storage space: built-in wardrobes, chests of drawers, cupboards, and some
glittery boxes, similar to one I had used to store my dress-up costumes as a
young girl. Running through the center of the room was a gray laminate-
covered table, with a bench on each side. Along the table were lighted
mirrors and the little screens. I touched one, but the screen remained black.
While the bedroom had been clean, the dressing room was distinctly
untidy: there were clothes strewn across the floor, and makeup stains along
the table, with the lingering scent of feminine products still hanging in the
air. Jacintha and I looked through the drawers and storage spaces and found
mostly clothes, the majority of them cheap and worn: swimsuits that had
been stretched to the point of translucency, stained dresses, and tired-
looking T-shirts. There were a couple of nice pieces, possibly designer—a
few dresses, a skirt, and a jacket. They were stiff and creaseless, and I
thought that they likely had never been worn.
Down the hallway was the bathroom, tiled and pristine. There were two
toilets, a urinal running along the length of the wall, a shower, and a bath,
large and inviting, shaped like an oversized canoe. There was a sleek gold
bar on which towels hung, matching gold knobs on the cabinet doors, and a
similar gold bar over the mirror by the sink. The taps were a fine brass
color, with an impressive number of soaps lined along a shelf, and an
artfully arranged stack of toilet paper. On the wall beside the bath was a
painting, large and abstract. It was the only piece of art I had ever seen in
the house. I knew that the place had changed drastically over the years, but
the same piece of art stayed, unmoved. The bedroom and dressing rooms
had been nice enough, but they were designed for practicality. The
bathroom was pure luxury: perfect, except that it had no door.
Jacintha and I went downstairs. There were a number of empty rooms,
perhaps four or five. There were some empty boxes left in them, and I
thought that the rooms must have been used for storage. There were two
more bathrooms, and though they were nice enough, they were clearly the
lesser bathrooms.
We came to the living room and paused uneasily in the doorway. While
the dressing room had been messy, this room had been trashed. There was
