Death by Chocolate

keep lookin’ at these boring papers, I’m going to have to have some more
of those cookies. Van, you wanna throw some in the oven.”
    Savannah thought of Cordele
boarding a plane in a few hours and coming to California to work out some
familial “issues.” She thought of Lady Eleanor, dying in her arms of a fatal
drug interaction.... just as some coldblooded killer had intended she would.
She thought of her dear friend, Dirk, and his need for physical sustenance
during these trying, difficult times.
    “Eh,” she said, “bite me.”
     
     
    At nine forty-five the next
morning Savannah was standing outside the baggage-claim area in the Sunrise
International terminal cursing herself for not having the chutzpah to just not
show up as demanded. Let Miss Smarty-Pants Cordele find her own way from LAX to
San Carmelita—or better yet, back to Georgia.
    She had a lot of nerve,
arriving out of the blue and expecting chauffeur service on top of room and
board. Who did Cordele think she was, anyway, the Queen of Sheba, the Czarina
of Timbuktu?
    Savannah had sincerely
entertained the thought of just letting her sister cool her heels awhile at the
airport before coming to get her. After all, she had work to do. Dirk was at
the mansion, investigating, as he should be, and she should be there, too. But
no, she had gotten roped into baby-sitting her almost-thirty-year-old sister.
    Having worked herself into
a pretty good lather by the time the plane landed, Savannah had a speech all
rehearsed. It had to do with feeling that her boundaries hadn’t been respected,
nor her preferences taken into account, that her territory had been invaded
without her permission, etc., etc.
    But the moment the
passengers of Flight 396 from Atlanta began to disembark, she felt a sense of
excitement. A member of her immediate family, her own flesh and blood, had traveled
across the country to see her. She really should feel honored and pleased.
    She did feel honored
and pleased. Having decided that she should, she did. Maybe it would be a great
visit, a bonding experience between siblings.
    But the instant she set eyes
on her sister, the recently generated warm and fuzzy feelings disappeared.
    It wasn’t the fact that
Cordele had the straightest posture of absolutely everybody getting off the
plane— including a couple of Marines. It wasn’t that her white blouse was buttoned
up tightly under her chin or that she was probably the only person in America
under the age of thirty who actually wore a brooch pinned at her throat. It
wasn’t the baggy navy blue skirt or the conservative black loafers that were
modest to the point of dowdy. It wasn’t the lift to her chin that conveyed what
a truly superior human being she felt herself to be. It wasn’t the way she
walked—as if she had sat on a steel rod that now extended from her rear end to
her tonsils.
    No. It was the combination of
all of the above. And the fact that Sissy Cordele hadn’t changed one iota. She
was still an uptight snob.
    And... she had cut her
hair. Really, really short.
    Savannah decided that was
the safest conversation-opening topic.
    She hurried to her and gave
her sister a hearty hug. Cordele returned it with a weak, one-handed pat on
Savannah’s back.
    “Hi, darlin’,” Savannah
said, trying to summon some degree of enthusiasm. ‘You look great. You ah....
you cut your hair.”
    Cordele reached up and
smoothed the slickly gelled hair back, though it had so much goop on it that it
probably wouldn’t have moved in an eighty-mile-an-hour hurricane. ‘Yes,” she
said, “I decided it was time to liberate myself, to come out from behind the
veil of my hair and reveal the true me to the world.”
    “Oh. Okay.”
    Cordele tossed her head in
what might have been a devil-may-care gesture if it hadn’t been for that
perfectly stiff posture. For a moment, Savannah thought she might have
dislocated her neck.
    “You really should cut
yours.” Cordele fell into step beside Savannah as they approached the luggage
carousel. “If you can find the courage to do it, you’ll discover that it’s very
freeing. But of course, you have to give up your security blanket that you hide
behind. You have to be willing to come out and reveal the real you.”
    “Uh-huh.” Savannah scanned
the thin trickle of suitcases that was beginning to spill down the chute and
onto the carousel.
    “Really. You should cut off
all those split ends,” Cordele continued. “I can do it for you