Lost in Amber Read online

  “I love how you manage to make everything so easy!” Zoey was thrilled to open her side and find a pineapple with a card that read “Zoey’s kill.”

  That was the first Instagram picture she uploaded as they started their life together.

  Over the two following post-breakup days, Zoey’s apartment held a different kind of music: the nose-blowing orchestra, the weeping philharmonic, the out-of-breath solo.

  On the third day, the phone rang…

  “You’re not replying to any of your messages, you called in sick and we know you’re not because you would have whined at least to one of us. Emma and I have big news—not necessarily all good, but big…Do you copy?” Sam’s voice rang on the other end.

  Her reply came deflated despite her best efforts. “Yeah, I’m here… How do you know I called in sick?” Sam was bound to be on to her like a hound.

  “Harriet Godby’s a regular at the restaurant, I just asked. Well, long story short I got dumped yesterday…”

  “Whoa… how?” Zoey couldn’t believe her ears. Men didn’t dump Sam. She had always been the one to find flaws: too self-absorbed, too artsy, too classy, always a bit too much or not enough. Until Carlos.

  “I’d say it was around dinner time. Emma called just as I was starting my second bottle of wine. I’m hungover on my lunch break now but I swear that asshole hasn’t seen the half of me yet! He doesn’t know what’s coming!”

  “It’s so sudden as well…”

  Whenever Zoey wanted to sound even remotely casual about things, she ended up showing her true colors. That was one of the many reasons why Sam adored her. Reading people was a special gift Sam had; reading Zoey was something she liked to call “the Bible for children.”

  “Zoey, you’re being an astrophysicist at a porn convention again!”

  “I am.” She sighed, sinking her teeth hard in her bottom lip.

  “I detect a hint of depressed astrophysicist at a porn convention—where’s the fire? Have you been having those vivid dreams again?”

  “…It’s James. I mean, it’s not James, he…left three days ago. It’s more like the absence of James…and all the suffocating crap around the apartment. His DNA is everywhere!” She shuddered. “I can’t feel my eyelids anymore.”

  “Shit!” It was the last thing Sam expected to hear from the other end. “Pull up your hottest post-breakup pajamas. I’ll meet you downstairs in twenty, weep central…unless you killed him—then I’ll see you in five with the CSI.”

  “I love you.”

  The Emotional Geometry of Perspective

  A taxi stopped punctually in front of Zoey’s place and there was a certain silence when Sam stepped out of the car with a confidence you could sense from miles away. Stilettos hitting the pavement as if they’d won a case; her hips moving almost with a sense of humor in that black and white bandage dress.

  Her career had reached a peak a couple of years back when she was made a partner at this crazy popular upscale restaurant called The D.C., and she always seemed to have everyone charmed with her witty ways and creative marketing strategies. In Zoey’s eyes, Sam was one of the few who nearly always got her way.

  Zoey got her a coffee six years ago, one very cold April morning when Sam looked nothing like she did today and was standing in line sobbing and desperately looking for change to pay for her double-shot Americano. She looked homeless and broken from the inside out. And Zoey was next in line.

  There was a certain softness that Sam had lost in the transition of becoming who she was, a side that Zoey missed but Sam never felt the loss of. For her it was a part of the transition, call it metamorphosis if you wish, that had turned the crawler into the butterfly today. The morning she met Zoey was the very morning her mom had left her dad with a note that read:

  I haven’t been happy nor brave enough to confront you for too many years. Call me a coward, but this time around, I have to go with my heart. We’ve raised a good kid for twenty years. Her life is about to begin and hopefully so is yours, Vince. I’ll be in touch.

  Val

  Val had ran off with the recently divorced accountant who lived across the street from them. Rumor travels fast, and so they found everyone was in on the gossip and more than willing to give Vince the gory details he’d never hoped to hear. Mrs. Robertson from next door came over with a day-old casserole that same week to tell Vince she’d seen his Val loading a red sedan with no less than four suitcases the morning before he came home from his shift at the factory. She’d seen the accountant, whose name Vince refused to speak out loud, popping in and out of their family home every time she watered the lawn. The affair had been going on since last Christmas, apparently.

