AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Gabriella
Ispend the rest of the weekend in a haze. A hundred thousand dollars. How could I have lost all this money? I feel ill—so ill that I spend most of Sunday throwing up.
Yes, if it comes down to it, I can lay my hands on a hundred grand. But it’ll involve emptying out my hard-won savings and asking my parents for the rest. It’ll involve telling them how I lost the money.
And I hate it. I hate everything about it. I’m almost thirty. I’m working in a job that I only got because of my father’s football connections. My friend Bailey is my age, and she has a Ph.D., she teaches at a university, and she’s lived all over the world. Wendy is a highly competent divorce lawyer. Piper is a fantastic chef. Me? I’m still waiting to launch.
Starting my own PR firm was supposed to be my big move. And now, I’m back to zero. I’m back to biting my tongue when Francisco tosses out an insult. I’m going to have to put up with the asshole clients—the ones that think that sexual favors are part and parcel of my job.
There has to be a way forward, I tell myself. One that allows me to pay back Sammy, and still start my own company. Who knows, maybe I’ll win the lottery.
Sure, that’ll happen. When pigs fly.
Monday evenings after work,I hang out with my girlfriends. It’s our weekly standing date, and very few things are allowed to interfere. Since it’s the start of the week, we don’t get too rowdy. We just drink a little and giggle a lot. Sometimes, we commiserate about the shitty men we’ve been dating, and rarely, we brag about the good ones. Not too often. Single women outnumber single men in New York City by a wide margin, and all the guys know this and take full advantage.
I walk up 11th Ave and across W 49th to get to Piper’s restaurant. I’m almost there when an Arsenal fight chant sounds from my phone. I answer without needing to look at the screen. My father programmed the ringtone into my phone himself before I left home, chortling the entire time at the look of fond exasperation my mother was giving him. “Ola, papa.”
“Gabriella,” my father says, his voice thick with affection. “How’s my favorite daughter?”
I lost a hundred thousand dollars at poker Saturday night. Shame fills me, and guilt freezes my tongue. I attempt a chuckle. “I’m your only daughter,” I point out and then realize what time it is. “Wait, it’s two in the morning in London. Why are you calling so late? Is everything okay?”
“We were out at a party, honey.” My mother’s crisp voice fills the receiver. “And I thought I’d call you to make sure you are also doing something fun. Her voice is a mixture of disapproval and concern, wrapped up in motherly love. “You work too hard.”
“Si,” my dad agrees. “When I was your age…”
I doubt he was doing anything too wild. He didn’t retire until he was thirty-five. When he was my age, he’d been playing for Arsenal in the Premier League. The club owners and coaches would have made sure the talent was in peak shape. Partying was for the off-season.
I know what their next question is going to be. Have I met anyone? Ever since my twenty-seventh birthday, my parents have been hinting that they’d like grandchildren. Any day now, they are going to offer to start setting me up. Given that the only young men my father knows are soccer players, I’m going to pass. I’m not looking in that cesspool for fidelity and true love.
“I’m on my way to a party now,” I tell them. It’s only a half-lie. They don’t have to know that there will be no men at this gathering. “What’s going on with you two? Tell me what’s happening in London. Who was at the party?”
My attempt at diversion is successful. My mother launches into a story about her friend Janet, and we gossip as I walk. I say my goodbyes once I near Piper’s restaurant, promising my parents I’ll visit them soon.
As soon as I manage to clear my gambling debt.
“I know,I know, I’m late,” I say as I enter the restaurant. “Sorry.”
Piper greets me at the door. “That’s okay,” she says cheerfully. “You’re not the last one here. Wendy just texted us; she’s going to be another ten minutes. Gabby, want a drink? Rum and coke tonight, or is it tea?”
Those are admittedly a strange set of drink choices. My mother’s English and my father’s Brazilian, and as the product of two diametrically different cultures, my drink tastes are, well, a bit all over the place. Today’s the kind of day when tea’s not going to cut it. “Rum and Coke, please,” I tell Piper, following her to the bar. “And make it a double.”
“Rough day? Too much work?”
“No, work was pretty light. I just finished a major project. Until Paul assigns me something else, I’m at a loose end.” I take the drink she offers and head to the table in the back where Katie and Bailey wait. If only Miki were here, not in Houston, that’d be the entire gang.
Bailey’s cheeks are beet-red. “What’d I miss?” I ask, not sure if I want to hear the answer. In a city with an acute shortage of decent guys, she’s managed to find not one, but two of them.
I’m thrilled for her; she deserves only good things. I’m also a little envious. Then there’s the truly ironic part—the only reason Bailey even hooked up with Sebastian and Daniel was because I’d told her about my own threesome with Carter and Dominic.
I’d met Carter and Dominic at a bar. They were from out of town. It was a classic one-night stand. I’d sneaked out before they could wake up. Had I stayed, would we have exchanged phone numbers? Tried to keep in touch? Could we have formed our own unorthodox relationship, the way Bailey and her two guys have?
It’s been seven months. Let it go.
I drag my attention back to Bailey. “Sebastian and Daniel are taking me to Hawaii on vacation,” she says. “I made the mistake of telling them I’ve never been there.”
She’s lucky, and not just because they shower her with gifts. Bailey was dating a complete asswipe of a guy before she met Daniel and Sebastian, a guy who had ruined her self-image and made her think she was worthless. Sebastian and Daniel treat her the way she deserves to be treated. Like a goddess.
Wendy walks up to the table. She’s helped herself to a beer from Piper’s refrigerator, taking advantage of the fact that the restaurant’s closed and we are the only ones here. “You know, I couldn’t help overhearing what you said,” she says to Bailey. “I want to register my protest.” Her tone is teasing. “It’s not fair. It’s hard enough to find one good guy in New York. You and Gabriella are taking more than your fair share.” She makes a face. “What about Piper and me?”
