by Lia Weston
‘I’m so glad you agree. I’ll be speaking with my lawyer.’ He hangs up.
Lawyer. Lawyer? Christ, lawyer. I can feel my throat closing up.
I hop up the stairs, my head pulsing on each landing. A new voice has started on the karaoke. Honey toned, it slides across the walls and fills the spaces between the icicles. ‘“If you were under the mistletoe . . .”’
Whoever has that voice is wasted here.
‘“. . . softly lit with firelight glow . . .”’
Mica is standing by the corner of the client rooms.
The violins swell. I tap her on the arm.
‘Fucking holy shit,’ she says. ‘Look.’
There, next to the Christmas tree, microphone to his face, nose redder than Rudolph’s, is Kain. Kain and his glorious voice.
‘Where’s Ro?’
Mica looks over her shoulder. ‘I thought he was outside.’
I limp over to the doors. The castle is deserted. Rohan and Tarik have disappeared. Fucking holy shit indeed.
It takes me ten minutes to get down the street and back again, searching for Rohan. He’s not answering his phone. I keep wondering why people recoil from me and then I remember my face. Coupled with the limp, I’m looking pretty great right now. Form an orderly queue, ladies. Please, Christ, let this not be the time I actually run into Sophia. Not that I can run. Lurch, maybe. I’m at Peak Irresistible.
Tarik is heading towards me, waving a plastic bag. ‘We ran out of snack foods. I think some people need bread in their stomachs.’
‘Where’s Rohan?’
‘He has gone. I believe he is meeting a girl.’
‘Shit.’
‘Are you okay?’ says Tarik.
‘Not really.’
‘Do not worry,’ he says. ‘I will make you a sandwich.’
If only it were that easy.
The rest of the party is carnage. Alex and Felicity are slumped on one of the couches, Alex playing with Felicity’s hair. Mica, who has decided that she actually quite likes eggnog, is playing bowls with baubles off the Christmas tree. Tarik is now in the kitchen, making cheese toasties. Kain has abandoned his singing career for his first love: the bouncy castle.
‘Kain, get down from there. I need to talk to you.’
Head like the setting sun, he clings defiantly to one of the candy canes.
‘Kain, it’s about a client.’
‘Work talk! Work talk!’ chants Kain. ‘Do a shot.’
I lunge over and haul him off the castle by one socked foot. Kain goes down like a sack of potatoes.
‘Hey!’ He unsteadily gets up. ‘Hey. I could have hurt myself.’
‘We have a problem. We have a leaked file.’
‘Work talk!’ says Kain again.
I grab him by the collar. ‘Seriously, if you don’t listen to me, I’m going to shove a polystyrene snowflake so far up your nostril, you’ll sneeze glitter until you die.’
He blinks at me.
‘We’ve had a file leak. A customer’s just found their pictures online. Your brilliant idea to go to the cloud? Well, this is only going to be the beginning of our problems.’
Kain’s eyes widen. There’s a sharp intake of breath.
Then Kain throws up all over me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I’m woken by Rohan’s office light.
‘Christ,’ he says, briefcase in hand. His hair is looking especially coiffed today, as if it’s been inflated. Sometimes I think he hides things in there. ‘Did you sleep here?’
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Sure.’ He slots the case under his desk and sits on the edge.
‘We have a very angry client.’
Rohan frowns. ‘They didn’t like the work?’
I swing upright from his couch. ‘They didn’t like finding their work on someone else’s website.’
There is no reaction at first; I don’t think it’s sunk in. ‘As in, our pictures? From one of our books?’
‘And it gets better. They were discovered by someone else. Who didn’t previously know about our client’s personal life.’
‘Shit.’ Rohan turns a faint green under his tan. ‘Online where?’
‘A travel site. But that’s not the point.’
‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘How? We’re going to get sued, Ro. This could shut us down.’
‘We’ll be okay.’
‘This is exactly why the cloud is a suicide mission. This, on a large scale. There’ll be nothing left of us.’
‘Do you know the most common way that data gets leaked?’ Rohan says, crossing his arms. ‘By someone downloading it to a portable hard drive and walking out of the building. Not by hacking into something, not by files going haywire in the cloud. Simply loading data to a USB.’
