Mother, can you at least let me have a coffee before you regret my existence?
*delete*
New phone, who dis?
*delete*
Sorry Mother dearest, was straddling the hot new contender, Javier! Text you back when I’m with child!
*delete*
Yes Mum, all fine here. Was up late practising, sorry. Competition entries going in soon. Love you. Got to get to work. x
She added a cupcake emoji for good measure. Something jaunty to placate her mother, who was probably already on the phone to Sky Sports, trying to blag her a job.
Looking at the screen, Rebecca sagged back into her quilt barrier and sighed heavily. The time was coming when she’d have to tell her mum that she hadn’t entered again, and her matriarch-induced stress headache was already playing the bongo drums on her temples at the thought. She wasn’t exactly scared of her mother, but she was weary of feeling like the disappointment in the family. She’d never understood the term ‘black sheep’ really, but she got the gist now. She put the phone back on her bedside table and dragged herself once more onto the floorboards of icy death.
Twenty minutes later, she was downstairs in her uniform of black slacks and matching black short-sleeved T-shirt, both bearing the Alpine Bites logo, where a happy cartoon mountain took a bite out of a doughnut, all embroidered in a hot pink against the pitch black material. She’d tied her hair up as usual, tight to her raven-haired head. She’d even bothered with a little make-up too. Her mother’s influence across the miles leaving her feeling just a little bit shit and in need of a bit of war paint to face the day. One red slick of lipstick daubed across her face felt like a shield of armour against the gauntlet of daily reality. Praise be to the goddesses of the concealer stick.
Unlocking the connecting door that stood at the bottom of the lodge stairs, she closed it behind her and walked out into the huge open plan space that was Alpine Bites café. Or as Hans called it, the jewel of Alpe d’Huez. The lodge upstairs, her home with the icy floors, was called Fir Tree Lodge. It suited the place too, it was cosy. Hans loved his business babies, and he named them well. Rebecca did feel at home here, and oddly territorial. For the first time that morning, she smiled to herself as she looked at the expanse of tables and chairs, sofa areas surrounding little nooks and coffee tables, and glass and light wood walls all around. The walls were mostly thick panels of highly polished glass that ran from floor to ceiling, with thin but solid beams in between, making it look like an ultra-modern lodge against the backdrop of the ski slopes around them.
This café had some of the best views of the slopes, and a birds-eye view of the main arena, the largest slope that Alpe d’Huez had to offer. Rebecca loved it, and not just for the views, or the hit of adrenalin that she passively smoked all day long. People talking about their days on the slopes, dissecting their errors and achievements. Laughing at the one who ate the most snow as they lost their balance falling in the fresh powder. She loved it because it kept her tethered to the edge of what was once her reason for living. At least here, she got a hit of the ‘old days’ now and again. She used it to confirm to herself that she hadn’t always been one of the most miserable people on the face of the universe. That once upon a time, she’d been just like them. One of the gang. Ish. She still lived like a hermit outside of work, but then she had cake.
Locking the door to her apartment, she tucked the key in an apron hanging on a nearby hook and wrapping it around her, she stepped down a couple of further steps and was immediately in the baking and serving area. It ran along one long wall, an oval shape that left the front of the café open for seating in front of those big wide windows. In this little egg, Rebecca spent her days serving, baking … and people watching. She could almost smell the holidaymakers as she got to work opening up the café for the day. She preferred to blend in these days; with her new hairstyle and the fact that she was a bit of a recluse from the media in the first place, it wasn’t hard to work behind the counter and serve customers without them so much as batting an eye about her previous life. If she’d been Kim Kardashian, and her face was known everywhere, she’d have had to move to a deserted island and would have done willingly. No doubt her mother would be parachuting in supplies and eligible bachelors every month. Well she was through with that. Robbie was the ultimate eligible bachelor, and she didn’t like the cut of his bloody jib these days. She was a lot of things, but willing arsehole magnet was not one of them. She shook off the memories that tried to settle around her and got to work.
Being an early riser had its perks, once she had shaken off her righteous indignation at waking up as she did every morning, alone but henpecked from home, in the dazzling white of the French resort. It had gone seven now, and she needed to get the display cases filled with her creations. Ready for the families, the professionals, and the thrill-seekers. It was Monday morning, the middle of the competition season, and today would be no different to the past few months. The resort would spring to life
