Lessons in Heartbreak

by Cathy Kelly

  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, he was messing up her job too. She had to get out because, somewhere deep inside, Izzie knew that Joe had the power to hurt her like no man had ever hurt her before.

  She was grateful now that their relationship had never become physical. Ironically, she’d thought that tonight might be the night that it did. Still, she was grateful for small mercies. It was as if some psychic force had kept her from making love with him because, once that happened, there would be no going back. Now she had to get out, fast, while she still could.

  Before the fight in TriBeCa, they’d discussed going to dinner somewhere fancy at half nine. Izzie couldn’t wait that long. She needed to do this soon, after work, or else she’d explode. She had to get Joe out of her life and try to forget him. Although quite how she was going to do that, she had no idea.

  She left a message on Joe’s cell phone for him to meet her at seven in a small bar at Pier Nine. Anonymous and quiet, it would be the perfect setting for telling Joe she never wanted to see him again.

  At seven that night, the bar contained a mixed crowd, with studenty types, men and women in work clothes and people for whom fashion wasn’t a mission statement. The walls were jammed with non-ironic movie posters like Love Story and Flashdance, and there wasn’t a cocktail shaker in sight.

  Carla would love this place, Izzie thought briefly, then realised she couldn’t tell Carla about it because there would be nothing to tell after tonight.

  There was no future in this for her except heartbreak. God, she earned her living telling young beautiful girls that there was no future in it for them with the moguls they met at parties. They were just fodder for the rich; disposable people in a world of disposable income.

  Look who’s talking now. Stupid, stoopid.

  She sat there with her drink for fifteen minutes, hating herself, and finally moved on to anger because Joe was late. How dare he?

  After everything he’d put her through, how dare he be late now?

  Furiously, Izzie moved off the banquette, pulling her handbag after her.

  ‘You leaving? I’m sorry I’m late.’ His body, solid in a charcoal grey coat dusted with tiny diamonds of rain, blocked her way. He looked penitent, tired. He wasn’t playing a game with her, she knew instantly. But their whole relationship was based on mistruths and she hated that.

  ‘Joe.’ She slumped back into the seat, suddenly exhausted. ‘I wanted to see you to say I can’t do this any more. It’s not right, it’s not me. I was never comfortable with the idea that you still lived with your wife, split up or not, and today made it plain that I was right about that. I don’t want to be the other woman. I never auditioned for that.’

  He’d moved in to sit beside her.

  ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ he said, sounding resigned. ‘Go, Izzie, you’re right. I’ve nothing to offer you.’

  He had something to offer her, she thought, a moment of yearning in her heart. He had. But he was still married to someone else, still involved with someone else because of their children. Why couldn’t this be easy?

  Joe was off the banquette and on his feet in one fluid gesture. He moved with such elegance, he was comfortable in his own skin.

  When she’d woken up that morning with their dinner ahead of her, Izzie had decided that she wanted to feel that skin naked against hers. She wasn’t a silk underwear sort of woman. She did simple black, white or nude briefs and bras. No frills or lace. Until some invisible magnet had drawn her into Bloomingdales and the lingerie department where she’d gone crazy, doing more damage to her credit card bill. She could feel the results of that craziness, soft and very different under her clothes.

  Going to bed with him now, the first and last time, was a strange idea. Yet maybe not. If she could have him, feel him touching her just one time, then perhaps she could leave. Like immunotherapy: one touch and she’d be for ever immune to him. Her heart would send out little antibodies so she wouldn’t want him again.

  An anti-Joe shot.

  Izzie closed her eyes.

  ‘Do you want to go?’ he asked. Softer, definitely.

  ‘Do you want me to?’

  ‘No.’ Low with wanting her.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. I wanted to be honest with you, but when I met you, I knew you wouldn’t see me again if I told you how it really was. It’s over with me and Elizabeth, I promise. But I didn’t think you’d believe me, not at first.’

  She kept her eyes closed and thought about his wife, Elizabeth, and the sons, the duplex in Vail, the listing in Fortune, the assistant’s assistant, all the things that were making this impossible. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him, that face she felt as if she’d known in another lifetime because how could you commit someone’s face to memory in such a short time? Reincarnation made sense suddenly. She and Joe had known each other in another life, for sure.

  Perhaps he was meant to come into her life sooner, but he was here now. He was the one, she knew it.

  ‘I don’t want to go.’

  He didn’t sit beside her: he bent and took her head in his hands, fingers cradling her skull with passion and gentleness, and crushed her mouth to his. She was just as ferocious, hands digging into his shoulders, dragging him down to her. This was what they hadn’t done, this type of kissing. They’d been so careful, dancing around it, both knowing that if they touched, properly, then there would be no going back.

