Chapter 3

Izzie heard from Zach a week later, and she knew she’d been thinking of him more than she should have been. Something about their evening together had made her feel human and like a woman again. He was handsome and sexy, but his gentleness and honesty were what had appealed to her. Being with him was so much less complicated than with the men she knew, who were always in competition with her. Zach had no ax to grind, and he was so open and real about everything that she couldn’t imagine him running off with some debutante, like her fiancé. Nothing impressed him because of where he came from, and he had nothing to prove. He didn’t care about any of the status symbols other men his age were chasing. All he wanted, he had said at dinner, was a good woman who was the real deal. As she was, he was fed up with phonies and fakes. Izzie had been engaged to a man who had turned out to be both, and was in hot pursuit of all the trappings of success. The girl he had married had been just another step up on the ladder he was so desperate to climb. Zach didn’t care about any of it. And when he invited her to East Hampton for the day, Izzie accepted. They had spoken on the phone several times by then, and she liked him, and his texts made her laugh. His arrest seemed so completely not a part of who Zach was that she didn’t care about it anymore. And no one had to know. She had seen at their second meeting how respectably he could behave. And when he picked her up at the train station in East Hampton, she was happy to see him. He had come to the station in a beautiful old Buick his grandmother kept in the garage. It was in mint condition.

They had a fantastic time swimming in the ocean. He took her fishing off a point near his grandmother’s home, which was an elegant old house. He was healthy and athletic. There were a caretaker and housekeeper at the house, but they were off for the weekend, and Zach had made her lunch himself. They walked along the beach at sunset, and he wanted to take her out on his small sailboat, but the sea was rough. Instead they went to Montauk and explored the lighthouse and had dinner at a noisy restaurant where the food was delicious. She had never had as good a time with any man in her life, or felt as at ease. And although she was usually cautious and somewhat distant on first dates, he kissed her before she left, and she had never felt as hungry for any man in her life. Maybe because it had been two years since she’d liked or trusted a man. Zach melted her ordinarily cool reserve with the searing, white-hot force of his kiss. He was very sensual and stirred something in her that she had never felt before. All the pent-up emotions of the past two years came rushing out, and she could hardly bring herself to leave his arms. He stood waving at her as the train pulled out of the station on its way back to the city, and he called her as soon as she got home.

“Wow, what happened right before you left? I felt like an avalanche had hit me.” He sounded as shaken by it as she was, and he went to New York to see her the following night. They were going to go to dinner and a movie, and wound up in her bed instead, and he never left. She went to work the next morning, feeling like she’d been reborn, and he was waiting for her at her apartment when she got home. He cooked her dinner and they could hardly wait to get back to bed. He was the most powerfully sexual man she had ever known. He spent the week with her, and they went back to East Hampton for the weekend.

Justin called her on Saturday morning, when she and Zach were about to go out on his boat. Her brother wanted to know how she was, because he knew that weekends were lonely for her. She told him she was in the Hamptons. He was surprised, since she had seemed down when she’d visited him in Vermont.

“Well, that’s good to hear. How did that happen?”

“I’m staying with friends.” She sounded happy and relaxed, and promised to call him on Sunday night when she got home. After they hung up, Justin commented to Richard that it was the best he had heard her sound in two years, and maybe she was coming back after all her anger and bitterness over the broken engagement. He felt like the sister he knew and loved was back.

“Maybe she’s in love,” Richard suggested, though he didn’t really believe it. Justin’s sister had been so shut down for so long that he thought it would take a long time for her to come alive again. But if she was happier now, for whatever reason, he was glad, and he knew Justin worried about her. They both agreed that it would take a remarkable man to make Izzie trust someone again.

For the next several weekends, Izzie went to East Hampton with Zach. They cooked together and walked on the beach, sailed his boat, and spent quiet nights by the fire in his grandmother’s luxurious home. It was all like a dream, and a new experience for her to abandon herself to a man, even her ex-fiancé. And as an added bonus, their passion for each other seemed to be limitless. He came into the city to be with her during the week, and hung around at home or met up with friends while she worked. Even her mother noticed a new lilt in her voice when they talked. She didn’t want to pry but said something to Julie when she dropped by the store.

“Is anything happening with Izzie?” Kate asked discreetly. She knew she wasn’t privy to all her children’s secrets anymore, and she didn’t try to be. They had a right to their adult lives.

