I have a career and my own life, she wanted to yell. I like him for who he is, not for how much money he’s got.
He dropped her home in the limo. Neither of them moved. Izzie felt so conflicted: on one hand, she wanted to invite him in and see what happened next. On the other, she wanted to go slowly because this felt so special, so different.
If only he’d do something, say something, then she’d know how to respond.
But he seemed to be playing some gentlemanly game, waiting for her to do something.
‘Have you talked to your wife about meeting me?’ she asked. Why did you say that? she groaned inwardly. How to kill a romantic atmosphere in ten seconds flat.
‘We don’t talk about the people in our life,’ he said brusquely. ‘It’d weird me out.’
‘Because you’d be jealous?’ Izzie asked tentatively.
‘Because we’re trying to keep a reasonable family unit together for the sake of the boys and that might add extra pressure,’ he replied.
And then, he leaned over and kissed her softly on the lips, not a Mr Predator kiss but a gentle, till tomorrow sort of goodbye. Izzie closed her eyes and waited for more, waited to sink into the kiss. But there was no more.
‘I’ll call you tomorrow and thanks for coming with me.’
‘Thanks for asking me,’ she said coolly. She was still trying to work out why he hadn’t kissed her properly. ‘I’ve never been to Tennessee before. Does a two-hour flying visit count as being somewhere?’
He looked at her thoughtfully.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Cheerio,’ she said, getting out as the driver opened the door. Cheerio? What’s wrong with you, Izzie? First the weird question about his wife and then ‘cheerio’.
He phoned the next day.
‘Would you like to go on another date?’ he asked.
Date? It had been a date, after all. Izzie hugged herself with delight.
‘Yes,’ she said and squashed the feeling that she’d just fallen down the slippery slope.
From the comfort of her bathtub, sipping her spritzer, Izzie thought about those first days when she felt like the luckiest person on the planet.
Joe was in her head all the time, edging more mundane matters out of the way, like a problem with a model sinking into depression because she’d been dropped from a beauty campaign or a big screw-up which saw five models miss a plane to Milan because they’d been out late partying.
It was a fabulous secret that she hugged to herself. Izzie found herself behaving as if her life was a movie and Joe would be watching her every move.
She wore her best clothes every day, so she’d look fabulous on the off chance that he’d phone. The spike-heeled boots she moaned about were hauled out of her wardrobe to go with the swishy 1940s-inspired skirt that hugged her rear end and made construction workers’ mouths drop open.
They had lunch and dinner twice a week, holding hands under the table, and kissing in the car on the way back to her office or to her apartment. They talked and talked, sitting until their coffees went cold.
But she’d never brought him to her home, had never done more than kiss him in the back of the car. Something held her back.
That something was her feeling that Joe and his life was more complicated than he’d told her. Why else were they having this low-key relationship, she asked herself? It only made sense if Joe wasn’t being entirely truthful about everything and she couldn’t believe that. He was so straight, so direct. She didn’t want to nag him like a dog with a bone. She said nothing and just hoped.
They’d had a month of courtship – only such an old-fashioned word could describe it: walking in the park at lunchtime and sharing deli lunch from Dean & DeLuca’s.
And then, on a sunny Thursday, they’d visited another artist in a giant loft apartment in TriBeCa and Izzie had wandered round looking at huge canvases while Joe, the artist and the artist’s manager discussed business. Izzie felt a thrill that was nothing to do with admiring the artist’s work: the fact that Joe had brought her here showed that she wasn’t a dirty little secret in his life. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have brought her along, would he?
Silvio Cruz’s giant abstract paintings had prompted some critics to compare him to the great Pollock. Even Izzie, 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