Femme Noir by Clara Nipper

Author:Clara Nipper [Nipper, Clara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Gay & Lesbian, Fiction, General, Lesbian, Romance, Contemporary
ISBN: 9781602821170
Google: 0KdTPgAACAAJ
Amazon: 1602821178
Publisher: Bella Distribution
Published: 2009-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

Outside, the clean roasting air made me need a cigarette. I spotted Jack alone at a table, looking at the burning sky, white and sizzling with evening’s approach.

“Hey, stranger, mind if I join you?” I sat next to him and deftly extracted a cigarette from his pack. “There’s a church on every corner in this town, what’s up with that?” I said after a long silence.

Jack turned to look at me, his eyes red not just from booze. “Did you love her?” he asked plaintively. I nodded. “Me too,” Jack said. “Goddamn her.”

“So, why aren’t you at your family thing?”

“Cause they don’t like me and they make me want to vomit. Do you miss her?”

I shook my head. Jack nodded.

“Me neither. Not yet.”

“What was her story?” I inhaled and stared straight ahead. I would give Jack space from my gaze, as well as protect my face from anything severe he might reveal. I felt stronger staring ahead.

“You don’t know any of it?” Jack asked.

“No. She told me she was from Madison.”

Jack laughed.

“And that she was a student. She stole from me,” I admitted in a rush. It was an inexpressible relief to air my pain with someone else who knew Michelle. Before now, I had just been angry. But with Jack, I could be hurt.

“She get much?” Jack asked.

“Maybe more than I knew.”

Jack grunted. “I think someone in the family murdered her. Or had her murdered.”

“In the family?” I was astonished. This peerless wealthy white pillar?

“Yeah, and lemme tell you why. Michelle had the goods on a scandal that would ruin the incumbent McKerr’s re-election gub…gov…gubernat’rill hopes forever. She was disowned when she came out. Cut off without a penny. She used her considerable charm and wile to dig up this secret and she disowned them right back. I say ‘them’ because my branch of the family is sort of the underachieving black sheep.” Jack sipped one of the two shots he had in front of him. I ground out my butt and bummed another.

“She disowned them?”

“Yeah, she discovered this disgusting skeleton in the closet and it enraged her so much that she was convinced her family and families like it and corporations are what is wrong with the world and she wanted revenge.”

“What do you mean?”

“You ever notice her petty theft?”

“Theft? No.” I felt more and more foolish. Where had I been for three years? Right where Michelle had wanted me, concentrating on my career.

“Did things just show up at the house, or would she lavish you in gifts?”

“Yes, now that I think about it.”

“And she always had an explanation, right? Even though she had no money, she had more stuff than anybody, right?”

“Yes, yes, you’re right,” I said with dawning comprehension.

“Well, she told me once, stealing from big companies and cheating corporations was like radical revenge on her family and its sins.”

“And what about stealing from those people she loved?”

“Well, she was an asshole and a compulsive liar…just ’cause we loved her and she’s dead doesn’t take that away.

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