Loe raamatut: «One in a Million»

CHAPTER ONE

Every once in a while, everything comes together and for a single day, your life is amazing.

‘Hands up if you think Annie Higgins is the most wonderful human being in the whole wide world?’ Miranda yelled, lining up an armful of champagne bottles on her desk. Well, leftover Marks & Sparks cava. It was cold and it was fizzy and it would do.

Brian immediately raised his hand in the air. Modesty kept mine down but it was a challenge.

‘And hands up if you’re excited that we’re up for not one, not two, but three very important and exciting awards?’

This time, my hand shot right up. That was an actual stone-cold, verifiable fact. They’d already tweeted it and you could not take back a tweet. Ask literally anyone.

‘Our first award ceremony,’ Mir said, with eyes so dreamy you’d think she was preparing for the Oscars. ‘Our first mandatory fancy-frock professional event for Content. You know they hold it in the ballroom at the Haighton Hotel and everyone wears black tie and—’

‘And everyone does coke in the toilets,’ Brian interrupted. ‘Don’t you pop that cork, I want to make a Boomerang.’

Miranda wrestled with the bottle of fizz, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth as I counted down. ‘One, two, three …’

The bottle opened and a shower of champagne arced high into the air, dousing the office floor to wild applause. There was a reason Rodney the cleaner didn’t like us. Actually, that wasn’t true – there were lots of reasons.

‘Such a waste,’ I said, holding out my plastic cup for a pour from the already half-empty bottle.

‘But it looks so cool,’ Brian said as he uploaded the loop to Instagram. The cork went in, the cork came out, the cork went in, the cork came out. He had a point.

‘To Annie, a verifiable goddess,’ Miranda said as she filled my glass before passing on pouring duties. ‘This is going to make us, you know.’

‘Is it going to make us rich?’ I asked, bracing my face for her big, sloppy kiss. ‘In fact, I’d settle for financially solvent. Do any of the awards come with a cheque?’

She held up a finger to shut me up, knowing full well if anyone else had done that, I’d have bitten it off.

‘Not interested in hearing about real life right now,’ she replied. ‘Today is for celebrating, so shut up and let me tell you how amazing you are. This is the start of it all for us, Annie. It’s all upwards and onwards from here on in. Our little company just put on its big boy pants.’

‘Big girl pants, I can’t stand boy shorts,’ I corrected, rereading the confirmation email from TechBubble on my phone. Content London has received nominations in the following categories: best social media campaign, best boutique agency and best new agency. ‘Do you know what? I don’t even care if we win.’

Mir said nothing. Instead she slowly raised one eyebrow.

‘I already feel like a winner,’ I insisted. ‘I don’t need some industry prize or shiny trophy to validate me.’

Up went the other eyebrow.

‘Just being nominated is an honour in itself?’

My best friend shook her head. ‘Yeah, the problem is, I still remember when you didn’t win the three-legged race at school and decked Marie Brown with a tennis racket.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I mumbled into my drink. ‘It was a hockey stick.’

‘It was brutal,’ she assured me. ‘Very Tonya Harding.’

Somewhere along the line, I’d missed the memo about not being competitive.

‘Shall we go up to the roof and celebrate properly?’ Miranda suggested, gathering up the unopened bottles. ‘It’s such a gorgeous evening and the weather’s been awful all week.’

‘Mir, it’s only Tuesday,’ I reminded her as she walked away.

‘And the first five days after Sunday are always the worst,’ she called over her shoulder. ‘Can you tell the boss I’ll be late in the morning?’

‘You just did,’ I replied, chasing after her.

Just over a year ago, Miranda and I pooled every penny we had and moved Content London, our ‘two girls, one laptop’ digital marketing agency, from the settees in the back of Costa Coffee to a tiny corner of a very trendy new co-working space in East London called The Ginnel. The manager sold the building on stories of its ‘history’ and ‘character’, a description that roughly translated to ‘people used to get mugged outside, but not any more’. Exactly the kind of place that would fascinate your father and worry your mother. Of course, that meant that after the cheap deal he used to lure us in expired, the rent was extortionate. But Miranda insisted it was worth it, for the location and the connections we could make and because you never knew who you were going to bump into at the barista station.

Because of course there was a barista station.

The best part of the entire building was the honest-to-goodness actual roof terrace. It wasn’t fancy – we didn’t have a bar or a sophisticated sound system or sexy, lounging furniture – but we did have a load of waterproof beanbags, someone’s second-hand settee and the most beautiful view of the London skyline I had ever called my own. It was all very DIY chic but I loved it. I’d even brought in a few potted plants to hide the electrical boxes. Nothing I could do about the man across the road who liked to parade around naked of an evening, but Miranda assured me he added to the rooftop’s character.

