Perfect Girl - Weebly

Aunt Marty steps back and watches our neighbors ooh
and aah over her efforts. I sit slumped on the white couch like
a sullen kid.
Mrs. Maynard sighs and says, “Remember your sweet
sixteen party in this room, Martha? Well, of course you
wouldn’t remember.”
“I remember,” Aunt Marty says.
“That pink dress! My, you were beautiful.”
Aunt Marty in a pink dress? In our Odessa living room?
No way can I picture that. Obviously, Aunt Marty is having
trouble picturing it, too, because she gets a faraway look on
her face and says, “That was a lifetime ago.”
The group follows my aunt to the back of the house. I
get up—not grunting, but moaning impatiently a little—
and tag along. Once we enter the sunporch, my jaw drops
just as it had when I first came through the front door.
“Goodness,” Mr. Sheeak says.
“Finally,” adds Mrs. Latanza.
The walls are painted a soft red. “Persimmon,” offers
Aunt Marty. “Apparently, colors that start with a P are my
prevailing passion,” she adds, giggling.
“It’s so pretty!” Mrs. Fannerife says, one hand on each
cheek.
The old Astroturf carpet in the sunporch is gone. The
wood floor is painted in a white-and-apple-green checkerboard,
the peeling windowpanes have all been scraped,
repaired, and repainted. Again, I’m stunned that this
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