Authors: Cate Lockhart
Hooked By Love
Hooked By Love
Copyright © Cate Lockhart, 2016
Published by Epiphany Books
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Table of Contents
Amber
Why do we only realise our lives have passed us by when it’s practically too late to change course? I thought I’d discovered that the hard way once, but I quickly learnt that things could change within weeks—and change drastically
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I’d been coming into this office day in and day out for God knows how many years since I completed my university course in Business Management. Young Minds Centre was my second home and I loved what I did, yet at the end of each month, when I looked at my bank statement, it had become alarmingly clear that the terrible pay rate was not enough to keep my head above water, and there was little chance the pay would get any better.
‘Jen, make me a cup of tea, would you, sweetheart?’ I called out to Jennifer Marx, my friend and colleague who held a junior position at the Young Minds Centre in Camden. The differences between her and me? About a stone and three years in age. She was only twenty-six, skinny, and good at almost everything. I was pleasantly intimidated.
She flicked back her perfectly straight black hair as she walked into my cramped old musty office, and I use the term ‘office’ loosely, to collect my cup.
‘When are you going to start drinking coffee like most modern animals who need to feed the stress, hey?’ she jested as she rolled her eyes at me. ‘You look tired, babe.’
‘I know. It’s because I am, Jen,’ I said, raking my fingers through my hair. ‘Jesus, I don’t know what to do anymore, you know? It seems I can’t get enough sleep. When I sleep too much, I wake up exhausted, and when I sleep too little, I feel great—for about two hours. Then I enter a state that feels frighteningly like I’ve taken Valium.’
I rubbed my hand over my already tired eyes.
‘It’s stress. You need to unwind a bit. Go away for the weekend or buy a Groupon voucher to take a flying lesson. Better still, have a shag …’ she finished with a grin.
I stopped her right there with a hand in the air.
‘A shag? Talk about a luxury I can’t afford,’ I lamented, deliberately lowering my eyes to the empty cup on my desk to draw her attention back to the task she had yet to complete.
‘Oh. Oh God, of course. Sorry, Amber. I got sidetracked by your miserable existence.’
She laughed and winked, and I joined in the merriment, wondering if she knew how close her comment had come to the truth.
Looking around my confined cube affectionately called an office, I was more convinced I had to get out. All around the room, files and posters were stacked and rolled up against the shelves, while my desk looked none better.
‘Do you still take sugar?’ Jen yelled from our little kitchen area.
Did I still take sugar? What was the correct answer for a twenty-nine-year-old singleton from London who was supposed to be watching her figure?
‘Um, no thanks, Jen. No sugar,’ I lied to appear like I was in control of one aspect of my life. At least Jennifer would think I was better disciplined than I really was.
On the desk, under my palms, the application form called to me, but I had to wait for Jen to bring the tea before I bothered filling it out. I didn’t want her to see it—not yet. I felt like a traitor for even attempting to leave my colleagues behind to deal with the problems laid on them.
‘There you go. Bitter tea, hardly steeped, with a drop of milk,’ Jen announced as she entered my office and set the cup of pale piss before me.
Trying not to wince, I smiled and appeased her with a forced sip that threatened to make me pull a hideous face.
‘It’s lovely, Jen. Thanks so much. What cases are you working on this afternoon?’ I asked to distract her from my tea-drinking conundrum.
‘Ugh, just Jimmy Hedland again. I know I’m supposed to be compassionate, but there’s a distinct difference between struggle and self-pity, you know?’ She pulled a moue with her pretty pale pink painted lips and wrinkled her nose.
If I did that, I’d look like a gargoyle.
I tuned in again to hear her say, with a sigh as she leant against my doorway. ‘And then I have poor Lily. I just wish these parents would realise their kids are exactly the same people on the inside. Just because they’re different doesn’t make them monsters. I hope she’s doing better after that session with her mum.’
We nodded slowly, momentarily sharing a comfortable silence while we listened to the people in the corridor as they passed by, mumbling outside earshot. I took another dreadful sip, the tips of my fingers clammy on the application form I avoided looking at.
‘Well, I had better get to it, I guess,’ she said.
‘You go girl,’ I instantly cheered uncharacteristically and immediately felt stupid for the lame outburst.
If she couldn’t tell I was trying to get rid of her, she’d have to be blind. But she waved without looking back as she made her way to her equally depressing office on the other side of the ornate pressed-wood divisions. The application form burnt under my hand, and after checking that nobody needed me, I closed the thick glass door.
Questions, questions everywhere in black ink provoked me to laugh in sheer mockery.
‘Who formulates this crap?’ I whispered to myself as I read through the absurd questions neatly and uniformly numbered under the
Personal Details
section.
‘Really? “What motivated you to apply for this position?”’ I asked sarcastically in a shrill, pretentious voice. ‘Well, let me see … I’m too broke to eat a proper meal on the best of days, and as we speak, I’m wearing a pair of tights with a huge run … that could be why I’m looking for a higher-paying job. Why else would I apply for this position, you idiots?’
I went on a sarcastic rant with just about every question before I hastily scribbled the most composed and civilized answer I could muster for each ludicrous point.
‘“In which time frame do I plan to change jobs?” Well, let me see … before I lose my fucking home, perhaps?’
‘Did you say something?’ Jen said from outside my door.
I started, looked up at her warped figure through the obscured glass and chimed, ‘No, no, didn’t say anything, babe.’
When she moved on, I flew through the rest of the questions to get the application form sent off sooner rather than later. I scanned in the signed document and emailed it to the umpteenth company in a succession of companies I’d been applying to for better-paid work. The screen announced the successful transmission of the application.
