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  Lost in Amber

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, places, incidents, are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, facts or events is purely coincidental. All statements, activities, stunts, descriptions, information and material of any kind contained herein are included for entertainment purposes only and should not be relied on for accuracy or replicated as they may result in injury.

  Copyright © 2018 Esther Rabbit

  Cover illustration front, spine and back © 2018 Jesh Art Studio

  Author logo illustration © 2018 Ana Grigoriu

  Editing/Proofreading services, Jane Savage

  The right of Esther Rabbit to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping and recording without prior written permission from the author herself.

  To Rachel

  Another Irish Goodbye

  Today

  29 Callow Street, 3rd floor

  He lost it. James lost the will to try and the patience to handle her as she was. He lost the will and lost the way. And she lost everything…

  Normality is such a relative concept, we can actually be incompatible just because our normalities don’t match, Zoey remembered Emma saying just that.

  A little bit too much and a little bit not enough. Maybe that’s how their relationship had been and, once again, everything came crumbling to the floor of her living room that was now covered in everything she could blow her nose in and wipe her tears with…and leftovers of who she thought she was.

  There was no deeper hole she could’ve been in and no uglier seven-headed beast breathing down her neck with the burning steam of memory lane. Everything was so picture perfect on memory lane just yesterday.

  Every single noise from the outside world seemed to be an attack on her mental health as she drifted off and briefly came to her senses, only to fall into that bottomless pit once again.

  This silence is so wrong—empty enough to feel her thoughts tangling like spaghetti, flooding, suffocating that minuscule bit of self-confidence that only yesterday was sky-high and majestic like one of da Vinci’s masterpieces. Silence was all she had now.

  Breakups followed an exact pattern of emotions and actions: checking his last connection every two minutes, staring at that online status as if her life depended on it, going over all “what if” questions twice and coming back to the important ones.

  Crying while looking at pictures of how happy they were in their perfect 3rd floor apartment and playing Staind on repeat until music tangled with loud weeping, making the second-floor neighbor push his headphones deeper into his ears and the fourth-floor neighbor close her window in despair.

  Because she used to be happy.

  Really happy, and she had it all together like a box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day.

  When the phone rang, Zoey gathered all that was left to make herself sound half-normal.

  “Hi, Ma…Oh, thanks. That’s great, but you shouldn’t have. I’ll come collect them on my way to work sometime this week…Yes, alright. Love you too. And please, Ma, focus on your cruise—you can’t whine that you haven’t had a holiday in six years and not drown in all the good stuff!” Margaret, Zoey’s mom, called in to let the apple of her eye know she’d ordered some fancy socks from China for Zoey’s larger-than-life collection. They would arrive at Uncle Frank’s house early tomorrow.

  As soon as Zoey turned twelve, she started collecting socks. Little did Ma know that at the age of twenty-four, her little princess would own socks from all over the world, neatly stored and classified under strict Zoey regulation. Margaret often wondered if James himself had anything he hadn’t grown out of since they were such a good match. After all, Ma was entirely convinced they bred gentlemen in Britain, with all his funny words like “biscuits” and “crisps” and his perfect table manners.

  But gentlemanly wasn’t how he left. James packed his bags like the world’s biggest coward while Zoey was working. Not seeing his towel next to hers now brought in a new wave of fresh tears. The bathroom wasn’t a safe place either. He took everything and left her with the memory of everything they were. The counter looked empty without his toiletries—maybe if she hadn’t gone so mad about recycling everything, her side wouldn’t look so tedious. Maybe the vintage tiles wouldn’t be closing in on her the way they did.

  The walk-in closet presented itself conspicuous by the absence of James, deserted shelves making Zoey wonder why her stuff only amounted to a sad 30% of its capacity.

  Maybe that too should have been a sign, except you can't really read the signs when you're not ready to face the world as you knew it before Prince Charming.

  And just like that, her mother’s call opened the door to another personal hell—telling everyone. Everyone. Having to listen to every single piece of advice and wisdom from outside the relationship itself. She kept imagining how to give the news to her family, workmates, friends, rewriting the script in her head a million times. The moment you tell people is usually the moment you accept it’s over. It just wasn’t over, not for her…not yet. Not after all they had accomplished together, their outstanding holiday pictures, their collection of shot glasses from every single airport they’d ever landed in.

  James was a travel blogger, an art collector, a wine taster. He had his own column in a newspaper she’d never read before meeting him, he was good at almost everything, funny, and he made her love the outdoors—even rafting. How could anyone not fall in love when he was the embodiment of perfection from his accent to his lean frame and dark chestnut hair, from the softness in his voice and manner to his curiosity and eagerness to discover the unexplored corners of the world.

  No one really wondered why he got the spotlight, he had friends literally everywhere, a chess group, a runner’s club membership, he’d been named employee of the year twice, and he always pushed himself to be more.

  Zoey picked up the phone and called in sick. How much time would she need before she could face the world?

