One by One

by Ruth Ware

  “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.

  “Good to meet you,” I say. “I’m Erin, your chalet host for the week. Champagne?”

  “Well, since you insist…” He takes a glass of champagne off the tray and knocks it back in one. I make a mental note that next time I prepour drinks for this party, I’ll use prosecco. There is no way they’ll be able to taste the difference, throwing them back like that.

  “Thanks.” He replaces the empty glass on the tray and stares around him. “Great location, by the way.”

  “Thanks, we like it,” I say. The others are coming up behind him now. A stunningly beautiful woman with caramel-tanned skin and white-blond hair is picking her way through the snow.

  “Eva van den Berg,” Topher says as she comes level with us, “my partner in crime.”

  “Hi, Eva,” I say. “We’re delighted to welcome your group to Chalet Perce-Neige. Do you want to leave your bags here and head inside to warm up?”

  “Thanks, that would be great,” Eva says. When she speaks there’s a tinge of something not quite English in her inflection.

  Behind her one of the men slips in the snow and launches into a grumbling rant under his breath, and she says, quite carelessly over her shoulder, “Do shut the fuck up, Carl.”

  I blink, but Carl doesn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary and simply rolls his eyes, picks himself up, and follows his colleagues into the warmth.

  Inside the lobby a fire is roaring in the big enameled wood burner. The guests shake the snow off their coats and rub their hands in front of the fire. I set down the tray of glasses within easy reach and unfurl the list of guests and room numbers. I glance around the room, mentally trying to match people to names.

  Eva and Topher I’ve got already. Carl Foster, the guy who slipped in the snow, is a stocky white man in his forties with a buzz cut and a pugnacious expression, but he’s cheerfully downing champagne in a way that suggests he’s not brooding on the moment outside the door. Judging by her surname, Miranda Khan is probably the very elegant Asian woman over by the stairs. She’s wearing six-inch heels and she’s talking to the guy with the Krug, who’s swapped the empty bottle for a full glass along the way.

  “Oh, Rik,” I hear her say, a touch of flirtation in her voice. “You would say that.”

  Rik Adeyemi. I put another mental tick on my list of names. Okay, so that’s five of them. The four remaining guests are more of a puzzle. There’s a slim woman in her midtwenties with ombré tips to her short hair, holding, for some reason, a rolled-up yoga mat under her arm. There’s a boy in his early twenties with a strong resemblance to a young Jude Law. He seems to be American from what I heard of his accent when he took a glass of champagne. Behind him is a girl with fluffy yellow hair that cannot possibly be her real shade. It’s the color of buttercups and the texture of dandelion fluff. She is wearing huge round spectacles and looking wonderingly around the lobby, and combined with her hair, the impression is of a particularly adorable baby chick. She must be either Ani or Tiger. She’s about the furthest thing from a tiger I could possibly imagine, so I put her down as a probable Ani.

  The ninth and last guest is a tall, awkward-looking man, staring out the window with his hands in his pockets. His standoffishness compares strangely with the other guests, who are all chatting companionably with the easy back-and-forth that you get only from people who’ve worked or socialized together for a long time.

  No, wait. There is one other guest who’s standing alone. A woman, in her late twenties, standing hunched in an inconspicuous corner by the fire, as if hoping no one will speak to her. She’s wearing dark clothes, and she blended i
nto the shadows so well that I didn’t notice her at first. She’s almost… the word that comes to mind is cowering, and although it feels too strong, it’s the only one that really fits. Her uneasiness is in sharp contrast to the rest of the group, who are already laughing and refilling their glasses, in defiance of the advice about acclimating to altitude. But it’s not just her body language that sets her apart—it’s everything. She’s the only one wearing clothes that look more H&M than D&G, and though she’s not the only one wearing glasses, the others look like they’re wearing props provided by a Hollywood studio. Hers look like National Health Service castoffs. She reminds me of a bird too, but not a fluffy little chick. There is nothing cute about her. This woman looks more like an owl—a hunted, panicked owl caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.