‘What are you doing, Amber?’ I asked myself when it hit me that I’d be letting Jen and the others down. Not just Jen, but my teens, who needed people like me to steer them in the right direction when no one else gave a shit about them. I’d be abandoning them just like society had—just like some of their parents had. If I left, there would be even less people at the centre to listen, to help. ‘You’re a selfish bitch, Amber Cross.’
But I couldn’t take the application back now, so I kept my guilt at bay and thought of all the help I could give the centre if I were in a better-paying job. Maybe I could volunteer on my days off.
It perplexed and concerned me why we, as humans, always felt guilty for trying to better our circumstances if it meant leaving behind those dear to us. I wasn’t moving countries; I was just trying to take a step up for myself, for once. How was it a bad thing for me to look for greener pastures so that I could keep a roof over my head? Any reasonable person would encourage me to leave behind this job, right? Right?
The phone rang, jolting me from my deeply philosophical vocational ponderings, and mercifully so. I reached for the off-white device with the tiny flashing red light I hated so much, because it usually announced some traumatic news or told of an unsavoury incident involving one of my teens. Dreading what was on the other line, I knew it was still my job to answer it, deal with it and solve it.
‘Young Minds,’ I answered.
‘Am I speaking with Ms Cross? Amber Cross, manager of Young Minds?’ a confident male voice asked.
‘You sure are. How can I help you?’ I wished the caller would say his piece so I could go to the kitchen and pour out the putrid weak tea that had grown cold, no doubt worsening its flavour.
‘This is Jared Holmes, reporter from the Camden Post,’ he replied.
I frowned. What did a journalist want with me?
Before I could guess as to his business, he continued. ‘I would like to know what you thought of the news. It must have been quite a shock for you.’
‘What news would that be?’ I asked. ‘I have no idea what you’re referring to.’
‘It was announced on Twitter that Berkley-O’Neil bought out your building. They plan to bring hundreds of construction jobs to the area once they tear the existing building down,’ he informed me, his tone snide.
‘Who the hell is he?’ I asked inadvertently.
‘Who?’ he asked, flustered.
I scrunched my eyebrows and let out an exasperated breath before saying, ‘This Berkley bloke.’
‘Actually, I’m referring to Berkley, O’Neil and Associates.’ He paused for my reaction, but when I gave none, he added, ‘The property developers?’
‘Oh. Oh, of course. Sorry, I was thinking of someone else,’ I replied quickly, trying to recover what was left of my foot that wasn’t in my mouth yet.
‘Hmm okay.’ He sounded dubious. Then in a more subdued tone, he said, ‘I’ll let you get your head around it and call back later, if that’s all right?’
‘You do that,’ I said as rapidly as I could before the crack in my voice reached my words. After I replaced the handset I searched for the company on my archaic computer and wasn’t surprised to find that Berkley, O’Neil and Associates developed luxury apartments for more money than I’d earn in a lifetime. Located in a prime location in Camden Town, our building would no doubt be added to the company’s long list of pretentious properties.
I could feel my frown deepening. Was this my karmic punishment for submitting the job application? Did I piss off the universe with my selfishness and my greed for more money over the needs of my teens?
I was devastated. My second home, the only haven of hope to many young people and a place where volunteers could make a difference, was to be disbanded. How had this slipped by me? Following the death of our previous landlord, I assumed things would continue as normal, especially after the unexpected, and first ever, visit from his son, Mike. I sat stunned as all the dots started connecting together.
Stupidly, I hadn’t given Mike’s surprise visit another thought. Nor had I suspected that something was going on—not even when his companion, with the gleeful look, dark shades and slick black suit, showed overzealous interest in the building. If I had thought for a second that Mike had been plotting our demise right in front of me, I would have … I snorted. I would have what? Begged, pleaded, grovelled? Yes to all of the above, especially if it prevented the inevitable, but it was too late. Our building, where we’d spent so many good years and where all the troubled people knew to come, had been sold. Our cause, it seemed, was lost.
Apparently I wasn’t the only one to receive this news. Christina, one of our most fervent volunteers, burst through my door, in tears. With her hen-like compassion and mothering, Christina loved every lost soul she worked with like her own children.
‘Amber, I just heard. What’s going to happen? I can’t tell you how terrible I feel,’ she wailed, occasionally muffling her words under the swipe of her pink tissue.
‘I know, Chris. I’m still reeling from the news myself.’
‘They can’t evict us. They just can’t.’
‘But,’ I started.
Christina immediately held up her hand to silence me. ‘No buts, Amber. You have to do something. We’re all depending on you.’
The last thing I needed was Christina laying the huge responsibility of saving the centre on my shoulders, especially in the midst of my own soon-to-be-homeless drama. A small groan escaped my lips. I wanted to grab her and shake her as hard as I could until I made her see sense. This was life. Shit happened all the time. Yes, in the past, I’d taken on the opposition and won, but they were nerdy civil servants giving me a hard time over their request for bigger recycling bins. Civil servants were not in the same league as big hitters like property developers. There would always be winners and losers, and in this instance, we were the latter.
Instead of saying all of this to Christina, I sank back in my seat and watched her for a few seconds. My heart ached at the sight of the tears welling up in her eyes.
I blinked out of my daze. What on earth had I been thinking? Me, abandon a sinking ship. Never! So what if I was made homeless?
If I can somehow save the centre, I’ll always have my office to sleep in,
I thought with growing dismay, deciding there and then to put aside my need to flee from my responsibilities and stand up for those who had nowhere else to go.
‘Christina, call the reporters at the local newspapers and tell them I’m giving a press conference,’ I announced. Not only did her face light up, but so did my heart. I would fight this eviction to the bitter end because I adored my colleagues and clients, and because it was my job.
