Chapter 34
THE ROYCE HOTEL, MANHATTAN
‘You know if anyone catches us with Mr Darcy they will either kick us out of the hotel or they will call the dog pound,’ Gabriella said, helping Phoebe hold still an excitable Mr Darcy as they neared the hotel entrance after she had picked her niece up from Sybille’s home.
‘Stop mentioning the dog pound. Mr Darcy doesn’t like it. And we need to get him a collar and a lead.’
Attachment. She knew Phoebe would become invested quickly and this was not good. They were here for such a short period of time and what happened after that? But, the dog distraction was making Phoebe happier and Gabriella wanted that more than anything else. So, for now…
‘What we need to do first and foremost is get Mr Darcy inside without him being sent to the pound,’ Gabriella said.
‘The fire escape,’ Phoebe said with authority. ‘Like how we escaped from La Facon. You take Mr Darcy up that way and I will go up and open the door for you.’
‘We can’t do that here,’ Gabriella said. ‘The fire doors are alarmed.’
‘Oh,’ Phoebe said, deflating.
Gabriella’s gaze went to the bell hop, who was pushing a golden trolley up the ramp at the entrance…
* * *
‘Would you believe me if I said this wasn’t my first time smuggling a dog into a room?’ the bell hop, Eric, asked.
‘Shh,’ Gabriella said as they surreptitiously walked along the corridor towards their suite, Mr Darcy inside the golden trolley covered by sheets and corralled by two large suitcases. She smiled at two other guests who were passing by.
‘The last time the guest gave me one hundred dollars,’ he continued loudly.
‘If you shut your mouth right now I’ll give you two hundred,’ Gabriella said.
Then she whispered, ‘Phoebe, pull that sheet over Mr Darcy a bit better.’ There weren’t hordes of people coming out of their rooms at this time of night but the one person she was really worried about was Cheyenne.
Cheyenne gave the air of rule-follower, toeing the company line and absolute snitcher.
Oh, would you look at that, a chance to score points and give your advertising budget to another author.
And then, as those thoughts went through Gabriella’s mind, the door to Room 613 opened up and there was Cheyenne standing in the corridor like a prison warden, checking her watch as though there was a curfew. There probably had been but Gabriella still hadn’t checked her emails…
‘Where have you been?’ Cheyenne asked, accusing. ‘You didn’t answer my calls, messages or emails.’ Facts.
Gabriella spun around and faced Eric. ‘So, thank you, Eric, for your suggestions of places to see while we’re in NYC. You can carry on with your work now.’
She willed Eric to get her drift and just continue pushing the ‘luggage’ away but he seemed to be staying static and he was staring right at Cheyenne like she might be his boss.
‘Don’t keep the luggage waiting, Eric,’ Gabriella said and she gave the trolley a jolt with her foot. It seemed to be enough, thankfully, for Eric to get the gist.
‘Gabriella,’ Cheyenne said. ‘Did you hear what I said? You can’t go missing and then go completely incommunicado. We have to go through the itinerary for tomorrow at the library event and—’
‘It’s very late now, Cheyenne,’ Gabriella said, yawning.
‘I’m so tired,’ Phoebe added. ‘We walked such a long way trying to find perfect locations for photo opportunities with the book.’ She yawned too then.
‘Did you?’ Cheyenne asked, visibly lifted by this information.
Phoebe nodded. ‘We can tell you all about them in the morning. After sleep.’ She looked to Gabriella. ‘I really need to go to bed. I’ve set an alarm for 5 a.m. to look at GCSE Biology.’
‘Yes,’ Gabriella said quickly. ‘Yes, you do need to rest, it’s very late now.’ She got the key card for the suite out of her bag.
‘You know you really shouldn’t be wandering around the city without someone knowing where you are,’ Cheyenne said. ‘Someone could jump out and—’
‘We don’t need to talk about crime stats now,’ Gabriella said, cushioning Phoebe’s ears with her hands.
‘I was going to say someone could jump out and take unsolicited photos,’ Cheyenne said, frowning.
‘OK, well, they didn’t.’ She had no idea if she had been papped eating eggs and bacon with Luca but right now her fucks tolerance was even less than zero. Gabriella quickly zapped the card at the door and it clicked to allow entry. She steered Phoebe towards the open door. ‘Goodnight!’
Scooting in after Phoebe, she closed the door after the both of them and breathed. Then she put her ear to the panel and listened.
‘Eric won’t do anything with Mr Darcy would he? Like call the dog pound,’ Phoebe said.
‘Shh!’ Gabriella said. Could she hear Cheyenne’s retreat?
Were the hotel doors etc. soundproofed? She couldn’t hear anything.
But, counting to ten usually solved most things, right?
