Chapter 59
RIZZOLI BOOKSTORE, brOADWAY
‘This is career suicide, you know that, right?’ Cheyenne stated.
‘Appalling choice of words, Cheyenne,’ Gabriella bit back.
She was nervous. It was evening, less than an hour before the event at the beautiful bookstore began and Luca wasn’t here yet.
She needed him to be here. Not just with the outfit they had decided on together but with his soothing persona.
Currently they were waiting on the third floor of this iconic building amid literature on fashion, art and design, with elegant, glittering chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
It was exactly the right place to talk about her beloved sister.
‘You know I recommended to All Chapters that we pull the event,’ Cheyenne continued, pressing icons on her iPad screen.
‘I don’t know if they’re too shocked by all the revelations to reply or whether my emails have dropped into spam or whether the whole of the British Isles have a power outage, but no one has answered me as to what to do about this immediate awful situation. ’
‘Well, this “awful situation”, otherwise known as “the truth” is my life,’ Gabriella said, the hairs on the back of her neck rising. ‘Just saying.’
‘You haven’t even told me who is going to be asking the questions I’m not allowed to know. It’s all very stressful and not something that can easily be mitigated.’
‘Spun you mean,’ Gabriella said. ‘And good.’
‘So, who is it?’
Who was it? Well, there had only been one person in her mind when she’d thought about how this event might play out, but equally, it was a weight of responsibility she had always tried to avoid them having to carry.
But what had changed was when she had thought of alternative options and discussed them with the only person who mattered, someone had volunteered.
Shakily at first, with deep reservation and nervousness but, in the end, with bravery and total insistence.
‘It’s me,’ Phoebe said boldly.
Gabriella looked to her niece who was sitting on a small footstool, an Albert Camus book in her hands, staring up at Cheyenne.
‘What?’ Cheyenne said, bottom lip trembling like she’d just been told the world was thirty seconds from imploding.
‘Yes,’ Phoebe said, shutting the book and standing up, adjusting the skirt of the ballerina dress she had rarely been out of – weather allowing – since Luca had gifted it to her.
‘I’m going to be asking Gabriella many pertinent questions about my mum so that people in the audience know more about her and discover more about our family and how incredibly fortunate we are in so many ways, yet not fortunate enough to avoid tragedy.
’ She stood tall. ‘People should give zero fucks by the way, Cheyenne, but not in the way you and All Chapters want. Giving zero fucks shouldn’t come with a playbook, because that defeats the whole point, doesn’t it?
Giving zero fucks to me means living life without compromise, without fear of judgement and being kinder about the choices of others, supporting their decisions even if they are decisions you don’t personally agree with.
That’s what Gabriella’s book should have been.
Could have been.’ She took a breath. ‘Now we have to try and remind people what’s truly important amid a cruel world.
And that is doing the best we can, for ourselves and for each other. Simple humanity.’
Gabriella smiled. This was a different Phoebe, a Phoebe who was asserting confidence in who she was, pushing through adversity to honour her mum’s memory. And, in this moment, hearing this reality from the lips of her niece, Gabriella had never felt prouder.