Lessons in Heartbreak

by Cathy Kelly

  ‘Yeah, she’s fresh-faced, but she’s sorta kooky, isn’t she?’ snapped one of the SupaGirl! executives, tossing aside the third model card they’d looked at. ‘We’re not about kooky. We want a normal American teenager.’

  On the other side of the boardroom table, Izzie stuck her nails into the palms of her hands to make herself keep schtum. Normal teenager – yeah, right. She’d seen the brief, and no matter how they pretended they were looking for normal, what they really wanted was a fifteen-year-old goddess who’d never seen a zit in her life in order to advertise oil-free foundation.

  ‘Lorelei is actually very versatile,’ Izzie said, once she’d managed to get her temper under control.

  ‘We’re not about kooky,’ agreed the other SupaGirl! person, who looked about twelve years old and was clearly a yes-woman for the other executive.

  ‘No, definitely not. Let’s skip her. Who else have you got?’ snapped the first executive.

  After another half hour of this, Izzie had only four models left to show them and couldn’t face doing it, and being rejected again, without a hit of caffeine. Perfect-NY weren’t getting an early chance to place one of their models with SupaGirl! after all. This whole thing was a PR exercise to please Svetlana Jacobman and the bitchy executive had never had any intention of doing business this way.

  ‘I need a coffee,’ Izzie said, forcing a smile on to her face and rising abruptly from the conference table.

  ‘Yeah, me too,’ said Stefan, following her.

  Outside the conference room was a small kitchen that was, nevertheless, bigger than the one in Izzie’s apartment.

  ‘No good so far, but hey, you never know, we might hit gold yet,’ Stefan said as he leaned against the door jamb and watched Izzie making her mind up between machine espresso or filter. She’d known him for a few years; he was good looking in an outdoorsy way, but he was too obvious: blond hair carefully gelled, shirt opened to show his impressive chest. Izzie had a vision of him in front of the mirror in the mornings, working out exactly which button to open down to on his shirt. She hated that: she preferred her men rougher, as though they could afford nice suits but really couldn’t be bothered trying to look so smooth. Unfortunately, that type of guy clearly couldn’t be bothered about her either, if Joe Hansen was anything to go by.

  Irritation with Joe spilled out on to the general population.

  ‘I’m not holding out much hope for us hitting gold,’ she snapped. ‘Your Laurel and Hardy team don’t seem to like any model I show them.’

  ‘Ouch. Laurel and Hardy. That’s harsh. Bad day?’ said Stefan.

  ‘You could say that.’ Izzie went for filter coffee. She might start to shake if she had any more espresso inside her.

  ‘Man trouble or office trouble?’ Stefan asked.

  Izzie shot him a glare. Stefan was straight, therefore not allowed to broach the ‘having man trouble?’ conversation.

  With guys like him – straight, women-mad with access to a corporate gold card – man conversations always ended up with him offering himself, clothed or otherwise, as a shoulder to cry on.

  ‘I don’t have man trouble, because I don’t have anything to do with men.’

  ‘Pity.’

  ‘Pity, schmity.’

  ‘You sure you don’t want to talk?’

  ‘Stefan,’ she snapped, ‘I’m not talking about this with you. We are not friends.’

  ‘Ouch.’ He feinted grabbing his bruised heart at that.

  Izzie laughed. ‘What I like about you is that I can say anything and you can take it.’

  ‘I’d love you to say anything to me, but you always turn me down. Like that time I asked you to have early drinks with me before the Ford party…’

  ‘I had to work. Besides, when I turned up, you’d found yourself a date.’

  She’d been tempted by the invitation at the time, during another date-drought, before she’d given up on men altogether. But Stefan had cut a swathe through more than one model agency. She’d often wondered if he had his own wall with model cards on it and a merit-rating system.

  The night in question, she’d showed up at the party to find him being consoled by a Texan model who had legs up to her armpits, a curtain of platinum hair down to her coccyx and a body made for lingerie adverts.

  ‘She was on the subs’ bench,’ he said. ‘You were first team.’