  Vince was a man of few words, many inner conflicts, and a mustache thicker than a Snickers bar. The morning his wife left, he rushed to make coffee and breakfast for Sam, waltzing clumsily between pots and mugs, trying to hide the cold sweat gathering at his temples. He didn’t have a clue what went where, so he took everything out of the fridge and cabinets, placed all perishable items on the kitchen table, and turned around to jam some bread in the toaster—it was just the two of them now and he was bound to be there for his kid, come what may.

  “I made you breakfast!”

  It was like an instant awakening for Sam, the mother of red flags flashing before her eyes, and it came in the shape of her dad wearing an apron over a flannel shirt.

  “Here’s your coffee.” He handed her a full mug, and Sam knew she had to sit down for this. The fact that Vince had filled her tea mug with orange juice was just another screaming sign that something awful was about to go down. “Your mom and I have separated. For good. She’ll be in touch when she settles down.” Seeing how his eyes glazed as he kept trying to look elsewhere was just too much for Sam. “We had this coming for a long time.”

  It felt like a punch in the gut, her core shriveling from the inside out. Vince’s eyebrows contorted. A drop of sweat ran from his temple to the collar of his shirt. He swallowed hard, all determination dissipating at the sight of his daughter.

  Sam looked possessed. Call it instinct, intuition, or whatever you wish, but she launched herself at the bin, opening the cabinet door as if she knew she’d find the crumpled note half-soaked in the orange halves Vince had used to make orange juice.

  You couldn’t stop this kid with a hammer. He thought, bewildered at the way she tore through the contents of the bin. How could she know? Too late to snatch it out of her hand or to stop her now. The kid could conquer the world if she set her mind to it and this had been a lesson he’d learned long ago.

  It was a picture no father should see—his twenty-year-old daughter lying powerless on the kitchen floor, rummaging through the bin with teary eyes and messy hair in the pajamas her mom had picked for her as a birthday present. Ruthless.

  She uncrumpled the note and held it in her now-dirty, shaking little fingers. His kid. She was going to hate Val and himself for lying to her.

  Vince brushed a hand over his mouth and lowered his head, not sure if he had what it took to face those scrutinizing brown eyes. “I—I’m sorry, Sam…I really am.” What else was there to say? Damn him for not chewing on that frigging note!

  “Dad, don’t!” She grabbed her coat and headed for that café where she’d meet Zoey. Because destiny’s like that—first a slap in the face, then a pat on the back.

  The way Sam saw it, a broken home and diagnosed depression, the chain smoking and those three jobs she was so bad at had pushed her into becoming her true self six years later. It was difficult to process how she had gotten everything out of nothing, though she always guessed it was because she had a big mouth and an unrelenting desire to prove nothing could knock her down.

  She learned the hard way that beauty is power, knowledge is power, and so is charm and wore it all on her persona like a mantle of victory. She mastered the art of staying humble when she had to, playful when the situation required, but always, always a fighter.

  Zo
ey was not a chameleon, and although she had learned to read Sam, anticipate and understand her shifts, never once had she been able to duplicate the control Sam had over her life. If life had been a calligraphy contest, Zoey would be the right-handed dummy attending her first lesson with her left hand. She sympathized with the clumsy because she’d always felt like one; it was her own built-in teacher feature. Not understanding where she fit in came with a lot of drama and a lot of days in the rain with no umbrella.

  As Zoey came down the stairs with bouncing copper curls and a nose that betrayed the happenings on the 3rd floor, she looked up to see that the rain had stopped on Callow Street. Wearing her best post-breakup gear and collector’s socks in several shades of green, she ran towards the only arms that could comfort her given the situation.

  “Are those the best pajamas you have? I was planning on taking you on a proper date.” Sam stopped to give her a hug and so they went for a long walk far from memory lane and into the first coffee shop two blocks away.

