Page 33 of Palazzo
“Did you tell her?” Basile asked Allegra as soon as he arrived. He was excited to see the prototypes of her bags, but even more so about the plans they had been discussing recently. He wanted her to move to Paris.
“I didn’t want to bring it up with your father there, and we were talking about the bags. And she’s with him tonight, and will be allweekend.” Allegra wanted to move to Paris too, but she knew Cosima would be upset. Cosima wanted Allegra to work for Saverio with her, and she worried about her being able to manage physically. She did fine in Rome, and was independent there, but she lived a floor away from her sister, and had any assistance she could need near at hand. “She worries about me.”
“I can take good care of you,” Basile said. He was twenty-seven years old, two years younger than Allegra. “And you’d be living with me. You’d be even safer than you are now.” She had a tendency to get into a jam occasionally, trying to reach for something, or doing things she shouldn’t alone in her apartment at night. Nothing stopped her, and she was very brave.
“I’ll talk to her about it when your father leaves, I promise.” But Allegra knew that leaving the family business and moving away would be a huge blow to her sister, and Allegra felt guilty about it.
“My father wants her to spend more time in Paris too. He thinks she should open a store there.”
“I don’t think she’ll do that,” Allegra said. “We’ve always been completely based in Italy. My grandfather thought it would keep us more exclusive.” But spreading their wings internationally would have made them more profitable. Allegra believed that too.
They enjoyed the weekend together and went to several art shows. Father and son left together on Sunday night, and after they left, Allegra called her sister and invited her down for a glass of wine. Cosima was happy to visit her. She was always sad when Olivier left on Sunday nights, and she missed him. During the week she was so busy she hardly noticed, but Sunday nights were lonely.
They talked about how terrific the prototypes were. Cosima hadonly made a few minor suggestions, and Allegra loved all the bags based on her designs. Olivier’s production people had interpreted them masterfully. Allegra took a breath then and set down her glass of wine. She couldn’t put it off any longer, and didn’t want to.
“Basile wants me to move to Paris,” she said in a cautious voice, watching her sister’s face closely. She could see the sadness in her eyes instantly.
“And what do you want?” But the fact that Allegra was telling her told Cosima all she needed to know.
“I love him. I want to be with him,” Allegra said, unhappy at the pain she knew it would cause her sister. Cosima had dedicated herself to the business for so long and so completely that she had little else in her life. She rarely even saw friends. For years, she had led a hidden life with Gian Battista, which Allegra could only guess at. She had been available to him at all times, whenever he could get free, and for the past three years she hadn’t even had that. And now she had Olivier with her on weekends, but he lived in another city.
“You’re both so young,” Cosima said.
“I’m almost thirty, and he’s almost twenty-eight. And he’s very responsible.” Cosima had observed that too, and had no objections to Basile, but she didn’t want to lose her sister to him, no matter how sweet he was, or how much Allegra loved him. Allegra’s healthy, open, enthusiastic attitude had kept her in the mainstream of life, and Cosima had wanted that for her. But she had always feared that this could happen one day, that some man would carry Allegra off to a life somewhere else, and she had always sensed that Allegra would be open to it, just as she apparently was now. Allegra was fearless and Cosima had helped her to be that way. And their fluency inFrench made doing business in France an obvious option for both of them.
“It’s a big thing to leave your home, your country, your family, and your job for love of a man,” Cosima tried to warn her. “What happens if it doesn’t work out and you break up in a few months or a year? You’re both young to settle down forever.”
“Not that young,” Allegra said realistically. “Some people get married younger than that. And we’re not rushing into marriage. We want to live together and see how that feels. He doesn’t care about my legs. He’s in love with me, not my legs. Paris isn’t very far away. I could still do design work for you. I change so little on our classics, and I can send you everything I do by computer.”
“Won’t you be too busy, if Olivier helps you start your own brand?”
“Never too busy for you,” Allegra said lovingly. “You’re my sister and I love you. I can easily do both. I really don’t do much for Saverio,” in fact so much less than she wanted to do and was capable of. She was aching to exercise her talent, and her own company would allow her to do that. “I hate leaving you. We can wait a couple of months if you want. I could move after Christmas, which would give me time to train someone to do some of what I do. I’d do the rest from Paris. And if you open a store in Paris, we’d see each other all the time,” she said, and Cosima smiled. It was an incentive.
There was no way Cosima could seriously object. Basile was a lovely young man, he had a blossoming career he worked hard at, and a nice father and good values, and he loved her sister deeply and was protective of her and completely undisturbed by her disability. They had already agreed that they wanted three or four children, which the doctors had always said would be possible in spite of herspinal cord injury. Basile was what every mother wanted for her daughter and more.
“Thank you for asking me,” Cosima said, feeling deeply emotional about it. She felt like she was losing the baby sister she had loved and protected like a mother for more than half her life. She had done it so well that Allegra was ready to fly on her own wings now. Cosima was almost sorry that she had helped Allegra to become so independent, but she knew that was selfish of her, and she was better than that. “I want you to be safe and happy and living the best life you can, and I think you’ll be all those things with Basile, so I give you my blessing,” she said, and hugged her sister. They drank another glass of wine, and then Cosima went back upstairs. Change was in the air. It would be very different with Allegra living in Paris and not just a few steps away down a short flight of stairs, where Cosima could see her all the time. She would feel lost without her. Mothering Allegra had given meaning to her life. And with Luca in prison, Cosima would have no family left near at hand.
She called Olivier as soon as he got home in Paris.
“I thought she would tell you tonight,” he said. “Basile talked to me about it on the plane. Do you object?” He hoped not, for their sake. Basile was madly in love with Allegra, in a serious, mature way that impressed his father but didn’t surprise him. Basile was such a good man, and Olivier was proud of him.
“How can I object?” Cosima said honestly. “He’s what every mother would want for her daughter. I’m just sad she’ll be leaving, but it’s the right thing for her. I gave her my blessing. She said she’d move after Christmas, which gives me two months to get used to the idea.”
“I promise I’ll keep an eye on them, and take good care of her for you,” he said seriously.
“Thank you.”
“Maybe that will motivate you to open a store in Paris,” he said, and she laughed.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe it’s time. I have to think about it.”
“What are you doing this week?”
“I have to go to Venice tomorrow to check on things there.”
“Problems?”
“No, it’s running smoothly, but I like them to see my face regularly, so they remember who they work for.” She was never an absentee boss in either store, and was hands-on, and would want to be with a Paris store too, which was why she was hesitating. In addition to the Saverio traditions and company policy, she didn’t want to spread herself too thin and take on more than she could handle. But she agreed that they had to broaden their horizons too, in order to stay current and grow. And just as Allegra did, Cosima wanted the business to keep growing. In the era of the internet, the days of a small, elite local store were over, if they wanted to be viable among her competitors.
