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In answer, Margo opened the mirror cabinet over the sink. Inside were neatly arranged bottles and tubes. "Emergency kit."
"That's my girl. Still using Bella Donna," she commented when Margo took out a small tube. "I threw mine out."
"Oh, Mrs. T."
"They made me mad." Susan jerked an athletic shoulder. She was a small woman, delicate-boned and slim like her daughter. She kept in shape in her own style. She skied like a demon, played a vicious game of tennis, and swam laps as though competing in the Olympics. To fit her lifestyle, her sable-colored hair was cut short and sleek to cap a bright, interesting face that she cared for religiously.
"I screwed up," Margo reminded her.
"Which was hardly enough cause to dump you as the Bella Donna Woman. Which is an irritatingly redundant title in the first place. All in all, you're better off without them."
Margo smiled into the mirror, smoothed on a light base. "I really have missed you."
"What I'd like to know is why you didn't contact Tommy and me the minute you found out you were in trouble." With her hands on her hips, Susan strode to the tub, then back to the sink. "It was weeks before we heard a thing. The photographic safari kept us out of touch, but Josh and Laura knew how to reach us."
"I was ashamed." She couldn't explain why she could admit it so easily to Susan. She just could. "I'd made such bad choices. I was having a seedy affair with a married man, I let him use me. No, worse—I was too stupid to realize he was using me. I ruined my career, destroyed what little reputation I had, and nearly bankrupted myself in the process."
"Well." Susan angled her head. "That's quite an accom plishment. How busy you must have been to do all that by yourself."
"I did do it myself." She chose taupe shadow to accent her eyes, brushing it on with a deft and practiced hand.
"This man you were involved with had nothing to do with it, I suppose. Did you love him?"
"I wanted to." Even that was easier to admit now. "I wanted to have someone, to find someone I could build a life with. The kind of life I thought I wanted. Fun, games, and no responsibilities."
"And that's past tense?"
"It is. Has to be." Margo carefully darkened her eyebrows. "Naturally, I chose someone completely inappropriate, someone who could never offer me permanence. That's my system, Mrs. T."
Susan waited a moment, watching as Margo dashed on eyeliner and mascara with the skill of a master. "Do you know what's always worried me about you, Margo? Your self-esteem.
"
"Mum always said I thought too much of myself."
"No, on that Annie and I have always disagreed, and we disagreed rarely. Your self-worth is too tied up in your looks. You were a beautiful child, dazzlingly beautiful. Life is different for children with dazzling looks. More difficult in some ways, because people tend to judge them by their beauty, and then they begin to judge themselves by that same standard."
"It was my only skill. Kate had the brains, Laura had the heart."
"It makes me sad that you believe that, and that too many people pointed you in that direction."
"You were never one of them." She replaced the makeup carefully, as a master carpenter would store his tools. "I'm trying to go in a new direction now, Mrs. T."
"Well, then." Slipping a bolstering arm around Margo's waist, Susan led her back into the boudoir. "You're young enough to take a dozen different directions. And smart enough. You've wasted your brains for a while, made foolish mistakes and poorly considered choices."
"Ow." With a sheepish smile, Margo rubbed her heart. "You've always been able to sneak those jabs in."
"I haven't finished. You've worried and disappointed your mother. A woman, I'll add, who deserves not only your love and respect but your admiration. There aren't many who at the tender age of twenty-three and still grieving could leave behind everything familiar and cross an ocean with a small child to build a new life. But that's not the point." Susan waved that away and nudged Margo onto the edge of the bed. "You squandered your money and danced your way to the edge of a very high and dangerous cliff. But," she lifted Margo's chin with a finger, "you didn't jump. Unlike our little Seraphina, you stepped back, you squared your shoulders, and you showed you were willing to face what life had dealt you. That takes more courage, Margo—much more—than leaping into the void."
"I had people to turn to."
"So do we all. It's only fools and egotists who think no one will be there to lend a hand. And bigger fools and bigger egotists who don't reach out." She held out a hand. Without hesitation Margo took it, then pressed it to her cheek.
"Better?" Laura asked in an echo of her mother as she came to the door. It took only an instant to survey the scene and feel relief.
"Much." After a long breath, Margo rose, smoothed down her skirt. "Sorry to leave you in the lurch down there."
"No problem. Actually, Dad's having the time of his life. He's made three sales. And the way he's charming Minn Whiley right now, I think we can count on four."