A few months after moving to The Ginnel, we expanded our work family to make room for Brian, another of our oldest friends who both happened to know his way around a website and was prepared to take a chance on a fledging company. I still wasn’t sure if it was because he had so much faith in me and Mir or because we never complained about him rolling into work after ten a.m. every morning but either way, I wasn’t going to complain. Our budgets were still tighter than a tight thing but we were making it work, just about.

Only puffing very slightly from the last set of stairs – I was determined to make my ten thousand steps – I put my glass down on a wooden box-slash-makeshift table and straightened up to admire the view, digging my fingers into my lower back. Even though we were right in the heart of London, and The Ginnel wasn’t a very tall building, it always felt peaceful up here. I looked down, watching the tops of the red buses sail by, the tops of people’s heads bobbing along to whatever was coming out of their earphones. Even the swell of competing sirens seemed softened by a few floors’ distance. Plus it made for fantastic sunset skyline pics and who didn’t love a sunset skyline pic? Monsters, only monsters. Whenever the weather allowed, I was up here, soaking in the Vitamin D and willing my skin to tan. But for all The Ginnel’s Brooklyn hipster aspirations, we were still very much in England and I remained the same shade as your average sheet of A4 year round.

‘Starting without us?’

I was settling myself down on the sofa when Charlie Wilder emerged from the doorway, his ever-present shadow, Martin Green, close behind. Charlie was one of the original tenants of the building and generally liked to swank around as though he owned the place. Martin, however, did own the place. Would that I’d had the presence of mind to mortgage myself to the hilt and buy a ramshackle, East London teardown when I was twenty-two. Fifteen years later, he must have made his money back on this place a thousand times over. I was fairly certain our monthly rent alone was more than the cost of his original mortgage payments and there were dozens more tenants in the building. He was so rich, it made me want to do a little cry.

‘Start without you?’ I looked at Charlie, slightly flustered on the inside but cool, calm and collected on the outside. Sort of. I could already feel myself turning red. ‘As if we would.’

‘What’s the occasion?’ Martin asked, eyeing the bottles of fizz.

‘We,’ Mir said, handing him a freshly filled glass. ‘Are celebrating.’

Martin – commonly referred to as Miranda’s Work Husband, although never to his face – took the drink with a shy smile. Yes, he could be obnoxious and yes, he wore one too many ironic T-shirts but he was also too cute when it came to his very obvious crush on my friend.

‘Celebrating what?’ asked Charlie.

‘Did Taylor Swift like one of your tweets?’ Martin asked, much to Charlie’s delight.

‘Tay-Tay did like one of my tweets once,’ Brian said, talking into his champagne glass. ‘And it was a magical day.’

‘We’ve been nominated for a couple of awards,’ I replied, tucking my light brown hair behind my ear in an attempt to look as casual as possible. ‘But well done, you’re very funny.’

‘She’s being polite – you’re not funny at all,’ Miranda said in a stage whisper, flashing her middle finger at the pair and dropping down onto the sofa beside me. Behind them, what looked like the entire population of The Ginnel streamed out of the staircase and onto the roof. ‘What’s going on? Why are you all up here?’

‘We’re watching the game,’ Charlie answered, as though it was obvious. ‘Kick off is in five minutes.’

‘Oh Christ, it’s the England game,’ Mir groaned. ‘Kill me now.’

‘We’re in the second round of the World Cup,’ Martin replied with mock shock. ‘Where’s your national pride?’

‘The same place as your sense of style,’ she said, sipping her drink and staring straight ahead. ‘We were having a nice time, do you have to ruin it with football?’

As much as she might protest, the bickering was part of the flirting. Until recently, it was all back-and-forth banter, sliding into each other’s DMs and cow eyes across the coffee shop, but that was before the fateful Friday night two weeks ago when Miranda had one too many cheeky Vimtos and Martin had inhaled god only knows what and I walked in on the pair of them, snogging like a pair of teenagers in our office. But since then, nothing.

Rather than give Miranda a satisfactory answer, Martin and Charlie gravitated over towards the projector screen set-up, joining the other half-dozen men who were all stood around, observing the process, rubbing their chins and nodding.

‘What’s going on with you two?’ I asked. ‘Has he declared his undying love yet?’

‘No, because he’s an idiot,’ she replied with a resigned sigh. ‘Whatever, it’s not like it’s a big deal, is it?’

‘Of course it isn’t.’ I patted her knee and passed my champagne to an empty-handed Brian as he walked by. ‘You’re a kick-arse queen who is the master of her own destiny and you’ve got better things to worry about than Martin Green.’

‘Please don’t call me a queen,’ she said, fluffing out her amber afro. ‘You can’t pull it off.’

‘Dope,’ I replied with a nod.

‘No, Annie, just no.’

