Lessons in Heartbreak. Cathy Kelly

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СКАЧАТЬ who knew zip about art, could see the power and beauty of his canvases, and she loved listening to Joe talk about them.

      Joe hadn’t grown up with art on the walls, he’d told her: food on the table in his Bronx home was as good as it got. So she loved hearing him talk passionately about a world he’d come into late thanks to his sheer brilliance.

      Finally, she, Joe and Duarte, the manager, took the creaking industrial elevator down to street level.

      ‘The Marshall benefit for AIDS is on tomorrow night,’ Duarte said to Joe. ‘You and Elizabeth going?’

      Izzie froze.

      ‘Yeah, probably,’ murmured Joe.

      ‘I hear Danny Henderson’s donating a De Kooning. I mean, Jeez, that’s serious dough. Danny’s been here too, but he just doesn’t get Silvio’s vision,’ Duarte went on, oblivious to the sudden temperature shift in the elevator.

      Elizabeth was probably going with him? What happened to the separate lives thing?

      On the street, Izzie looked around for Joe’s inevitable big black limo and then realised she couldn’t possibly sit in it with him. She wasn’t sure what was worse: the feeling that Joe had wanted to shut Duarte up and not talk about the party, or Duarte’s assumption that she, Izzie, wouldn’t be going.

      If Joe Hansen was officially unattached, then why would anyone assume he’d take his wife to a benefit? And why would he say ‘yeah, probably’ when asked?

      There was only one answer and it made Izzie feel sick.

      Without saying a word, she turned and walked briskly away from the two men and the limo which had slid noiselessly into place.

      ‘Izzie!’ yelled Joe, but she kept walking.

      He caught up with her, hurt her arm as he grabbed her roughly and turned her to face him.

      ‘Don’t go,’ he begged.

      ‘Why not?’ she demanded. ‘You’ve been lying to me. It’s not over with your wife. You lied to me.’

      ‘It’s over with me and Elizabeth,’ he insisted.

      ‘Fuck you and your lies!’ Izzie threw back at him.

      ‘They’re not lies.’ He let go of her and his hands dropped limply to his sides. ‘It’s deader than any dodo, Izzie, it’s just hard to end it all. Elizabeth’s different to me, she finds it difficult to let go. I’ve told her she can have the house here, the place in the Hamptons, whatever she wants. It was over long before you, that wasn’t a lie. But she’s trying to get her head round the fact that I want to leave.’

      ‘So you’re leaving now? First, you were all staying together for the kids,’ Izzie said, trying not to cry.

      ‘We did try but it didn’t work. Elizabeth kept getting upset about it, she wants all or nothing, and now it’s a matter of her accepting it and us telling the boys. I promise, Izzie. Don’t go, please.’

      Izzie stared at him. She was a good judge of character, damnit, and he wasn’t a liar, for all he pretended to be a shark in business.

      ‘Why didn’t you tell me the truth straight up?’ she demanded.

      ‘You wouldn’t have gone out to lunch with me,’ he said, with a small smile that recalled the Joe she knew and loved.

      Loved. She loved him, Lord help her, she loved him. Without meaning to, she’d got tangled up in this mess and now she couldn’t just walk out. Still, she needed time to think.

      ‘I’ve got to go back to work, Joe,’ she said. ‘I’ll call you later.’

      ‘Let me drop you,’ he said.

      ‘No, I’ll get a taxi.’

      As if sent by an angel, a taxi with a lit sign appeared in front of her and Izzie stuck out her arm. She waved at Joe as she sat in the back and the driver sped off.

      ‘What’s up with you?’ snapped Carla at work that afternoon. ‘You don’t listen, you don’t talk, you stare into space like a moony high schooler. What gives?’

      Izzie hesitated. She and Carla had sat up nights talking men, dissing men and generally deciding that no man at all was better than changing who you were in order to capture one.

      ‘Surrendered wife, my butt! Why pretend to be Pollyanna to get him, so you can go back to being Mama Alien once he’s married you? Who needs a man that much?’

      They knew each other. But something had stopped Izzie from telling Carla about Joe. Perhaps it was a sixth sense or else it was her feeling that this was all too good to be true.

      She’d had a feeling that explaining Joe’s complicated family set-up would trigger Carla’s internal Men Are Assholes alarm and there would be no stopping her. Carla wouldn’t understand the nuances of it all.

      Well, she would now, Izzie thought bitterly. Now it wasn’t so complicated at all – just another guy trying to mess around on the side, only Izzie Silver, who’d never done the married man thing, was the person he was messing around with.

      And how could she explain all that to Carla, along with how she felt about him, despite today? That thinking of Joe made her burn with heat. That his voice made her want to melt. That she was falling for him like the sort of soppy woman she’d never been in her life before. That she was furious with him for lying to her, but somehow her traitorous mind kept thinking What if she stayed with him anyway…?

      No, she couldn’t tell Carla until she knew what she was going to do next.

      ‘Was I staring into space?’ Izzie said. ‘I was only thinking about Laetitia. We’ll need to keep an eye on her because her acne has flared up again and it really upsets her. I told her about the facialist who did wonders with Fifi’s skin, but she says she’s thinking of getting a prescription for something…’

      Models using anti-acne drugs to combat skin problems were guaranteed to occupy Carla’s mind. Carla felt that skinny girls who lived on cigarettes and diet drinks didn’t need more medication.

      ‘She doesn’t need drugs!’ Carla went off on one, yelling and being angry.

      Izzie was able to tune out of her job and into Joe.

      Carla’s instinctive reaction – if she were told – would be the correct one. There was no future in this relationship. Izzie had to end it, tonight.

      The sad thing was, she believed Joe. She believed his feelings for her, but it was all too complicated, too tangled, and he wasn’t ready to walk away from his past yet.

      If Izzie stayed, she’d be the evil woman who’d ruined his marriage. The evil woman story played better than the marriage-falling-apart one.

      ‘Izzie, you’re tuning out again. What’s up?’ demanded Carla.

      ‘Just tired,’ Izzie said, flustered.

      It wasn’t enough that Joe was messing up her heart, СКАЧАТЬ