The realty woman looks from Brandy Alexander's big hand to Signore Alfa Romeo standing at Brandy's side, and the power blue eyes of Alfa attach themselves; those blue eyes you never see close or look away, inside those eyes is the baby or the bouquet of flowers, beautiful or vulnerable, that make a beautiful man someone safe to love.

Alfa's just the latest in a year-long road trip of men obsessed with Brandy, and any smart woman knows a beautiful man is her best fashion accessory. The same way you'd product model a new car or a toaster, Brandy's hand draws a sight line through the air from her smile and big boobs to Alfa. "May I introduce," Brandy says, "Signore Alfa Romeo, professional male consort to the Princess Brandy Alexander."

The same way, Brandy's hand swings from her batting eyelashes and rich hair in an invisible sight line to me.

All the realty woman is going to see is my veils, muslin and cut-work velvet, brown and red, tulle threaded with silver, layers of so much you'd think there's nobody inside. There's nothing about me to look at so most people don't. It's a look that says:

Thank you for not sharing.

"May I introduce," Brandy says, "Miss Kay Maclsaac, personal secretary to the Princess Brandy Alexander."

The realty woman in her blue suit with its brass Chanel buttons and the scarf tied around her neck to hide all her loose skin, she smiles at Alfa.

When nobody will look at you, you can stare a hole in them. Picking out all the little details you'd never stare long enough to get if she'd ever just return your gaze, this, this is your revenge. Through my veils, the realtor's glowing red and gold, blurred at her edges.

"Miss Maclsaac," Brandy says, her big hand still open toward me, "Miss Maclsaac is mute and cannot speak."

The realty woman with her lipstick on her teeth and her powder and concealer layered in the crepe under her eyes, her preta- porter teeth and machine-washable wig, she smiles at Brandy Alexander.

"And this ... ," Brandy's big ring-beaded hand curls up to touch Brandy's torpedo breasts.

"This ... ," Brandy's hand curls up to touch pearls at her throat.

"This ... ," the enormous hand lifts to touch the billowing piles of auburn hair.

"And this ... ," the hand touches thick moist lips.

"This," Brandy says, "is the Princess Brandy Alexander."

The realty woman drops to one knee in something between a curtsy and what you'd do before an altar. Genuflecting. "This is such an honor," she says. "I'm so sure this is the house for you. You just have to love this house."

Icicle bitch she can be, Brandy just nods and turns back toward the front hall where we came in.

"Her Highness and Miss Maclsaac," Alfa says, "they would like to tour the house by themselves, while you and I discuss the details."

Alfa's little hands flutter up to explain," ... the transfer of

funds ... the exchange of lira for Canadian dollars."

"Loonies," the realty woman says.

Brandy and me and Alfa are all flash frozen. Maybe this woman has seen through us. Maybe after the months we've been on the road and the dozens of big houses we've hit, maybe somebody has finally figured out our scam.

"Loonies," the woman says. Again, she genuflects. "We call our dollars 'Loonies'," she says and jabs a hand in her blue purse. "I'll show you. There's a picture of a bird on them," she says. "It's a loon."

Brandy and me, we turn icicle again and start walking away, back to the front hall. Back through the cliques of chair- sofa-chair, past the carved marble. Our reflections smear, dim, and squirm behind a lifetime of cigar smoke on the mahogany paneling. Back to the front hallway, I follow the Princess Brandy Alexander while Alfa's voice fills the realtor's blue- suited attention with questions about the angle of the morning sun into the dining room and whether the provincial government will allow a personal heliport behind the swimming pool.

Going toward the stairs is the exquisite back of Princess Brandy, a silver fox jacket draped over Brandy's shoulders and yards of a silk brocade scarf tied around her billowing pile of Brandy Alexander auburn hair. The queen supreme's voice and the shadow of L'Air du Temps are the invisible train behind everything that is the world of Brandy Alexander.

The billowing auburn hair piled up inside her brocade silk scarf reminds me of a bran muffin. A big cherry cupcake. This is some strawberry auburn mushroom cloud rising over a Pacific atoll.

Those princess feet are caught in two sort of gold lame leg-hold traps with little gold straps and gold chains. These are the trapped-on, stilted, spike-heeled feet of gold that mount the first of about three hundred steps from the front hall to the second floor. Then she mounts the next step, and the next until all of her is far enough above me to risk looking back. Only then will she turn the whole strawberry cupcake of her head. Those big torpedo, Brandy Alexander breasts silhouetted, the wordless beauty of that professional mouth in full face.

"The owner of this house," Brandy says, "is very old and supplementing her hormones and still lives here."

The carpet is so thick under my feet I could be climbing loose dirt. One step after another, loose and sliding and unstable. We, Brandy and Alfa and me, we've been speaking English as a second language so long that we've forgotten it as our first.

I have no native tongue.

We're eye level with the dirty stones of a dark chandelier. On the other side of the handrail, the hallway's gray marble floor looks as if we've climbed a stairway through the clouds. Step after step. Far away, Alfa's demanding talk goes on about wine cellars, about kennels for the Russian wolfhounds. Alfa's constant demand for the realty woman's attention is as faint as a radio call-in show bouncing back from outer space.

" ... the Princess Brandy Alexander," Alfa's warm, dark words float up, "she is probable to remove her clothes and scream like the wild horses in even the crowded restaurants ..."

The queen supreme's voice and the shadow of L'Air du Temps says, "Next house," her Plumbago lips say, "Alfa will be the mute."

" ... your breasts," Alfa is telling the realty woman, "you have two of the breasts of a young woman ... "

Not one native tongue is left among us.

Jump to us being upstairs.

Jump to now anything being possible.

After the realtor is trapped by the blue eyes of Signore Alfa Romeo, jump to when the real scamming starts. The master bedroom will always be down the hallway in the direction of the best view. This master bathroom is paneled in pink mirror, every wall, even the ceiling. Princess Brandy and I are everywhere, reflected on every surface. You can see Brandy sitting on the pink counter at one side of the vanity sink, me sitting at the other side of the sink.

One of us is sitting on each side of all the sinks in all the mirrors. There are just too many Brandy Alexanders to count, and they're all being the boss of me. They all open their white calfskin clutch bags, and hundreds of those big ring- beaded Brandy Alexander hands take out

new copies of the Physicians' Desk Reference with its red cover, big as a Bible.

All her hundreds of Burning Blueberry eye shadow eyes look at me from all over the room.

"You know the drill," all her hundreds of Plumbago mouths command. Those big hands start pulling open drawers and cabinet doors. "Remember where you got everything, and put it back exactly where you found it," the mouths say. "We'll do the drugs first, then the makeup. Now start hunting."

I take out the first bottle. It's Valium, and I hold the bottle so all the hundred Brandys can read the label.

"Take what we can get away with," Brandy says, "then get on to the next bottle."