“No, not that I know of. Why?” Julie didn’t know about Zach either. Izzie hadn’t told anyone, and didn’t want to yet. She wanted to keep the magic of their relationship to herself, and the circumstances surrounding it would be hard to explain. She wanted to protect it for now, since it was so new.

“She sounds great,” Kate said, looking pleased, and mentioned it to her mother when they had lunch.

“I hope it’s not some rebound romance,” Grandma Lou said wisely. “She’s been so locked up and down on everyone for so long, she’s liable to go off like a rocket for the wrong guy.”

Kate shook her head. “That’s not Izzie’s style. She’s too sensible for that.” Kate had faith in her children and knew them well. And Izzie was the most levelheaded of the four.

“Those are the ones it happens to. She was hit so hard when Andrew walked away and married that girl. And it’s taken her a long time to come back. I hope you’re right and she’s finally thawing out. I just hope it’s with the right guy,” Louise said with a determined look.

“I don’t even know if it is a guy. Maybe she’s just happy at work. But she sounds terrific, and she said something about going to East Hampton for the weekend,” Kate explained. “She said it was to visit friends.”

“I’m sure she’s fine,” Grandma Lou said, trying to reassure them both. She had great faith in Kate’s children, but she was also realistic about the pitfalls of life. Their mother still worried about them all the time, and sometimes forgot that they were grown up. She was concerned about Julie working too hard and not having a boyfriend, and about Izzie not getting over her broken heart. She was happy about Justin and Richard and thought they were a good match and a great couple. And she was mildly concerned about Willie’s flock of girlfriends and overactive sex life and hoped he didn’t get one of them pregnant. They were all on the right path with their careers, but with the exception of Justin, none had settled their personal lives yet, and it sometimes kept her awake at night, worrying about them, just as it did Kate.

“Maybe it’s time for you to think more about yourself than about your kids. You don’t put any more effort into finding someone than either of your daughters, and if you don’t want to end up alone, maybe you should. You’re too young to be on your own for the rest of your life, Kate. And it’s been a long time since you had anyone in your life. At my age, it doesn’t matter, but at yours it does.” Her mother looked at her seriously as she said it.

“There are lots of people your age and a lot older who find someone and get married,” Kate reminded her and served it right back to her, but Louise was unimpressed.

“I had a good marriage for a long time, and I don’t need another one. I couldn’t travel as much as I do if I had to take care of someone, or be here to keep him company. I don’t want to be tied down at this point in my life, except to you and the kids. And you can all manage fine when I’m away. I don’t want some man complaining every time I get on a plane. Or to be a nurse. I took care of your father, and he would have taken care of me. But we had a lot of great years before that. I don’t want to start at that part at my age. I’m having fun. I don’t want to screw that up.” It sounded sensible to Kate, and her mother didn’t seem to mind being alone. She was always busy doing something that interested her, taking a class or seeing friends, or planning her next trip. It was hard to find fault with that. And Kate knew that her mother was right about her. Kate hadn’t made any real effort to meet a man in several years. She would have liked to have someone to share her life with, but she was set in her ways too, and it wasn’t as easy to meet men as it used to be. They were all married or seemed strange, and she had no desire to put up with someone else’s quirks. She was still very involved with her kids, and the men she had dated earlier had always resented that. In those days, she had been a mother first, since she had to be both mother and father to her children. Now she was less engaged with them, but they would still be someone else’s children to any man she met. Her life seemed almost complete, with her friends, family, and work. It was hard to imagine how a new man in her life would fit in.

She brought it up to Liam the next time they met at one of their favorite haunts, Da Silvano, for a glass of wine and a plate of pasta. She always loved seeing him. They could tell each other anything, and had for years.

“Your mother’s right, as usual. She always is. You’re too young to be alone, Kate. I worry about you too,” Liam admitted as they finished lunch.

“What do you want me to do, stand on a street corner and whistle for a guy, like a cab? They don’t fall out of trees, you know.” He laughed at what she said. He was a good-looking man, and was aging well. He was a year older than Kate. He still looked the same as he always had, with a little distinguished gray at the temples, and most important, he was intelligent and kind. It always intrigued her that he didn’t demand more of Maureen. But instead of insisting that she join him for every social occasion, he let her do her thing. He was willing to let her lead the retiring life she preferred, and he saw many of their friends on his own. It was an arrangement they had agreed to many years before, since he was more gregarious than she was. It wouldn’t have suited Kate, but it worked for them.