  Izzie moaned, knowing she was lost.

  They pulled apart, two sets of bruised lips, two pairs of eyes black with desire.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Izzie said.

  There was a car waiting outside the bar for him: a discreet Town car that smoothly drove up as soon as Joe raised his finger. It was always a different driver, Izzie realised, as he helped her into the leather backseat. Someone
like Joe would absolutely have a regular driver, but that driver would know his wife, run errands for her, take the kids to school.

  He couldn’t risk that driver seeing her again after the Plaza lunch. She was a guilty secret, to be hidden until it was all sorted out with his wife, the wife who didn’t want it to be over. Izzie, who’d never been hidden in her life and who’d often longed to be small for a day just for the experience, forced herself to brush the thought away. She was a secret. So what? It wouldn’t be for long, just long enough for Joe to end what was already over.

  In her apartment, she didn’t think twice about saying, ‘I bet you didn’t know they made apartments in this size, huh?’

  ‘I didn’t come for the real estate,’ he said.

  ‘What did you come here for?’ she said.

  ‘For this.’ With one effortless move, his arms were around her waist, crushing her tightly against him. Izzie felt the surge of being plugged into some heavenly mains supply and with her back against the wall, she hungrily pulled his head down to hers and kissed him. His face was hard but his lips were soft, melting into hers, consuming her. Izzie flowed into the kiss, then suddenly pulled back.

  She wanted to be in charge, in control for a moment, to show him that she would not be messed around with. She shoved him until he was against the facing wall, and she was on her toes, reaching and kissing.

  ‘Me first,’ he murmured, wrenching his mouth away. Her hands were behind her back, pinioned at the wrist with one of his big hands, the other cradling her head as he kissed her. He half carried her against his body until she was at the other wall again.

  ‘Rough stuff?’ she gasped, struggling to free her hands.

  ‘No,’ he said, stopping to stroke her cheek tenderly. ‘Never. I don’t want to hurt you, but I want you under me. Does that make me a Neanderthal in these sexually enlightened times?’

  Izzie laughed. She took his hand and led him into the tiny living room. ‘I’m the sort of girl who goes on top.’

  He hauled her close again. ‘Maybe the second time,’ he growled.

  ‘I’m not like other women,’ Izzie said. Still in his embrace, she managed to unwind her scarf and unbutton her coat. He ripped his coat off.

  ‘Never thought you were.’

  ‘So don’t tell me what to do or what not to do,’ she added.

  ‘Not even in bed?’

  He was pulling his knotted tie loose and the sight of this normally buttoned-up businessman turning primeval made her weak at the knees.

  ‘Maybe in bed,’ Izzie teased, slipping her fingers down to untie the ribbons of her blouse. A complicated thing made of navy polka dot silk and laced up the front, it was the sort of garment that begged to be torn off. Joe’s eyes darkly followed her fingers as they loosened the navy ribbons.

  ‘I hope it’s not expensive,’ he said heavily, grabbing her again and pulling at the ribbons urgently, ripping the fragile fabric. Her full mouth caught his again, hot breath and hot tongues melding. He tasted like more. She wanted him like she’d never wanted anyone before.

  Izzie felt every nerve ending on fire with desire. Her nipples were hard buds of lust and underneath her sedate pencil skirt she could feel her skin burning in its silken lingerie, wild to be set free and naked.

  ‘I can afford a new one,’ said Izzie, which wasn’t true, but now wasn’t the time to split dollars.

  ‘Good.’

  He’d pulled the blouse apart, and his hands and mouth were roaming the soft skin of her breasts, kissing, licking and then sucking. Then his hands slid under the pencil skirt and his fingers cupped her pubic bone, making her feel the moisture pooling inside her.

  Izzie groaned with pleasure. If this was her vaccination, then she wanted it to go on for a very long time.

  She hadn’t shut the drapes and afterwards the lights of the city provided a gentle illumination for their crumpled bed. Joe lay propped up on her pillows, the sheets reaching up the muscled tan of his waist. Izzie lay on her side, head on her elbow, not quite looking at him but gazing away. It was an odd moment: at once both intimate and oddly formal.

  Izzie, who’d had no difficulty sitting astride this man’s hips and letting him watch her face as she screamed with ecstasy, felt the awkwardness of afterwards. Suddenly she wondered how pure physical lust and attraction could make people do what they’d just done. There were so many things they didn’t know about each other. She didn’t know how he liked his coffee in the morning, the name of his first pet, did he love his mother?

  None of that had mattered before. Now, the gap of that knowledge made what had gone before seem seamy, dirty. What was the protocol?

