Part Ten. His Last Thoughts Were of You
PART TEN
HIS LAST THOUGHTS WERE OF YOU
(EDITOR’S ADDENDUM)
A RESPONSE FROM ARMITAGE GALLIER
I T IS CUSTOMARY, WHEN ONE BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A BOOK, TO be contacted by the publisher for both comment and fact-checking purposes. Typically, this means that the subject and their team of lawyers will comb through the book and reply with a detailed list of confirmations, “no comments,” and statements regarding the lack of support for any unsubstantiated or incorrect claims.
Against the advice of my counsel, against the recommendation of Gallier Entertainment and Telecommunications’ Board, and against the wishes of my family, I am providing the following statement, to be printed in its entirety in all editions of A Showgirl’s Rules for Falling in Love by Phoebe Blair.
The claims made in A Showgirl’s Rules for Falling in Love are, to the best of my knowledge, entirely factual.
Thomas Gallier, the founder of Gallier Entertainment and Telecommunications, did use a false identity to build his life and career in the United States. He did engage in an illicit affair with the notorious chorine Evelyn Cross. He did enter a marriage with Constance Alban, daughter of newspaper mogul Nehemiah Alban, without any pretense of genuine affection. He did nearly drink himself to death.
And he did love Evelyn Cross.
Similarly, Miss Blair makes entirely accurate observations about my own person and character. I do concern myself entirely too much with what people think. I did get food poisoning from one of the Gettys’ weddings. I did leave an ambassador’s ball to bring her wonton soup. I am afraid of my father. I am afraid of losing my power and influence and money. I am afraid of what others think. I have no idea what it’s like to be a normal person. Or to feel like normal people do.
I was a coward for not loving her in public.
I was a coward for letting her go.
I was wrong for trying to erase Evelyn and Thomas.
I was wrong for letting my fear get in the way of the only thing that has ever brought me real happiness.
All of this, I concede to be true.
However.
There are certain elements of Miss Blair’s account that cannot go uncontested.
I wasn’t paranoid or micromanaging in the beginning of our partnership. I simply wanted to be near her. I have never quivered . I don’t recall rigging any ticket system to help her win third baseline seats at a Yankees game. I was afraid of losing her. I didn’t send her the NDA as a goodbye; I sent it as a gift. She was good enough—too good for me. She had nothing to be insecure about; she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. Singular.
Above all, though:
She claims that I did not love her. This is incorrect.
I did love Phoebe Blair. Ever since she sent me her first email, riddled with too many exclamation points. Ever since the first time I saw her—in that dingy basement, with marshmallow fluff on her face. Ever since she squealed with delight over finding an original Jules Moreau poster in Thomas Gallier’s personal effects. Ever since she cried in my arms while watching Groundhog Day . Ever since her favorite pink sweater turned my best white shirts salmon. Ever since she fell asleep on my shoulder in front of the fireplace, since she wrote that ridiculous erection line, since she took the endless cups of tea I offered her between her perfect lips, since we first made love, since I failed her, since she walked out of my life forever. And I imagine I always will.
This is as good a time as any to clarify one more point. No, I didn’t ask my family about our jewelry collection. But not out of malice. I didn’t ask because I didn’t have to. The Tiffany ring Thomas purchased on that fateful day was among the first things I discovered in his personal effects. It had been hidden under lock and key in my top desk drawer ever since. I should have told Phoebe about it the second I trusted her, but … I couldn’t. Not even when I began imagining what it would be like to propose to her with it someday.
The ring may not seem like much to anyone else, but to me, it is the only way to understand how I could break the heart of the woman I loved.
In Phoebe’s telling of their story, Evelyn Cross accuses Thomas Gallier of being a magic trick—most of him, the best of him, is hidden. There was no way Phoebe could have known how true she struck there. To be a Gallier is just that: to hide as much of yourself as possible. There are expectations a Gallier must meet, a certain image that must be upheld, a reality that must be maintained if we’re going to keep the banks and the boards and the business partners happy. No deviations are allowed.
As a boy, my father threw my collection of comic books into the fireplace because they weren’t a “worthy pursuit” for the man who would one day take over his company. I learned to keep my comics under a loose floorboard in my bedroom. When I made fast friends with the kids at my school who were on scholarship, he kicked them out of the house the first time they visited. I started sneaking out to see them in their neighborhood instead. When I proved an inadequate sneaker, he shipped me off to boarding school in Switzerland. We stayed friends by streaming video games online—a habit I bribed my Swiss roommate into keeping a secret when my dad came to visit. I stored Halloween candy in an old vase because he never let me have sweets. I gave our staff Christmas gifts in January when he wasn’t paying attention because he didn’t believe in “bonuses.” I tipped our waiters under the table and our cab drivers on Venmo because gratuity was beneath him. I went to the movies at midnight because he refused to watch anything made or distributed by our competitors. I once told him I was out of town so I could go incognito to some tacky, touristy Broadway show (he only went to the opera and the symphony) and played sick so I could watch the Umbrella Academy finale instead of going with him on a golf trip with potential business partners.
He wasn’t the only culprit, of course. He was just the loudest. I was the heir, which meant I got it in varying degrees from the board, from my mother, from the rest of my family whose fortune depended on me, from our friends, from investors, from the press, from anyone who had any interest in the company I would one day lead.
My entire life, I learned that the only way to protect myself was to hide myself. Anything I exposed to the world was fair game for other people to dissect and dismiss and ruin and steal away.
So anything that was important to me, I tucked away in a box. Metaphorical and physical.
Thomas and Evelyn’s story? If I let Phoebe give it to the world, then everyone I knew would tear apart this beautiful thing that had been ours. It had to be kept secret.
The ring? If word got out about it, my family would want it appraised and sold off to the highest bidder. It wouldn’t be mine to give to someone I loved. I had to lock it away in my drawer.
My own heart? If I let Phoebe see that, she might have realized the only thing in there was her. Phoebe on the back terrace looking like bottled sunshine. Phoebe near the fireplace, biting her lip as she considered a weathered document. Phoebe standing in the kitchen, pulling apart the two golden halves of a grilled cheese sandwich. Phoebe kissing me like I was someone worthy of love. Like I was someone worthy of finally letting the world see me—all of me, not just the pieces I allowed it to see.
And Phoebe herself? Our love? I didn’t hide that because I was ashamed of her. I hid it because I didn’t know how else to keep it safe. I’d lost everything else I loved. I couldn’t bear the thought of losing her, too.
Ironic, isn’t it? I was so afraid. And in the end, that fear was how I lost her. But I’m not afraid now. I want the world to know. Because the risk is worth it. She is worth it.
I do love Phoebe Blair. It’s undeniable.
And I have no right to ask, not after what I have done to her, not after how thoroughly I ruined us. But if she is ever so inclined to rewrite our story … if she ever wants to reclaim us the way that she reclaimed Thomas and Evelyn …
Then I will be here, waiting between the pages for our own Happily Ever After.
Signed,