“You could go to more parties, or places where you’d meet men,” he scolded Kate, since she’d brought the subject up herself. He knew she’d been too busy with the kids to focus on romance for a lot of years, but it was different now, even though Kate thought it was too late, which he said was absurd at her age. She was fit and trim, youthful in her appearance, and beautiful and as appealing as ever. Men always looked at her admiringly and she seemed not to notice.

“Like go to bars?” She looked horrified.

“You know what I mean. You don’t try.” They both knew it was true, and she didn’t deny it.

“I’m happy the way I am.” There was truth in that too, but she did miss having a man in her life at times. “And whenever I meet single guys now, they’re weird.”

“They can’t all be weird.” He laughed at her. He always loved talking to her. He could never banter with anyone the way he did with Kate.

“Maybe they can all be weird,” Kate said thoughtfully. “There are a lot of strange guys out there. There’s a reason why they’re single. No woman wants them.”

“What about a widower?” he said helpfully.

“Are you suggesting I read the obituaries and start stalking them?” She had read the obits to find estates for clothes for her store early in her business, but she didn’t do that anymore. It was too awkward and embarrassing writing to bereaved relatives about buying their loved ones’ clothes.

“It can’t be as hopeless as all that,” Liam commented.

“I just figure if it’s right, someone will come along, and if not, I’m fine the way I am.” She was at ease about it. It wasn’t high on her list of things to worry about. She was far more concerned about her kids finding good partners than herself. They had lives to live ahead of them. She had already been married, had children, and had a busy life and career. Her children all had that to look forward to.

They lingered for a long time over lunch, as they always did, and since it was already October, Kate asked him about his Thanksgiving plans. Liam reminded her that European schools didn’t have time off for Thanksgiving so his daughters weren’t coming home.

“We’re going to my father-in-law’s house.” Kate knew he didn’t enjoy it, but was doing it for Maureen since the girls would be away. His own parents had died many years before. “What about you?”

“Same as every year, they’re all coming to me for Thanksgiving. That and Christmas are my favorite times of year. I get them all at the same table for a big meal.”

“Will Justin stay with you?”

“No, they stay with friends, but they come over for Thanksgiving dinner. And of course my mother comes too. She’s planning some big trip again in January. Argentina, I think. But she’ll be home for the holidays. She’s going to China next summer. She’s been studying Mandarin all year.”

“She’s amazing,” Liam said with admiration. “I hope I have half her energy at her age.”

“I think you just have to keep moving, and doing, and learning. There’s always something new she wants to do. She’s a role model for us all,” Kate said with a warm smile at her friend. Kate knew how lucky she was to have such a terrific mother.

They left the restaurant reluctantly after two hours of easy conversation and laughter. Liam went back to his office and Kate returned to the shop. The store was busy in the fall before the holidays, with customers looking for dresses to wear to parties and holiday events. Her most recent acquisitions, and some old ones, were flying out of the store. And an article in the Sunday Times Magazine had mentioned Still Fabulous, which always brought in new business, with people who hadn’t heard of them before. And after Thanksgiving, they kept the store open two hours later at night to make it easier to shop.

By November, Izzie and Zach had been deeply involved for almost two months. They were still spending weekends in the Hamptons at his grandmother’s house, despite the cold weather, which made it even cozier at night. The housekeeper and caretaker were used to seeing her, and Zach had keys to Izzie’s apartment in the city by then, and came and went while she was at work. They had settled into a regular life, but she was still concerned that he didn’t work, and had no regular plans in the daytime, and nothing to do with himself. His grandmother gave him some money from time to time, which wasn’t enough to live on, but with a roof over his head and food provided by his grandmother’s employees, all he needed was enough to take Izzie out to dinner occasionally, and pay for movies and cabs. Izzie didn’t expect him to contribute to her home, but he needed more to do than just wait for her to come home at night.

Zach didn’t seem to mind not having a job, or not doing something constructive with his time. It didn’t even occur to him. He read, he went for walks, he met up with his friends. She had signed him up at her gym, but he was a grown man, and she thought he should have an activity and a purpose in life. But when they saw her friends, or had dinner with lawyers she worked with, he didn’t appear to mind saying that he didn’t work. It made him seem prosperous and like a trust fund baby, which he had been, but a very meager one, and it bothered her for him. She tried to bring the subject up gently, and he laughed whenever she did.

“You don’t have to be embarrassed about it,” he told her. “I’m not. My father doesn’t work either.” But his father also had control of his own money. Zach didn’t. He negotiated with his trustees for a pittance, and they thought he should be working too, and then they would have been freer with the money if they thought he was responsible. They didn’t want to encourage him to stay indolent and unemployed. But even having too little money didn’t inspire him to get a job.

