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men who frown at the suggestion of two hunnies making love and letting you watch; and finally, any woman, no matter how beautiful, who has hands bigger than yours.

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    FOR YANCEY, the prestige of things took precedence over her own preference. The address of her Upper East Side brownstone was really false advertising that she was an entertainer well paid for her talents. The furnishings and appointments she chose for her “diva domain” (as she liked to call her spacious living quarters) were more than a step above the budget of a Broadway actress. They were a kangaroo leap.
    The first things visitors would notice were the foyer’s marble floor, the glittering chandelier hanging above, and the antique coffee table with a tarnished silver top accented with an expensive-looking Chinese vase. But on guided tours, Yancey would first take her guests to the dance studio, her absolute favorite place to show. The studio and her bedroom were the only two rooms where she banished her decorator and let her soul dictate the design rather than her desire to impress.
    In the studio, the overhead track lighting bounced off two mirrored walls, making the room appear much larger than it was. The shining maple wood floors and ballet barre enhanced a room that Yancey had always dreamed of since she took her first dance class back in Jackson. Hours seemed like minutes when she was in the room singing and dancing to music generated by her state-of-the-art sound system.
It is simply magical,
Yancey thought.
    The room had been a library for the previous owner. When the contractor came to make a bid for the renovation, he convinced Yancey to keep at least one of the walls’ splendidly built bookshelves. She agreed only after considering that one day there would be books written about her to fill the shelves. Until then, her collection of coffee table books on music and the theater filled the shelves. Yancey added a little texture to the shelves with memorabilia like dried flowers from her opening nights, and scented candles. In the corner of the room was a StairMaster and a pair of ten-pound free weights for those rainy days when Yancey didn’t leave the house, not even for her gym time.
    The living room was beautifully decorated with matching plum sofas and a coffee table covered with
Harper’s
Bazaar, Essence,
and her favorite,
Vanity Fair
. She had limited the amount of furniture in the room in order to create a warm and inviting space.
    As far as Yancey was concerned, her bedroom was off limits to everyone but Basil. She was proud of its elegance and reveled in seeing the faces of the rare visitors she allowed to partake of its beauty. Once she had invited some young girls she had met at the Broadway Dance Center over for tea. Besides asking for her autograph and photos, they had impressed Yancey by telling her they had seen every show she had appeared in. One of the young ladies, a talented ballet dancer from the Bronx, had broken into tears when she wandered into Yancey’s bedroom. She placed her hand over her mouth and whispered to Yancey, “This is the bedroom I see in my dreams.” The rich cherrywood antiques may have been too formal for some, but for Yancey it was an opportunity to live out one of her
I am a princess
fantasies.
    The queenly bed boasted four regal high posts. The armoire, vanity, and chest of drawers were carefully arranged, adding to the splendor of the room. Because the furniture’s color and bulk were so heavy, Yancey chose soft pastel fabrics to give the room balance. Her duvet, bed ruffle, and drapes were ivory damask. Filling her linen closet were 350-thread-count cotton sheets in beautiful colors of lavender, peach, mint green, and sky blue. Four big lace-edged pillows were propped in front of the two small pillows dressed in the colored linen of the day.
    A nightstand graced each side of the bed. Fragrant candles, fabric-covered boxes, and crystal bowls of potpourri sat atop each table. The table on the