Funny You Should Ask

To resolve both the past and present storylines, Chani must finally reckon with her own insecurities and make peace with the disconnect between who she and Gabe are as people and the people the public perceives them to be. The reader understands that, 10 years ago, Gabe was hurt and humiliated by his thwarted sexual encounter with Chani. He felt vulnerable and exposed when she wrote about their private time together, and insecure about her claims that he would make a memorable Bond (if Chani has never actually seen a Bond movie, as she confesses, then how would she know?). His self-doubt drove him to marry Jacinda as a form of self-protection. Gabe’s attempts to get back in touch with Chani, even though his attempts were painful for both of them, prove that he never forgot her, while Chani’s feelings for Gabe have also never disappeared.

When she finds herself running from Gabe again in the present-day, however, Oliver intervenes as the voice of reason, reminding Chani that Gabe has real feelings—forcing her to finally deal with Gabe (and herself) as real people, rejecting the perceptions of others. Chani must finally reckon with her own feelings of uncertainty and suspicion that the main reason her career took off was because people wanted to know just how close she’d gotten to Gabe Parker. Eventually, she realizes she is the one maintaining the fiction that there is a divide between regular, everyday people and famous, beautiful, or powerful people. She also comes to understand that she can’t control the narrative that is crafted about her. She gets to decide how much she will care about what people think of her. In the trope of a romance novel, the protagonist chooses love and the life they have with their lover, realizing it’s more valuable to them than anything else. Gabe reminds Chani that she writes her own narrative when he gives her the key to his vehicle. Her choices are hers alone.

As part of the resolution, both leads realize that their separation was necessary for them to grow as individuals who can now be worthy of love and of one another. Both had to come to terms with their inner conflicts and the insecurities that previously divided them.

Oliver represents an example of someone who has already reconciled who he is with public perceptions of who he should be. In coming out, he made clear that any fantasies the public constructs from his celebrity persona do not define the person he truly is. His stable relationship with his husband offers Gabe and Chani proof that such a lasting connection and commitment is possible. It’s fitting that Oliver has a stake in Gabe’s theater—the pivotal setting that brings Chani and Gabe together—the place Gabe points to in the Epilogue as representing his definition of success along with his marriage to Chani.

In switching to Gabe’s first-person point of view at the end, the Epilogue deconstructs the celebrity façade by letting Gabe finally speak for himself. That he’s hyphenated his name to Parker-Horowitz indicates his decision to define himself by what he values most: a life with Chani.