‘That’s irrelevant. We’re still in the shit.’
‘Send me the client’s details. I’ll look after it, I promise.’
‘How?’
‘This is what I do, remember? Kain does the numbers. You do the pictures. I fix the problems.’
‘How?’ I repeat, trying not to screech.
‘Excuse me.’ Felicity has breached the perimeter. After last night, even she is a fetching shade of grey. Felicity’s Shade of Grey.
I’m officially losing my mind.
‘I’m sorry,’ says Felicity, ‘but Tom has a visitor.’ She turns to whoever’s standing outside. ‘This way.’ There’s a new note of pure reverence in her voice. I’m expecting either a Hemsworth or the Pope.
Then I see the blonde halo.
‘Hello, darling,’ says Mum.
She’s wearing her Meeting New People outfit: cropped leather jacket, skinny black jeans and heels that are high enough to make her almost come up to my chest when she hugs me. ‘I’m so sorry to interrupt you. Good Lord, what happened to your face?’
‘Fell over.’
‘Right,’ says Mum, clearly not believing me.
I introduce Mum to Rohan, who kisses her on both cheeks, European-style. Wanker.
She spies his TRX straps. ‘I should get a set of those at home.’
‘I know a guy,’ says Rohan. ‘I’ll hook you up.’
‘Rohan, there’s something not quite –’ Kain halts in the doorway, mouth agape at the sight of Mum, and drops his folder.
‘Oh dear! Let me help you,’ says Mum, swooping forward, agile from years of lunges.
‘I’ll get it,’ says Felicity, diving into the room.
‘Whoops, butterfingers,’ says Kain, scrambling for his pages.
Disappointingly, they don’t all butt heads.
‘Kain, this is Amanda, my mother.’
‘Oh,’ honks Kain. ‘Hello.’ Like Felicity, after last night, Kain looks like a photocopy of himself. But Kain is at work, because Kain is the kind of person who would come to work even if he had smallpox and no one else’d been vaccinated. It’s safe to say he has absolutely no recollection of our bouncy castle conversation.
‘I’ll get you a coffee, Mrs Lash.’ Felicity belts off to gather nuts and seeds.
Handing back his stack of paper, Mum catches sight of the pattern on Kain’s tie. ‘You’re a Tigers fan. Did you see the last match? The defence was so sloppy. I couldn’t believe it. What’s Beazley doing to them?’
(If you listen very, very carefully, you can hear Kain’s brain start to leak out of his ears right at this point.)
‘I’m Kain,’ says Kain again.
‘Excuse us.’ I take Mum’s arm and steer her out past the village idiot to the communal area of the mezzanine. The pot plant that Felicity tends is usually the only living thing here. Below us, I can hear Felicity crashing around in the kitchen. ‘This is a surprise.’
‘I thought it would be nice to visit.’
‘You never have before. Ever.’
‘I was in the area,’ says Mum. ‘I just wanted to say hello.’
I’m trying not to be cynical, but I’m pretty sure this is complete bullshit.
&n
bsp; ‘You seem a bit tense, darling,’ she says. Her crankiness has been dialled down to mild annoyance. I’d like to think that it means that Dad has suddenly come around, but I doubt it.
‘A few things have been going wrong lately.’ Let’s not go into detail about how I had to wash my clothes in the bathroom sink last night after being Kained.
‘What a great building. I love the pot plant,’ she says, wandering to the window. She stops and peers out into the garden. ‘Er, do you normally have a jumpy castle?’
‘Special occasions only. How’s the assistant hunt going?’
‘Not great. People keep sending me resumes where their goals include things like “becoming an influencer”. I don’t even know what that means.’
‘Things any better with Dad?’
‘Not really.’
‘I know it’s weird to have to talk about it, but would you guys consider counselling?’
‘We already did that once.’
‘Fifteen years ago. Maybe you need a refresher.’
The mild annoyance is cranking back up to severe. ‘I love how you’re framing this as being my fault.’
‘I’m not, honestly. I’m just trying to help.’