  “A double-shot Americano and a tall latte, please. And two of those delicious-looking chocolate strawberry cupcakes.” She pulled a smile so big no one in their right mind would have guessed the woman only got dumped yesterday.

  “I’d go back in time and slap myself in the face!” Sam turned to Zoey as they took the table by the window. “I, of all people, couldn’t find my words, he wasn’t even elegant about it all, the schmuck! Like I had been paralyzed and turned dim-witted at the same time. I just sat there, mouth open in horror and crying like the biggest moron to walk the Earth! Now, on the other hand, I feel like this raging beast, I wanna crush him under my heels, destroy his last attempt at dignity, set fire to his belongings, and tell him to shove it in more languages than I can speak! They’re all sick bastards.” Sam said in all in one breath, like she often did. It was almost like a trademark of sorts. Yet she never looked defeated, unlike Zoey who was still struggling to find her words.

  “I, um…”

  Sam couldn’t really blame Zoey. “Oh sweetheart, you’re hoping he’ll come back, aren’t you?” James had vanished into thin air without any valuable explanation and allowing Zoey to drown in self-pity wasn’t an option.

  Sniffing her boogers up and trying to look like she still had some control over what had happened, Zoey tucked her hair behind her ears, crunched her joints, and fixed Sam with a teary stare and trembling lip.

  “I’m not ready to let him go! What if he’s terminally ill and was too afraid to tell me? What if he’s just having a moment?”

  “YEAH. What if he’s a space alien from Pluto who couldn’t keep his skin glued to his face and his nose in place? Really?! I love you to bits, which is why I want you to realize how ludicrous that sounds! Life is sometimes shit and it hits you in the face with stuff your heart can’t cope with! Look at that couple walking down the road, holding hands and blah blah…If he left her, packed his bags and stopped answering his phone…seriously, would your first thought be cancer or alien abduction?!”

  “No,” she said in a small voice, anything but the possibility of him having fallen out of love with her made more sense.

  “In your defense, I’m not ruling out that James might be going through a situation of sorts, I mean, he looked pretty serious about you—Zoey! Stop staring at your phone! God dammit!”

  γ

  Emma was having lunch alone, chewing every bite twelve times while tapping her foot nervously. She looked around the restaurant and found around fifteen flaws in a quick scan. The napkins were not folded properly, the curtains looked old, the fish was worth half the money, and judging by the state of the poorly preserved wooden tables, it was only a matter of time before the table legs would collapse, landing the fish tail-up in her lap.

  Inhale, exhale. Her mother always told her you needed a Plan B for everything. Avoids disappointment. She couldn’t help but feel time was running out and second chances were getting thinner every forsaken minute.

  Plan B, Plan B, PLAN B.

  Emma had a list for just about anything you could imagine, sorted her clothes according to color and fabric, and all her pencils were sharpened.

  She could tell you what happened on December 3rd, whatever the year, with unbelievable accuracy—even the outstanding little details one would hardly notice. Like the fact that the temperature was three degrees lower than the weatherman had said, but fuck it, that weatherman was flawless otherwise with his tailored suits, matching scarves and impeccable wrist watches.

  Inhale, exhale.

  Just like on December 3rd, she watched the forecast today and told herself it was going to be colder than expected. She was prepared for whatever would come, her big beige bag holding all her paperwork in perfect order: three court cases assigned for today in neatly researched files and her very own divorce papers, signed and ready to be delivered immediately after her unfortunate fish lunch in this dump of a restaurant on the edge of collapsing. But still, the closest thing to her divorce attorney's office.

  Inhale, exhale.

  She dropped some bills on the table and made her way out. Deep breath, Emma.

  She never had a Plan B when it came to her marriage. Who in the world would have a Plan B for that?

