Pale leaves
Patricia compares the girls she meets on the streets to pale leaves. Patricia says, "And the girls we passed on the street or who met us at the door, or who only moved across my inner eye by then in their white ao dais, were like pale leaves stirring in the humid stillness, a sunstruck indication of some unseen breeze; cool, weightless, beautiful." The simile is significant because it expresses Patricia's feelings as a newly wedded wife. The experience is different because she becomes jealous and thinks every woman looking at her smartly dressed husband has ill motives.
Scorn
When men look at Patricia suspiciously, she compares her embarrassment to scorn. Patricia says, “I saw how the men among them averted their eyes as if I’d just begun to publicly menstruate, while a trio of wives rushed forward with a solicitude that my embarrassment felt to me like scorn.” The simile shows Patricia’s lack of confidence about her body and dress code. Whenever men look at her, she suspects that something is wrong with her body, which is not the case.
A pair of rolled-back eyes
Patricia likens her two white dresses to a pair of rolled-out black eyes. Patricia says, “At the armpits, the two white dress shields were like a pair of rolled-back eyes, wildly oblivious.” Patricia thinks her dresses are ruined after the baby throws up on them and she is suspicious that she smells bad. She removes the clothes quickly and changes before her husband returns.
