Spadina streetcar, pancake pale.

Caucasian woman, late 20s with long brown hair, pink and green stripes down each side, wearing long, worn leather black coat and chunky black boots, face pale with powder, eyes lined in thick liquid.

The Glass Castle, Jeanette Walls (Scribner)

Page 32:

One night a few days later, I suddenly woke up. The air was hot and stifling. I smelled smoke and then saw flames leaping at the open window. At first I couldn't tell if the fire was inside or outside, but then I saw that one of the curtains, only a few feet from my bed, was ablaze.

It's not hard to imagine the drop from her second floor window. She's played it out, confident that she could kick out the screen, sit on the ledge, and shimmy herself around to face the wall. Dangling by her fingers, her body stretched to its limits, the drop would be minimized to only a few feet. The worst she'd suffer is a sprained ankle, if that. That's why she told her baby girl to stay at her grandmother's for the night, why she bought an extra pack of Marlboros just in case he finished his pack and there wasn't anything left to leave lit on the sofa cushion after he'd fallen asleep and she'd gone up to bed.