Universally Challenged

by Anna Bell

  Jessica shivered and she pulled the blanket from the back of the sofa over her. She knew whatever was going on it wasn’t a dream; the feel of Benjy’s body on hers had definitely been real. What was she doing here? How had she walked into the life she always regretted not having?

  She could hear Benjy singing in the shower. She smiled to herself. Whatever had happened to her to make this her reality, she didn’t care. She was married to Benjy and surely that was all that mattered.

  Chapter 10 - Jess Burns

  Jess woke up feeling she was going to be sick. She started to retch and she leapt out of bed to find the toilet. It was only after she was sick and she lay down on the cool tiles of the bathroom floor to ease the pain in her head that she realised that she was still in The Grover.

  Her attempts to drink herself back into her life had failed miserably and instead she was left with a hangover that was worse than that morning’s. A feat that Jess didn’t think was possible.

  She stared at her watch in disbelief: 7.48pm. She was supposed to meet Jake in twelve minutes. She pulled herself upright, clinging on to the hand basin for stability as the room spun around her and she wondered just how ready she was going to be in twelve minutes.

  By the time Jess had showered and made herself look presentable she was late. It must have been closer to quarter to eight when she made it to the lobby. She rushed in and noticed Jake pacing.

  ‘Are you feeling any better?’ said Jake, walking across the lobby to meet her. He’d obviously come straight from the office. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and he had removed his tie.

  Jess couldn’t tell him that she felt worse. She’d never drunk by herself like that before and she was far too embarrassed to let on what she’d been up to that afternoon. ‘Well, unless you no longer think I’m some business exec, and I’m actually an elementary school teacher then, no.’

  Jess looked at Jake’s hopeful expression turn into one that looked worried.

  ‘Don’t worry, though. I’ve got all my notes, including my presentation.’

  Jess had managed to scan through the contents of the briefcase in the lift, and the presentation was in a folder in the front of it. She had flicked through the folder and seen that the notes seemed complete.

  ‘Well, that’s a relief in itself. You want to just eat here?’

  ‘Sure.’ Jess realised she was starving. She hadn’t eaten anything but the Snickers from the mini-bar all day and the liquid lunch had made her ravenous.

  Jess recognised the restaurant. She’d walked passed this hotel restaurant a few times and thought it looked nice.

  They found a table by the window and took it over, as it was quiet and it gave them room to spread the papers out that they needed. She looked around the restaurant, which was how she imagined it to be from the outside: cute but upmarket. The kind of place she had envisaged her and Benjy would eat in, in their late twenties, but in reality they were much more frequent visitors to the student cafés and bars around the area they lived.

  ‘So, have you got the papers for the SinoDam deal?’ asked Jake.

  Jess flicked through the briefcase, she was sure she’d seen the words SinoDam. ‘Here you go,’ she said pulling out a neat green folder,’ are these the figures you needed?’

  ‘Yes, exactly what we need for Friday’s deal,’ said Jake. He looked through the documents. ‘I can add to this later tonight. Have you got their portfolio?’

  ‘Aha.’

  Jess watched as Jake scanned through the information. Every so often he asked her a question about the notes she’d made neatly in the columns, and she interpreted her writing. The notes made no sense to Jess but Jake seemed to nod in recognition.

  The waitress came over and they ordered their food. Jake ordered his then looked up at Jess as she ordered hers.

  ‘I’ll have the Chicken Parm with Spaghetti.’

  ‘And do you want salad or soup with that?’

  ‘Salad and I’ll have ranch dressing on the side for the salad,’ said Jess.

  ‘And to drink?’

  ‘I’ll have an iced tea, but no lemon, and only a little ice please.’

  ‘Very good,’ said the waitress.

  ‘What?’ said Jess looking at Jake.

  ‘It’s just you order like a New Yorker.’

  ‘I am a New Yorker. Or at least I have been for the last seven years.’

  ‘You’re not going to give up on that, are you?’