  ‘You’ve an answer for everything, Stefan,’ she sighed. ‘You do realise that if it was anybody else but me, you’d be facing a sexual harassment suit right now? You’re lucky I’m so easy-going.’

  ‘You, easy-going? Hey Irish, never get hard-going, will you?’

  ‘Let’s concentrate on what we’re doing.’

  ‘Not over coffee,’ he groaned. ‘We’re supposed to be doing the brainstorming in the conference room.’

  ‘It’s hard to think creatively with that pair wrecking my buzz. Can’t you hire executives whose facial muscles allow them to smile?’

  ‘Point taken. They are kinda miserable. Hard to believe, but there’s a lot of competition to get on to the SupaGirl! team. Great package, great healthcare, gym in the basement…’ Stefan pretended to flex a muscle, ‘…guys like myself, looking decorative and available for dates because hot girls from the model agencies keep turning them down –’

  ‘That’s it!’ Izzie banged her cup down, spilling coffee on to the counter. ‘A competition. What about a find-a-model-for-SupaGirl! competition?’

  Even as she was saying it, her mind was flipping the idea over. Was it a stupid idea or a clever one? There was such a fine line between the two.

  ‘Brilliant!’ said Stefan, clearly not thrown off track by his meanderings being interrupted. Izzie wanted to give him a hug. He might be a macho male in some respects, but he was an out-and-out professional.

  ‘Absolutely brilliant. Publicity and launch in one fell swoop.’

  No, hugging would be a mistake, she reckoned. Stefan might misconstrue it. She patted his arm instead in a filial gesture. ‘Glad you like the idea.’

  ‘Like it? I love it.’

  ‘Perfect-NY will represent the girl who wins and we’ll help you set up castings all around the country,’ Izzie went on. No point in her coming up with a fabulous idea and letting the SupaGirl! executives take over.

  She almost danced out of the building an hour later and was on her cell phone to the office before she’d got a cab.

  Everyone was on a call, so she left messages on people’s voicemails and then sat back on the scuffed black seat and realised that she had nobody else to phone. Carla was her closest friend and she’d just left an ecstatic message on her voicemail.

  But there was no one else to talk to. No special someone to phone and murmur that she’d had a brilliant idea, nobody to tell her they were proud of her. Gran loved to hear about her work, but she felt a shaft of misery at the idea of phoning home in order to connect with people who loved her. The deep gloom that had lifted briefly in the conference room descended again.

  Before Joe, she’d never needed to phone anyone to tell them her news. But she’d got used to it with him, and now, without him, she felt the lack of it deeply. Damn the rest of the coupled-up world. She was fed up with them.

  When she got to the office, the team happily discussed Izzie’s idea before people raced off on their lunch breaks.

  ‘Hey, you going out for lunch?’ Carla asked her.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I want to talk to you.’

  Carla led a dead-eyed Izzie out on to the fire escape for a bit of privacy.

  ‘Yeah, what’s up?’ said Izzie, wrapping her arms around herself. She felt cold – no matter what she did, she hadn’t been warm since last night. It was like the combination of rain and sheer emotional pain had sent a chill into her bones. Even the buzz from the SupaGirl! idea couldn’t warm her up.

  ‘There’s a bit of prime gossip going around,’ Carla said, ‘’bout a certain married Wall Street gentleman who’s having a
hot thing with a model-agency booker. Seems somebody’s driver said to another driver who said it to a hairdresser who told a client – possibly lots of clients. Hey, you know this town, everybody loves to talk – and this particular everybody happens to be a friend of mine and said it to me.’

  ‘New York whispers are like Chinese whispers, only deadlier, huh?’ Izzie quipped nervously. There was no way Carla could know about her and Joe.

  ‘Tell me it’s not you,’ Carla said.

  Izzie bit her lip. It was only a momentary pause, but it was enough for Carla.

  ‘Oh fuck, it is you, isn’t it?’

  Izzie didn’t want to look Carla in the eye. She couldn’t face the reproach she knew she’d see there. How could she explain this?

