Читать книгу Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 1: Lessons in Heartbreak, Once in a Lifetime, Homecoming - Cathy Kelly - Страница 26

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.’

‘There’s half an hour to go before the start time on the adverts,’ Lola said. ‘It’s only nine thirty. We said ten.’

‘Yeah,’ Izzie fretted, ‘but I’ve been to find-a-model castings where girls have been queuing all night to be first in line.’

‘That’s ordinary models,’ Lola shrugged. ‘They’re a whole different story. Too much caffeine and nicotine makes them jittery. Being normal makes you less desperate.’

Izzie laughed. ‘Hope that’s true,’ she said. It was so simple, it probably made perfect sense.

She thought back to her first casting years before when she’d been utterly in love with the world of fashion and modelling, and watched endless leggy gazelle-like creatures sway in and out of the room, each one more beautiful than the last.

When one girl had erupted into tears as they looked at her and the panel had raised collective eyebrows, the girl had rushed from the room and Izzie had hurried out after her.

‘It’s the zit, isn’t it?’ the girl had said, shaking with nerves and misery. She’d pointed to an almost invisible bump on her cheek, which she’d expertly hidden with concealer. ‘I knew they’d notice it, I knew it. And I’m so fat. Look!’ She’d reached down and tried to grab non-existent flesh around her concave belly.

She wore tight, low-rise jeans that revealed her bones jutting out like knobs on a Braque sculpture.

In a shoot for designer clothes, with her hair carefully windswept and a dusting of St Bart’s tan over her body, she’d look amazing. In the flesh and with tears on her hauntingly thin face, she looked like a fragile child-woman. Izzie had been horrified at the girl’s obvious self-hatred and by the easy way the other people on the panel were able to dismiss her.

‘But she’s so upset, Marla,’ Izzie wailed afterwards to her colleague from Perfect-NY when they all took a coffee break.

‘That’s why we’re not seeing her again,’ Marla whispered. ‘If she cries in front of us, what’ll she do in front of the client? It’s about more than looks, Izzie. She’s got to toughen up if she wants to make it.’

That was the first time Izzie had seen the reality of fashion. For her, it might be an exciting female-friendly industry where women’s beauty and brilliance was prized. But it could also be cruel.

By eleven that morning of the first SilverWebb casting, Izzie knew she’d made the right move. This was genuinely unlike any other casting she’d ever been at. It was like being in the backyard of Goddesses R Us, where Zeus was trying to find the perfect example of womanhood.

Women of every shape and colour crowded down one end of the loft, and whereas at normal castings wariness was a tangible currency, these women squealed and laughed and chattered at full blast.

‘I can’t believe I’m here!’ shrieked one woman.

‘This is what I’ve been waiting for all my life!’ yelled another.

‘I’m never going to be 00 but my daddy says I’m OhOh!’ laughed a third.

‘I’m going to get coffee.’

‘And cake?’

‘Better get some for everyone.’

Izzie and Carla grinned. At normal castings, diet soda, black coffee and cigarettes were the only staples. Here, muffins, non-skinny lattes and candy might work better.

Seven hours later, they had signed up eight models and the last one was a triumph. Six foot, statuesque and blonde, Steffi had been a school gymnast and cheer-leader, but she’d always been too big for ‘normal’ modelling.

She moved with the grace of a lioness and her face was poetry with a sexy smile that lit up the room. When they’d finished, Steffi had said she wanted to treat everyone to a drink to celebrate. Her boyfriend wanted to come over and celebrate too.

‘Sounds good to me,’ said Lola, rubbing a stiff neck.

‘Sure,’ said Izzie, who had nowhere else to be. It had been a very successful day and they had another casting tomorrow: SilverWebb was due a little downtime.

‘There’s a nice bar around the block,’ Carla said.

Steffi, Lola, Izzie and Carla piled in the door of the bar.

‘Hey, I like this place,’ said Steffi delightedly. She really was gorgeous, Izzie thought, and everyone in the bar clearly agreed with her, because they all stopped what they were doing to look at the tall blonde with the long legs and wide, all-encompassing smile.

‘Now where will we sit? Over here by the window and we can see what’s going on?’ She walked over to a banquette by the window and sat down, beaming out at everyone, happy with the world. Her happiness was infectious. Grinning, Izzie went and sat down beside her.

‘You do realise that every man in the bar is staring at you?’ she asked.

Steffi laughed, a rich, sexy, throaty laugh.

‘I know,’ she said mischievously. ‘And I like it! Hey, girls, let’s celebrate my new career, I can’t believe I’m going to be a model!’

