Part 1

Chicago

Four Seasons Hotel

Bette closed the door of her hotel room after tipping the bellboy. She had managed to get some sleep in the plane, but she desperately needed a powernap. She got in the shower and kept thinking of what could be so important that required her presence. She also kept trying to remember what the last she had heard of her cousin Jane was. She remembered some drug abuse, and some idiot of a boyfriend, but that was it. She hadn’t really kept in touch with the rest of the family after leaving for Yale. Looking back, she should have kept in touch, but college life tends to do that to a person. Suddenly the life you left behind is just distant memories and college becomes your world. Your college friends become your family, your dorm becomes your home, and every time you look back, the memories get further away. For Bette, college life brought out her most competitive streak, that side of her that got her where she was now. But it also brought the ruthless side of her. Because the real world is a shark pool. And she had to crush many heads and fight many battles to climb up to the top. So the more time she spent in college, the more she delayed and postponed her trips back home. She knew that everybody in her family admired her, daddy always made sure he gloated about her Ivy-League educated daughter. His pride and joy, nevermind that they had little more than a cordial relationship since she came out to him, back in sophomore year, he always made sure everybody knew that his daughter was a successful student. Because in Melvin Porter’s world, you could only be measured according to your academic success, and your reputation. Eventually, she finished college with the greatest honors, packed her bags and traveled across Europe working in the most famous and prestigious museums and galleries, thoughts of a past life long forgotten.

‘This better be important Jane. Or I swear to God, I’m going to be pissed, and you don’t wanna see that shit’ she smiled inwardly as she let the water jets hit her tired back. ‘I should go put some flowers on her grave after the reading’. Her flight back home was another red-eye, so it should give her time to go to the cemetery.