Everyone on the rooftop cheered as a bright green field appeared on the giant projector screen and I felt my heart sink. There was no way I was spending the rest of the evening watching football; we were supposed to be celebrating, not punishing ourselves. Across the way, I saw Brian press his fingers to his temple and pull the trigger before cocking his head towards the exit. But before I could make my escape, Charlie and Martin leapt over the back of the sofa, Charlie pressed up against my left side and Martin glued to Miranda’s right, squishing us into the very finest BFF sandwich.

Charlie flashed me a grin and I blushed from head to toe. It wasn’t my fault, I was a nervous blusher and no matter how many times I saw him, talked to him, awkwardly shared a lift with him, I couldn’t seem to make it through a conversation with Charlie without saying something idiotic. I always talked utter shit when I was nervous and six feet something of blond hair, big brown eyes and an annoyingly adorable lopsided smile definitely made me nervous. He looked as though he should be in an advert for outward bounds holidays in Iceland, not running his own advertising agency. And while I wouldn’t necessarily say I had a crush on him per se, I could admit to having lost the odd half hour imagining the two of us stranded on a desert island with nothing but a bottle of tequila, a never-ending supply of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and some baby oil.

‘Not a big football fan then?’ Charlie asked, spreading out across the sofa and forcing me into Miranda’s armpit. Fantasy Charlie would never manspread. Fantasy Charlie would have got down on the floor and given me a foot rub. Fantasy Charlie was the best.

‘I used to go out with someone who worked for the FA,’ I explained, snapping a hair band off my wrist and bundling up my hair. I hated the feeling of hot hair stuck to my neck in the summer. ‘We went to a lot of games, I think I’m just footballed out.’

‘Congrats on your award thingies, we were only joking with you before,’ he said, leaning towards me as the players streamed out onto the pitch and everyone on the roof began to cheer. ‘Do you think you’ll win?’

‘We’d better,’ I replied readily, a proximity shiver running down my back. ‘I mean, I’d like to think we’re in with a shot to win something.’

And when I said something, I meant everything.

‘I’ll keep my fingers crossed for you,’ he promised. ‘I’ve seen so many people go in and out of that end office, really glad you’re managing to make it work.’

‘Thanks?’ I said, folding my arms over my boobs, shrinking down into the sofa. ‘We’re trying.’

Charlie did not need to know about our cash-flow problemette. As soon as last month’s invoices were paid, it would all be solved; the last thing we needed was word getting around that we were struggling.

‘You know, I’m always here if you need any help,’ Charlie offered, flexing the manly bicep that peeked out from the short sleeve of his England shirt. ‘I only started up a couple of years ago and I know it isn’t easy.’

I smiled, melting just a fraction.

‘Actually, that’s really helpful, thank you.’

I turned my attention back to the TV before I could ruin the moment. The camera zoomed along a long line of men with expensive tattoos and identical haircuts as they sang the national anthem. If I wanted to make a getaway, now was the time. It wasn’t that I actively disliked football, it was more a Pavlovian response to having spent every weekend travelling from stadium to stadium for five long years with my ex. There wasn’t another woman on this planet who knew how to find the cleanest ladies’ loos at any given premier league team’s home ground as quickly as I did.

But it was a lovely evening and we did have all that fizz and there would be no convincing Miranda to leave now Martin had made an appearance. And then there was Charlie. Maybe it was worth sticking around, at least until half-time.

On screen, the national anthem ended but instead of the clapping and jogging shenanigans that usually followed, the camera panned around the stands. An entire section of the stadium had taken off their England shirts to reveal bright pink T-shirts and when the camera pulled out, they formed a massive heart in the middle of the all-white-wearing crowd. All at once, the same section held up their phones until they joined together in one enormous high-tech jigsaw that read MARRY ME KARINE.

‘Oh god, it’s a flashmob,’ I heard Miranda mutter at the side of me. ‘I’d murder someone if they did this to me.’

‘Point taken,’ Martin whispered back.

But I was too busy staring at the screen to comment.

The words were replaced with an image of a couple on the big screen pitchside. He had dark hair and olive skin and she was tiny and blonde and beautiful. She was so delicately pretty, it looked as though her features had been carved out by unicorns. So that’s what their horns were for. Eventually, the cameraman found the couple themselves and zoomed in on their corporate box. They needn’t have zoomed in quite so close, you could have seen the ring from space, it was enormous. And of course, Karine said yes.

Suddenly, I seemed not to be breathing and my hands were clamped over my mouth. I leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees, completely mute.

‘Mortifying,’ Martin scoffed. ‘Who proposes at a World Cup game?’

‘Someone romantic?’ suggested a random voice behind me.

‘Someone with a massive pair,’ Charlie commented.

I exhaled for the first time in what felt like minutes. I happened to know first-hand that they were both wrong because it was Matthew, my ex-boyfriend.

Like I said, every once in a while, everything comes together and for a single day, your life is amazing.

Unfortunately, this was not going to be one of those days.