Kismet

Tuesday

Anna is at her desk, holding her phone at a tilted angle so that Ingrid, five feet to her left, can’t see the map on her screen. The circle contains her floor of the office–an expanse of almost a hundred people–a central portion of Great Marlborough Street, a slice of Oxford Street and, in fact, since the circle is actually a sphere, hundreds of co-workers on the three floors above and two below. In all this, there are no blue dots.

It is disappointing. When she last used Kismet, almost four years ago, she seemed to make at least one match every time she logged on, more often two, sometimes three. There was even one dizzying occasion, on the dance floor of a club in Hackney, when she checked her phone and the cluster of blue dots resembled a cartoon bunch of grapes. She would like to think that since then her personality has become more refined and mature, or that there are simply fewer single people, but she is nagged by a more sinister explanation: perhaps the information Kismet is compiling and sifting–the websites she visits, the playlists she creates, the items she buys, the pictures she likes, the people she befriends; in short, everything–is generating a scrambled signal, one ridden with contradictions, that will match her with deviants and fringe dwellers, reclusive creeps and sleazy older men.

‘Hey, Ing?’

‘Hmmm-mmm?’ says Ingrid. She is typing rapidly with all her fingers, while her eyes scan along lines of shorthand in a notebook propped on a tiny lectern.

‘How long…’ says Anna, and then stops. She was about to ask how long Ingrid was online before she met her boyfriend, but this is too personal a question, almost rude. Instead, she asks how long Ingrid’s boyfriend Sam is around for.

For a moment Ingrid doesn’t react at all, simply carries on typing, and it isn’t until she finishes a sentence or reaches some other break point that she turns in her chair and gives her full smiling attention to Anna. She says that Sam only has one week before he returns to the Amazon for his next film shoot, and that they are squeezing every drop out of the time they have left; last weekend they rented a farmhouse and went to the third oldest pub in the country.

‘They had a well in the pub,’ she says, beaming with North American enthusiasm for the quaint English countryside. ‘Like, full of water at the bottom. An actual well.’

Anna considers telling Ingrid that all rural pubs have wells, but Ingrid continues with a description of the house they rented, complete with heated pool; in her mind’s eye, Anna sees various pictures of Ingrid and Sam and their friends messing about in the pub and jumping into the pool, imagined precursors to the real pictures she’ll see later on Instagram or Facebook. Almost every week there is a gallery of Ingrid and her friends going mad at superclubs, festivals and warehouse parties, or else there will just be pictures of her and Sam lounging around their flat, enjoying outrageously healthy breakfasts, and often looking like they have just had or are just about to have sex. They probably got some ridiculous score, a 78 or 79.

‘Why do you ask?’

‘It’s my birthday next week,’ she says, ad-libbing, and Ingrid says she hadn’t forgotten and that sadly Sam can’t make it. Then she smiles and returns to her computer, tucking one foot beneath her other thigh, in a position that looks vaguely yogic to Anna. A second later her fingers are rattling against the keys, and her hair–a pile of hazel-brown curls–wobbles slightly as she types. Just above the collar of her white linen shirt, Anna can see the curved tip of a small tattoo that means ‘calm’ in Sanskrit. Over her shoulder, she sees the copy firing out across the page, something about Taiwan’s tallest skyscraper. Ingrid is writing a series of articles on Asian cities, sponsored by Hyundai, and her latest piece–a feature on the insanely difficult exams faced by Singaporean twelve-year-olds, complete with example questions–went viral and made it to the top of the big board, with over ten million hits.

Anna looks up at the big board–which is visible to everyone on the news floor, regardless of where they are standing or sitting–and sees that ‘Singapore Steel’ is now in fourteenth place, with 1835 readers inside the story this very second, just behind a report on the launch of the new Kismet Love Test. She looks from the board down to one of the TV screens displaying rolling news, which happens to be filled with the smiling face of Raymond Chan, Kismet CEO, at his latest press conference, presumably as he denies the accusations that the retrospective Love Test will cause unnecessary disruption to people’s lives. Finally she looks down to her own notepad and list of things to do, the most pressing of which is to come up with captions for a picture gallery of the world’s most expensive race horses. She settles down to make a start, and as she does so a message from Stuart appears on her screen, asking her to come for a chat in the Quiet Room, ‘ASAP’.

