It was in a storage area near the furnace, in a cardboard box among dozens of others. There were other reels with it, all in the same little yellow cases. Each one had the subject printed in pen on the spine —Trip to Organ Pipe Nat’l Park or Vegas, 1971. The one that had been waiting for her at the bank didn’t have any such labeling. There was a room away from the furnace that featured faux-walnut paneling, a ratty carpet, cheap furniture, and fluorescent lights. When Sheila was a child, this had been her playroom. Her parents had given her piles of toys, crayons, markers, paints, coloring books, stuffed animals, and so on and told her to make as much of a mess as she pleased —just leave the rest of the house in order. She remembered having friends down here who thought it was the coolest thing in the world to have a room where you could do anything you wanted. Sheila soon became the most popular kid in the neighborhood. As a teenager, she transformed it into a hangout, replacing the stuffed animals and coloring books with a stereo, black-and-white TV, yard-sale coffee table, and her parents’ old couch and love seat.
