Objects of My Affection Read Free

squalor. It would turn into a circus.”
    I pause to consider what he’s said. “That would be bad.”
    â€œExactly. I’ve got a business and a reputation to think about. In this crap economy, I don’t need that kind of negative publicity working against me.”
    Ah, your reputation. “I see. Got it.”
    â€œAll right. Let’s do this.” Will pushes open the door and we step inside.
    I’m braced for what I might see, but what hits me before anything else is the smell. Although that’s probably because it’s so dark that relying on my sense of sight is pointless. The smell isn’t horrible. We’re not talking rotting corpses or anything. It smells … dense. As if I need to breathe in deeper to get enough air. I wonder how long it’s been since anyone’s drawn the drapes and thrown open the windows.
    As my eyes adjust to the light, or the lack thereof, I see what I’m about to be up against. I swallow from the shock of it. How does the woman move around in here? We’re standing in what I assume is the living room, but I’m basing this only on the room’s proximity to the main entrance, not on any furniture I can identify. It’s probably there somewhere—a couch and love seat, maybe a coffee table—beneath mountainous piles of bags and books and vases and papers and knickknacks and framed art and sculptures and boxes and who knows what else. It’s impossible to take it all in, much less categorize.
    â€œOkay,” I say, trying not to sound as shocked as I feel. “This is … um … not that … um … okay.”
    Will merely replies, “This is the living room. Through that way is the kitchen and dining area. Let me show you the upstairs first.”
    There are stairs? Right in front of me, as it turns out, and I couldn’t see them. We pick our way along a twisty path. I wonder if Marva left this path or if it’s been previously cleared with a machete by her son.
    â€œBedroom … bedroom … bath …” He rattles off the names of the rooms, barely giving me enough time to peek into each one. Doesn’t matter. Every room is much the same. I can’t see the beds in the bedrooms. Or a toilet or bathtub in the bathroom. It’s as if I’m walking through a storage facility—everything is mishmashed together with no sense of order or purpose, other than to cram it in to the rafters.
    I stall to get a better look at the last of the rooms. Like the others,it’s a floor-to-ceiling jumble of boxes and trash bags, mixed in with loose objects of every size and type. There are silk pillows, religious artifacts, what appears to be a sculpture constructed of bicycle parts, a disco ball, lamps, baskets, suitcases, a guitar, frames, a ceramic duck with a giant crack in it, and stacks upon stacks of loose paper—enough to fill a dozen filing cabinets if they were filed, which of course they aren’t. I get the impression that Marva started out with proper intentions. I see plastic bins with lids and labels—as if at one point she decided to organize. Then I imagine how she needed to find something—could be anything, a photo, a pair of scissors. She did a bit of rifling, things got shifted, boxes were opened … moved … toppled … and next thing you know, it looked as if people had ransacked the place. Only instead of stealing, they brought in even more stuff.
    â€œSo there are four bedrooms and a bath and a half up here,” Will says. “There are another two bedrooms downstairs that are much larger. One is where my mother sleeps, and the other she uses as an office.”
    I nod, trying not to let my slipping confidence show. The more I see, the more I worry about working for Marva Meier Rios. My only real experience as a professional organizer was writing the book—and that was advice for managing ordinary clutter, such as messy closets