One by One
It is why he is who he is, I suppose. That million-dollar confidence. Ugh.
I don’t say anything in response. But he’s not waiting for an answer. He gives me a big, flashing grin and takes another gulp of Krug, then turns back to the driver.
“We must be almost there, is that right?”
“Comment?” the driver says in French.
Topher smiles with exaggerated patience and repeats himself, more slowly this time.
“Almost. There?”
“Presque,” the driver says brusquely.
“Nearly,” I translate under my breath, and then wish I had not.
“I didn’t know you spoke French, Liz,” Eva says. She turns around to look at me. She is smiling. She says the words like she is handing out gold stars.
There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Eva, I think.
“GCSE,” I mutter instead. “Not very good.”
“You are such a dark horse,” Eva says admiringly. I know she is trying to flatter me, but her words have a patronizing edge considering English is her second language, after Dutch, and she is fluent in German and Italian as well.
Before I am expected to reply, the minibus comes to a halt, the tires squeaking in the snow. I look around. Instead of the chalet I was expecting, there is a dark opening into the snowy hill and a sign reading Le funiculaire de St. Antoine. A ski lift? Already?
I am not the only one who’s puzzled. Carl, the thickset lawyer, is looking alarmed too. The driver gets down from the front and starts heaving out cases.
“Are we walking from here or what?” Carl says. “Didn’t bloody pack my snowshoes!”
“We’re staying in St. Antoine 2000,” Topher’s assistant says. His name, I discovered on the plane, is Inigo. He is American, blond, and extremely good-looking. He is speaking to Carl, but also to the rest of us. “This is St. Antoine le Lac, but there are a lot of little hamlets scattered around, some of them just a couple of chalets. The one we’re staying in is at nearly seven thousand feet—I mean, two thousand meters,” he says hurriedly, as Eva raises an eyebrow. “It’s got no road access, so we have to travel the last part of the journey in this funicular railway.” He nods at the dark opening, and as my eyes adjust, I can see a turnstile inside, and a bored-looking man in uniform playing with his phone in a little booth.
“I’ve got your tickets,” Inigo adds, holding up a sheaf of paper.
He hands them out as we climb down from the minibus onto the soft snow, and we stand, holding them, looking up. I flex my fingers nervously inside my pockets, feeling, rather than hearing, the joints click. It is 4:07 p.m., but the clouds are so thick with snow that the entire sky is dark. We each take a case, with the driver bringing up the rear, and then there is an uncomfortable wait for the funicular. It is invisible, somewhere far up the tunnel, though we can hear the thrum of the huge steel cable as it approaches.
“How are you doing, Liz?” a voice says behind me, and I turn to see Rik Adeyemi, Snoop’s financial controller. He has an empty bottle of champagne under one arm. Rik is one of the few people I recognize, apart from Eva, Topher, and Elliot. He grins, huffing a white cloud into the cold air, and claps me firmly on one shoulder. It hurts. I try not to wince. “Long time no see!”
“I’m all right,” I say. My voice sounds stiff, prim. I hate myself for it, but I can’t help it. It always comes out that way when I am nervous. And Rik has always made me nervous. It is partly his height. I don’t relate well to men in general, particularly tall men who loom over me. But it’s not just that. Rik is so… polished. Much more than Topher, although they both come from the same world. Literally. He, Topher, and Elliot met at boarding school. Apparently Elliot was always a genius, even then. It’s a long way from Campsbourne Secondary in Crawley, where I went to school. I know I am a creature from another planet to them. Weird. Awkward. Working class.
I clench my fingers, making the joints crack, and Rik winces and then gives an awkward laugh.
“Good old Liz,” he says. “Still doing that old clicking thing?”
I don’t reply. He shifts his weight from one foot to the other, absently adjusting his silver Rolex as he does, staring up the track, in the direction of the invisible carriage lumbering towards us.
“How are you doing, anyway?” he asks, and I want to roll my eyes.
You just asked that, I think. But I say nothing. I am learning that it’s okay to do that sometimes. In fact it is quite fun to watch people’s reactions.
Rik’s eyes flick to me, waiting for my socially conditioned “Fine,” and when it doesn’t come, he shoves his free hand in his pocket, looking distinctly disconcerted.
Good. Let him wait.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 0
“Littlemy?” Danny says, looking over my shoulder as I type in my brand-new username. He pronounces it like two words—litt lemy. “What the fuck does that mean?”
“Not Lit Lemmy. Little My. It’s a character from the Moomins.”
“The moo you what?”
“The Moomins! It’s a series of children’s—Look, never mind,” I say, seeing his baffled expression. “What’s yours?”
“I’m not telling you,” he says, affronted. “You might snoop on me.”
“Oh, so you’re allowed to know mine, but I’m not allowed to know yours?”
“Too bloody right. What are you going to listen to?”
I click a profile at random. NeverMindTheHorlix. It’s someone the app suggested from my contact list, and although I don’t know who it is for sure, I think it might be a girl I went to school with. “Come and Get Your Love” by Redbone fills the room. I’ve never heard of the band, but I know the song.
“Someone’s been watching Guardians of the Galaxy,” Danny mutters with a touch of derision, but his hips are twitching in time to the beat as he walks across the room to peer out into the snow. He’s only there for a second before he swings back round, grabbing a bottle of champagne from the cooler on the coffee table and popping the cork with a sound like a gunshot.
“They’re here, I can see the funicular coming up.”
I nod and shove my phone into my pocket. No time for chat now. This is action stations.
* * *
Ten minutes later I am standing in the open doorway of Chalet Perce-Neige, tray of glasses in one hand, watching a little group staggering and sliding down the path from the funicular to the porch. None of them are wearing suitable shoes, and they’ve not mastered how to walk in snow, with short steps and your weight thrown forward, not back. One of them, a very good-looking black guy, is carrying what looks like—yes, it is. It’s an empty bottle of Krug. Great. They’re already drunk.
A tall blond man reaches me first, in his early thirties, handsome in a Don’t I know it kind of way.
“Hi. Topher, Snoop founder,” he says, grinning in a way that is clearly meant to charm the socks off me. His breath smells of alcohol, and his voice is every boarding school boy I’ve ever met. He looks faintly familiar although I can’t place the connection—but maybe it’s just the fact that if you were casting for the CEO of a hip internet start-up, he’s exactly what you’d choose.