by Cathy Kelly
FIFTEEN
There was nothing more beautiful than the sight of New York’s skyscrapers soaring into the sky on a sunny morning, Izzie decided as she sat in the back of the cab. She loved New York, even loved this patchouli-scented cab with its dangling beads that rattled off every surface like mini-castanets for the entire trip.
The city spoke of fresh starts – it was impossible to come here without starting again, without thinking of reinvention. In New York, you could be anyone you wanted to be.
And from now on, Izzie vowed, she was going to be a totally different person from the Izzie Silver of three weeks ago.
She’d thought about it on the long flight across the Atlantic, hemmed in beside two chatty German girls on their first trip to America.
They were going to see so much, do so much, and Izzie naturally thought of herself ten years ago and her plans. What exactly had she done in those ten years but get caught up in the sort of bullshit that was the same the world over – trying to fit in, trying to make money, trying to catch some impossible dream. Doing it, she’d lost sight of all the things that mattered, and she’d become a victim, tossed along on the storm.
She’d let everyone down: darling Mum, who’d wanted her to be happy; Dad, who thought only the best of her; and Gran, who’d taught her to be strong, honest and courageous. Dear Gran. It was hard to think of her lying in that hospital bed without any light or expression in her eyes. After three weeks in Tamarin, waiting for her to wake up again, Izzie had realised that her beloved grandmother might never wake up again.
But despite the pain of all the things left unsaid, Izzie knew she couldn’t fail Gran now. She’d start again in her life and do it all right this time. She had a second chance and she didn’t want to screw it up. The first change was going to be Joe. She’d been hoping for what could never happen and crying into her pillow when it didn’t. No more. It was over between them, but not with her as the wronged heroine, screeching pain at him. It would be over in a dignified manner.
Her apartment felt like an icebox when she opened the door. The air-conditioning was playing up again. Switching it off, she phoned the super to get him to look at her air-con unit, then opened the windows to let a little summer morning heat in.
By the time the super arrived, she’d unpacked, piled her dirty laundry into a bag for the launderette, and had stripped off her travelling clothes for a pair of sweatpants and a T-shirt.
‘Hey, Tony, thanks for coming so quickly.’
‘No problemo,’ Tony replied and set to work.
‘You want coffee?’
‘Yeah, cream no sugar, please.’
While the coffee brewed, Izzie clicked on her answering machine to pick up her messages.
There were a couple from friends she hadn’t got round to telling she was out of town, a cold call from a telemarketer, and one from Joe. He’d stopped phoning her cell phone when she was in Ireland after his first five calls went unanswered. This message was from last night.
‘Hi, Izzie. I hear you’re home tomorrow…’
How had he heard that?
‘I wanted to say hi and I’m thinking about you, honey. Please call me when you get back.’
‘I’ve got to get another tool,’ said Tony, shuffling into the hall. ‘Back in a moment.’
‘Yeah, sure,’ she said absently.
She’d removed Joe’s cell-phone number from her speed dial, but she knew it off by heart anyhow. She keyed the number in and thought about pressing the dial button.
What would she say: Bye, and it was fun knowing you?
No. She pressed cancel, put the phone down and poured the coffee.
Carla arrived at half nine on her way to work with pastries from the deli on 29th and some gossip magazines.
‘Sustenance,’ she said, dumping it all on the coffee table. ‘I figured you wouldn’t have gone to the market yet to stock up.’ She hugged her friend tightly. ‘How are you?’
‘I’m fine,’ Izzie said, and immediately began to cry.
‘Oh, baby girl, cry,’ sighed Carla. ‘I knew you sounded too perky last time on the phone. How’s your granny?’
‘Still in no-no land,’ Izzie sobbed. ‘She’s just lying there in the bed. Within the next week, they’ll move her into a nursing home. The longer she’s in a coma, the less chance she has of coming out of it. That’s all that’s left for her now: she’ll be left in a bed in a home, and I can’t bear to think about it. It’s such a horrible end to her life. She deserves so much more…’
The apartment phone rang and Carla automatically got up to answer it.
‘Yes? OK, who’s calling?’ Carla’s sharp intake of breath made Izzie look up. ‘No, you can’t talk to Izzie, you asshole. She can do without you right now. She needed you three weeks ago, and you couldn’t be there, so don’t think you can skip the queue this time…’
Joe. Nobody else could make Carla sound so furious.
‘Let me talk to him,’ Izzie said, holding out her hand for the phone. ‘I’m OK, honest,’ she added.
Grudgingly, Carla handed over the phone.
‘Hello?’ Izzie said.
‘Hello you,’ he replied, soft as honey.
His voice was so comforting and she felt that pang of knowing that she’d have to turn her back on its comfort. Or it would kill her. What was the point of living a half-life with a man who’d never be hers? Endless sacrifices, being on her own for every Christmas, squirrelling time away on birthdays, taking trips where they’d know nobody, going to off-the-grid restaurants in case someone walked up to either one of them and said ‘hello!’ in a knowing tone. She knew what their future held if Joe stayed in his tangled-up life, and she didn’t want that.
