Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“I’m so fucking proud of you for sticking to your guns,” Gabriel said as we wandered through Camden Market.
“I didn’t want to let the team down.”
I’d just arrived in London early that morning to join Gabriel on the last leg of his European tour.
Over the past six months, we’d become pros at juggling our time together.
We’d agreed from the start that our relationship came first but our careers shouldn’t suffer because of it.
Gabriel made me promise that my career would never take a back seat to his; so as long as it didn’t conflict with getting my own work done and launching the next design collection, I joined him whenever I could.
It was a damp Saturday afternoon in October, and we clutched cardboard cups of tea. Gabriel was wearing a motorcycle jacket he bought from an artist running one of the stalls and new Doc Martens to replace the boots that were beyond repair.
“You can have your own stall and I’ll go back to busking,” he said just as if he hadn’t signed a record deal.
A thin, wiry guy with dark hair sticking up in ten different directions rolled a rack of tweed jackets over the gritty cobblestones, and every kind of music played, blasting from boomboxes in stalls and buskers performing on the streets.
Gabriel tossed twenty quid into the open case of a saxophonist with braided locs playing ska music then slung his arm around my shoulders and steered me toward Camden Lock.
“I don’t think you’ll ever have to go back to busking.”
“I don’t care if we’re tortured Bohemian artists for the rest of our lives,” he said as we walked past houseboats rocking on the bottle-green water of Regent’s Canal.
“In fact, I’d prefer it. What matters is the art.
The process. The actual doing . Creating something we can be proud of.
Fuck the critics. Fuck the suits. No money in the world is worth selling out. ”
We were still struggling artists, but our souls weren’t for sale. We had our convictions, and we had each other. We were happy to be in the trenches together.
That night, some of his heroes and favorite musicians came to watch him perform. Gabriel was so overwhelmed that they would come to see him , that he barely spoke for two whole days afterward.
In Edinburgh, his fans followed him through the streets to a pub where he played for another two hours after the show.
In Paris, the fans embraced him like a long-lost son. He was the darling of France, the “chanteur.”
When we went to a bar with Annika after one of his shows, the proprietor asked him if he would sing. He was carrying a guitar.
“Still singing for my supper,” he griped, but he was a good sport so he played a few songs, and even sang one in French. Like a chanteur.
Annika was still trying to find herself in Paris and admitted that she was more attracted to Parisian girls than guys. “Kissing girls is so much sexier than kissing boys,” she said. “No offense, Gabriel.”
“None taken. I happen to agree with you.”
We laughed about that like three old friends. I could barely remember a time when he was dating Annika and not with me. She said she couldn’t either. “No two people are more perfect for each other than you and Gabriel.”
Europe loved him, and everywhere we went, he built a cult-like following.
I knew that he’d eventually win over America too.
We celebrated his 26th birthday in Vienna and my 24 th in Milan.
I gave him a shirt I made for him, and he gave me a stack of love letters, one for each day we were apart, and a brooch that looked almost exactly like the one I’d stolen from the flea market.
A robin’s egg and a tiny pearl in a gold bird’s nest.
We were in a king-sized bed in Milan after his show when he tossed a small velvet pouch into my lap. “Where did you find this?” I turned it over in my hand, studying the delicate gold branches.
“I had it made for you.”
My God. This man. “How did I ever get so lucky?”
He gave me a dirty kiss and I forgot all about the brooch when he ripped off my panties, just ripped them right off my body and tossed them across the room.
That night we fucked like rock stars. Me, gripping the headboard with my ass in the air, and him pounding into me like it was an Olympic sport. The headboard kept banging against the wall, and I was screaming so loud that the entire hotel probably thought someone was getting murdered.
The following day he left for Australia with the band, and I flew home and got back to the drawing board to design my next collection.
Gabriel and I weren’t overnight successes, but our careers were starting to take off.
The weekend after my twenty-fourth birthday, I took the train up to Hudson Valley.
As soon as I walked through the door, my mom presented me with a gift I didn’t want. No fun plans on the agenda this weekend, apparently.
“Wouldn’t you rather take a walk or go into town and check out that art gallery.”
“As a matter of fact, I would.” She grabbed her car keys and headed right back out the door. “I’ll see you this evening.”
“You’re evil,” I called after her.
I sat at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and shot dagger eyes at the thick manuscript in front of me. I slid it closer.
Maybe I’ll just read a page or two .
Twenty pages in, I cursed my curiosity for ever starting down this road. My mom and Nicky were only thirteen and fourteen when they met. They were young and wild with big dreams but neither of them was starry-eyed.
They’d both had turbulent childhoods and recognized themselves in each other.
Fifty pages in, I was curled up on the couch bawling my eyes out.
It wasn’t even a sad part. It was sweet and endearing.
I think that’s what made it so hard to read.
You already knew the good times wouldn’t last. His addiction was stronger than everything, including love.
No matter how many times he’d gotten clean, he always went straight back to his mistress. Heroin.
By the time my mom walked through the front door, I was trying to punch my way out of a glass case of emotions.
Nicky wasn’t a villain. He wasn’t a saint either. He was human, flawed, a careless man who had never cleaned up his own messes, and while I’d always resented him for not showing up for us in the way I would have wanted him to, I think he loved us as much as he was capable of loving anyone.
Not all love stories are pretty or wrapped up in a neat bow.
My mother’s was messy and real and filled with heartache and uncertainty.
But there were moments that shone so bright, filled with more joy than one heart could contain.
Moments that hit so deep to the bone that I recognized some of myself and of Gabriel in their story.
Gabriel wasn’t Nicky but I saw some similarities in the way they talked, their shared views on music and what it meant to them, their sensitivity and vulnerabilities, and their quest to find something true and meaningful. In music. In life. In love.
“Well?” My mom sat on the edge of the sofa and gnawed on her lip like she was nervous to hear my verdict.
“I…” I shook my head and stared into space, trying to find the right words to convey my mixed-up emotions. “You told the truth.”
“Why would I lie?”
There were a lot of reasons to lie. To make yourself look better. To paint him in a better light. To smooth out the bumps in the road and gloss over the toxicity in their relationship.
But the story was perfect just as it was. Perfectly imperfect, like their love. I wouldn’t want this to be my love story, but this was hers to tell, not mine to question or judge.
And I got it now. I understood why my mom loved him, and while reading her words, I’d finally given myself permission to mourn his loss.
I scooted closer and wrapped my arms around her. “I love you, Mom.”
She released a heavy breath and held me tight. “I love you, Baby Blue.”
I pulled away and wiped my eyes. “You’re still sticking to that story, huh?”
My mom pursed her lips. “I was there. I know what happened.”
“You were high on drugs,” I countered.
She laughed and swatted my arm. “I was not.”
The following day, my mom drove me back to the city with the rest of my birthday cake in a Tupperware container, her suitcases packed in the trunk, and my dad’s guitars in the back seat. A gift for Gabriel.
One week later, she moved into a light-filled apartment in Greenwich Village.
She’d found the closure she was looking for and now she was ready to move on. So was I.
Nicky’s ghost didn’t haunt me anymore.
I had my own love story to live, with all its ups and downs, its trials and separations, the heartache and longing and joy.
The weeks when he was just a voice on the other end of the line, exhausted and spent.
The days when he would retreat into our dark bedroom, attempting to hide the headaches that continued to plague him.
But through it all, there was love. So much love.
Relationships, I’d learned, were not always easy, but I’d take the rainy days with him over a thousand sunny days with someone who wasn’t Gabriel.
A love like ours only comes around once in a lifetime.
If you’re lucky .