers over layers of a memory in a place. There is the deepest layer, with the ones you love the most, or have the most memories with. Years and years and years. Maybe, you think, I'll make new memories here with new people. Because you can't give up the place entirely-it's physically impossible, or emotionally. And there you are, and both you and the place are layered, like wallpaper on top of wallpaper for centuries, and you'd have to peel everything away, you'd have to be the bare boards, no memories, nothing left. To get rid of some things, you'd have to get rid of everything. So then you are. There you are. Living on. A house with ghosts.