‘You know how you can help me, but you won’t.’
We are interrupted by Felicity, reverently presenting Mum with coffee on a tray. Unlike any beverage Felicity’s ever given me, this one comes with three different milks, four different sweeteners and a small dish of dates, Felicity’s favourite non-confectionery. I used to like dates until I realised they look like giant cockroaches.
‘How gorgeous of you,’ says Mum, picking up one of the sweeteners – Zanax or Xangum or something. ‘Do you mind if I take a photo?’
‘Of course not,’ says Felicity. She’s buzzing so much she’s almost blurring around the edges.
Mum positions the tray better in the light from the windows, snaps the shot, and uploads. Two seconds later, her notifications start pinging. A thousand affirmations before lunchtime.
‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Lash, but Tom’s got a client downstairs,’ says Felicity. ‘The timing’s terrible. I can reschedule them if you want. Tom, shall I reschedule?’ Her pupils are the size of five-cent pieces. If Mum hugs her, ten bucks says she’ll start crying.
‘I’ll look after Mrs Lash,’ says Rohan, coming out of his office. He’s changed his tie and somehow added 18 per cent more volume to his hair.
‘I could –’ starts Kain, who’s still standing by the door like a terracotta boulder.
‘We’re good, thanks,’ says Rohan. He slides between us like waxed paper in a move I would normally call cock-blocking if it wasn’t in reference to my mother.
‘Go on, darling,’ says Mum to me. ‘I don’t want to hold you up.’
‘I’ll see you later.’
‘Felicity,’ says Rohan as we leave, ‘see if you can make Tom more presentable. Concealer or something.’
‘Leave it with me,’ says Felicity, melting down the stairs.
As I follow, leaning on the banister, I hear Rohan say, ‘I’d have brought you some macadamia milk if I’d known you were coming, Mrs Lash. It’s homemade.’
I’m sure he milks the macadamias himself.
Safely out of sight, Felicity exhales and bends in half. ‘Amanda Lash. I can’t believe your mum is Amanda Lash! I have both of her books. Once she replied to a comment I made on a yoga post and I thought I was going to die.’
‘I’ll tell her.’
‘No, no, God, no, it’s so uncool.’
‘Okay, then I promise not to tell her.’
‘Thank you. You know how it goes,’ Felicity presses her hands to her flushed cheeks, ‘everyone has their Kryptonite.’
Never guessed it’d be my mother.
The picture leak is still playing on my mind until I open the client room door. I recognise the atmosphere instantly, wiping Mr Pyne like an etch-a-sketch.
My client rises to meet me. It’s been eight years, but she still moves like silk.
‘Tom.’ Isabelle’s hand is small and warm. ‘How lovely to see you.’
‘How are you?’
‘Better than you, by the look of it.’ She cocks her head to the side. ‘My goodness.’
‘Training accident.’
‘Rock climbing?’
‘Along those lines.’
‘How exciting.’
‘Well, you know, it’s all fun and games until you get your face smashed in.’
She laughs and sits back down. Isabelle wears caramel shades which match her hair. Everything about her is buttery soft – the wrap that drapes around her shoulders, the leather of her boots. Isabelle has a subtle shimmer, as if she is a mirage. There is one exception to the subtlety: the giant diamond on her finger.
‘Is this your company? I had no idea.’
‘Yeah, creative director. It was my idea. The company, I mean. Was my idea.’ Brilliant. Less than a minute and I sound like Felicity talking to Mum.
‘That’s wonderful.’ It’s rare to find people who don’t hold grudges. Isabelle is one of them. Luckily for me. ‘I used to worry that you’d be stuck in the basement of a graphics design studio making bank logos.’
Now’s not the time to mention that I still technically work in a basement. ‘What about you? Still in industrial design?’
‘Sustainable apartments have finally become a thing. I can put all my crazy theories into practice.’
‘I’m hoping there are rooftop hives involved.’
‘Twelve and counting.’ She smiles. ‘They always make me think of you. I’ve still got that drawing you did, do you remember? With the honeycomb pattern? It’s in my son’s room.’
‘When did you get married?’
