Dreams Of Fame
1.3 - Giovanna's Husband
The ceremony was tiny. Tiny in that Giovanna was the only one there- she was the one who buried and then cried over the body of her husband. Or, so she would claim. It's still unclear wether or not the man actually existed.
Giovanna would claim that he was killed when a dragon swooped down from the skies and ripped out his heart. Historians today guess it was probably a heart attack or merely just the ailments of old age. And that's assuming that the man even existed in the first place. But, based on Giovanna's descriptions over the years, her husband definitely would have been an elderly man.
Giovanna's husband's funeral was a quiet affair, occurring in the middle of a forest clearing. The personal significance of the clearing is unclear, as is its location, as, throughout the many years of her storytelling, Giovanna has always refused to reveal the location. And the only witnesses aren't talking either. One of whom was a woman by the name of Zoe Patel.
“There she is! That’s the woman who broke into my home and slept on my bed!” she shouted.
Her name was very similar to Zoe Presley's, but the two women are far from the same person. The two are confused for each other often enough as it is.
Giovanna smiled innocently. “That wasn’t me.”
The police officer looked down at a photo on his phone, that looked back at Giovanna. “No, that’s definitely you, m’am. You’re literally wearing the same outfit.”
“Am I?”
“I have security cameras," Zoe snarled. "I made sure to have them installed as soon as I bought my own place, the roommates who lived with me loved to steal my crap."
“My husband just died!” Giovanna exclaimed dramatically. "Leave me alone!"
“Yes, I see that someone died her, m'am, but he wasn’t your husband, the two of you were never formally married. I looked into you for Ms. Patel here, and we don’t have records of either of you… anywhere,” the cop said.
In Zoe Presley’s books, this is where Giovanna famously wipes away her tears and drop kicks the cop, knocks out Zoe Patel, then flees the scene, never to return to the site of her husband’s grave.
In reality, or at least according to the cop, Giovanna broke down, crying so much that she moved even Zoe Patel.
The cop and Zoe stepped away from Giovanna, and had a quick whispered conversation. Then, the cop walked towards Giovanna, smiling apologetically.
“We’ll give you your time to grieve. We’ll arrest you another day,” the cop promised.
“Yeah, it’s no biggie. Actually… just drop the charges, copper. I’ll just wait until some other idiot decides it’s a good idea to sleep in my house,” Zoe said.
The two left Giovanna there, where it’s said she cried into the night. Wether or not Giovanna ever went back to visit her husband's grave is a mystery as well. She definitely had no intention of ever revealing it, so if she did make any future visits, she did so when she was sure no one was watching her.
While Giovanna was burying her husband, Zoe Presley walked into the park she’d met Giovanna in, and scanned the park for the rock she'd pointed out. After a while, she just picked one Giovanna might have pointed at and hoped for the best, slipping a note under. She was going to make sure she got good stories from her. Giovanna... this was her big break. She could feel it. Giovanna had just better be able to find the stupid note.