  ‘How can I? I know you think I’m Jessica Anderson, but I haven’t been for years. I’m just not her.’

  Jake opened his mouth to say something but obviously changed his mind. Jess knew Jake didn’t believe her about her version of reality. She really did want to stop sounding like a crazy person, but she just couldn’t help it.

  She was trying to keep as calm as she possibly could. Her mind hadn’t stopped going over and over it in her head, trying to make sense of what was going on. She knew she was Jess Burns and that she lived with Benjy and was a teacher, but the more people that told her she wasn’t, the more she thought she was the one that had got it wrong. Maybe she was the one who was crazy.

  She couldn’t work out how she’d got into this new life and she couldn’t work out a way to get back to what she knew. Her pounding head was a reminder of her last attempts. The only thing she felt she could do was go along with what people were saying until she worked out what was actually going on.

  Unfortunately for Jess that meant going to the conference that Jake kept talking about; it was after all the reason that she was supposed to be in New York City, or so she kept being told. She absolutely hated networking at the best of times, but here she wouldn’t know who anyone was, and she didn’t even know who she was. The whole thought of it made her sick to her stomach.

  Jake had gone back to looking at the figures, jotting down his own notes, and typing things occasionally into his Blackberry. Jess tried to look interested as she picked up the portfolio of SinoDam. They seemed to be a Chinese company that built dams with foreign investment.

  ‘Huh, well I’ll be damned’ said Jess, laughing at her own pun.

  ‘What?’ said Jake looking up.

  ‘I’ve been here, to Poyang Lake.’

  ‘I thought you’d only been to the one just outside of Shanghai.’

  ‘I have?’ said Jess absentmindedly. She was trying to force her mind back to Jiangxi province. When Benjy and she were first married they’d gone to Asia in a bid to change the world. They’d taught English in a dingy little school in South Korea; backpacked around Vietnam and Laos; and ended up in China.

  When they went to Poyang Lake, they’d been staying with relatives of one of their university friends: Eric. They had thought his aunt and uncle lived really close to Shanghai, but it had taken two days of travelling to get there. They’d stayed for a few days but eventually had gone back to Shanghai, as there was only so much nodding they could do when Benjy and Jess spoke no Chinese and the aunt and uncle spoke little, heavily accented, English.

  ‘Yeah, you went there when you went to the Shanghai expo,’ said Jake.

  Jess had stopped being surprised at any new information that Jake told her.

  ‘Roger is really excited about the deal on Friday.’

  ‘This is the big deal, right?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Jake moving the papers for the waitress to put the food down. ‘The one that will give us a big fat bonus at the end of the year, and hopefully a vice president title for you.’

  Jess’ head was spinning with all the information. She didn’t want to talk about work anymore. In the past twelve hours, she’d had a crash course in how to be a fund manager. She couldn’t imagine she could ever enjoy a job so dry, revolving round figures. She had always enjoyed researching when she was at university, but she hadn’t worked with numbers more intense then the basic maths she taught to the eight-year olds for years. She needed to change the topic of conversation; she couldn’t bear to hear anything more that revolve
d around the NASDAQ or the Dow. They ate most of their food in silence, with Jake flicking through the papers.

  ‘So what do you do for fun?’ Jess didn’t know why she was blushing. She might have sounded like a desperate woman hitting on a cute guy, but she kept in mind that she was a happily married woman.

  ‘For fun? Aside from work, you mean?’

  Jess smiled; and people said that Americans couldn’t be sarcastic.

  ‘Oh, just the usual. I sometimes find time to go to bars, go to concerts. Racquetball, hike, you know, usual stuff.’

  ‘Do you live in the City?’

  ‘Yeah, I live on the Upper East Side.’

  ‘Nice,’ said Jess.

  ‘It’s ok, it isn’t one of the fancy apartments, but I like the area.’

  ‘Do you live by yourself?’

  ‘Um, yeah.’ He pushed away his meal to indicate he’d finished it, almost as if he was subconsciously pushing away the conversation. He wasn’t much of a talker about himself.