“Is there anything you like to do?” Izzie asked him, trying to guide him in the right direction.

“Yes, make love to you,” he said, and the topic would be brushed aside while he made love to her. No matter what she did, she couldn’t get him interested in a job. Their sex life took precedence over all else, except her work.

She still hadn’t said anything to her family about him, and didn’t want to do so prematurely, although their relationship seemed solid, but it was still early days, and she was savoring the secret. He didn’t answer her phone at the apartment, so no one ever knew he was there. She had toyed with the idea of inviting him to her mother’s for Thanksgiving, but he wanted to visit his grandmother in Palm Beach so she wouldn’t be alone for the holiday, so Izzie didn’t have to make a decision. He called her frequently and was always nice to her. He was surprisingly well behaved for a self-declared black sheep, although he never called his parents, and she noticed that they never called him. Her own mother called her every few days, and Izzie called Grandma Lou once or twice a week to check in with her. Most of the time, she was doing something and too busy to talk.

“What’s your family going to think about us?” Zach asked her in bed one night before Thanksgiving.

“They’ll be intrigued, and want to meet you. And they’ll be happy for me.” She smiled at him, her head close to his on the pillow. But she also knew that they would want to know what he did as a job. In her family, everyone worked. Not working was not an option, nor even a remote possibility, for any of them. And they all liked what they did. Living as Zach did, doing nothing, on money he begged from his grandmother or his trustees, would be inconceivable to them, and would make them suspicious of him. And given how little money Zach could eke out of any of them, she couldn’t understand his not wanting to work. It wasn’t fun being broke. She had taken to leaving a couple of hundred dollars in a drawer in the kitchen, without comment, so he would have pocket money. She didn’t want to just hand it to him, but he knew where it was, and she replenished it every few days. He was spending a few hundred dollars a week of her money. And it occurred to her frequently that it would have been nice for both of them if he’d had even a small job. But he thought that beneath him, and he had no skills to sell, and no education. He was smart and charming, and gorgeous to look at, but you couldn’t get a job with that, not a decent one. And he would never have considered working as a waiter or something he considered menial, like being a salesman, although he might have been good at it. But she knew his not working would be a major stumbling block with her family, and Zach wasn’t shy about saying he didn’t work and almost seemed proud of it. She had no idea how to explain it to her family. They were all going to disapprove of that, and of him as a result, no matter how happy she was.

Izzie had never gone out with anyone like him before. He still loved dressing like a “bad boy.” He had all kinds of motorcycle gear and leather jackets, which he wore with jeans and biker boots. It made him look sexy to her, but she couldn’t see her brothers dressing like him. She suggested modeling to him once, or acting, but he laughed at that too. He was perfectly happy as he was, and didn’t mind being broke or getting cash from her. She didn’t want to support him, although she was well paid at the law firm. That was a pattern she didn’t want to establish in their relationship. He mentioned a few times that his trustees might give him money if he was married, depending on who he married, but she didn’t want to marry him for that reason alone, and they hadn’t been together long enough to consider marriage. She didn’t know how to handle his complete lack of work ethic, and it was hard to discuss with him since he wasn’t bothered by it. But other than that, they were ecstatically happy and got along. It was a unique relationship in her life, and maybe for that reason, she found it exciting. She kept telling herself that sooner or later she’d convince him to go to work, but there didn’t seem to be anything he could do. It was not an easy problem to solve. And Zach wasn’t worried about it at all. He liked having free time to do what he wanted and had no shame about Izzie supplying his financial needs. And being gainfully employed seemed dreary to him.

He “borrowed” three hundred dollars from her when he left for Palm Beach the day before Thanksgiving, and had no way to pay it back. The trustees had paid for his airfare, since it was to visit his grandmother.

Izzie thought about it after he left, and she knew it would have to change, or eventually it would impact their relationship, even if it hadn’t yet.

He called her from the plane before his flight took off and told her he loved her. He was so sweet and affectionate with her that he was irresistible. He had brought her back to life, and given her faith in the human race again. He had healed her broken heart and made her happy. And after they hung up, she wondered if that was enough. Maybe the rest didn’t matter. Maybe black sheep never got jobs, and weren’t supposed to work. But if so, it was going to put a heavy burden on her. And she noticed when she went to make herself a cup of tea that the cash drawer in the kitchen was empty. He had taken what was there along with the three hundred dollars she gave him. It was expensive loving a black sheep.