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checking how she looked. She normally spent an anxious hour getting ready to spend time with the Boltons, but at this point she didn’t give a damn what Fawn thought of her.
    She opened the door to a brisk knock and stood aside to let Fawn enter in her normal grandiose fashion.
    “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here. Marina is gonna be so relieved.” The cultured Dallas accent that Fawn usually effected was obliterated by her natural Arkansas twang.
    Callie started to walk towards the living room, but remembered her manners and waited for Fawn to lead the way. “You could have just called. I would’ve taken your call.”
    “Oh, I left early this morning and I didn’t want to wake you. Besides, this is too personal to talk about on the telephone.”
    “You left…were you in Austin?”
    “Yes. Parker and I are going to be in Austin until this legislative session is over. There are some very big bills that the legislature is going to consider, and he’s working harder than I’ve ever seen him.”
    Privately, Callie didn’t think that having lunch, cocktails and dinner constituted real work, but Parker was a lobbyist for the pork producers and that was the nature of his profession.
    “You didn’t have to drive this far, Fawn. This is something Marina and I have to work out on our own.”
    “I know that, but I’m not sure you know how much you mean to her.”
    Trying to keep the annoyance from her tone, Callie said, “That’s something I should know from her, isn’t it?”
    “I know, I know.” Fawn’s hands fluttered like a baby bird learning to fly. “I’m just not sure how good she is at telling you how she feels. She’s a deeply emotional person, you know, but it’s hard for her to express herself.”
    Marina could explain her way out of almost anything. She had a silver tongue that could get her whatever she wanted. But Fawn couldn’t see that since she was the one frequently talked out of substantial sums of money.
    “That’s not how I see her. I think she’s really good at saying what she wants.”
    “In some ways. But I don’t think you see the real her. She’s very needy.”
    That was crazy. Almost delusional. Marina was one of the least needy people in the world, but Fawn needed to be needed and Marina definitely liked being pampered. Callie had often thought that Marina would have been more well-adjusted if she hadn’t been an only child. As it was, her mother and, to a lesser extent, her father, focused all of their hopes and demands and energies on her alone.
    “I’m touched that you came this far just to talk to me. I really am. But…”
    “Look, honey,” she said bluntly. “I know all about your agreement, and you have to admit that this little dustup isn’t very serious in the whole scheme of things.”
    Callie’s mouth dropped open and she had a brief fear that it would stay that way. How could Marina reveal something so private? Then she recalled that she’d just told her father. That reminder set her mind reeling for a few moments and she had to compose herself enough to speak.
    “I had no idea you knew about our…”
    Fawn’s hand flipped a few times, as though shooing flies. “She tells me everything. I know about her other girls too, sweetie, and if she cared one whit about this girl in Boston, I’d know about it.”
    “That may be, but she cheated on me, Fawn. She has all the freedom anyone would need, and she cheated.”
    Fawn leaned towards Callie and her voice grew softer and more earnest. “That’s one way to look at it, honey, but another way is that this is like a country road, and Marina just went past the mailbox a little bit.”
    “That’s not how I look at it. How would you like it if you found out that Parker was sleeping with another woman?”
    To Callie’s surprise, Fawn gave her a look that was almost sympathetic. “When I was just a little girl my grandmother told me that there were two kinds of women. One kind you married and one kind you