She knew it would ultimately destroy her. And them.
‘What do you want, Joe?’ she asked tiredly, as if she’d lived out her thoughts in real-time and was suffering from exhaustion.
‘To see you and hold you,’ he replied.
‘You know what’s wrong with you?’ she asked. ‘You say all the right things at the right time and it’s killing me, Joe. Why can’t you be a straightforward bastard and let me hate you? It would be easier for me that way.’
‘Do you think I’m a bastard?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said candidly. ‘I do. You came into this game with a loaded deck and I have only myself to blame for playing along. I wish I hadn’t.’
‘Can I come round?’
Straight to the point – the captain of industry who realised he was on to a loser and knew that taking the meeting in person would work.
Izzie didn’t have the energy to fight. ‘Yes,’ she sighed and hung up.
‘You got rid of him?’ Carla asked.
‘Not exactly –’
‘He’s not coming here, I hope. Because, if he is, I’ll give the son of a bitch something to remember me by –’
‘Carla, don’t. I’m going to tell him it’s over.’
‘Hope so. He doesn’t deserve to have two women fighting over him, and that’s what’ll happen, Izzie. Men like him want to have their cake and eat it. He wants you and Mrs Charity Lunch Bitch.’
Izzie laughed. ‘Thank you,’ she said.
‘For what?’
‘For hating his wife even though she’s done nothing to either of us.’
‘I’m just following the script,’ Carla said, grinning. ‘The girlfriend’s girlfriends have to diss the wife and say she’s a heartless hustler who’s in it for the money, and the wife’s girlfriends have to say exactly the same thing.’
‘Oh. I thought we were mould-breakers and did things a new way,’ Izzie remarked.
‘Sorry, girlfriend, there ain’t nothing mould-breaking about this story. You think prostitution’s the oldest game around? No, baybee, it’s the love triangle.’
‘I’m a cliché, huh?’
“Fraid so. Tell me, does Uptown Man have a key, or can we hit the grocery store and come back safely?’
‘No key.’
‘Cool. Let’s take our time and make him wait.’
Joe was sitting in her apartment chatting with Tony, the super, when they got back.
Izzie still felt her heart jump when she saw him and even the disapproving presence of Carla and her own vow that she wouldn’t touch him couldn’t stop her moving towards him to kiss him.
‘Honey, I’ve missed you,’ he murmured, holding her tightly.
Briefly, Izzie let herself relax into him, sucking comfort from his presence. Then she pulled back. She shouldn’t have let him come round. She could never resist him in person.
‘You must be Joe,’ said Carla.
‘And you’re Carla – pleased to meet you,’ Joe said, all charm.
She’d seen him charm people before but had forgotten how good he was at it.
Tony had finished up working on the air-con and he left. Joe settled on the couch, leaning back into it, long legs spread, utterly relaxed.
He chatted to Carla about Perfect-NY, and when she began to talk about their idea for setting up their own agency, Izzie silenced her with a look. She’d spoken to Joe about it before, but now, now that she was giving him his marching orders, she didn’t want to talk about it in front of him. He’d only try to invest in the firm and then she’d never be free of him.
Finally, Carla got up to go.
‘Work: curse of the shopping classes, huh?’ she said. ‘Talk to me later?’ she added to Izzie.
Izzie nodded. The two women exchanged a look. Carla shrugged; she knew it was no good trying to persuade her friend to send Joe home. Izzie had to do it in her own time.
‘Just don’t hurt her any more,’ Carla said to Joe, ‘or you’ll have to answer to me.’
‘I won’t hurt her,’ he said.
Carla stared at him and then at Izzie. The look on her face said she didn’t believe him.
They were alone again and when Joe moved over to where she was sitting and began to caress the line of her collarbone under the cotton of her T-shirt, Izzie let him. This is the last time, she thought.
He brushed his lips softly across the silk of her skin and she felt her body curve under his caress.
The last time.
His fingers closed around her breast, making her liquid with desire.
The last time.
He kept her close to him, naked skin to skin, afterwards. He didn’t move to light a cigarette, just held her as if he knew what was in her mind.
‘I don’t want this any more,’ she said, breaking the silence. ‘I want you, sure, but not everything that comes with you.’
‘We can work it out,’ Joe said, still holding her.
‘No, we can’t. I thought a lot while I was away – all I did was think,’ she admitted, ‘and I want what I wanted from the start, Joe: a proper relationship. You can’t give me that and I was stupid to get involved with you in the first place. I knew something wasn’t right.’
There, she’d said it: what she’d barely admitted to herself until now. She’d had the strangest feeling that something wasn’t right and she’d still hoped it might all work out.
‘People being ill or dying always makes us think about our lives, but we can work it out –’ he said.
‘I don’t want to,’ Izzie interrupted. ‘I love you, Joe, but I’m asking you to walk away from me, please. Leave me alone, stop contacting me.’
‘You don’t mean that,’ he said.
Gently, she disentangled herself from him and the bedclothes.
‘I do,’ she said sadly. She leaned down and put a hand on either side of his face, a face she loved so much. If she cried now, she wouldn’t be able to do it and she had to. There would be pain and heartache for a while, but eventually, she’d come out of it.
