The Beauty Beneath

Margaret Millington left the offices of Copeland, Rogerson & Zenhaus on the 14th floor of the Windy City Commercial Center, having concluded the fifth day of the mediation of her divorce proceedings. She knew she should have been relieved. After all, her divorce had been pending in the Cook County Superior Court for two and a half years. She exited the meeting with the attorneys after signing an agreement that made her the sole owner of $128.4 million in a wide variety of investments that represented her share of the marital estate. She thought she was long past being emotional about the demise of her marriage, yet as she descended the elevator alone, she was struck by a chilling depth of loneliness she had never before experienced.

Fifty-five years old, childless and loaded. To any objective observer, Margaret was still a strikingly beautiful woman. She possessed sharp features: a thin, straight nose that came to a slight upward point, a small chin and high, angled and symmetrical cheekbones. Her wide-set eyes were a deep and penetrating shade of blue. She was 5-foot-9 and 135 pounds. Although she didn’t exercise much anymore, Margaret was genetically blessed with good muscle tone and long, thin bones. Her infrequent smiles revealed sparkling white teeth that were perfectly aligned, contrasting with her hair, a purchased dark brown, cut short and stylish. Margaret spent freely on her wardrobe, and her gait and overall presentation suggested a connection to aristocracy from another land and time.

At times, this noble bearing was reinforced by a cold and impatient manner in her interactions with others and a practiced condescension. Despite all of this, Margaret had always been painfully self-conscious and was her own harshest critic. Her arrogant demeanor actually masked a deep-seated insecurity that Margaret recognized and dated back to her childhood.

When the elevator came to a stop, Margaret stepped out without pausing to notice whether she was on the main floor. It was a warm, sunny day and Margaret shielded her eyes from the sun and quickly hailed a cab and had it take her to her high-rise apartment building.

The apartment itself was spacious, with ten-foot ceilings and a wall of windows from a foot above the floor to within inches of the ceiling that offered a breathtaking view of the southwest shore of Lake Michigan and downtown Chicago. Margaret’s gaze scanned all before her critically. Although her apartment was expensively furnished and contained several pieces of original artwork, there were no pictures of family or friends. “Would anyone notice if I weren’t here tomorrow?” she wondered with despair. The thought trailed off as she became enveloped by her loneliness. She phoned to have pasta delivered from an Italian restaurant around the corner, then turned on the stereo and began listening to soft music as she began to run water into her Jacuzzi bath.

Margaret slowly removed her clothes and carelessly dropped them to the floor.

She climbed into the tub and slowly slid down until the warm water covered her shoulders. She rested her head and neck on the back of the tub and closed her eyes as her tired body was relaxed by the warmth and the droning sound of the running water. As the water filled the tub, Margaret lifted and dropped her hips slowly and rhythmically, causing the bubbling water to wash over her tanned, flat belly and then cascade off the sides of the tub. She picked up a bar of soap and lathered her chest and abdomen, rubbing her hand gently across the front of her body.

A hint of a sneer crept across Margaret’s face as she thought about how she had confronted Alfred each day of the mediation wearing a different piece of expensive jewelry that she had purchased over the years in revenge for his philandering. For a fleeting moment, it felt good to revel in her hatred. But then Margaret started thinking about what a despicable, self-loathing person she must be to have put up with it for so long.

In an effort to push these thoughts from her head, Margaret sat up in the bathtub and washed and rinsed her hair. She then picked up her razor and began shaving her legs. When she was halfway finished with the second leg, her hand began to tremble. She looked at her shaking hand as though it were a foreign object, beyond the control of her brain. When the tremor increased, Margaret rose from the bath and walked over to the bar at the near end of her living room. She poured herself a glass of scotch and returned to her bath, where she took small sips as the water continued to flow.

She looked back down at the razor and picked it up with her left hand, after setting the glass of scotch on the side of the tub. She re-lathered her lower leg and resumed shaving, this time with renewed vigor. Margaret finished shaving her leg and looked down at her arms. She looked at her left forearm and then at her razor, and back at her forearm down to the wrist. She put the razor down again and picked up her drink, which was still nearly full. She raised the glass to her lips and poured the scotch down in one long and continuous gulp.

Looking down at her empty glass, Margaret held the crystal by the base and swung it against the outside of the tub, scattering broken glass across the bathroom floor. Margaret leaned partway out of the tub and, with a bloodied hand, reached out and picked up a long shard of glass and plunged it deep into her left wrist as she screamed. Margaret’s head fell against the back of the tub, and she closed her eyes as the water took on the color of a rose wine.