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highbacked and the odd Indian-print skirt, and a dresser. A solid wall of bookcases was half full of books ranging from popular bestsellers through mysteries and fantasies to turn-of-the-century Irish authors and fairytale collections, the other half crammed with the friends of her childhood— a ragged-eared stuffed bear, a doll whose eyes didn't close anymore no matter how often you tipped her, and a thin-limbed patched rabbit— as well as an array of knick-knacks and curios.
    It was there that she arrived after work, breathless from taking the stairs two at a time. She divested herself of her coat, exchanged her shoes for a pair of moccasins; then, rolling up and lighting a cigarette, she dug about in her knapsack for her latest treasures. Smoke wreathed about her head as she waltzed about the room, holding up the painting to see where she'd put it.
    She had a print of Bateman's "Bull Moose" hanging in her bedroom, across from a copy of Gainsborough's "Market Cart." The remaining wall was covered with a haphazard collage of photographs of Julie, Blue, Jamie and sundry houseguests and friends. The walls of the workroom were plastered with posters for folk festivals, craft fairs and various pop groups. In the sitting room was a copy of Waterhouse's "Lady of Shallot," an untitled watercolor by Blue of a fox peering through a hedge, Durer's "Hare"— tom from an old art book and stuck in a frame that she'd commandeered from the shop— a picture of Jamie and herself when she was fourteen and all tangle-haired and awkward, and a photo of her cat Tuck when he was still a kitten.
    She finally decided to hang the painting over the night table in her bedroom. With that decision out of the way, she went looking for Jamie, wondering as she did who she'd run into. You could meet almost anyone in Tamson House.
    At various times there'd been a swarm of poets in the left-wing study; a conjurer in the garden trying to charm roses from a lilac bush— much to Fred's dismay; a professor of folklore from the University poring through her uncle's library, making small excited sounds under his breath as he came across some out of print volume that the University library didn't even have a reference to; a stripper and a ballet dancer who, having moved all the furniture out of one of the second-floor sitting rooms, were comparing moves; a Bible student who'd mistaken "Tamson" for "Samson" and wandered around for a few days looking for relics.
    One evening a whole troupe of carnies descended on the House, bailing everyone with their conversation, a studied mixture of L.A. aphorisms and metaphors from the circus, all delivered completely deadpan. It wasn't until weeks later that Sara discovered they'd all been higher than kites having, earlier in the day, partaken of some silvery tablets formulated by a Swedish scientist and left behind in his makeshift laboratory in one of the pantries before he'd moved on. The carnies' room had tenaciously held onto the distinctive smell of greasepaint for weeks until Sara found the broken jars of theater makeup behind the sofa and cleaned them up.
    Tamson House, she'd decided, was like Fear & Loathing in Ottawa. Hunter S. Thompson would have been very much at home. In fact, if all they said about him was true, she was surprised that she hadn't already run into him in one room or another.
    Without her rooms as a refuge, she would have gone quietly mad a long time ago. But there weren't always houseguests— at least not always the stranger ones— and most stayed only briefly. Weeks at a time might go by with only the regulars to be found in their usual haunts. Only a very few had stayed so long that, for all intents and purposes, they lived there.
    These few ended up taking some duty or another. Fred was the gardener. Blue, an ex-biker, had become Security Chief. He was living in the Firecat's Room these days with an artist from Ohio who specialized in Japanese brushwork. Completing the present roster was Sam