Chapter 56
DAVID H KOCH THEATER, LINCOLN CENTER PLAZA
Gabriella was sitting inside the auditorium of this beautiful building that housed the New York City Ballet.
The lights in the ceiling were like a whole solar system of golden spheres, creating a magical ambience that Gabriella could only imagine was magnified tenfold for performances.
She had asked Phoebe the one place she really wanted to go in the city, above anywhere else, and this was where she had chosen.
It felt fitting that she had selected the theatre, and she was currently being shown around backstage to the sets, the rehearsal rooms and the depths of costume archives for ballerinas just like Lulu.
And perhaps it was fitting also that Gabriella was about to FaceTime her mother in this unique place that her sister would have felt right at home in.
The call connected and there was Monica Felix. Thin lips, thin eyebrows, thin persona…
‘Why are you doing this video nonsense, Gabriella? You know I can’t abide it.’
‘Hello,’ Gabriella said, ignoring the jibe. ‘Can you hear me? Or is the connection unstable?’
‘Many things about video calling are unstable,’ Monica answered. ‘Where’s Phoebe? She hasn’t answered my last two text messages.’
She and Phoebe had decided not to tell anyone about the perfume incident. The press had reported an ‘altercation’ at the book signing but Cheyenne had worked some publicist magic to keep the details to a not-terrorism-nothing-to-worry-the-New-York-citizens-or-festive-tourists minimum.
‘She’s having a tour of the theatre. It’s just me.’
‘Well, I don’t have very long. Your father has invited the bowls club for a festive soiree and I have to micromanage the caterers as per.’
‘OK,’ Gabriella said. Was she really going to say this? Was she really going to do this? She swallowed. She had to. Not just for Phoebe, not just for Lulu, but for herself.
‘What is it, Gabriella? Things getting tough in New York? I saw you on that awful woman’s talk show wearing hideously high heels. What were you thinking? They made you look like chunky bamboo.’
A criticism. Obviously. She took a breath. ‘Mum… I’m going to tell the truth.’
There was silence on the other end of the line for a moment until finally Monica answered.
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. Elaborate.’
‘I’m going to tell everyone the truth about what happened to Lulu,’ Gabriella said. ‘About her struggle with depression. About her spending time in psychiatric care. About her… taking her own life.’
‘Stop it!’ Monica snarled viciously. ‘Why would you say such a thing?’
‘Because it’s what happened. And it’s reality.
And all the time I’m not being honest, I’m pretending that my self-help book is actually based on facts and survival when really none of that was able to help Lulu.
Maybe because no one tried hard enough, because we were all too busy sweeping it under the rug to save face, instead of saving the person. ’
‘You’re being utterly absurd, Gabriella. What happened to your sister was an accident. She fell.’
‘No. That’s the story you told everyone. That’s what you made me tell people, sell to people. Because you will never admit that your child, your daughter, struggled with life. Because that would tarnish you and do battle with your perfection complex.’
‘This is all nonsense and I don’t know why you’re wasting time video calling me now because—’
‘Because,’ Gabriella interjected. ‘I’m going to tell the world. Because I should have done that in the first place and the only reason I didn’t was for Phoebe.’
‘Exactly,’ Monica said, pointing a finger at the screen. ‘You have to think about Phoebe and what’s best for her.’
‘What’s best for Phoebe is remembering who her mum actually was. The real Lulu, all the many sides of her. The beautiful… and the wild… and the absolute sadness she tried to fight with every day.’
Her mother was shaking her head. ‘Phoebe won’t recover if you say these things. These things that aren’t true.’
Gabriella took a breath before delivering her next sentence. ‘Phoebe already knows.’
‘What? You’ve said this to her already? Gabriella! How could you? How could you—’
‘I didn’t need to say anything. She knew,’ Gabriella said simply. ‘I think she’s always known. We just chose not to notice, not to see it, not to talk about it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘All the things we also didn’t do when Lulu was alive.’
Her last sentence seemed to echo around the empty auditorium, spiralling through the air, spinning and twisting around the festive decorations, touching every beautiful and ornate part of this space like they were atoms of a ballerina who had lost her way…
As Gabriella thought about this, thought about herself, she realised that her mother had made no response.
She focussed back on the screen, half thinking that perhaps her mother would have ended the call.
But, no, she was still there. She appeared to be sitting now, on the chaise longue in the hallway no one sat on unless they were putting on their shoes.
She should say something else, really make her mother realise that they needed to take responsibility for things they hadn’t done and should have. But then…
‘I… miss her,’ Monica said, her tone scratchy, emotional. ‘Some days it feels like the house is still full of her essence and then, other times, it’s like she was never here at all.’
Gabriella swallowed. ‘Well, someone told me that once you’ve existed you can’t un-exist. And that Lulu is always going to be part of the world because we carry her in our memories and in our hearts.’
‘Is that something from your book?’ Monica asked, eyes definitely filled with tears.
‘No,’ Gabriella said firmly. ‘It was from Phoebe.’
Monica nodded, slowly at first and then with more commitment. ‘That girl is the strongest one of all.’
‘Agreed,’ Gabriella said. ‘And sometimes, when she talks about things she loves, she reminds me of Lulu.’
‘But,’ Monica began. ‘That isn’t where she gets her strength from. Because we all know that Lulu was never strong. And, as for that father of hers…’
A sound distracted Gabriella and she looked away from the phone screen momentarily. People were arriving on the stage – Phoebe’s tour – and Gabriella saw her niece in the line. She was next to another girl about her age and they looked like they were chatting.
‘I have to go,’ Gabriella said, looking back to her mum’s face on the screen. ‘I just wanted you to know what I’m going to do so you could be ready if any reporters show up on your doorstep. Perhaps give Milo the heads up.’
‘Gabriella,’ Monica said.
‘Yes?’
‘Phoebe’s strength.’
‘Yes?’
‘She gets that from you.’
A knot slid up into Gabriella’s throat and she tried her hardest to swallow it away.
If she spoke right now there would be no strength in her voice whatsoever.
Instead she turned the camera around, focussed the lens on Phoebe on the stage, being shown how things worked behind the scenes of a performance.
‘Here’s Phoebe, on a stage in New York,’ Gabriella said. ‘I mean, it’s not Broadway but, Lulu would’ve loved it.’
Tears were starting to track down her cheeks before she even really realised it.
‘Yes,’ Monica answered. ‘Yes, she would.’