Cathy Kelly 3-Book Collection 1: Lessons in Heartbreak, Once in a Lifetime, Homecoming. Cathy KellyЧитать онлайн книгу.
poor love, at least Izzie had some hope of telling people she simply hadn’t slept well. Keeping her relationship with Joe secret was turning her into a liar and she hated that.
Joe phoned at ten: ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Fuck off.’
‘That’s nice,’ he said mildly.
‘I don’t mean to be nice,’ she retorted.
‘I’ll hang up and phone again when you’re less pissed off with me?’
‘You do that.’
Izzie hung up first, which gave her a certain childish satisfaction that lasted for a second, whereupon she moaned softly at the thought of having hung up on him. She loved him, blast it. Needed him. Didn’t he know that she was just saying those things? That she wanted him to need her so bad that, in spite of her anger, he’d rush downtown to Perfect-NY’s office, throw himself on his knees in front of everyone, and tell her he loved her? That Elizabeth would have to deal with it. That his kids – and Lord knew, she admired how he did things for his kids, but it could still hurt – would get over their parents splitting up. Kids weren’t stupid. They knew when people weren’t getting on, didn’t they? Surely she’d read that in a psychology magazine. It was better for children to see their parents facing up to the problems than hiding them, pretending it was all fine. But she couldn’t say any of that to Joe because she wasn’t supposed to be the kid expert, after all. He had to work it out for himself.
Her cell phone rang again.
‘Yes?’ she’d hit the button before it could attempt a second ring.
‘Izzie, this is Amanda from Zest…’
Get off the fucking phone in case my lover is trying to contact me!!! was what Izzie wanted to say. Instead, she went into professional mode.
‘Hi, Amanda. Recovered from New Mexico yet? And has Ivan sent over the photos from the shoot?’ she asked calmly.
At lunchtime, Izzie deliberately went out and had a sandwich in the diner she’d told Joe she loved most, in case he was waiting for her and wanted to see her. She sat in one of the front booths, forced to share with three suited guys because the place was so busy, and pretended to read a magazine, all the time aching for Joe to come in and drag her out on to the street.
I love you, I don’t care about anything else. I want to be with you, he’d say, and everyone would smile at this proof of true love on the streets of Noo Yawk, and it would all be perfect because he’d chosen her.
Wait, he’d beg. Please wait for me, Izzie. It will work out, I promise.
He didn’t turn up.
Izzie went back to work but couldn’t concentrate on anything, until she flicked through the Post and found an article about a benefit in the Museum of Natural History the following night.
The great and the good would be at it, the Post told her breathlessly, including Elizabeth Hansen, who was on the charity committee, and her husband, Joe, who was a major benefactor. Izzie could feel the blood draining from her head. She’d never fainted in her life but she might just faint now. Joe was going to this charity thing with Elizabeth after he’d sworn that he’d told Elizabeth they’d have to stop doing that. She’d been so hurt when he’d gone to the AIDS benefit the night after they made love.
‘I had to,’ he’d said.
‘If you live separate lives, you don’t have to!’ she’d yelled back.
‘I know, I’m sorry. I’ll tell her we can’t do that again. It’s just – she’s on lots of committees and there are lots of functions
‘Joe, if you and Elizabeth are over, then that’s fine,’ Izzie had said coldly. ‘If you’re not, get the hell out of my life.’
‘We’re over,’ he’d said. ‘Over. Promise. It will work out, Izzie, soon, I promise.’
‘I think I’ve got Carla’s flu,’ Izzie announced blindly, closing the Post. She just had to get out of the office where she jumped every time a phone rang.
Izzie had never attended a function at the museum, although she’d seen pictures in the papers and magazines and knew the form. The vast Romanesque steps spread majestically down to where the cars lined up, with fat red carpet laid for the rich to step on.
She stood with all the onlookers and waited, feeling crazier by the minute. It was just like being a celebrity-obsessed person waiting for their favourite movie star, standing in line in the rain and cold for just a glimpse of a person adored onscreen. Why would anyone do that? It was sad, such a sign of not having a life.
And then she thought of how sad she was: standing waiting for a glimpse of her lover and his wife, to see if she could detect the truth. She was pathetic.
Hating herself at that moment, Izzie turned, leaving the small crowd of onlookers, not thinking where she was going in her misery, and found herself close to a dark limo that was disgorging four passengers going to the gala.
Two men and two women, all with the waft of privilege and dollars around them. On one side of the limo were Joe and a blonde woman who could only be his wife. She looked better than she had in the Google pictures: thin, tall, with the racehorse legs these East Coast society women inherited from their mothers, and high, high shoes with the telltale red soles that marked them out as Christian Louboutins. Izzie had only one pair. They were things of beauty but too expensive for someone on her salary. She felt envy at a woman who wore them carelessly in the rain. And her clothes – Izzie gazed enviously at her clothes. Elizabeth wore a beautiful evening coat – tailored plum silk, definitely Lanvin, beyond fashionable. Of course, she wouldn’t be a bling bling taste-free person. As if anybody in Joe’s life could be that.
Izzie thought of the high-street copy of that same coat that hung in her own wardrobe: a knock-off she’d worn once with him and he’d said it was sexy but he preferred what was underneath, and he’d untied the big bow belt and they’d made love on the rug in her living room.
Hers had been cheap. Like her. She’d got a fake Lanvin, lots of pairs of pretend-Louboutins and a fake boyfriend. Which was just right for someone who was cheap.
Exactly then, Joe turned his face away from the rain and she knew without a doubt that he’d spotted her in the crowd. For a flicker of a second, their eyes met before he turned away. His face didn’t really alter, but she knew he’d seen her. Standing in the crowd like a dirty-faced urchin with her nose pressed up against the sweetshop window: looking at forbidden treasures.
His face was expressionless, and Izzie felt as if she was the cheapest whore on the planet.
So cheap, she’d been free. She should print cards and leave them in phone booths. For a good time, no fee, call Izzie Silver…Even joking couldn’t make it better.
His wife said something to him, and clutched his raincoated arm with her hand, a sparkly hand that glittered with a fat diamond the size of a robin’s egg. Tiffany, Izzie thought. Engagement ring or just cocktail ring? She wasn’t sure which finger it was on.
Joe instantly turned to Elizabeth, his head bent the way it bent when he talked to Izzie.
How could she have been so stupid?
He’d said he loved Elizabeth, that after twenty-four years, he still did, but that their relationship was over and that he wanted out. He’d said he needed and wanted Izzie.
Izzie had imagined that no man could love two people at the same time, simply because she wouldn’t have been able to. She’d assumed it was the same for him.
She was obviously wrong.
Joe could love his wife and simultaneously lie to and fuck Izzie. Simple as that.
Izzie turned away, furiously blinking back tears. This time, she wouldn’t cry. She was done crying over Joe. Falling for him had made her