Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Flour Power
T o get to know Nelle and truly understand her… well, it was sort of impossible to do. One look at Nelle and anyone would assume she was a super model. Which was partly true. Partly.
The oldest of three, now reduced to two, Nelle lived a life so odd, quiet and secluded, anyone would assume she was hiding something.
You guessed correctly.
More of all that to come.
Nelle chose the black dress because black was all she owned. And it was funeral. A funeral for her sister.
Thalia is dead! She was shot to death! Someone shot up the pizza place! Apparently someone was after some bikers and Thalia got shot! Oh my god, Nelle, I’m going to lose my mind! Please… please get here right now! PLEASE!
The screeching of her other sister—Calista—made Nelle hurry up and prep to leave. Bucky Bonzy owned the offbeat, off-the-path antique store, which gave Nelle a place to live, hide, and work. He rarely asked questions, and as long as Nelle brought in money, Bucky remained happy and mostly quiet.
She woke Bucky up around midnight that night. And he was pissed, at first. As soon as Nelle said her sister had been murdered, two things happened.
First—Bucky told Nelle to do whatever she needed to do.
Second—Bucky had no idea Nelle had a sister.
That’s the fucking point! Nelle had yelled in her head. She assured everything would be okay with the antique store. Then she left for Cielo.
Thalia had worked at a pizza place. Her version of staying quiet and hidden. Calista…? She was a groupie for musicians that passed through town.
Anyone with an imagination could assume what the word groupie meant. And no offense to Calista, but she had no real talent or skills. That told Nelle more than enough about her other sister and her life.
But that’s how it went for the Cooke Girls. They were all beautiful. Insanely beautiful. Runway model beautiful. Super model beautiful. Stunningly natural in every way possible. What could have been…
Not that anything but reality mattered now. That’s a lesson Nelle took to heart. That’s why crying over Thalia’s murder really hadn’t happened.
There was shock. There was anger. But tears?
Nelle stared at herself in the mirror in Calista’s bedroom. There were pictures stuck all along the mirror of rock stars and Calista. Not that Nelle claimed to be a musician expert… she had no fucking idea who any of these guys were.
Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t matter one bit.
Nelle wanted to cry. She begged herself to cry. She kept telling herself over and over that her sister had been shot to death.
Shot to death! Murdered!
On the other side of the wall where the mirror rested, Calista found herself looking into a mirror too. She had no problem crying. She had no problem with other things too. A plethora of noises worked their way through the wall, catching Nelle’s attention.
As Nelle opened the bathroom door she found her now only sister hunched over, sniffing a thick, snow-like line of cocaine.
Calista’s eyes looked at her sister and she popped halfway up. “Want the rest?”
Without giving a definitive answer, Nelle lunged toward the sink. Calista jumped back, afraid for a second. Nelle’s hand swiped against the sink, sending the cocaine into the sink. She turned on the water. That made Calista scream.
“What the fuck?!”
Nelle looked at her sister. She was instantly thrown back in time…
It’s the week of Christmas.
One of the rare weeks when things aren’t so bad.
Dad is drinking, yes, but he’s sipping wine in a big glass, wearing a silly looking sweater with a Christmas tree on it. And we’re baking cookies!
It’s me. It’s Calista. It’s Thalia.
Thalia has pigtails and stands on a step stool and just wants to eat the chocolate chip morsels.
Normally Dad would tell us not to eat too much so we don’t get fat. But the week of Christmas, it doesn’t matter. We can eat. We can be happy.
Dad is happy too.
I know the whole Santa Claus thing by now, but my sisters don’t. So I get to watch their faces light up with excitement when they see the presents under the tree.
Calista suddenly calls out, “Snowman!”
She drops her face down into the flour and lifts her head. I think she plans on having flour all over her face but instead it’s just her nose.
I’m afraid Dad is going to lose his mind… but he starts to laugh. In fact, he not only laughs, he starts throwing flour all over the kitchen!
We end up having a wild ‘flour fight’ and we skip baking cookies, then Dad ends up going to the grocery store and buying store made cookies and that’s probably the best Christmas story we ever had together…
“What?” Calista growled at Nelle.
Nelle came back to reality and thought about slapping Calista across the face. She held back. In a way, she understood it.
Calista and Thalia grew up closer. They were younger than Nelle. Nelle treated them with a motherly instinct and kept them close. To keep them as safe as she could. Even when everything went bad Nelle told Calista and Thalia to be close but not too close. That’s how Thalia ended up at a waitress as a pizza place and Calista as some kind of whore groupie for wannabe musicians.
“Wipe your fucking nose,” Nelle said, feeling her voice finally start to crack.
It was officially time to bury her sister.
Nelle noticed the bikers right away.
They stood near a gravel path, all lined up, most of them dressed in full black, all of them wearing sunglasses and their cut-off leather jackets. They made her uneasy. She couldn’t fathom that Thalia had been involved with these guys…
Then again, Calista made a living by giving blow jobs to guitarists.
It was a quick funeral. Only a handful of people there. A sad ending to what ultimately was a sad life. Thalia was beautiful and deserved so much more. Now she was dead. Shot to death. Bullets meant for…
Nelle looked at the bikers again. She then turned her head and saw Calista staring at the small grave and headstone of their sister. They chose to have Thalia cremated so the grave was more symbolic than anything else.
Nelle nudged at Calista. Calista looked at her.
“Those guys over there,” Nelle whispered through gritted teeth.
Calista took Nelle’s hand and the two walked away. All told there was maybe five people there for Thalia. The rest were those looking for a story about the shooting. Reporters. Some police.
The bikers.
“What are they doing here?” Nelle asked Calista.
“I don’t know. I want to hurt them all. Do you know I deal with them too?”
“What?”
“Yeah. They… protect … the clubs, musicians and stuff.”
Nelle blinked fast. “So you’re involved with these guys? And then something goes wrong and Thalia ends up shot to death?”
“Are you blaming me for her murder?” Calista called out.
Loud enough that a few people looked.
“Calista, keep your voice down,” Nelle growled. “I’m trying to understand what happened and how to protect you. I need to know if this was an accident or not. Understand?”
Calista stepped back, now terrified. The words or not changed everything. Not for a second did Calista think…
She shook her head. “It has to be them! It has to be!”
Calista pointed at the bikers. Now there was more attention toward both Nelle and her sister. Including the bikers.
“You fucking did this!” Calista yelled. “You did this!”
Nelle stepped into her sister’s view of the bikers and grabbed her shoulders. Calista stopped yelling, trading screams for tears. Nelle could see just how high her sister was. She really wanted to be angry but couldn’t… she understood it…
Their lives had always been nothing but a complicated mess. And now one of them was dead. And somewhere in the back of Nelle’s head she heard a voice…
One down, only two to go!