Chapter 29
izzy
Day 15.
“Are you ready?” Dad asks from the doorway of the bedroom, where I’m zipping up my suitcase.
“Yeah. Would you do me a favor and meet me downstairs?”
I need some time alone and though I know he feels the same way as my mother—that I’m better off without Brooks in my life—he can at least see that I’m hurting.
“We’ll see you down there.”
When I hear the door of the apartment close, I drag my luggage into the living room and sit on the sofa one last time. I rub the cushion next to me, remembering where we made love. I look at the TV, remembering how we talked for hours about movies. I turn to face the kitchen and picture us making eggs and smoothies together. I smile at the thought of the first time he came over because he was worried I would cremate a good steak.
God, I’ll miss him.
Summoning strength I don’t feel, I pull my suitcases out to the hallway, closing the door behind me for the last time. Who would have thought I’d come to New York to promote a book and end up finding the only man I have ever loved? Who could have guessed that man would be Brooks Adams?
I drag my suitcases past his door, pausing, remembering how he wouldn’t let me go in the first time we came here, wondering if he’s in there or if he is already at the gym. Wondering whether he went right back to having eggs for breakfast. Wanting so much to go and make his breakfast for him.
I move on, as I know I have to do, making my way down the hall. Suddenly, my cases become lighter and leave my hands. My stomach sinks.
“Brooks.”
“I’ll help you down.”
I don’t know what I expected him to say. There are so many things unsaid between us, yet nothing to be said. We know how this ends.
“Thank you.”
He carries my luggage to the elevator and we ride in silence. Outside, my parents are waiting in a black Cadillac.
Brooks hands the cases to the driver. Now, there is nothing between us except heavy, silent air. He reaches out for my cheek, the way he does, and I lean into his palm, closing my eyes, wishing I could bottle his touch and always have it with me.
He steps closer to me, his hand on the small of my back. I give in to the temptation to touch him and wrap my arms around his waist.
He drops his forehead to mine. Finally, I open my eyes and find his gaze. “What would you have said if I had asked you to stay?” he asks, a tremor in his voice.
“I have promotional stuff to do in London. I have to go.”
He presses his nose to mine and I smell fresh mint on his breath. “What if I had asked you to come back, so I could take you to dinner? Or to let me come to England?”
I take a breath, hating what I’m about to say, but knowing the truth. “I would have said, I wish that were the right thing to do. But we both know it isn’t.”
His lips gently graze the tip of my nose and my body dissolves into his.
“The only part I wish we could change is the ending,” he says. God, he has no idea how much I want that to be possible. “And maybe the Charleston.”
I laugh as much as my heart will let me and feel his chest shudder as he pulls me tight against him, my cheek pressed to his chest, his hand in my hair.
“Izzy, darling, we have to go,” my father says, leaning out of the car door, then moving back inside.
I pull away from Brooks’s hold and run my fingers through his hair. “Thank you, Brooks Adams. For the first time in my life, you have made me want to work on me, for me. I can’t really explain that, except to say, thank you. You’ve done more for me in two weeks than most people have done in my life. You’ve made me want to figure out who I am.”
“I love you, Izzy.”
Tears build quickly and fall from my eyes. “I love you too.”
He kisses me, long and slow. I grip his shirt, never wanting to let him go. Knowing I need to. When we separate, we’re both crying silent tears. I run my thumb under his eye, wanting to be here every time he breaks, every time he needs someone to hold him and kiss him.
He takes my hand and kisses my knuckles. “Go. You don’t want to miss your flight.”
I watch him walk back to the building, until the door closes and he disappears.
Sitting in the Cadillac, my mother says the last words I want to hear. “It’s for the best, Isabella.”
I cry all the way to JFK, endless tears that refuse to turn off.
* * * *
Day 2 without him.
There’s a gentle tap on my bedroom door. “It’s me,” Anna says, coming into my room uninvited.
I roll over in bed. “Have a good day at work.” I roll back to face the window.
