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for now she could only pretend, and be careful. The
gringos
were strict and never wanted her to be alone in their homes. She must leave the hacienda without being seen, and make her way back down the canyon to her little house behind the mission, and when she came back tomorrow, she must give no hint that she had been here at all tonight.
    She glanced once more around the gloom of the bedroom that should have been hers, then slipped away, down the back stairs, the stairs that her ancestors never would have used, and out into the night. Then, as the
gringo
revelry went on—a desecration!—she kept watch, her ancient anger burning inside her.…
    “Jeez,” Bob whispered. “Last time I saw this, it looked like the place had burned. Now look at it.”
    The living room, across the entry hall from the dining room, was sixty feet long, and was dominated by an immense fireplace on the far wall.
    The oak floor gleamed a polished brown that was nearly black, but the white walls picked up the light from sconces that had been wired into them at regular intervals to fill the room with an even brightness that made it seem even larger than it was. Twenty feet above, huge peeled logs supported a cathedral ceiling.
    “This is incredible,” Lisa breathed.
    “This is just the beginning,” Carolyn replied. “Justwander around anywhere, and make sure you don’t miss the basement. That’s Daddy’s part of the house, and Mom just hates it.” Then she was gone, disappearing into the mass of teenagers who were dancing to the rhythms of a reggae album.
    It took them nearly an hour to go through the house, and even then they weren’t sure they’d seen it all. Upstairs there was a maze of rooms, and they’d counted seven bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, in addition to a library and a couple of small sitting rooms. All of it looked as if it had been built and furnished nearly two hundred years ago, then somehow frozen in time.
    “Can you imagine living here?” Lisa asked as they finally started down toward the basement.
    “It’s not like a house at all,” Alex replied. “It feels more like a museum. Hey,” he added, suddenly stopping halfway down the stairs. “I don’t remember this place ever having a basement.”
    “It didn’t,” Kate told him. “Carolyn says her dad wanted his own space, but her mom wouldn’t let him have any of the old rooms. So he dug out a basement. Do you believe it?”
    “Holy shit,” Bob Carey muttered. “Didn’t he think the house was big enough already?”
    At the bottom of the stairs they found a laundry room to the left, and beyond that a big empty space that looked as though it was intended for storage.
    Under the living room, occupying nearly the same amount of space as the room above, they found Mr. Evans’s private space. For a long time they stared at it in silence.
    “Well, I think it’s tacky,” Lisa said when she’d taken it all in.
    Bob Carey shrugged. “And I think you’re just jealous. I bet you wouldn’t think it was tacky if it was your house.”
    Kate Lewis raked Bob with what she hoped was a scathing glare. “My mother always says the Evanseshave more money than taste, and she’s right. I mean, just look at it, Bob. It’s gross!”
    It was a media room. The far wall was nearly covered by an immense screen, which could be used either for movies or projection television. Along one wall was a complex of electronic components that none of them could completely identify. They were, however, apparently the source of the rock music, and they could barely hear Carolyn demanding that it be turned down for fear the neighbors would call the police. Nobody, however, was paying any attention to her, and much of the party seemed to have gravitated downstairs.
    What had elicited Lisa Cochran’s criticism, though, was not the electronics, but the bar opposite them. Not a typical home bar, with three stools and a rack for glasses, the Evanses’ bar ran the entire length of