If she didn’t end it, the pain would drift along for years and it would destroy her. She loved him and she knew she’d put up with anything because of that. Anything.
So now, while she still had the strength, she wanted him to leave her alone.
‘Please go, my love. Just go.’
He stared at her, his face expressionless.
‘You mean it?’
‘I mean it. There’s no future for us.’
‘You’re wrong, Izzie. This is special, what we have. It doesn’t come every day, please don’t throw it away. I just need more time –’
‘It’s not special enough any more,’ she said sadly. ‘If it’s that special, why do I feel so sad?’
He didn’t speak as he showered and dressed, although several times she caught him staring at her as she sat on the bed and watched. Watching the man she loved preparing to walk out of her life was one of the hardest things she’d ever done, but Izzie knew she had to do it. It was her gift to herself, but God, it hurt.
When he was ready, he turned and came to the bed.
‘Goodbye, Izzie,’ he said and bent his head for one last kiss.
At that brush of his lips, Izzie felt her resolve collapse and she bit out the words: ‘Please go, Joe. Leave me alone.’
‘If it’s what you want,’ he said.
‘It’s what I want.’
He went. When the door shut, the apartment seemed to shrink to half its size. With him, it was the centre of the universe. Without him, it was a cage.
He’d left the thin navy silk scarf he’d been wearing, she realised. She picked it up, holding it to her face and smelling the scent of him, then she sat cradling it on her lap like a talisman of their life together. Only then did she allow herself to cry.
Tomorrow, she’d start her new life, but today was for mourning.
A month later, Izzie walked around the enormous loft, taking in the airiness of the space and admiring the high ceilings, pale oak floor and outer brick walls. It was the biggest loft she’d ever been in and it looked like it should have either a ballet barre at one wall and a mirror at the other, or else, it should be hung with vast canvases in progress, and a barefoot guy in paint-splattered jeans with a cigarette in his mouth staring at the walls.
‘Wow, imagine this as an apartment,’ sighed Carla, peering down at 34th Street below.
‘Nobody could afford this as an apartment,’ laughed Lola, who’d found the place for the casting, and was busy setting up camp at the large desk beside a small, very old stereo system. ‘It’s been everything from a gallery –’
‘I knew it,’ Izzie said, thrilled to be right. She’d felt art breathing in the space.
‘And some guy used it as a yoga studio. Asthanga? Whatever, I don’t know – I get those yoga types mixed up. It’s too big to ever make it as a home. The realtor says an ad agency are desperate to get it.’
‘Figures,’ Carla said, returning from the window to put her things down beside the table. ‘I can just see a group of anal-retentive ad types arguing over who gets the biggest desk space and where to put the basketball hoop, because they have to have a hoop so they’ll look like homeys, even though the nearest they get to a basketball court is wearing Air Jordans.’
‘Do I detect a note of bitterness about advertising men?’ Lola asked naughtily.
‘Bitterness? Me? Not at all,’ Carla laughed. ‘But if the ad agency guys who are interested in this place are called WorkIt Ads, then tell me so I can buy a couple of tuna steaks and hide them under the floorboards where a guy called Billy sits. Oh yes, and I want a standing order with the local porno video shop to send round dominatrix movies every afternoon. Come to think of it –’ She paused. ‘Billy’s probably weird enough to like that. Strike the porno movies.’
Everyone laughed.
‘Pity we can’t afford this for more than a day,’ Izzie sighed, mentally shaking her head to get Joe Hansen out of it. It was a futile gesture. He inhabited her every moment and it hurt more than she’d thought possible. If she hadn’t had the new agency to think about and all the organisation it involved, she’d have gone crazy.
So much had happened in the past month. She and Carla had given in their notice, Lola had said she wanted
to join them, and suddenly, they were raising money, looking for premises and ready to cast their new models.
They had just signed the contract for the SilverWebb Agency’s first office suite. It was lovely but the location was so perfect that something had to suffer, and that something was floor space.
There was enough room for reception, a small conference room and a four-desk office, along with a tiny kitchen area. But there was no space for a start-up casting, hence their presence in the yoga studio.
‘If there’s anyone else you can wangle money out of, Izzie, then we can rent it,’ Lola said. ‘Where are all the Fortune 500 moguls now, huh?’
Carla shot Izzie a sympathetic look. They both had a certain Fortune 500 mogul in mind, but neither of them cared to phone him up and ask for a cheque.
‘When a man’s the answer to your question, you’re asking the wrong question,’ Carla joked, checking that the Polaroid camera was working.
Normally on a casting, the models had their own portfolios and model cards. Today’s was the result of a lot of adverts looking for ‘plus-sized’ models – Izzie hated the term with a vengeance as it summoned up visions of women too big to walk – so lots of the prospective models wouldn’t have model cards. Both Izzie and Carla liked Polaroids for instant memory-refreshing.
Izzie laid out sheets of paper and pens so everybody could write down their contact details.
‘I hope we get a good turn-out,’ she said to Lola anxiously. ‘There’s nobody here yet.’