Free Woman to Woman by Cathy Kelly

draped on her white cane chair. Last month’s ‘de-junk your life feature flashed before her eyes and she thanked God that nobody in the office could see the chaos that was her bedroom.
    She was reasonably tidy at work. Losing a vital piece of paper there could prove disastrous so she forced herself to dump all the press releases, old newspaper cuttings and scrawled phone messages before they swamped her desk.
    At home, however, she flung linen jackets onto the chair only to find them crumpled and requiring half an hour of ironing a week later.
    A tangle of tights lay on the flowered blue quilt, silky beige and black skeins abandoned during her frantic attempts that morning to find a ladder less pair of sheer tights to go with her linen outfit.
    It was a pretty room, decorated in the blue-sprigged Laura Ashley wallpaper she’d instantly adored when she spotted it in the shop. The white cane dressing table, bookcase and bedside table looked just right with the wallpaper, and matched the long white muslin curtain which hung elegantly from a brass pole.
    It all would have been property-supplement-perfect if it hadn’t been for the piles of paperbacks and magazines stacked untidily on the bedside table, the sheaf of newspapers dropped casually onto the floor beside her bed and the heap of blouses, Tshirts and trousers on the chair.
    The oval dressing table was like a chemist shop’s display with bottles of perfume, body lotion and endless old lipsticks she just couldn’t bear to throw out. A picture of her and Richard on their last holiday in New York had pride of place beside the walnut jewellery box he’d
    bought her last year. What a bloody mess, she thought, remembering Rhona’s ?!
    words of wisdom on small children and their effect on untidy mothers. I’ll tidy up tomorrow, she promised. Now what to wear for the party?
    Jo glanced briefly at the mirror could do with a dust, she rebuked herself and was amazed by what she saw. She felt exhausted, but the face that stared back at her positively glowed. Her eyes shone and her skin was healthily flushed with a radiance no expensive face cream would ever be able to match.
    Marvellous! I feel like I’ve been squashed under a cement mixer and I look great! The people who made Oil of Ulay had better learn how to bottle this.
    All those articles she’d written about motherhood and the Blooming Pregnancy fashion features came to mind.
    She laughed out loud at the thought of pregnant women reading her zero-experience-of-pregnancy claptrap.
    “Your skin will bloom and your hair will be shinier than any salon treatment could ever make it…” she giggled. And I hadn’t a clue what I was talking about.
    Let’s put that blooming beauty to good use, she decided, as she finished the last bit of biscuit. After a quick shower, an ?” even quicker blast of the hair dryer and ten careful minutes spent applying make-up, she cast a critical eye over herself.
    The launch of Michael Moran’s long-awaited glossy supplement would doubtless be a glitzy, highprofile affair.
    Jo had no intention of turning up looking anything but her best, especially as the bosses of two model agencies had told her they were going to be there with some of their most stunning girls, naturally. The threat of rock star involvement meant that the city’s model population would be out in force, an army of perfectly groomed women who were paid to look stunning and who instantly made other women green with jealousy.
    With Richard prowling around, Nikon slung round his neck as he searched for photo opportunities, Jo didn’t want to look any less gorgeous than
    these professional beauties. Neither did she want to look tired and pale when she told him their wonderful news. Something sexy was definitely required.
    She opened the wardrobe door and stood back as her black suede sandals, a fluffy pink slipper and a wire hanger fell out.
    She searched through jackets, dresses, skirts and trousers, rejecting outfit