‘Seven years come November,’ she says.
Which means it happened less than a year after we broke up. Huh.
‘How about you?’ she says, and at least coming from Isabelle it doesn’t sound like a judgement.
‘I’m single. Well, sort of. There’s a girl. It’s early days.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Sophia.’ It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud. I can feel my face going red. ‘She’s beautiful. Down-to-earth. She likes running.’ Great, now I sound like a five year old. This is just getting better and better.
‘Look at you,’ says Isabelle. ‘You’ve gone all starry-eyed.’
I cover my embarrassment with a laugh. ‘That’s enough about me. Tell me what you need from us.’
As expected, Isabelle is not here for a revenge wedding album. She wants a present for her husband, and so we’re splicing him into his favourite band. Radiohead. Of course.
She hands over the photographs. He’s handsome but not too handsome, has loads of friends and hobbies, clearly dotes on Isabelle, and as I sit and look at a picture of him with his arms around her and her head pressed into his shoulder, I hate him.
I walk Isabelle out of IF into the freezing morning light. Across the road, the florist gives her a nod, rearranging silver vases in the window. No doubt Isabelle’s husband sends her ‘just because I love you’ flowers. What a tool.
‘I’ll email through some early pictures,’ I say, ‘just to make sure we’re on the right track.’
‘I trust you. You always seem to know what people want,’ Isabelle says, and kisses me on the cheek on my non-injured side. ‘It was really great to see you. Look after yourself, okay?’ She crosses the road towards a gold Citroën, pulling the wrap closer around her shoulders. Just before she gets in, she calls back, ‘Say hi to Sophia for me.’
‘Who’s that?’ Mica wanders up, shoving a paperback into her bag.
‘An ex.’
‘Wow, seriously?’ says Mica as Isabelle waves and drives off. ‘What happened?’
‘You know that saying about not knowing what you have until it’s gone?’
‘You dumped her.’
‘Yup.’
‘You knobhead.’
‘I know.�
�
‘Who’s Sophia?’
I turn to go back inside. ‘No one.’
There’s no almond milk at my regular cafe, no pictures in foam, nothing in a jar except regular jam. The place is unfashionable with city workers, which is why I can always get a table. The waiter, who is also the owner, puts down my flat white without being asked.
I work on a sketch in my piece book while I wait. I deliberately sent the text message after I got here in order to buy some time. The cafe is seven minutes away from IF on foot – nine if you’re limping – but three if you run. My guess is that I’ve only got three minutes.
Two.
One.
‘Hey, man, hey.’ Alex tugs at his jacket to get it back into place post-sprint. ‘Cool place. Really retro. Nice.’
I push a chair away from the table with my good foot. ‘They only have Earl Grey here.’
Alex stops mid-sit. ‘How do you know I don’t drink coffee?’
‘You’ve got a teapot in your office.’
A grin hinges his face in half. ‘That’s amazing.’
‘No, it’s a pretty big clue really, but thanks anyway.’
He taps his middle fingers and thumbs together in a constant rhythm. Even without a keyboard, he’s still typing.
‘Alex, I’ve got a problem.’
The fingers stop.
‘Before we talk about this problem, I’m going to have to ask for complete confidentiality. You discuss this with no one. Not Rohan. Not Kain. Not Reddit. No one.’
His nostrils twitch. He’s in his own real-life movie now. I go with it, just to ensure his full attention.
‘Can I trust you?’ I slit my eyelids and try to look as much like Daniel Craig as possible. Alex’s lips start with ‘yes’, get corrected to ‘sure’, redirect themselves to ‘of course’, until he comes out with, ‘Absolutely.’ He nods until he realises he’s nodding too much, and immediately stops.
I put the piece book away and signal for a tea. ‘If I wanted to discover how confidential data got out of IF, how would I do it?’
Alex fish-bowls for a moment. ‘Data?’
‘Sensitive information,’ I say. ‘About a client.’
He stares at me.
I remember the movie thing. ‘Alex, we have a leak.’
‘Oh wow.’ He sits even more upright. ‘Wow. Okay. Shit, man, really?’
