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relationship to base her ability on, Sandra assumed the problem was her lack of experience. Occasionally, she wondered if there was something more, another reason for Carol’s rejection. She once suggested to Carol that maybe their problems in the bedroom stemmed from something other than just her lack of experience. After all, Carol’s refusal to allow Sandra to touch her was strange. The mere mention their problems might also include Carol sent her into a rage.
    “What could you possibly know about making love?” Carol demanded. For all your money, Sandra Tate, you’re still no more refined than common trailer trash.”
    The jab cut deep, as Carol knew it would. No matter how much money she made, the number of accolades she received, or how many magazine articles praised her talents, deep down, Sandra Tate was still the little girl who lived in a trailer court.
    The little girl who raced home from school to clean the trailer

    and have dinner on the table for her father when he came home.
    He was the only family she knew, and she’d loved him dearly.
    She grew up believing it was her responsibility to care for him since her mother abandoned them when Sandra was four. In her heart, Sandra knew she was the reason her mother left. She must have been, because everything had been fine between her parents before she was born.
    Sandra’s father worked odd jobs, and was constantly hooking up the tiny trailer they called home to relocate to a new city in search of better paying work.
    Sandra learned to appreciate the frequent moves. They kept her from having to deal with making friends and explaining why her mother never came to school with cookies and treats on party days.Their final move to Dallas occurred when Sandra was a senior in high school. This move would eventually turn her life around.
    With little spare money for the frivolities enjoyed by other kids, Sandra devised ways to amuse herself. One of her ongoing pastimes was planning the dream home she and her dad would have someday. As she grew older, she accepted the reality that the house would never exist, but continued to dream and sketch. By the time they settled in Dallas, she possessed a battered boot box full of adaptations and additions to the plans.
    Fate took a hand in Sandra’s life when she enrolled in a home-making course. The instructor, Ms. Angelo, a short, olive-skinned woman who Sandra fell in love with, believed in pushing her students to go beyond the normal cooking and sewing requirements the class normally required. Her major project for the term was to challenge her students to create the house they would someday like to live in. They were to plan and decorate the design. It could be drawn or constructed from the materials on hand. The project was due before Christmas break.
    Excited by the project, Sandra allowed herself free rein, knowing this would be as close as she would ever come to building her dream home. She also wanted to show Ms. Angelo she could

    meet her challenge.
    Having lived in what was basically a travel trailer, Sandra’s ideas were free of conventional architectural constraints. She constructed a wide, two-story home with a porch spanning the width of the front. Inside, she designed rooms with open seating areas. Many of the rooms displayed unique and slightly hidden alcoves. Each alcove contained a window, which filled the area with sunlight and allowed an unobstructed view of one of the many scenic landscapes she patiently created from twigs and construction paper. She used clever closets to provide an abundance of storage space; something there was never enough of in the small trailer.
    Sandra spent two weeks working on the spacious kitchen. She craved sunlight and color, so in addition to the hot house window above the kitchen sink, which she filled with miniature plants, she used thin glassslides to represent a bay window beside the breakfast nook. A row of small, colorful, plastic squares replicated stained glass and