  Irreconcilable differences, Frank stated as his ground reason for divorce. Frank, who had two sugars and a half in his coffee. Frank, who carefully split in two half of the sugar lumps in a pack. Frank, who arranged his suits according to color and cut. Frank, who made a quiz on their fifth anniversary to see who ranked the highest OCD percentage. That same Frank who, close to their sixth anniversary, served her divorce papers and a letter which mentioned a friendly divorce settlement.

  To hell with Frank and...

  She tried to quiet her screaming thoughts as she reached the door of the attorney’s office.

  Inhale, exhale. She stiffened and pressed the handle with Spartan determination.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Rogers. I see my husband’s already here, so we can all get started. Naturally, this is going to be an easy divorce seeing that we’ve both signed a prenup and there are no kids involved.” Emma’s tone was slightly pitched as she tried to mask her hyperventilation with awkward enthusiasm.

  There they were, side by side on brown leather armchairs in front of a divorce attorney. Such improperly chosen chairs. Every move you made came with an ass-on-leather noise.

  “Mrs. Whitehouse, I see you know exactly where you stand. There are just some small details to be discussed as Annie is taking care of all the paperwork.” Rogers was well in his fifties, all tailored grey suit and manicured hands. He pursed his lips, fully aware of the irony—a divorce attorney helping another divorce attorney get divorced. “Mr. Whitehouse, is there anything you’d like to develop in terms of divorce grounds? We do have to detail it in writing, so with your consent and in complete confidence we shall proceed on analyzing your grounds and see what we can build the case on. Mrs. Whitehouse—Emma—are you familiar with your husband’s irreconcilable differences?”

  “As a matter of fact I’d like to hear them myself, Mr. Rogers!” Her octaves seemed to be reaching tropical levels.

  Four eyes were now fixed on Frank, who looked a bit flustered and clearly not in the most comfortable position he’d ever been in, leather chairs aside. Sweat rose around his temples as Frank appeared to be stuck counting carpet fibers rather than facing Emma.

  “Well…with all due respect, Emma, I really don’t want either of us to come out harmed from this divorce, so I will be honest about my reasons and hope you’ll at least try to see things from my perspective.” Frank’s tone was steady, but he was still eyes deep in the rug. He couldn’t bear to look her in the eye. Not now.

  “I am an attorney and a soon-to-be ex-wife, so please, feel free to continue.” Her voice was back to its normal pitch as she adjusted her skirt and posture. Hair tied in a blonde bun, professional looking from head to toe, waterproof/divorceproof makeup worth every penny. She adopted one of those looks she gave
her clients on the first meeting—detached, yet understanding.

  “After graduating and opening my own insurance company, I dedicated a good part of my adult life to making my project grow.” Frank made a determined start. “And it did. As I found myself professionally accomplished and after careful consideration, I decided it was time to focus on my personal life, so I requested the service of a serious dating company that promised to find me a decent match. And there she was, absolutely perfect in every way I’d imagined,” Frank glanced at Marc Rogers with growing confidence, “in her pencil skirt, more silk on her than in an Indian market, and the mind of a MacBook. Perceptive, intelligent, effective. It took one date to know she was the one.”

  “Mr. Whitehouse, if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were about to propose.” Rogers raised an eyebrow.

  On Frank’s right, Emma’s anger reached her ears. The only thing that gave her away: throbbing scarlet ears. Always.

  “Get to the point, Frank. You’re not making this any easier for either of us!” she snapped.

  Frank turned to her, and, for the first time since he moved out, he broke. “You know what’s missing, Emma? The next step, the step we never took because, for you, it was never the right time!” He slewed his eyes to Rogers. “We got married in our thirties and here we are, six years later, in the same situation. We live like single workaholics, we have no family, no babies to fill our life. I wanted children, I always wanted children, and told you from the moment we became exclusive that I can’t picture my life without! So here we are, Mr. Rogers, I’m thirty-eight and I don’t intend to spend another six years throwing hints at my wife and attending my friends’ kids’ birthday parties. Everybody’s asking me when, and I am done making excuses.” Frank was dead serious about this, and Emma knew it better than he anticipated.