  I didn’t know the full story that first day – dumb, I agree, but I didn’t know. I didn’t think. He was so charming and sexy and we connected, and by the time he said he was with his wife but not with her, well, I was hooked…

  ‘Izzie, you cannot be serious! What has happened to you? I should have known,’ Carla raged. ‘I knew something was wrong and I hoped you’d tell me what it was, but I never thought it was a man. A married man! Are you nuts? How many women do we know who’ve gone that route, and it always ends up bad. Always. The only person who wins is the guy.’

  ‘Look, he’s married, but they’re not together –’ began Izzie, thinking that it was a bit rich that her secret was out now that she’d finally decided it was over between her and Joe.

  ‘Puhleese!’

  ‘It’s not like it sounds,’ snapped Izzie. ‘You know me, Carla: I’m not the sort of woman who’s looking for a Fortune 500 guy to tear him away from his wife so I can cut up my subway pass and never work again. I just thought he was a guy, he liked me, we saw each other and –’

  ‘– and he told you it was over with her?’

  ‘Living separate lives. Together for the kids.’

  Carla actually hit her forehead with the palm of her hand, the international ‘you are a moron’ gesture. ‘And you believed him?’

  ‘Yes! He’s not a liar, honestly.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about him, then? I heard nothing ‘bout Mr Wall Street. Why? Because you knew something wasn’t right, didn’t you? And you knew I’d talk you out of it.’

  Izzie shot her friend an anguished gaze. ‘I thought it was the real thing, Carla. You can’t fake love, and he loved me. I loved him.’

  ‘So why not tell me?’

  ‘It was all so complicated. He loves his kids and he wants to make it all right for them, Carla. He’s not a bastard, honestly. He’s the real deal and I knew he needed time,’ she said lamely.

  ‘Time? Yeah, time to play an away game until he rolled back to his wife.’

  Izzie burst into tears, a move which startled both of them.

  ‘Jeez,’ said Carla.

  ‘It’s over anyway,’ Izzie said, weeping. ‘I believed him about needing time and then I found out he was going to a party with his wife, and it didn’t seem like such separate lives any more, so I finished with him.’

  ‘That’s something,’ Carla remarked.

  ‘No, it’s not,’ sobbed Izzie. ‘Because I’ve never felt worse in my whole life. I still believe him, but it’s too much, too complicated. I can’t be involved in that and I had to get out before…’

  She couldn’t finish the sentence. Before she fell so painfully in love with him that she’d stay no matter what, was what she wanted to say. Except she’d already done that, it seemed. She didn’t care what was going on in Joe’s life, she just wanted to be part of it. Her moral compass was broken and she didn’t care.

  ‘Izzie!’ a voice rang out from inside. ‘Urgent call for you from Ireland. Some emergency…’

  Izzie gratefully took the cup of coffee that Carla offered her and wrapped her hands around it. Their cube farm in the Perfect-NY offices wasn’t cold, but she was icy inside at the news. Darling Gran, one constant in an always messed-up world, was in hospital back home in Tamarin and she might die.

  The news had shocked all thought of Joe out of her mind.

  Instead, she thought of Lily, frail now more than slender, with those faded blue eyes staring out wisely at the world. Kindness shone out of her: kindness and wisdom.

  Izzie couldn’t bear to think that her grandmother’s wisdom would be gone for ever when she needed it so much.

  There were so many things she still needed to know, so many things she wanted to tell Gran – now, she might never be able to.

  And the one thing she desperately wanted to share, how she felt about Joe, she’d never be able to tell. To a woman of her grandmother’s generation, there could be nothing worse than infidelity, and Izzie simply couldn’t bear to see Gran’s eyes cloud over with the knowledge that Izzie was having an affair with a man who was still married. If Carla, who was as liberal as it was possible to be without being a radical lesbian feminist, had been shocked by the news, imagine how devastated Gran would be. Granted, Carla’s anger was only because she felt Izzie had been conned, but still.

  ‘Oh, Gran,’ Izzie prayed, willing magic into the air as if that might breathe health into her grandmother thousands of miles away, ‘please, please don’t go.’