  I’m about to go over to her, offer her a glass of champagne, when I realize there are none left on the tray. Did I put out the wrong number?

  I look around again, counting. There are ten people in the lobby, not nine.

  “Um… excuse me,” I say quietly to Topher, “is one of your party staying elsewhere?”

  He looks uncomprehendingly at me.

  “I’ve only got nine guests on the list,” I explain. “You seem to be ten. It’s not a problem exactly—we can sleep up to eighteen—but there are only nine rooms, so I’m just wondering…”

  I trail off.

  Topher claps a hand to his forehead and turns to Eva.

  “Fuck,” his voice is very low, almost mouthing the words rather than saying them. “We forgot Liz.”

  “What?” she says, rather irritably, shaking her curtain of silky hair back. She’s unwinding a long linen scarf from round her neck. “I didn’t catch what you said.”

  “We forgot Liz,” he says, more emphatically this time. Her jaw drops, and she looks over her shoulder at the girl by the fireplace before mouthing a silent echoed fuck at her business partner.

  Topher draws us both into a corner away from the other guests and beckons to the young Jude Law look-alike. As he comes closer the likeness fades, but the impression of startling good looks only intensifies. He has olive skin; sharp, Slavic cheekbones; and the most extraordinary topaz-blue eyes I’ve ever seen.

  “Inigo,” Topher hisses as the boy approaches. “Inigo, we forgot Liz.”

  Inigo looks at Topher blankly for a moment and then the words sink in, and the color drains out of his cheeks.

  “Oh my God.” His accent is American, Californian at a guess, though I’m not very good at placing Americans. He puts his hand over his mouth in horror. “Topher, I’m—I’m such a dick.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Eva says acidly. “Topher’s the one who forgot her when he drew up the original list of names. But of all the people—”

  “If you’re so damn efficient,” Topher growls between gritted teeth, “maybe you should have got Ani to do some of the legwork instead of leaving Inigo to do all the heavy lifting.”

  “It’s fine—” I break in hurriedly. This isn’t going the way it was supposed to. The first day is supposed to be rest and relaxation—unwinding in the hot tub, drinking vin chaud, and appreciating Danny’s cooking. Mundane reality isn’t supposed to surface until later, when the PowerPoint presentations come out. “Honestly, we can cater for more. The only issue is how we rearrange the bedrooms. We’ve only got nine guest rooms, which means two people will have to share.”

  “Let me see the list,” Topher says, frowning.

  “No, let me see the list,” Eva snaps. “You’ve already screwed this up once, Topher.”

  “Fine,” Topher says irritably, and Eva takes the piece of paper, running her finger down it. As she does, I notice there are what seems to be like burn holes in her sweater—it looks like she’s been doing welding in it, but something tells me it came off the peg like this, and probably with a hefty price tag.

  “Liz could share with Ani,” Inigo says helpfully, but Eva shakes her head.

  “No, absolutely not. Liz can’t be the one to share or it’ll be obvious what happened.”

  “What about Carl?” Topher mutters. “No one gives a fuck about him. He could share with someone.”

  “Who?” Eva says. “Rik’s never going to agree to share a room, is he? And as for Elliot—” She jerks her head at the awkward-looking guy standing with his back to the others.

  “Yes, okay,” Topher says hastily. “I can see that’s not going to work.”

  Both their gazes travel thoughtfully to Inigo, who is staring worriedly down at the list. Feeling their eyes upon him, he looks up.

  “Did I miss something?”

  “Yes,” Eva says briskly. “You’re sharing with Carl. Now run along and break the news to him.”

  Inigo’s face falls.

  “I’ll have to switch the rooms around,” I say, mentally running through the list of which rooms can fit a second bed. “Liz will have to go into Inigo’s old room, that’s the smallest, is that okay? And then Miranda can have Carl’s, and then Carl and Inigo can share Miranda’s old room; that’s one of the few that can take an extra bed.”

