‘You’re going to Iceland. Tomorrow.’
Iceland the supermarket. Michelle had to mean Iceland the supermarket. She tried to speak but quickly realised she was struggling even to draw breath and that smoky sausage aroma in the air wasn’t aiding inhalation.
‘Remember Lincoln?’
The place? A car? Biscuits?
‘I—’
‘Chloe, have you caught my baby brain? Lincoln Sinclair! The CEO of Sinclairz Chairs.’
Sinclairz Chairs was a global company that made chairs guaranteed to support every sinew of you and realign your spine or you got your money back. Chloe had been sceptical of how this guarantee was activated without every customer getting a before and after MRI scan, but it seemed there was barely a household or office without one of the Sinclairz chairs in residence. And Michelle and Chloe had met Lincoln Sinclair at a mother and baby expo in Birmingham that Chloe remembered more for devouring three Big Mac meals after what felt like the longest, most exposure therapy day ever and crying into her king-sized bed, than she did for the CEO’s nursing chair.
‘Chloe!’
Chloe inhaled. ‘Yes, Lincoln Sinclair, I remember.’
‘He wants us to pitch for a huge event for Sinclairz Chairs’ tenth anniversary next December.’
‘O-K.’ And he wanted catering from Iceland? From what Chloe could remember, Lincoln Sinclair was definitely more a Waitrose man than an Iceland man. Marks and Spencer’s good sushi at the very least.
‘So, your flight is tomorrow morning. I know it’s last minute, but it has to be now, otherwise how are we going to know what kind of thing there is for a CEO and his troops to do? He wants festive and fabulous in Reykjavik and he is going to pay whoever gets the job – that means potentially us – a very pretty sum to organise everything. And the most brilliant thing is… you speak Icelandic, so you are going to be able to negotiate everything in the native tongue and get the best price.’
Icelandic. Reykjavik. Not the home of cut-price pizzas and Mayflower curry sauce. Iceland the country. And finally, having never had to face the reality of her embellished CV before, her lies were coming back to haunt her. She couldn’t speak Icelandic! She had no ties, language or otherwise, with the country in the Arctic Circle! And now, right when she was ready to throw even more than everything into her career, exactly when she was poised to leap onto a partnership offer she knew had to be coming, she was about to be exposed as a fraud in the worst way. She had to confess, quickly. Hope that Michelle soon becoming a mother had softened her ball-breaker attitude just a tad. She opened her mouth to speak.
‘I mean, Chloe, this is such a huge opportunity for us! Potentially organising an event for Sinclairz Chairs!TheSinclairz Chairs! Their anniversary celebration at Christmas time, in Iceland. And do you know how many influential people Lincoln knows? If we win this and then go on to do it brilliantly we could be talking business with people who have been to royal garden parties or… on Graham Norton’s sofa.’
‘Great!’
That was the word she had chosen? One word. Not the many words she should be saying that explained how she didn’t know Icelandic!
‘Are you excited? Because I am so excited! More excited about this than having to dilate ten centimetres in a few weeks if I’m honest, but don’t tell Milo that! I wish I could go! But, Chloe, I know you are going to do just as good a job as I would, better with your linguistic skills, even. So, I will put everything you need to know in an email and…’
As Michelle carried on wrapping up, Chloe looked to Kat who was coming closer, new steaming paper cups in her hand. This time she was not going to refuse the mulled wine. What did ‘no’ mean again?
2
CHLOE’S APARTMENT, WINCHESTER
‘Repeat after me…halló.’
It was almost 10p.m. now and Chloe was rolling and stuffing jumpers, jackets and anything she possessed that was going to battle with high minus figures into a bag. The bag – budget airline size complaint (just) – was currently looking like the scattered-style racks of TK Maxx and Kat was trying to teach her Icelandic from Google Translate as Duolingo apparently didn’t do Icelandic!
‘I’ve got that down, Kat. It’s basically the same as English.’ In one hand she had skiing salopettes she had bought for a fancy-dress party, but never worn. In the other she had leg-warmers bought for an Eighties night, which she sadly had worn and there were photos to prove it.
‘Ooo, OK, let’s move on to something spicier… how about “do you have wine?”’
Kat had moved on to something spicier an hour ago when they had arrived back from the Christmas market – the old and very-out-of-date bottle of Captain Morgan’s spiced gold rum that Michael had obviously left as well as that university scarf. Kat had found it in the gaming cupboard Chloe hadn’t even opened since Michael had left. It used to contain a PS5 and games ranging from warfare to tending to plants – none of which Chloe had ever really understood the fascination with. Now it contained dust and rum apparently. Maybe it was a metaphor for something…
‘Do you have wine?’ Kat repeated, loudly.
Chloe looked at the salopettes. What was she thinking? She threw them to one side. ‘I don’t have wine. That’s why you’re drinking that old stuff.’
‘No! How do you say “do you have wine” in Icelandic?’
‘I have no idea!’ Chloe exclaimed, picking up her hairdryer. ‘Because I don’t know Icelandic! And you know this is your fault, don’t you? Because it was you who told me to write that I could speak Icelandic on my CV in the first place!’
She’d met Kat right before she’d applied for the job with Celebratey. They’d bonded over berating a queue-jumper at the local supermarket and had become firm friends from the off. And, as Chloe had moved to Winchester for Michael, it had been good to establish something in the city for herself. The reason for the move had been a fabulous tech job Michael couldn’t turn down and then, suddenly, miraculously even, when things had deteriorated between them, another unputdownable opportunity had arisen in Manchester. Who knew there were so many ‘life-changing’ career moments in programming? Winchester might not have been Chloe’s own destination of choice back then, but now it was the place where she was making waves in the event-planning world and she was staying for herself and her career. Those were good solid things she knew she could count on. Good solid things that weren’t determined by her poor-quality eggs and sporadic ovulation.