  ‘It was a massive stroke,’ Dad had said on the phone. ‘They found her in the courtyard outside the church. Luckily she’d fallen against the back of the seat or else she’d have cracked her head on the slabs and then, well…’ His voice had trailed off.

  Her father couldn’t say ‘she would certainly have died’. Not dealing with the hard stuff was Brendan’s forte. Izzie knew it was not by accident that she’d fallen for an alpha male with vigour, courage and the ability to face life.

  The noticeable differences between the man she loved and her father was the stuff undoubtedly covered on the first day of the Psychology Made Simple class.

  ‘When did it happen?’

  ‘This morning after Mass.’

  ‘What do the doctors say?’ Izzie steeled herself.

  ‘Not much…she’s in intensive care and they’ve got all these tests to do, but nobody will really say anything to me…’

  Izzie could imagine her father, taller than she was, but without a shred of her fierce energy, looking round the ICU for a doctor, but not able to find anyone to ask because they were all rushing and he didn’t like to bother anyone.

  Sweet and gentle was a lovely way to live, but it didn’t work in the high-speed, intensely pressured atmosphere of an emergency room.

  ‘Is anyone with you? Like Anneliese or Edward?’

  Uncle Edward was a more forceful individual than her father and would certainly get things done. Darling Anneliese was even better: she was calm in any crisis and she’d certainly needed to be, Izzie knew.

  Her cousin, Beth, would have gone under if her mother hadn’t been made of such stern stuff.

  ‘No.’ Her father made the word into two syllables.

  Izzie waited.

  ‘Anneliese is on her way. I phoned Edward, you see, and told him and said to tell Anneliese, and he went all quiet and said since it was an emergency he would, which sounds strange, but I didn’t have time to ask him…’

  ‘But Anneliese is on her way?’ Izzie was impatient with these details. She needed to know that her aunt would be there, looking after things, looking after Lily.

  ‘Well, yes. I suppose. You know how Anneliese loves your gran.’

  ‘I should be there,’ Izzie said.

  ‘I wouldn’t dream of asking you to come home. You’re so busy with work,’ her father said quickly, which made Izzie feel bleak at this perceived notion that her job, only a bloody job, was more important than her beloved grandmother. Had she made them all think that? That Perfect-NY was higher on her list of priorities than her family?

  ‘I’m coming,’ she said fiercely. Damn the bloody job. If she had to swim across the bloody Atlantic to reach her grandmother’s hospital bedside, she’d do it. ‘Gran needs me.
’

  What she didn’t say was: And I need her because my heart is broken.

  ‘Go home,’ advised Carla. ‘You look wrecked. Lie on the couch and chill, and call me if you need me, right?’

  Izzie nodded. ‘I will, thanks – for everything.’ Thanks for not mentioning Joe again, she meant.

  She got a cab home instead of battling it out on the subway, and all the way home she wondered if God was so vengeful that her grandmother’s stroke was His way of getting at her for being involved with Joe.

  No, don’t be crazy, she told herself. That’s like saying only you are important, so that God punishes other people to get at you. But still the thought hammered away in her head with the intensity of a horror movie watched late at night. She’d always jokingly described herself as a submarine Catholic – one who only comes up when there’s trouble. Now she realised it was true, and then some. Trouble made her Catholicism seep out of her pores and make her question everything.

  At home, she checked the airlines and found that she’d never make that evening’s flight to Dublin, but that there were seats on the next evening’s.

  She booked, feeling a strange sense of relief that she couldn’t leave New York just yet. She felt too unravelled to go, so much of her life still hung out there, threads flying in the wind.

  She began to pack for the trip and found that she couldn’t concentrate. What would the weather be like was normally an important packing question, but the major one – how long would she be gone – was unanswerable. It depended on her grandmother’s survival.

  Oh, Gran.

  The silence of the apartment was closing in on her. Izzie was rarely at home on a weekday afternoon; she was always out there, being New York City Girl, rushing and racing. For what? she thought bitterly. To be alone, dealing with this horrible news, preparing to make a journey home alone too.