  “Where is Miranda?” Topher says, looking around. I glance over at the stairs. Rik is now talking to the fluffy chick—definitely Ani, I have deduced—and tall, elegant Miranda has disappeared. Eva sighs.

  “Damn, she’s probably already gone up to her room. Well, she won’t be impressed at being downgraded, but she’ll have to put up with it. Let’s go and find her before she unpacks.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I say. “Someone will have to move the cases.”

  From somewhere, I feel a headache begin behind my eyes. Suddenly, this feels like the start of a very long week.

  LIZ

  Snoop ID: ANON101

  Listening to: Offline

  Snoopers: 0

  Snoopscribers: 0

  Something happened on arrival. I don’t know what, but I saw Eva, Topher, and Inigo huddled in the corner of the lobby with the chalet girl. And I heard my name, I’m certain. They were talking about me. Whispering about me.

  All I can think about is what they were saying, and why they were glancing over their shoulders and scheming.

  Oh God, I hate this.

  No. That’s not true. I don’t hate all of this. This place—this incredible chalet, with its pool and its views and its sheepskin throws and velvet sofas—this place is a dream come true. I don’t think I have ever set foot in anywhere so luxurious, at least not since leaving Snoop. If I was here alone, I would be perfectly happy, more than happy in fact. I would be pinching myself.

  I hate them.

  When at last I’m alone in my room, I sink onto the hand-stitched quilt, lie back on the feather-stuffed pillows, and shut my eyes.

  I ought to be prowling around the room, taking in the glorious panoramic view of the mountains, testing out the spa settings on the bath, marveling at my luck in being here. But I’m not. Instead, I am lying here with my eyes closed, replaying that awful, awkward moment downstairs over and over again.

  I should be used to it. Used to them forgetting about me, taking me for granted, ignoring me. I had a whole year of that at Snoop. A year of people going out for drinks after work and not inviting me. Twelve months of “Oh, Liz, would you reserve a table for four at Mirabelle?” and knowing that that four didn’t include me. One full year of invisibility. And I was fine with that—more than fine, actually. I was quite comfortable.

  Now, three years after I left, everything has changed. I am very, very visible. And somehow Topher and Eva’s scrutiny and their efforts to charm me are worse than being ignored.

  It is 5:28 p.m., French time. I have about ninety minutes before dinner. An hour and a half to wash and change and try to find something in my suitcase that won’t make me look like a frump compared to Eva’s new assistant and that Tiger girl from marketing.

  I don’t even consider competing with Eva and the other woman with the high heels—what was her name? Miranda. They are not just
out of my league, they’re out of my pay grade. Eva was a catwalk model, and even before Snoop started to take off, her budget for shoes was higher than my whole salary. I have always known that we were operating on different levels. But it would be nice if I could go down to dinner looking like I belong in the same room with the others.

  I unzip my sagging wheelie case and rummage through the layers of clothes I stuffed in there early this morning. At last, halfway down, I find a dress that might do. I drag it over my head and then I stand in front of the mirror, smoothing down the material, staring at myself. The dress is black and stretchy, and I bought it because I read some piece in Elle that said every woman needed a little black dress and this was the cheapest one in the feature.

  But somehow it doesn’t look like the dress in that photoshoot. It is crumpled from my case, and although I’ve only worn it two or three times, the material has gone into bobbles under the arms, giving it a tired, charity-shop look. There are what look like cat hairs all over the back, even though I don’t own a cat. Maybe they’ve come off my scarf.

  I know that a girl like Tiger would probably pick this dress up in a thrift shop and accessorize it with something ridiculous like a chain-mail vest and biker boots and walk out looking like a million dollars.

  If I wore a chain-mail vest, it would pinch the skin under my arms and clank when I walked, and strangers would laugh and say, “Taking up jousting, love?” And it would rust where my sweat seeped into the links, and stain my clothes, and I would hate myself even more than I do already.

  I am still standing there, gazing blankly at myself in the mirror, when there is a knock at the door.