  Thanks a million, honey: the money’s on the mantelpiece? It might be different for billionaires. The mink coat will be hiked over, sweetie, goodbye –

  She shivered involuntarily. She’d never, ever wanted to be that sort of woman. And now, she was, wasn’t she?

  ‘I don’t suppose you have a cigarette?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t think you smoked,’ she said, surprised. Whatever she’d expected, it hadn’t been this.

  ‘I don’t. I quit ten years ago. But sometimes…’

  ‘Like when you’re in bed with women other than your wife?’ Izzie said, cut at the insinuation. ‘How many packs do you go through a month?’

  ‘None,’ he said, evenly. ‘Don’t be like that, Izzie.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That.’

  ‘I can’t help it.’ She couldn’t. Now she’d crossed over to the other side, the side of loving him. Now he could hurt her and she felt naked, raw. She wanted to hurt first.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t honest with you from the beginning,’ he said. ‘I wish I’d told you everything.’

  ‘Me too,’ she said bitterly, but at least now she was bitter at herself.

  ‘Are you sorry that we made love?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said and burst into tears.

  ‘Izzie,’ he said, cradling her close to him, murmuring her name as he held her.

  Then, when she’d managed to stop crying, he carried on holding her and slowly his hands massaged her back, tenderly rubbing out aches, until they moved down to the curve of her buttocks, and then they were making love again with more intensity even than before. As Joe arched over her, forearms rigid with muscle as he lunged into her, and Izzie was about to let go of herself and let her body soar into orgasm, she realised that she couldn’t give this up. This sort of love and passion, this was the most addictive drug of all.

  That had been two months ago. Since then, no one could have said that Izzie Silver and Joe Hansen were having half an affair – it was one hundred per cent, for sure. They talked every day, met as often as Joe could manage, and Izzie tried very hard to cope with both the insecurity of her own position and the fact that making love to another woman’s husband went completely against her moral code.

  Oh, Izzie, you pathetic idiot, she said aloud. She was staying in a cooling bath in case the man in her life phoned. What was modern, grown-up and independent about that?

  If he phones, he phones. She drained her spritzer and then stood up, letting the rose-scented water flow over her body. She’d just wrapped a towel around herself when the apartment phone rang.

  ‘Hi, it’s me.’

  Izzie felt the relief sweep from her head to her toes.

  ‘Hello,’ she said softly, as if she were the one whispering as she made an illicit call.

  ‘How are you, Joe? I missed you.’

  Probably not the right thing to say, she knew, but she refused to play games.

  ‘I missed you too.’

  He didn’t play them either.

  ‘Why didn’t you call?’ OK, so that was a bit of game-playing. But she couldn’t help it. Why hadn’t he called?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said softly.

  ‘That’s not an answer,’ Izzie replied, feeling the familiar anxiety claw its way up her throat. She’d never been this way in a rela
tionship before. But then, she’d never had a relationship like this before: a hidden one.

  ‘It’s complicated.’

  ‘O-kay.’

  ‘Really. I can’t talk now. I’m at home.’

  Why did that word hurt so much? Home. He had a home that was where she wasn’t. How could that be right? When she felt as if nowhere was home except when she was with him? When had this all become so one-sided?

  ‘Well, if you can’t talk…’ she said sharply, knowing she was cutting off her nose to spite her face. She’d longed for this call, blast it.

  ‘I can’t, I’m sorry,’ he said evenly.

  ‘Why did you phone, then?’ The words just snapped out of her.

  ‘Right now, I’m asking myself precisely that question,’ Joe said, a slight edge to his voice. ‘We should talk when you want to talk to me.’

  ‘I do want to talk to you – but not with you whispering in case somebody hears,’ hissed Izzie. And that was the crux of it: the great love of her life was talking quietly on the phone to her, when she wanted him yelling his love from the rooftops. How bloody hard could it be for him to tell his wife that he was formalising what they’d talked about for years?

  ‘I’m sorry you feel that way,’ he said, still calm. His calmness infuriated her. He was in control, in every way. Whereas she felt wildly out of control over the depth of her feelings for him. And she had no control over their relationship because he called the shots. It was like walking a tightrope with no harness and no safety net.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said suddenly, wanting to goad him into begging her not to go. ‘I just got out of the bath and I’m dripping bathwater on to the floor.’

  He didn’t take the bait.

  ‘Fine,’ he said.

  ‘No it’s not fine. Nothing’s bloody fine!’ she snapped back and hung up. Then, because she so desperately wanted to phone him back and say she loved him but couldn’t because of how awful she’d just been, she burst into tears. If she wasn’t so fiercely in love with Joe, she’d wish she’d never met him. Because surely there wasn’t much more pain than this, was there?