  Two years as a couple, only six months living together, a carpet of cried out tissues on the floor, probably the seventy-fifth pineapple they’d shared over dinner in the fridge, and his coffee mug on the counter defying her silent stare. Everything was the same, but different. Why hadn’t he fought for her? Why would he give up on what they had like that? Sure, they had fights, but every couple did. They’d fought the night before over nonsense, but who was to say he’d pull an Irish goodbye on her?

  Perhaps she should have expected it. After all, the “Irish goodbye” was the first thing she learned from him.

  Two years ago, Zoey and her fellow teachers had decided to ditch the boring cafeteria Christmas gathering in favor of sneaking into a corporate party at the courtesy of her colleague and lead math teacher, Harriet Godby, who had an abominable crush on science teacher assistant, Christopher Grave. Harriet’s brother was the CEO of Indutt Media, which held no less than thirty-eight magazines, local papers, and online publications.

  To quote Zoey’s best friend Sam, anyone at St. Andrew’s had to “hold their farts and play nice around Harriet Godby” given that her self-made billionaire brother Wilfred was the school’s number-one sponsor. From the newly renovated façade to the state-of-the-art digital boards, the Godbys had everyone’s best face on display as they roamed the world. Zoey liked Harriet because despite her wealth, she was not ostentatious—unlike Wilfred, who rode something along the lines o
f a Batmobile and who appeared on his own magazine covers having lunch and talking business with Elon Musk, and on his competitors’ pages high and lounging between models’ thighs. Unsurprisingly, Wilfred was famous for throwing unprecedented parties, whether it was Christmas, New Year’s, or every other weekend, so this handful of teachers led by Harriet was eager to walk foreign, corporate-on-the-loose territory.

  Harriet was indeed well-liked in her group of teachers but, sadly, not by Christopher Grave. Science and mathematics made love to each other on paper—Harriet and Christopher, however, barely brushed elbows in the cafeteria despite her best efforts to match coffee breaks, reinvent ice-breakers, and compliment his spunky blazers.

  Zoey and Christopher though, had plenty in common. They were both twenty-two-year-old interns working their way up to impress their superiors and both harbored an undying secret crush on lead science teacher, Anthony Bush.

  Anthony Bush was the drop-dead gorgeous mad-scientist type: messy light brown hair, Clark Kent nerdiness, plaid shirts with pens blossoming from the chest pocket, and a smile that left both Zoey and Christopher inebriated and puppy-eyed every time he set foot in the teachers’ room.

  Anthony Bush had been the main reason why both Zoey and Christopher spent thirty more minutes in the mirror that December evening. Because people hooked up at Christmas parties, because where alcohol abounded, shyness diminished and that particular night smelled like it was going to have a happy ending.

  As soon as the elevator door opened onto the rooftop cocktail bar, they all felt like geared astronauts at a pool party. It was the first time Zoey realized that teachers were another breed, much different from the corporate Indutt Media chic on display. They wore Christmas pins on bright Christmas sweaters with quirky messages—five sore thumbs standing out among silver trays filled with food they couldn’t identify and ice sculptures of magazines they didn’t read. All but Harriet, who was quick to introduce them to Gossip Today Jane, Weather Alert twins Tom and Brad, and, of course, Holiday of a Lifetime James.

  “Show her around, James!” Harriet’s quest to get Christopher alone apparently started with getting rid of Zoey. “Jane, why don’t you introduce Anthony to everyone?” She winked as Jane took the lead knowing first-hand that whatever Harriet wanted, Harriet got.

  James waltzed Zoey around the building talking little about work and more about art and how post-WWI cubism influenced future movements, and how her job—teaching arts and crafts—was changing the world. She was half drunk on champagne and half on James by the end of the night. How couldn’t she when his rich chestnut hair playfully brushed the tips of his ears in the artsiest of curves, when the more she looked at him, the more addictive his smile became.

  “Shall we pull an Irish goodbye?” he asked tentatively as he emptied his champagne glass and returned to Zoey with a full grin, the light stubble accentuating his dimples.

  “Don’t make me google that!”

  “Long story short, it means leaving the party without saying goodbye! And before being too quick to judge, I’ll have you know the Irish were forced into it by their peers, who publicly shamed the first one to go home and forced them into another pint and another pint until stripped of their last shred of dignity!” He winked and placed his empty glass on one of the many passing silver trays. “Oh, c’mon, biscuit, everyone here’s much too self-absorbed to ever notice.”

  She bit her lip, torn between proper manners and that British accent she wanted to hear more of.

  “I don’t really know you!” she objected, though her thoughts of Anthony Bush began evaporating “faster than a fart in a fan factory”—to quote Sam again.

  He raised his eyebrows and pointed at one of the walls leading to the hallway. Zoey’s gaze soon landed on one of the pictures decorating the wall. There he was, with the best smile framed for everyone to see—employee of the year, James Bradley.

  “Wow!”

  “See? I’m famous, now you have to at least allow me to get you a hot chocolate.” Those perfect vowels echoed in harmony.

  “Ha! Champagne doesn’t suit my owl-in-a-stocking Christmas sweater?” she teased.

  “It’s giving me the collywobbles, to be honest!”