She moves around the bed, picking up used tissues from the floor and putting them in my wastebasket. “I’m not at work today. I worked last weekend. Let’s do something. I could call Zara and Beatrice and we could go to afternoon tea? One of those healthy ones you like?”
“No, thank you. I’m happy here.”
“You’ve been in bed for a day and a half. You smell. This room smells. You’ve hardly eaten and you need to stop crying.”
“I was watching a sad movie.”
“Of course you were. Didn’t you say you had some event tonight?”
“What day is it?”
“Friday.”
“I have a signing at Waterstones at six p.m.”
“Right. Let’s pick something to wear, then. Up you get.”
I pull myself up. Not because I want to but because she has just reminded me I have a signing and, unfortunately, I do have to go. Anna moves to my wardrobe and picks out dresses on hangers. “This? What about this Gucci? I adore this Tom Ford.”
God, it’s no wonder I can’t afford to rent my own place. My wardrobe could be a down payment on a mansion.
Dressed in a day-to-evening Dolce & Gabbana dress, which Anna has teamed with my latest Mulberry bag and Prada shoes, I agree to a late lunch with Anna, Zara, and Beatrice. Only because I have to eat something before going to Waterstones.
We sit around a marble-top table in one of London’s finest hotels and order green salads and water. I hear Brooks as I eat. “If you eat like a rabbit, of course you’ll be skinny.”
I laugh through a mouthful of water. The daggers I receive from Zara, Beatrice, and Anna tell me it must have been an inappropriate time to laugh. I cough until my amusement subsides. “Sorry, it went down the wrong way.”
After tutting, Beatrice resumes whatever she was saying. “He said he couldn’t be with her anymore if she was going to be friends with Tillie, because of course Tillie had been seeing—and by seeing I mean having sex with—Alfie. Then Tillie said she was pregnant, which was a lie, and she admitted it minutes later, apparently. So, he said, even if she hadn’t been with Alfie…”
I zone out again, until I hear my name. “Well done with the book thing, Izzy,” Zara says. I’m about to thank her when she continues. “I mean, at least you showed willing to do something. Now you can relax for a while.”
“Sorry, how do you mean?”
“You know, stop pretending you want to make your own way. You can get back to shopping. Plus, you can start coming out with us again, if you would like.”
“Wow, incredible.”
“Oh, nonsense. You’re a friend. You know you are welcome. We only didn’t invite you those other times because you were taking the exercise thing so seriously, and what with not drinking, you were a waste of a good invitation.”
“Actually,” Beatrice jumps in, “about that book. I told Audrey about it and she was quite excited that we have an author friend. She was going to buy the book but I said you would obviously give me copies, so if you could drop some in to me, that would be grand. Maybe five or ten copies would be okay. I don’t know many people who will want it, but a few spares are always handy. It’s nice to give people something to take away when they visit.”
I glance at Anna, expecting her to be as incensed by the conversation as I am. She sips her water and crunches through raw carrot, not concerned in the least.
“Sure, Beatrice. I’ll sort that for you. You’ll have to excuse me. I’m not feeling too well. I think I could use a walk before the signing.” I take my purse from my bag and find fifty pound for my overpriced salad and water, leaving it on the table beside Anna.
“Izzy, I have Daddy’s card.”
“Mmm, I know. I want to pay my way.”
I walk toward the river Thames and saunter along the shoreline. Even when my toes begin to hurt in my high heels and I wish I had my running shoes on, I keep walking, feeling the cool wind in my hair.
I won’t be like them. I’m not like them.
I resolve on the way to Waterstones to start making my own way in life, for real.
Despite being told that my book has sold ten thousand copies already, I sign five books at Waterstones, which were sold to three people. As I sit alone, drumming my fingers on the tabletop, at a store just minutes from home and my “friends” and family, I know no one else will come. Not one other person I know would have phoned friends to get them to come and buy my book just to make me feel less shitty about myself. Only Brooks.