The message sets off an anxious reverberation in Anna’s stomach, like the faint beginning of a drum roll. She scans the email for hints that she might be in trouble–and her memory for something she might be in trouble for–then takes her notepad and walks across the clearing in the centre of the office. As she comes into line with the glass-fronted meeting rooms, she can make out Stuart’s crouched shoulders and the back of his balding head. Stuart doesn’t have his own office–no one does–but in recent months he has spent so much time in the Quiet Room that everyone has gradually stopped using it for impromptu catch-ups and phone calls, even when he isn’t there.

‘Stuart?’ she says, opening the glass door.

‘Anna,’ he says, without looking up from his laptop. His sky-blue shirt is exactly the same colour as all his other shirts and, as always, makes Anna feel childish in her jumper and jeans. ‘You came right away?’

‘You said ASAP,’ she says, hovering by the door.

‘Exactly: ASAP, not right away. But you’re here now. Just let me send this.’

Anna rounds the table and sits opposite Stuart as he frowns at his keyboard. She rarely sees what an ugly typist he is, using only his fat index fingers, which float around in search of each letter before hammering it much harder than necessary. On either side of his round head she can see through the glass wall the entire floor, with the big board and TV screens at the far end and Ingrid sat in the centre, next to the space where she’d normally be. She imagines herself seen from this distance, a small blonde dot in the centre of the office, and tries to think of recent submissions that caused problems; there was an incident when she confused the princesses Eugenie and Beatrice, and then a photo gallery on speedboats through the ages that was riddled with technical errors, and prompted a troll to speculate that the captions were actually ‘written by a monkey’.

‘All done,’ he says, with an emphatic final hit. Then he looks across at her and, surprisingly, for him, smiles. It is a serene, contented expression, vaguely creepy but also reassuring, since it suggests she isn’t in too much trouble. ‘So then, Anna: how’s your day looking? Got much on?’

‘Bits and bobs.’

‘Good,’ he says, still smiling. ‘I suppose you’ve seen the news?’

‘Umm. I don’t think so. What?’

His smile falters.

‘You haven’t checked your emails?’

‘No. I mean yes, I have, but maybe I missed something.’

‘Right,’ he says, sighing, and a more familiar expression crosses his face; it is the same resigned look she detects whenever he appears behind her desk and catches her adjusting a Spotify playlist or searching for cheap flights, as if a pessimistic theory has once again been proved correct. ‘If you had read your emails, you’d have seen a message from Romont, approving the Women at the Top series.’

He spins his laptop around on the table and Anna reads for herself the email from the marketing team at Romont, saying they would love to sponsor the Women at the Top series, and describing in gushing terms how excited they all are about it. It is surprising to read this from a woman that Anna had thought hated the idea during the pitch; she sat there with an askew look on her face while Paula and Stuart explained why a ten-article series on powerful women would be ideal to promote Romont’s latest range of watches, as if she was contending with a bad smell.

‘This is amazing,’ says Anna, and her response appears to amuse Stuart.

‘Don’t sound too surprised.’

‘No, I’m not. I’m… impressed. Well done. Good job.’

‘It’s Paula’s baby, really. And it was a team effort. Yourself included.’

‘Please. I barely said a word between hello and goodbye.’

‘But you brought a certain energy. Paula thought so too. And we’ve had a little chat. We think this could be good for you, if you’re ready. As lead writer.’

The atmosphere changes, as if all the air has been sucked from the room.

‘Me?’

‘If you’re ready.’

‘But I thought Ingrid—’

‘Ingrid is tied up with the Hyundai series. And this will be exciting. Paula has had Clem pull some strings. We’ve got Sahina Bhutto lined up for the first interview. Gwyneth Paltrow for the second.’

‘Sahina Bhutto?’ says Anna. The name sounds almost too big to get her lips around.

Some concern must pass across her face, because Stuart explains in soothing tones that he’s sure she isn’t so fierce in real life, and that they have until Friday to agree on the questions, which in any case will be pegged to Romont’s brand values of power, ambition and sophistication.

‘There’ll also be more money, naturally. Just a little sweetener, four or five K.’

‘Right,’ says Anna, feeling slightly dazed. ‘Great.’

‘You don’t seem too pleased.’

‘No, I am,’ she says, stretching her smile into a full nodding grin. ‘Uh-huh.’

‘Because I need you to be up for this. Ready for this.’

‘Yes.’

‘You’re ready?’

‘I’m ready.’

There is a slight pause as he stares into her eyes, then he smiles again, the same creepy warm smile that he gave when she first sat down.

‘Great,’ he says, clapping as if to punctuate the air. ‘It’s great to have you on board. So about the launch: I just had a three-way with Paula and Romont, and we want to hang it off something newsy. Perhaps a list of the world’s most powerful women, with a little bio of each. What do you think?’

