One by One(6)

“Can’t you ski in the snow then?” I ask.

He laughs, like he thinks I’m an idiot.

“Well, you can, but it’s not much fun. It’s like running in the rain. Have you never been skiing?”

“No.” I realize I’m chewing the dead skin at the side of my nail, and I make myself drop my hand. I have a sharp flash of my mother’s worried voice. Liz, please don’t do that, you know Daddy doesn’t like it. I raise my own voice, shutting it out. “I mean, not really. I did dry-slope skiing once at school, but I don’t think it’s really the same.”

“You’ll love it,” Topher says, with that infuriating confidence. The truth is, of course, that he has no way of knowing whether I will love skiing. But somehow when he makes these pronouncements, you believe him. When he says, Your money will be completely safe, or It’s an amazing investment, or You’ll never get these terms again, you trust him. You sign that check. You make that deposit. You put everything into his hands.

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.