Page 55 of Meet Me Under the Northern Lights

CHLOE’S APARTMENT, REYKJAVIK

‘What’s going on?’ Kat groaned, rousing too.

‘It’s OK,’ Chloe said. ‘Go back to sleep. It’s Michelle.’

‘Is she in labour?’

Oh, God, she couldn’t be. Could she? Her boss did do some unusual stuff when she was stressed or hyper or both but not usually unscheduled Zoom calls.

However, no matter what it was, she had to answer.

She teased her hair behind her ears, hoped she didn’t have sleep drool around her mouth, switched the lamp on and then pressed to connect.

‘Hello, Michelle. Is everything OK?’

‘Chloe Bellamy, everyone. Everyone, this is my right-hand woman, Chloe, who is currently working on a very auspicious event we are undertaking for a global brand.’

Chloe looked at the screen where her face was now inside a box.

The absolute normal for Zoom, but the fact there were at least ten other faces in ten other boxes was not at all what she was expecting.

How was she part of such a large meeting she knew nothing about and why had Michelle given her no warning?

She was dressed in pyjamas that said, ‘Dear Santa, Define Good.’ She side-eyed the sofa to see if there was anything that could cover up her top. ‘Hello, everyone.’

‘Chloe, could you take us through the top tier wins we’ve had over the past year,’ Michelle instructed.

Top tier wins. OK, she could guess at what that meant but she had never heard Michelle use the expression before.

Did she mean the events that had gone the best?

The most high-profile clients? The ones that had made the most profit?

Right now she felt like she’d been woken up by Lord Sugar and was having to write a business plan on the spot in front of an audience she didn’t even know. Who were these people?

‘Chloe, did we lose connection? Is your mic turned off?’

And apparently Michelle was expecting instant answers and giving her no time to think. Well, thinking on her feet was what she had to do.

‘Vixen Shoes,’ Chloe said confidently. ‘We choreographed their entire brand launch party. They wanted to showcase and sell the product whilst celebrating the conception at the same time. So we designed a dual-purpose event consisting of a fashion show and auction and then a canapés and cocktails party with everything relating to Vixen, the powerful mythical face at the heart of the brand’s embodiment of female leadership. ’

Silence. Blank faces. Did they want her to shut up or carry on?

‘I… er… we’ve worked with a premiership football club,’ Chloe continued.

‘They wanted their board of directors to take part in a boot camp style fun day… and we also took the lead on the engagement party for Riley Stylus. She was in Season Four of Love For Keeps . No matter who the client is, no matter what they’re celebrating or what specific requirements they have, we deliver an exceptional service each and every time. ’

Still no one was speaking. Not even Michelle.

Did they want figures? She could give them figures but it would take her a while to find things on her laptop; she couldn’t just conjure up a spreadsheet in two seconds.

And then someone did speak. It was a man’s voice coming out over Zoom and Chloe chilled right down to the bone, colder than she had ever been before.

He wasn’t speaking English. And, although she didn’t categorically know what language he was talking in, she could make a reasonably accurate guess by how it sounded. Icelandic.

The man with grey hair said his sentence for a third time and Chloe knew she had to do something, say something before the game was up.

Suddenly her phone lit up. A text message. Kat. Chloe looked over her shoulder and her friend was sat up in bed, phone in hand, giving Chloe the large eyes that said this was a message she really needed to read.

We can use AI. Chat GPT

Could they? Should they? Why was she even thinking about this? She should just tell the truth, right?

‘Chloe? Are you still there? Or are you frozen?’

Michelle was waiting for her response more than the probably Icelandic man.

Another text from Kat.

Ask him to repeat it again. In Icelandic that is ‘endurtaktu tae vinsamlegast’

What? Chloe had no idea where to even begin saying those words and she suddenly felt like a reindeer on an Icelandic road being dazzled by the bright lights of an oncoming speeding truck…

And then: ‘ Endurtaktu tae vinsamlegast .’

The robotic voice sounded tinny and super loud and one of the Zoom participants actually put their hands to their ears. At least the voice was female but, could it pass off as her? Shit! Her lips hadn’t moved. There was only one thing for it or the game was up. She mouthed like she was a puppet.

Then the robotic voice said: ‘ Tví mieur er smá tof .’

Another text from Kat.

It means there is a time delay. Just keep mouthing after the robot speaks.

The man spoke again and Chloe looked at his image closely. Did he already have suspicion in his eyes? Know that this was all a ruse?

He asked if you are enjoying Iceland

She knew the word for ‘yes’. She also knew ‘do you have wine’ but that wasn’t going to be enough. But before Chloe could think about whether to actually say anything or confer with Kat about how to respond, the robot voice was talking again.

