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obliterated from her mind.
    M was a pragmatist by nature, and she believed she had inherited her wonderful practical mind-set from her mother, who had always had her feet firmly planted on terra firma. Her mum was diligent, disciplined, a stickler for work, and shrewd to boot. She loved her mother and father; they were extra special. She knew no one else who had fabulous parents like hers, and she missed them tremendously. But even if she had been in London at the moment, it would have been the same state of affairs. They had gone to Australia for six months, mostly to see her grandmother, her mother’s mother, and M knew she would have been alone in London, except for her favourite sister, which wasn’t a bad thing, after all; but all of her other siblings were abroad, living the life, or so she supposed. And working, of course. That was a certainty.
    The Protestant work ethic had been drilled into them, force-fed into them by a couple of crazy zealots, their parents, who believedthey were all going to be struck dead if they didn’t work their bums off.
    She and her siblings knew that if they didn’t work they wouldn’t get breakfast, lunch, supper, or whatever. ‘You’re positively Dickensian in your attitudes!’ M would yell at her parents, and they would simply laugh and give her the famous V for Victory sign, à la Winston Churchill. And then, relenting, they would cuddle her, spoil her, and congratulate her, telling her she truly was a chip off the old block and was really earning her stripes. And then they would take her somewhere special or buy her a unique gift.
    And now here she was, in Manhattan, doing sweet nothing, and getting bored. Dax would go to the Coast, M was convinced of that, and she must endeavour to get a job of some kind. She was not used to lolling around—that was the way she thought of it. Tomorrow she would make an effort to get a part-time job as a waitress. Or a shop assistant. No, waitress. Easier in so many ways. They were looking for somebody at the All-American Cheese Cake Café, not far from West Twenty-Second Street, and it would be something to do and it would give her extra money. Yes, she would go there tomorrow. Talk to the manager. He liked her. Always gave her a big smile.
    M turned restlessly in her bed, suddenly focusing on her plans to become a model. Well, she would, she knew she would. After all, she had come here to reinvent herself, to become someone else.
    She was seeking obscurity and anonymity, and now she laughed out loud. How truly ridiculous she was. Seeking to go unnoticed, yet she would put herself on a runway. Or in front of a camera to be featured in a magazine fashion spread. A contradiction? Surely.
    On the other hand, perhaps not. She was a different person now, no longer the young woman she had been when she first arrived in New York. Anyway, reinvention was exactly that—taking ona new persona. And how simple it was to accomplish. A new name, first off, that was essential, but one close enough to the old to be easy to respond to it instantly, without hesitation. A new set of personal facts about one’s life, also as close to reality as possible, so as not to get into a muddle.
    And then reinvent…adding new facts to the best parts of the previous earlier life. This is what she had done; she had even been able to obliterate the bad things, and most especially the one true Bad Thing. She never thought about that; it was currently buried deep, very deep indeed. She would never speak about it, she had never done that, never told anyone anything. It was her big secret. Private, extremely personal, and therefore verboten. Nobody would ever know. Gone. It was gone. It had never happened…push it away. A deep sigh escaped, and then M turned on her side, closing her eyes.
    Sudden and unexpected things happening without rhyme or reason still tended to alarm her. And yet she had always been intrepid, even as a child. Nothing had ever fazed her, then or later,