  ‘I think it is probably time to call it a night,’ said Jake.

  Jess had barely finished the last of her pasta, but Jake had already called the waitress over and handed her his credit card.

  ‘Can I at least pay for dinner?’ asked Jess. She felt it was her fault that they’d had to meet in the evening.

  ‘No, don’t worry about it.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure we’ll be eating out again at some point this week.’

  ‘Ok. Thanks, Jake.’

  Jake signed for his card and then packed away the papers.

  ‘I’ll take these home, is that ok?’

  ‘Be my guest’ said Jess. They might as well have been written in double Dutch for all she knew. It was going to take her time to get her head around the figures, the codes and the language of banking. All things she thought she’d never have to do when she’d given up those thoughts of graduate schemes and become a teacher.

  ‘Goodnight, Jessica,’ said Jake as he turned to walk out of the lobby.

  ‘Jess.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘Call me Jess. I’ve changed surnames today already, I don’t want to change first names, too. Only my parents call me Jessica.’

  ‘Ok then, goodnight, Jess.’

  ‘Night, Jake.’

  Jess watched Jake walk out of the hotel before going back to her hotel room. Stripping off her work clothes into the expensive-looking silk pyjamas from the case, she washed her face and cleaned her teeth as quick as she could, exhausted from the day.

  Before she went to sleep she rolled over and phoned Benjy.

  ‘Hello,’ said the same voice that had answered the phone that morning. Jess hung up before the scary woman realised it was her phoning again.

  She prayed for the first time in years. She hoped she’d go to sleep and tomorrow, when she woke up, it would all be over. This would have been some horrible, horrible dream. She’d wake up back in apartment 5, on Bond Street, and in the arms of her husband.

  Chapter 11 – Jessica Anderson

  When Benjy appeared from the shower he pulled Jessica out of her day dream, where she was imagining how amazing it was to be married to Benjy. She was still naked and wrapped in a blanket on the sofa.

  ‘Hey, why don’t you come with us to band practice? It’s been ages since you’ve been and I think you’ll really like the new stuff. You’ll see why the tour is so important to us.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Jessica. She didn’t know what tour he was talking about, or why she hadn’t been going to the band practices, but that wasn’t important. She was going to get to see him perform again.

  She showered for the second time in two hours and thought back to when she used to watch him in the band. She used to love standing at the edge of the crowd, watching him put his soul into the music. She’d watch the girls at the front of the stage trying to get his attention and trying to pimp themselves, but he always used to find her in the crowd and sing like he was singing to her and she was the only girl in the room.

  From what she remembered of his bands at college, he wasn’t the world’s best musician. But there was something about him when he got on stage and he picked up his guitar that transformed him.

  She hoped his new band was better. If they were thinking of going on tour that had to be a good sign. They had to have a record deal or a manager for that to happen, surely? The tour meant they were obviously pretty big.

  She dressed back in the amazing fitting jeans and vest top. She rooted around at the bottom of the wardrobe until she pulled out what could only be described as killer heels. They were petrol-blue, PVC peep toes and made the outfit go from plain Jane to edgy, in one little step.

  She slapped on a bit of make up, which was the only bit that felt really wrong. There was something odd about using other people’s make-up brushes, even though she knew that they were technically her own.

  ‘You ready to go?’

  ‘Aha,’ said Jessica, walking out into the living room.

  ‘Woah, you look amazing. You’re wearing your bedroom shoes out? It must be Christmas! I haven’t seen you were those outside for years.’

  Jessica looked self-consciously down at her feet and she suddenly wondered if she should change them. She turned back towards the bedroom.

  ‘Hey, I’m teasing. Come on, you look great. The guys are going to be so pleased to see you.’

  He took hold of her hand and pulled her out of the apartment. A million vaults of electricity felt like they had flowed through her body at simply his touch.

  After walking down the stairs of their apartment building Jessica knew why she hadn’t worn the heels out of the bedroom in years: they were killing her one step at a time. She hoped the band practice room was close by or else she would be walking bare foot.