‘ ísland er fallegt land. Og mér finnst mjog gaman ae undirbúa spennandi viebure fyrir afmaelishátíe Sinclairz .’

Chloe moved her lips and then she stopped fake-talking, a feeling of sheer dread shrouding her.

She only really knew one word from that sentence and, at that moment, she knew, if the game wasn’t up already, it was set and match now.

Between Kat and AI, the cardinal business sin had just been committed and when Chloe’s gaze found Michelle’s in the centre square on screen, the look on her boss’s face told a story all of its own.

She was done for. She either left the meeting right now, tried to talk her way out of it, or she came clean…

‘I’m so sorry,’ Chloe said with all the professional confidence she could muster.

‘I have to leave the meeting now. There’s a planning emergency that I have to deal with.

It was wonderful to meet you all and I hope I get the chance to talk with you again.

’ She waved a hand and pressed the icon to leave.

Closing the lid of her laptop, she took a shaking breath. It was only a matter of time.

‘What happened?’ Kat exclaimed. ‘Because I know I wasn’t the fastest at getting the responses but I thought it was going OK.’

‘It’s OK,’ Chloe said, shaking her head and feeling anything but alright. ‘It was my fault. I got myself into this from not telling the truth at the start.’

‘I don’t understand,’ Kat said, flapping about on the bed in frustration, all bed hair and chaos.

‘You mentioned Sinclairz in whatever you got the robot to say last, didn’t you?’ Chloe said, putting her laptop down on the coffee table.

‘I got it to say that “Iceland is a beautiful country. And I am very much enjoying preparing an exciting event for Sinclairz’s anniversary celebration”. Was that not OK?’

Chloe shook her head. ‘You mentioned a client that no one is supposed to know we are working with. Nothing is confirmed yet. Nor does anyone know that Sinclairz Chairs are even having an anniversary celebration. And I have no idea who those people were. They could have been anyone. They could even have been from Sinclairz.’

‘Oh my God,’ Kat exclaimed, slapping her hands to either side of her face.

‘This is all my fault! I’m an idiot! You need to call Michelle and you need to tell her that your imbecile friend, the one she never liked anyway, got you into this from the very beginning.

Tell her everything, tell her you lied on your CV about speaking Icelandic because I told you to, say that not coming clean was my idea too and definitely tell her this fucking robot shiz was on me. ’

‘No,’ Chloe said, her mind competing with taking immediate action to work out the best plan to salvage the situation or shutting down. ‘No, it’s fine.’

‘It’s not fine though!’ Kat continued. ‘Michelle is going freak, isn’t she?

And she freaks anyway about everything, and now this is a big thing and she’s battling with third trimester hormones.

I know about those because Esther at book club turned into an absolute witch about a month before she gave birth. ’

‘It’s OK,’ Chloe said.

She had actually said that sentence with utter calm and that took her by surprise.

OK, so, in the moment, shock and horror driving her thought pattern, she might have given in to those initial feelings of panic.

But now, her mind collating things together, offering her snapshots of her career thus far – good and bad – she was feeling like this might be a crossroads but, maybe, the exact place she needed to be.

‘I feel so, so bad I might be sick,’ Kat stated, hands in her hair.

‘Don’t do that,’ Chloe said. ‘Everything is going to be fine.’ She crawled up the bed and put her arms around her. ‘What you tried to do was a really, really nice thing. You coming here to Iceland was a really nice thing, Kat and I so appreciate you, I want you to know that.’

‘I don’t appreciate me right now. I think I’ve just made things worse for you and I should have stayed in the UK deliberating over gravy granules and fresh versus frozen sprouts.’

‘No, you shouldn’t,’ Chloe insisted, squeezing her tight. ‘You’ve always been there for me when it mattered most. Always.’

She felt Kat relax just a touch into her hug. She knew her friend steamrollered into things but that was the way she showed her affection. It might sometimes be misplaced or ill-timed but there was never a hidden agenda or any malintent, just pure and genuine affection driving her.

‘I’m not going to answer any unplanned Zoom calls ever again,’ Chloe told her.

‘That’s a lesson I’ve learned here.’ She sighed.

‘I’ve also learned that the best experiences aren’t the ones with a dedicated VIP section you have to pay for.

’ Her mind returned to everything Gunnar had shown her on this trip.

‘Sometimes the best things in life you really can get for free.’

‘Amen to that,’ Kat said, yawning as she lay back down in the bed. ‘And I really don’t care how you say that in Icelandic.’

Chloe took a breath, feeling lighter than she had in a long time. Perhaps today was the day for new beginnings.