‘You should believe it,’ said Lola, sitting down beside her. ‘You’ve got a great look.’

‘You say the nicest things.’ Steffi squeezed Lola’s arm happily. ‘It’s gonna be such fun working together, and I can’t wait for you all to meet Jerry. You’re going to love him!’

Carla came back from the bar carrying a tray with four glasses and a bottle of white wine.

‘This moment deserves champagne but this was all they had,’ she said. ‘I got peanuts too. Wine and peanuts are major food groups, right?’

‘Right.’ Izzie nodded.

‘Fantastic,’ said Steffi, grabbing a pack of peanuts. ‘I’m starved.’

The three SilverWebb women looked at each other and laughed.

‘You are so different from most models we know,’ Lola remarked.

‘You mean that I eat?’ said Steffi, between mouthfuls. She even ate sexily, Izzie thought with admiration. ‘I hate girls who don’t eat. Like, why?’

By the time Steffi’s boyfriend, Jerry, arrived with a couple of his friends to celebrate, the girls had finished their bottle of wine and were dickering over the idea of ordering a second.

‘Jerry!’ squealed Steffi when she saw him.

He was tall, good looking, maybe six or seven years older than Steffi and clearly besotted with her. With a brief hello to everyone else, he caught her and grabbed her in a bear hug, whirling her around the bar floor, not caring who saw him.

‘I’m so proud of you,’ he said.

‘Baby, right back at you,’ Steffi beamed and they kissed, slowly, with the burn of real passion.

‘Way to go, man,’ said one of his friends, clapping.

‘Isn’t she something?’ Jerry said, still holding on to Steffi.

That was when the emotion of the day finally got to Izzie. Gorgeous Steffi seemed to symbolise everything the Silver-Webb Agency stood for: beautiful real women who were at peace with who they were.

And yet finding Steffi for their agency highlighted just how much of an outsider Izzie felt and how badly she’d got it wrong. Steffi was hugging the man in her life on this special day and Izzie was sitting there, smiling, drinking celebratory wine – knowing that when her glass was empty she’d be going home to an empty apartment.

Izzie guessed there was probably the same age difference between Steffi and Jerry as there was between herself and Joe Hansen, but Joe had never whirled her around in pride at her achievements or showed her off to his friends saying, ‘Isn’t she something?’

Instead, he took her to quiet, out-of-the way restaurants lest they met anyone. She’d been essentially hidden, whereas Steffi was fêted and adored in public.

How ironic that, as one of the bosses of the new SilverWebb Agency, she was supposed to be the wise, clever one, running models’ careers and yet, right now, she felt like the novice who knew nothing. Pre-Joe, she’d been so shrewd and sensible, but not any more. It had taken Joe, and Gran’s stroke, to show her that she didn’t know diddly squat.

‘I have to go,’ she said, reaching around for her handbag.

‘No,’ shrieked Carla, Lola and Steffi in unison.

‘You can’t,’ said Lola. ‘We haven’t celebrated enough.’

Then she corrected herself: ‘But if you have somewhere to go…’

Izzie thought of where she had to go: home, then maybe to the launderette. She needed to buy a few groceries. She was out of coffee filters and granola.

‘You don’t need to rush off, do you?’ asked Carla gently, gazing at her friend with worry on her face.

Carla knew that Izzie had no vital appointments except with her television remote control.

‘OK,’ Izzie said. ‘I’ll stay for one more.’

An hour later, Carla was getting on like a house on fire with one of Jerry’s pals and even Lola, who had never quite decided whether she preferred men or women, was talking animatedly to his other friend.

Somehow Izzie had got stuck in the corner seat and she felt like a spiky, uninhabitable island in a sea of loved-up couples. She couldn’t do small talk any more: she’d lost the knack, along with her sense of humour and her sense of knowing what life was about.

Two glasses of wine had given her a headache and she thought maybe some orange juice would help. She wriggled out of the corner, hauling her handbag after her, and went up to the bar, where the bartender proceeded to ignore her.

‘Hey,’ she said loudly, ‘seeing as how I’m invisible, should I use my superpowers for good or for world domination? What do you think?’

The bartender turned around and she noticed, in a dispassionate, model-agency-scout kind of way, that he was pretty good looking. Younger than her, of course: everyone was younger than her now. He was mid-thirties and athletic. Once upon a time, she might have expected him to flirt mildly with her but not any more. Nobody was ever going to flirt with her again because she couldn’t bear it and they seemed to sense that.