  ‘So we’ve been practising the song, you know the one I wrote after we went to the lakes.’

  Benjy hummed a few bars which, despite Jessica not knowing the song, sounded terribly out of tune.

  ‘Yep,’ said Jessica vaguely. She nodded like an enthusiastic wife but essentially she was clueless.

  ‘I’m stoked you’re going hear it. And after the day at work I’ve had, I just need to play to get it out my system.’

  Jessica wondered how she could subtly ask him what he did for a job. She had a feeling she couldn’t just come right out and ask him, seeing as she’d supposedly been his wife for seven years.

  ‘So, did you, have any meetings at work today?’

  Jessica took a punt, but after the words tumbled out of her mouth she started thinking of how many jobs that could apply to. Practically all lines of work had meetings at some point.

  ‘Just the usual: one with the team, and then I had one with one of the partners about the Jenkins account. Same old.’

  Jessica smiled like an idiot. Same as usual, whatever that meant.

  ‘Well, here we are,’ said Benjy opening the giant red doors. Jessica felt like a fool in her tottering towering heels. In her head she’d imagined the rehearsal space to be a trendy hangout. Instead it was reminiscent of a school corridor and after signing in at reception they went into a little room. The room was no bigger than the front room of the apartment they’d come from.

  Benjy started to unpack his guitar and plug it in to an amp already in the room. Jess made herself comfortable in a chair in the corner. It wasn’t long before they were joined by the rest of the band and presumably a girlfriend of one of them. The other girl had long glossy red hair and she was dressed in a skirt that didn’t cover her bottom and a top that was seductively falling off one of her shoulders. Whoever she was, Jessica knew instantly that they weren’t bffs.

  ‘Look, Jess came,’ said Benjy, pointing out Jessica hiding in the corner of the room behind the door.

  Jessica reluctantly left the comfort of her seat and got up to meet the band members. She didn’t know how to greet everyone, as it was obviously not their first meeting.
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br />   ‘Hey, Jessica,’ said one a tall, lanky man with wiry glasses. He looked like he would be more comfortable at home in front of his computer rather than behind the bass guitar he was slipping over his shoulder.

  ‘Jess, totally hung over, all your fault,’ said another. He had to be Tom, the mushroom man. The scruffy long hair poking out from under his flat cap and a look on his face that indicated he was out of it.

  Another guy nodded in Jessica’s direction but he looked a little bit too cool to actually speak to her.

  And the redhead just gave her a look, up and down. Jessica’s first instincts about her had obviously been correct.

  Jessica and the red head took their seats in a corner of the small room and the boys started sorting themselves out. Jessica went to make conversation but the redhead was looking down at the floor away from Jessica, making it quite clear she wasn’t interested in chit chat. When the band were all plugged in they launched into their first song. It was a familiar type of indie song. Similar to the music Benjy and Jessica used to listen to – seven years ago.

  It was good music, but it wasn’t great. It was certainly good enough to be played in a local bar, especially with a few beers inside you. But Jessica couldn’t help being disappointed; she’d hoped with a tour looming they’d be better.

  ‘Stop. Stop. STOP,’ shouted Benjy. ‘Tom, you were too late on that chord change.’

  ‘I was just mixing it up a little,’ said Tom.

  ‘Doesn’t work, you tried that last week, remember?’

  ‘Oh yeah, ok.’

  Jessica winced. It was going to be a long practice.

  Jessica looked at her watch, wondering how long band practice could possibly go on for. She’d been there almost two hours, but it felt much longer. They’d only played six different songs. About a minute into a song either Tom went off on a bit of tangent or the drummer launched into a drum solo. It took them, on average, five attempts to get through one song.

  It was also really odd watching the band without the buzz of an audience around. And the music was so loud that she wouldn’t have been able to talk to the red head, even if she’d wanted too. Jessica thought it was little wonder that she didn’t come to the band practices often.