Page 28 of Palazzo
“I’m not sure. I’ve been wondering if I should use it to buy Luca out of the business, or keep it and invest it, or just pour my share back into the business. We can always use the money. I think Allegra wants to hang on to her share.”
“Maybe you should do something special with it and spoil yourself,” he suggested. She couldn’t even imagine what. She had no special needs or desires.
The four of them had dinner together on their last night in Paris, and Olivier was pleased. Fashion Week had been a big success for his business and orders had been rolling in from their usual customers and new ones. He had been wanting to ask Cosima a question all week and hadn’t had the courage. As exclusive as she was with her bags, he couldn’t imagine her agreeing, but he was dying to ask. He finally screwed up his courage over dessert, while Basile and Allegra were teasing each other and laughing. They played children’s card games every night and screamed with laughter, and Allegra said that Basile cheated constantly, which he hotly denied. They were like two happy children with each other, and best friends. Cosima envied that. It seemed so innocent and uncomplicated.
Over coffee, Olivier finally took the leap.
“Cosima, would you ever consider a one-time collaboration, or more than once if it works, where you’d consult with me on some of our higher-priced styles and give them an extra chic twist? We’d price them at our high end, and make them very exclusive. I want to develop a luxury line,” contrary to what Max had always suggested, to go cheap and low-end and mass-produce in China. Olivier wanted to go in the opposite direction. Before she could answer, Allegra leapt into the conversation.
“Can I do it?” she asked. “Cosima never lets me add anything to our classics. I have to keep them very pure. I have a lot of sketches that might work for you.”
Cosima smiled. “Maybe that’s your answer. And Allegra is right. I’m married to our signature styles, and I’m very resistant to changing them. Allegra is brimming with new ideas, and she knows our style.”
“Could we call it a Saverio-Bayard collaboration then, maybe with just six styles, two or three of them in exotic skins, ultrachic for our more sophisticated customers and better stores?” It was a more commercial direction than Cosima usually liked to go in, but she also knew it could be a big moneymaker and broaden their client base, and bring attention to their bags in other countries. She knew her grandfather would have hated it, but she liked the idea, and Allegra looked like she was going to jump out of her chair, she was so excited.
“I can start working on them tomorrow,” Allegra said. “And I have a file full of designs.”
“I have to approve them if our name is on them,” Cosima reminded them both. “Nothing too trendy or crazy.”
“The whole point is that I want to bring our bags closer to your look, not bring yours closer to ours,” Olivier explained.
“I have another idea too,” Allegra leapt in again. She was brimming with ideas now and Basile looked at her proudly. He loved how creative she was. “When I get the money from the palazzo, I want to do a line of really out-there, wild, terrific, superchic younger bags in great fabrics and materials, crazy colors, all the things Cosima won’t let me do for the house. I want to bring them in at accessible price points, not look cheap, but not be out-of-sight expensive like ours. I want to call the line Allegra, and bring them to Fashion Week next time, and set up my own pop-up store, and see how they sell.”
“Are you quitting?” Cosima looked panicked.
“No, I want to do it as a sideline. But I don’t know where to have them made.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Olivier entered the conversation again. “I’ll do six prototypes for Cosima at our factory, so you can check out our quality and production and workmanship, and I’ll do ten or twelve of your own designs for Allegra, and we can introduce both lines, our collaboration and the Allegras, at Fall/Winter Fashion Week here in March. It’ll take us that long to get it right.” Cosima liked the idea, and Allegra was over the moon at the idea of a pop-up store with her own exclusive designs, with no one holding her back, so she could do whatever she wanted. She had never been able to do that before.
The four of them ordered champagne and toasted each other and their two new projects. Cosima knew that collaborations were one of the more successful new marketing tools, and Allegra couldn’t wait to introduce her own designs. Olivier was thrilled with both projects, and was eager to get started on them. Cosima was guardedlyexcited, as she was about all things that involved the family name, but she liked the idea too, and it was a good experiment to see how their designs would translate to a broader, more commercial market.
“I think we’re on to some very exciting new concepts here,” Olivier said. “I like our plan.”
Basile and Allegra left the restaurant a little while later, still talking about it. She kept turning around to talk to Basile and almost turned her chair over as he reached out and grabbed it. “You’re drunk, you’re going to get a DUI,” he warned her, and pushed her chair the rest of the way home, as she told him all about the bags she was going to design for the new line. It was the most exciting thing that had ever happened in her job, and she’d been saving folders of her designs for years.
“I can’t believe that your dad got Cosima to agree to all that. She must be drunk too.” But Cosima looked more than drunk. She looked in love with Olivier. Allegra was happy to see it. She was tired of seeing her sister working too hard and always alone. She deserved to be happy too.
—
Cosima called Gian Battista when she got back to Rome after Fashion Week. The sale of the palazzo was closing in a few days, and she wanted to see how he was. He always sounded tired lately and a little down, and she was worried about him.
“Allegra and I are going to Venice this weekend to kiss the palazzo goodbye. Do you want to come?” He had had so many happy times there, even before she was born. He and her father had been boyhood friends. They had grown up in Venice together.
“I don’t need to see it again,” he said quietly. “And I don’t want to see it now, damaged and injured, thanks to Luca, with all the beautiful furniture gone. That’s how I remember it, in all its glory. I have my memories. That’s enough. I’ll see you for lunch when you’re back,” he said, and she suggested the following Monday. She thought he sounded nostalgic, and a little bit morose, which was unlike him. He was a serious person, but not usually so down. But she was looking forward to lunch with him. Any excuse was good to see him. She still missed him so much.
—
She and Allegra spent a warm, loving weekend in Venice, going to some of their favorite places. They sat in the Piazza San Marco and ate gelato, as they did as young girls, and drank wine, and walked for miles, with Cosima gently pushing Allegra, always ending up in the same place, as one did easily in Venice, but it was hard to really get lost if you knew the city well, which they did.
And on Sunday afternoon, they went to the palazzo, let themselves in, and went quietly from room to room on the main floor to say goodbye, and then Cosima went upstairs alone. She was crying when she came down the grand staircase for the last time, and they hugged each other at the bottom of the stairs and held each other tight. Cosima hoped she had done the right thing and hadn’t made a mistake selling it, but practically, it made sense. And they could do other things with the money. The final payment was due in their accounts that week. Cosima closed her eyes tightly for a minute, picturing her parents on that same staircase, and then they went out the front door and locked it behind them. One of Francesca Viti’sassistants was waiting to collect the keys from them. Both caretakers had already left, both had retired, Tomaso to Sicily and Guillermo to his hometown, Maratea, a small beach town south of Naples. He had waited all his life to go back. The new owner had hired someone new, and younger, who was starting in a week, to manage the property and the restoration.
“Congratulations,” the young assistant said as she put the keys in her purse. “Francesca says you got lucky with the French guy who bought it, he paid the full asking, all cash, even with the fire and water damage.”
“He’s not French, he’s Qatari,” Cosima corrected her. “If he were French, he’d have beaten us down on the price,” she said wryly, trying not to cry over the emotional moment of leaving the palazzo for the last time. They might never see it from the inside again and probably wouldn’t.
“No, he’s French,” the girl insisted. She was young, talked too much, and was new in Francesca’s office, and didn’t know what she was talking about.
“His lawyer is French,” Cosima said. “The buyer is from Qatar.”
