“Don't you think she's a little rich for your blood?”
“What's that supposed to mean?”
“It means that she reeks of 'jet set,' and when all is said and done, how do you fit in, Bernie?”
“You're never a hero in your own home town, isn't that what they say? I can't say it's very flattering though.” He was admiring his mother's navy blue Dior suit. He had bought it for her the last time he was abroad and it looked lovely on her. But he didn't particularly want to discuss Isabelle with her. He hadn't taken her home to meet his parents, and he wasn't planning to. The two worlds would never have met successfully, although he knew that his father would have loved seeing her. Any man would have. She was spectacular.
“What's she like?” His mother wouldn't let go, as usual.
“She's a nice girl, Mom.”
His mother smiled at him. “Somehow that doesn't seem the right description for her. She's certainly beautiful.” She saw her photographs everywhere, and she told all her friends. At the hairdresser she showed everyone “that girl …no, the one on the cover …she goes out with my son …” “Are you in love with her?” She was never afraid to ask what she wanted to know, but Bernie quailed when he heard the words. He wasn't ready for that, although he was crazy about her, but he still remembered all too well his foolishness when he was in Michigan …the engagement ring he had given Sheila on Valentine's Day, that she had thrown back at him …the wedding plans he had made …the day she walked out of his life, carrying her duffel bag and his heart. He never wanted to be in the same position again, and he had guarded himself carefully. But not from Isabelle Martin.
“We're good friends.” It was all he could think of to say, and his mother stared at him.
“I hope it's more than that.” She looked horrified, as though she suddenly suspected him of being a homosexual, and all he could do was laugh at her.
“It is, okay? It's more than that…but nobody is getting married. All right? Satisfied? Now, what do you want for lunch?” He ordered steak and she ordered filet of sole and she pressed him about everything he was doing for the store. They were almost friends now, and he saw his parents less than he had when he first came back to New York. He didn't have much time, particularly with the arrival of Isabelle in his life.
He took her to Europe with him when he went on business that fall and they made a sensation everywhere they went. They were inseparable, and just before Christmas she moved in with him, and Bernie finally had to give in and take her to Scarsdale, much as he dreaded it. She was perfectly pleasant to his parents, although she didn't gush over them, and she made it clear to him that she wasn't interested in seeing a lot of them.
“We have so little time alone …” She pouted so perfectly, and he loved making love to her. She was the most exquisite woman he had ever seen, and sometimes he just stood staring at her as she put her makeup on or dried her hair or got out of the shower, or walked in the door carrying her portfolio. Somehow she made one want to freeze-frame and just stand there gazing at her.
His mother had even been subdued when they met. Isabelle had a way of making one feel very small, standing next to her, except Bernie, who had never felt more of a man with anyone. Her sexual prowess was remarkable, and their relationship was based on passion more than love. They made love almost everywhere, the bathtub, the shower, the floor, the back of his car one Sunday afternoon when they took a drive to Connecticut. They almost did it in the elevator once, and then came to their senses as they approached their floor and knew the doors were about to open. It was as though they couldn't stop, and he could never get quite enough of her. For that reason, he took her to France again in the spring, and then back out to East Hampton again, but this time they saw more people than they had before, and there was a movie producer who snagged her eye one night at a party on the beach at Quogue, and the next day Bernie couldn't find her anywhere. He found her on a yacht, moored nearby, making love to the producer from Hollywood on the deck, as Bernie stood for an instant staring at them, and then hurried away with tears in his eyes, realizing something he had hidden from for a long time. She wasn't just a great lay and a beautiful girl, she was the woman he loved, and losing her was going to hurt him.
She apologized when she got back to their house, but it wasn't for several hours. She and the producer had talked for a long time afterwards, about her goals, what she wanted out of her life, and what her relationship with Bernie meant, what he offered her. The producer had been fascinated by her and had told her as much. And when she got back, she tried to tell Bernie what she felt, much to his dismay.
“I can't live in a cage for the rest of my life, Bernard … I must be free to fly where I need to be.” He had heard it all before, in another life, with combat boots and a duffel bag, instead of a Pucci dress and Chanel shoes, and a Louis Vuitton suitcase standing open in the next room.
“I take it I represent a cage to you?” His eyes were cold as he looked at her. He wasn't going to tolerate her sleeping with someone else. It was as simple as that, and he wondered if she had done it before, and with whom.
“You are not a cage, rnon amour, but a very fine man. But this life of pretending to be married …one can only do this for so long …” For them it had been eight months since she had moved in with him, hardly an eternity.
“I think I've misunderstood our relationship, Isabelle.”
She nodded at him, looking even more beautiful, and for an instant he hated her. “I think you have, Bernard.” And then, the knife to his heart. “I want to go to California for a while.” She was totally candid with him. “Dick says he can arrange a screen test at a studio”—she spoke with an accent that melted his heart—“and I would like very much to do a film there with him.”
“I see.” He lit a cigarette although he seldom smoked. “You've never mentioned that before.” But it made sense. It was a shame not to put that face on film. Magazine covers weren't enough for her.
“I didn't think it was important to tell you that.”
“Or was it that you wanted what you could get out of Wolffs first?” It was the nastiest thing he had said and he was ashamed of himself. She didn't need him, and actually he was sorry about that. “I'm sorry, Isabelle …” He walked across the room and stood looking at her through the smoke. “Don't do anything hasty yet.” He wanted to beg but she was tougher than that. She had already made up her mind.
“I'm going to Los Angeles next week.”
He nodded and strode back across the room, looking out at the sea, and then he turned to smile at her bitterly. “There must be something magical about the place. They all seem to head west eventually.” He was thinking of Sheila again. He had told Isabelle about her a long time before. “Maybe I should go out there too sometime.”
Isabelle smiled. “You belong in New York, Bernard. You are everything vital and exciting and alive that is happening here.”
His voice was sad when he answered her. “But that doesn't seem to be enough for you.”
Her eyes met his with regret. “It is not that… it is not you … if I wanted someone serious … if I wanted to be married … I would want you very much.”
“I never suggested that.” But they both knew he would have in time. He was that kind of man, and he was almost sorry he was as he looked at her. He wanted to be racier, more decadent… to be able to put her in films himself.
“I just don't see myself staying here, Bernard.” She saw herself as a movie star and she left with the producer she had met exactly when she said she would. She left with him three days after she came home from East Hampton with Bernard. She packed all her things, more neatly than Sheila had, and she took all the gorgeous clothes Bernie had given her. She packed them in her Louis Vuitton bags and left him a note that afternoon. She even packed the four thousand dollars in cash he kept hidden in his desk drawer. She called it a “little loan,” and was sure he would “understand.” She had her screen test, and exactly a year later she appeared in a film. And by then, Bernie didn't give a damn. He was a hardened case. There were models and secretaries and executives. He met women in Rome, there was a very pretty stewardess in Milan, an artist, a socialite …but there was no one he gave a damn about, and he wondered if it would ever happen to him again. He still felt like a damn fool when someone mentioned her. She never sent the money back, of course, or the Piaget watch he'd discovered was gone long afterwards. She never even sent a Christmas card. She had used him and moved on to someone else, just as there had been others before him. And in Hollywood she did exactly the same, disposing of the producer who had gotten her her first film and turning him in for a bigger one, and a better part. Isabelle Martin would go far, there was no doubt of that, and his parents knew the subject was taboo with him. They never mentioned her to him again, after one inappropriate remark that sent him out of the house in Scarsdale in blind fury. He didn't come back for two months and his mother was frightened by what she had seen in him. The subject was closed permanently after that.