  And Zoey remembered how they’d giggled all the way down in the elevator, how they spoke “tosh”—which meant nonsense—until she fell in complete infatuation with him by the end of the night, how he’d parked three streets away and walked her to her parents’ place, unconcerned with the fact she was twenty-two and still living at home…

  In her current state of misery, she curled up on the floor behind the counter, clutching her mug of cold tea as more thoughts of James rendered her powerless. Hers was a fairy tale gone wrong.

  It had been a Sunday morning when they’d started “flat hunting,” as he liked to call it in his perfect English accent. How could any girl not fall for him when everything coming out of his mouth was poetry? Even the occasional “bollocks” sounded divine. And, as far as Zoey was concerned, British humor had been so unfairly underrated.

  Because being different was so attractive, and the way he ended any sentence directed to his girlfriend with the word “luv” made everything better. Special. Like something you spent all your life craving and not realizing it until, boom—“How about getting a place together, luv?”

  When Zoey remembered that question, it brought a whole shebang of feelings so overwhelming, her head spun.

  “Yes! I’d love to! But…I’m a vegetarian. I mean, sharing the fridge would be tough. You’d have to store the kill on a different shelf, but I’m very cool with that if you are—I mean, excited even….like, I would really love to give it a try.”

  “Settled!” And he’d smirked so godlike she felt her chest would collapse.

  If Sam had seen her then, she would have rolled her eyes and said something half-inappropriate, but Zoey’s heart was doomed to be “eternally 13,” just like it said on the t-shirt Sam had gotten printed for Zoey’s twenty-third birthday. The same t-shirt that would be hanging ironically on her shoulders the very day she woke up without James.

  Eternally 13. One day a goofy romantic reference, today a slap in the face of the eternally unlucky.

  Another loud sigh followed.

  Over the next three weeks of “flat hunting” they’d carefully looked at what was on the market.

  Too big, too small, too far, until “just perfect” came along through one of James’s high-end pals who owned a real estate agency downtown.

  A two-bedroom apartment with a vintage twist, pale yellow walls, completely furnished and nestled in the historical district.

  “Quite frankly, the orientation is rather delightful. Is this an original Mont-Dauphin cabinet?” James asked the realtor about thirty seconds after walking into the living room.

  Judging by her expression, not many people could appreciate the exquisite art of furniture. Maggie, as her name tag read, was a very down-to-earth realtor who, judging by her shoulder pads and heavy make-up, had a clear fascination with the ’80s. Not once had she tried to over-sell anything, and had the confidence of a lifelong friend. Zoey herself had gone through the specifics of the apartment with her over the phone and arranged the visit that warm September evening.

  “I was letting you both take it all in. Yes, in fact, all the furniture is authentic, French, carefully restored, and as original as it gets. The apartment belonged to a French writer, Sébastien Gouin. After going through the easiest divorce of the century, as I was told, he moved back to loving France. Former Mrs. Gouin is now renting the place with everything you see inside. As it clearly states in the lease, you have over fifty-five collector items including the Mont-Dauphin cabinet you so smartly pointed out. Are you an artist as well, Mr. Bradley?”

  “Oh,” he smiled politely, “please, call me James. My father’s a collector. I grew up in East London surrounded by things I couldn’t touch! I’m sensing, though, Mrs. Gouin did not share her ex-husband’s passion.”

>   The realtor smiled and went along. “You’re quite the detective. Indeed, the missus is more a lady of the now. I sold her a house last month on the very opposite end of what you can admire here. Miss Mills, how are you finding the place so far?”

  “It looks incredible, I mean, a little too good to be true. Is there a secret clause in the lease? What’s the catch?” The lease was almost a joke. This was, after all, one of her favorite areas, nothing like the places they visited which smelled like fried fish or meatballs from the busy restaurants below. This place smelled rich and looked like something a school teacher couldn’t afford, even by splitting it in half with a loving boyfriend.

  “No catch! I would come around and say it’s beginner’s luck, even!” Maggie the realtor went on. “People would indeed pay double for this beauty; nevertheless, I have a feeling someone at the agency put in a good word for you, Mr. Bradley.”

  James hid behind a shy grin, obviously flattered. “Indeed, and it’s very much appreciated. Now we’ll just have to see if my lady likes it as much as I do!”

  Zoey loved the Riviera nesting tables, the Bruges secretary decorating the living room, and the rest of the French furniture with specific names she couldn’t remember. She wasn’t a connoisseur like James but she was visual and everything was appealing to the eye. It was even appealing to the ear as she listened to Maggie and James going on about the nineteenth-century woodwork and other hippo-in-pajamas nonsense that curiously enough made her feel right at home.

  Martha Stewart could lay an egg here! she thought, laughing to herself as she followed the two into what was to become their bedroom.

  Deal was closed, lease signed, boxes made. The smell of new but look of old, the life that was about to start gave Zoey all the feels and then some.

  No confusion clouded her thoughts despite this being a firsthand experience for the both of them. First night into their new home, he walked her eyes closed into the kitchen, giggling like a proud teenager over to their brand-new fridge.