She counted quickly and then she carefully opened the door, checked to see if Cheyenne had definitely left the corridor and raced in the direction Eric had gone in.
Within a few minutes, Mr Darcy was being doggy-handled into Phoebe’s bedroom and, without any invitation required, he had jumped up onto Phoebe’s king-sized bed and claimed it as his own.
‘Phoebe,’ Gabriella began, watching from the doorway as her niece began snuggling the dog under the covers and rubbing his ears.
‘Remember that… you shouldn’t…’ She stopped herself from talking, the words she’d been about to say sounding eerily similar to something her mother might have said to Lulu.
She didn’t want to say anything even halfway close to the kind of things that had always spilled from her mother’s lips.
Don’t touch it. Don’t say that. Don’t do that.
‘What?’ Phoebe asked, Mr Darcy licking her face, drool dropping onto the bright white sheets.
Gabriella shook her head. ‘Nothing.’ She smiled. ‘Goodnight, Phoebe. Goodnight, Mr Darcy.’
Mr Darcy barked.
* * *
Phoebe loves the dog, Ella-Bella. You know that, don’t you? And when people love things they find it very hard to let them go even when they know they have to. You know that too, don’t you?
Wrapped up in her coat and the duvet from her bed, Gabriella sat next to the patio heater on the balcony and drank in the night with a bourbon from the mini bar and a giant bag of roasted peanuts.
She sighed, taking a swig of her drink. ‘I know that, Lulu. But what do I do? Is it better to take the dog away now so she loves it less? Or let her keep him until it’s time to leave?’
It’s too late. Phoebe loves things automatically and unconditionally.
‘I know that. She gets it from you.’
It’s not a bad thing, Ella-Bella. Why are you saying it like it’s a bad thing?
‘I didn’t say it like that.’
Love should be unconditional. If you feel it, or anything close to it, you should let it show.
‘Mother hated that,’ Gabriella said, pulling her blanket closer.
Because Mummy didn’t know how to show it.
‘Because she never felt it.’ Gabriella sighed. Phoebe’s deep feelings were in complete contrast to her grandmother’s complete lack of emotional intelligence.
But don’t you think that’s sad for her? Maybe she did feel it, but she was never allowed to show it and so she didn’t and then that’s all she knew and passed on.
‘People are supposed to learn from mistakes, not repeat the cycle.’
Sometimes it’s harder than anyone knows. You say that in Zero Fucks Given. Don’t you mean it?
Gabriella took a swig of the drink. She had meant it.
She still meant it. It was one of the things she had written from the absolute heart.
But the rest of it… She swallowed, her mind revolving.
It should say more. It shouldn’t just talk about making changes.
It should talk about trying to support what’s already there. Who is already there.
And what do you feel, Ella-Bella? About the man styling you in outfits you think you’re not good enough for?
She shook her head. ‘We are not talking about that.’
Why not? He’s very beautiful, Ella-Bella. He could be a painting. But one you’re allowed to touch.
Again, Gabriella shook her head. ‘No one is touching anyone.’
That wasn’t what it looked like on Manhattan Bridge.
‘You didn’t see that,’ Gabriella stated.
She could hear Lulu’s laugh like it was out here, spiralling up into the night and dancing amid the bright stars.
You like him, Ella-Bella. You like him!
Lulu’s voice had never sounded more singsong and childlike, exactly how it had been when they were young, teasing each other over the latest school crush one of them had. Usually Lulu… the worst of them, Phoebe’s useless father.
‘I don’t,’ Gabriella breathed as she cupped the bourbon glass in her hands.
Except her words sounded hollow even to herself.
She did like him. He was warm and genuine and she didn’t feel as if she had to mask who she was.
But that felt as refreshing as it felt dangerous.
She didn’t do that. It came with too many complications.
Don’t lie, Ella-Bella. Not to me. You never lied to me, did you?
She swallowed. She had told Lulu so many lies over the years. White ones. Small ones. To make her feel better.
Did you?
To give her hope. There had never been enough of it in the Felix house. For any of them.
It’s OK. I know you lied to me. But I forgive you. Because you lied for the right reasons. But I don’t think you ever pretended and that’s more important.
She took a breath and looked at the night sky, the antenna of a high rise flashing red like a flare. Or, perhaps a warning.
It’s important that you stop pretending to others, Ella-Bella. Will you do that for me?
There was the beginning of tears in her eyes she was fighting to hold back. ‘It’s too hard.’
And is pretending to the world not hard too?
She couldn’t disagree and suddenly she was overcome with how completely exhausting things were. How completely exhausted she was. She took a shaky breath and finished the bourbon in one gulp.
Let go. The words were like a whisper she’d heard once before.