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The vermillion curtains that hung over the east window had always caught and kept her eye.  They were hardly anything tasteful - faux velvet with a gaudy gold trim - but they were good for hiding behind on days when it was too rainy to play outside, and their rich color reminded her of the cherries she was so fond of eating.  They were soft as well; she could bury her face in the folds and breathe in a musty old smell that she found comforting.  It was a grown up smell, and the curtains to her symbolized the unattainable maturity, that notion of adulthood that seemed so far away.

The curtains were the only outstanding feature of the room.  In the corner stood a lamp with a tasteful white lampshade which doled out just the right amount of light and ambiance to be appropriate for company, but not enough to be able to see all the detail in her picture books when she curled up in the nearby armchair.  The walls themselves were a sensible cream color, vacant of any decoration save a photo of her grandmother as a young girl, quiet and imposing even when hung in black and white - and of course the vermillion curtains, with their wild, unattractive trim.  Certainly there were prettier rooms in the house.  The kitchen was a vast arena of matronly fitness, tupperware that stacked into fortresses, and spots of light that traveled across the floor as time passed on.  Her room was a child’s paradise, replete with piles of plush toys soft enough to sink in, and a lamp that threw shadows of various planets and stars on the blue walls.  Every so often a glow in the dark star dotted her ceiling, a brilliant moonscape in fluorescent green, and a plaque on the door bore her name in rounded letters.

But the red, red curtains were her favorite.  In spring they cast a scarlet shadow on the floor, and turned her delicate palm a blood-red which belied her innocent nature.  In winter they absorbed light, light to warmth, and she would wrap them over her shoulders and sit indian-style in her cocoon of warm cherry red, and would read her favorite fairy tales aloud to a room empty of an audience.  When the summer heat came with its humid airless mornings, a good, vigorous shaking of the curtains would push air towards her, and she could briefly bask in her cool little current before repeating the process all over again.  Fall brought the changing of the leaves from green to red to orange to brown to gone, and it always pleased her that, try as they might, the leaves could never rival the ridiculous hues of her curtain or match its vibrancy.  The curtain was a curtain for all seasons, and she loved it with a blind, hapless adoration normally reserved for a precious pet or a favorite cousin (neither of which she had.)  And while the curtains could never formally return her affections, their mere presence was a sign of enduring mutual tenderness, love everlasting like a storybook fairy tale.

Her mother curled her lip at them however.  “Hideous,” Mother would comment; and then she would rest her hands on the rich fabric and clench her first, tempted to pull the curtains violently from their vigil over the east-facing window.  But she would resign herself to spreading her palms flat and instead smoothing out its folds, sighing in that disappointed, sympathetic fashion only mothers could manage, and would leave the room.

The little girl would invite friends over to marvel at the curtains as well, but they, for reasons unfathomable, did not seem moved by it.  “It smells weird.” one girl commented, wrinkling her nose.  She had gone home with a bloody lip, and after that day didn’t come over to play with the curtains or the little girl anymore.