‘Sure,’ she says, still somewhat light-headed. ‘Sounds great.’

‘Excellent. Get the copy done by… what are we on? Eleven thirty? I’ll tell Romont to expect the copy for sign-off by… 5 p.m.’

‘Oh. You mean today?’

‘Of course. We’ll have the guys in Charlotte work up the design overnight, publish tomorrow morning. Clear your diary, this is big.’

‘The world’s most powerful women,’ she says, standing up. She looks through the glass wall at Ingrid and the big board and the TV screens and all her other colleagues criss-crossing on the clearing–the office appears a tangle of distractions, interruptions, eavesdroppers. She asks Stuart if it’s okay to take the pool laptop to a cafe, so she can really concentrate, and he just shrugs and shakes his head, as if he couldn’t begin to muster an opinion on such a trivial issue.

‘But one more thing,’ he says, pointing his finger at her as she goes to leave. ‘Do it by continent. You know, the most powerful women in Asia, Africa, Europe. So it’s not just a list of Americans.’

‘By continent,’ she says, nodding. ‘Also, by the way… what do we mean by power?’

He looks at her in confusion.

‘You know. Power. Money. Wealth. Influence. Just… work it out.’

‘Right,’ she says, nodding vigorously, as if everything is now clear, lest he ask her if she is ready again. ‘Power. Got it.’

‘And Anna,’ he says, making her pause with the door held open. ‘Congratulations.’

The word rings in her ears as she crosses the clearing to her desk, where she stands absently for a moment, her hands resting on the back of her chair. Then she goes to sign out the pool laptop from where it lives in the cabinet, and is informed by Jessica, office assistant, that the rules have changed and she isn’t allowed to take it off site unless it’s an ‘emergency’. Anna thinks she has a miniature battle on her hands, but at that moment Paula appears and grabs her arm.

‘I’m so proud of you,’ she says, beaming up at her. Paula is tiny–her cornrows are only level with Anna’s shoulder–but it is nevertheless overwhelming to be manhandled by her boss’s boss in front of the whole office. ‘You’re going to nail it, I just know it.’ Paula says more things like this, and Anna feels alarmed by the intimacy they imply–their only real interaction until now was at last year’s summer party, where they were placed together at the dinner table, and due to some physiological fluke Anna found herself in a charming and boisterous and flirtatious mood. But before she has a chance to say something self-deprecating and witty, or even to thank her, Paula says she has to rush off–she is forever in the process of heading somewhere else–and stomps away towards the lifts. She returns her attention to Jessica, who doesn’t raise another word of resistance concerning the laptop.

‘What the hell’s going on?’ says Ingrid, when Anna returns to her desk. While putting on her coat, she tells her about the Women at the Top series and the list she has been asked to do. Without delay Ingrid swivels her chair around to face Anna and asks who the interviews are with.

‘The first is Sahina Bhutto,’ says Anna, trying to sound casual. ‘And then Gwyneth Paltrow.’

Ingrid’s eyes open wide.

‘That’s… amazing, Anna.’ She smiles as she says this, but there is an unmistakable confused tightness around her eyes, as if the natural order of things has been messed with. Ingrid then stands to hug Anna, who maintains her stiff smile and wonders if she should feel offended by the younger woman’s reaction, and the surprise it contains. Though maybe she will have to get used to people reacting like this. From now on, whenever she tells people she’s a journalist, and they ask what sort of thing, she will mention Gwyneth Paltrow or Sahina Bhutto and it will knock their heads back slightly, as if she has suddenly expanded in front of them and they have to adjust their eyes to keep her in focus.

‘Thanks, Ing,’ she says, before taking her bag and walking across the clearing. There are yet more colleagues waiting by the lifts, and it is not until she pushes through to the bland stairwell that the smile drops from her face. By the time she is thirty, she will have interviewed Sahina Bhutto, she tells herself, as she swings on the railing from one flight to the next, the sound of her footsteps clattering around the bare cinderblock walls. In fact, no: by the time she is thirty her article on Sahina Bhutto will have been published. She tells herself that this is amazing, fantastic–uses all the same terms as Paula and Ingrid–but this does not dislodge the feeling that something is wrong, badly wrong. The reverberation in her stomach that began when she anticipated bad news is still there following the good news, only stronger now. For this is a mistake, surely, based on a misapprehension that will soon become clear to everyone. She doesn’t feel ready, not even slightly.