Chapter 9
MANHATTAN, NEW YORK, USA
‘Oh! Would you look at that?’
Gabriella gritted her teeth and instinctively closed her eyes, resting her forehead against the window of the yellow cab they were travelling in.
It was two days after the Felix family party and following the stress of that, a near fall-out over whether Phoebe really needed hardback heavyweight Anna Karenina for the trip plus an almost nine-hour flight due to a strong head wind, they were finally here in New York.
And publicist, Cheyenne, had a catchphrase that was already wearing thinner than a Stranger Things season five finale plot.
‘A New York fire engine!’ Cheyenne exclaimed in explanation.
‘It’s a truck,’ Phoebe said.
‘You see a New York truck?’ Cheyenne asked, almost cartoon-eyeing the traffic outside.
‘No,’ Phoebe said. ‘Here they call them fire trucks not fire engines.’
‘That’s so cute, isn’t it?’
No. It wasn’t cute. It was just factual.
And now Gabriella was wondering why her editor hadn’t warned her that Cheyenne would behave like someone who had never been outside before, let alone to a different continent.
It was true that meeting someone in real life was eye-openingly different to over a Zoom call or on emails.
Gabriella couldn’t wait to get to the apartment and perhaps crash on the sofa that had looked as comfy as anything on the Airbnb details.
‘How long until we get to the hotel?’ Cheyenne asked, leaning forward and addressing the cab driver.
Hotel? Why had she said ‘hotel’?
‘I’ll have y’all there in ten, ma’am,’ came the answer.
Gabriella took her head off the window and stared at Cheyenne. ‘Hotel? But we’re staying at an apartment. I sent you the details. You said it was booked.’
‘I definitely didn’t say it was booked.’
That was not the answer Gabriella had been expecting, nor the one she wanted. She went to say something else, but her publicist beat her to it.
‘It was decided it was better for us to all be at a hotel. Then we can charge meals to the room, keep all the financials in one place, plus there’s security on the door.’
Why had she just made a hotel sound like a maximum-security prison? Gabriella looked at Phoebe to gauge her reaction, but her niece now had her headphones on and seemed oblivious to the conversation.
‘And no one thought to mention it? Before now?’ Gabriella asked. ‘Or, you know, discuss it with the main character of this trip? I don’t know, it’s like Baloo not checking if Mowgli had an allergy to ants before he made him eat them.’
‘It’s a five-star hotel, Gabriella. An urban oasis with…’
As Cheyenne went into the minute details of ‘signature experiences’ and ‘body rituals’, Gabriella went back to looking out of the window, the New York skyline opening like a pop-up book.
Sleek, steel, a titanium backdrop against the sleet swirling through the freezing air.
Right now, Gabriella wanted to be that sleet.
Free to land wherever it chose, born to rush fast and disappear before anyone really knew what was happening…
‘…so, that will be nice, won’t it?’ Cheyenne concluded.
‘Yeah,’ Gabriella answered. ‘Would you look at that. Great.’
And after around ten New York minutes the yellow cab was pulling up outside this towering centre of wellness excellence, chrome, glass, a row of international flags fighting the breeze and the dashing white flakes spiralling between a flapping USA and a fluttering Germany.
It might be giving anonymity, but it was also immediately exuding a complete lack of personality, from the outside at least. And Gabriella doubted it would have a pool table at basement level with a jukebox full of eighties rock…
‘Are we here?’ Phoebe asked, removing her headphones and looking to the sidewalk, New Yorkers rushing through the worsening weather.
Cheyenne had already got out of the cab and was yammering on while the taxi driver was getting luggage out of the boot.
‘Apparently so,’ Gabriella said, sighing.
‘But this isn’t an apartment,’ Phoebe said.
‘No.’
‘But you said that we would have an apartment and it would be cosy and when all the book stuff was done we could retreat and eat microwave popcorn and watch movies and play pool and—’
‘I know,’ Gabriella said. ‘I know I said that. And I meant it. And you know, I never say things to you I don’t mean.’
Phoebe was assessing the outside of the building. Gabriella could see her eyes going from the elaborate frontage jutting out into the street, then travelling upwards through all the many towering floors. ‘It looks big.’
‘Maybe that’s why they call it The Big Apple.’
‘No,’ Phoebe said straight off. ‘It’s called that because it was always a place for big opportunities and rewards. I looked it up.’
Of course she had. And why was Gabriella making light of this?
She had made promises to Phoebe. And Cheyenne, even if she hadn’t ironclad the vision, had more than suggested it was a done deal.
A familiar sensation started wriggling in her gut.
Times past, picnics in the park suggested, an elaborate dinner party reality served.
‘I’m starving,’ Gabriella said, smiling at Phoebe. ‘How about you?’
Phoebe nodded. ‘But what time is it? In London I mean, because—’
‘The only clock you should pay attention to is your body clock and mine is definitely telling me it’s eat o’clock.’ Gabriella patted Phoebe’s arm. ‘So, I will distract Cheyenne with some Russian and you get ready to run.’
‘OK,’ Phoebe said with a nod.