Universally Challenged

by Anna Bell

  Jessica was shocked. Here was Benjy describing how she would have imagined their marriage to be. And there was the evidence that it had been that way at one time.

  ‘Doesn’t that seem crazy, that we actually thought we’d move out of the city? I mean, I couldn’t imagine leaving, could you?’

  Jessica had always liked the village, but surely she wouldn’t be content to live there forever? What if they were planning to have kids; she didn’t think it would be the most child-friendly place on earth.

  ‘Just think, we’d only just got back from China before our anniversary.’

  ‘China?’ said Jessica.

  ‘Yeah, wow, that does feel like a zillion years ago. We really should speak to Eric and go out and see him in Wisconsin.’

  Jessica’s head was suddenly spinning. They’d been to China? She wondered where they’d gone and what they had seen. Her stomach lurched as she remembered her own trips to China with LMG and then her thoughts turned back to the SinoDam deal and Google Maps. Which ultimately led to thoughts of Jake.

  She glanced at her watch. Surely Jake would have been and gone to the apartment by now? He would probably be walking into the ballroom at any second now.

  ‘Jess,’ said Benjy, snapping her out of her daydream. She looked up at him, suddenly feeling guilty for being lost in her own thoughts.

  ‘Hey, I lost you there,’ said Benjy, laughing. ‘Thinking about the night in Shanghai?’

  He winked at Jessica and gave her a look which made her blush. Whatever had happened in Shanghai it had made a very lasting memory on Benjy.

  Jessica returned his smile, but she could only guess what had gone on. ‘Get those dirty thoughts out of your head.’

  ‘Hey, its your fault for putting them there in the first place.’

  As the waiter placed their starters in front of her, she tried to piece together what she understood of their seven-year marriage. The first year they’d gone off travelling together to China, and just before their anniversary they’d moved to the apartment they were now in. Then they’d been happy. And as Benjy said, that had been before the band had taken off.

  From the little snippets she’d gleaned from Benjy, Katie and the moody red head at the bar, there had then been seven years of ups and downs. Including the infamous ‘Rachel’ incident, which almost certainly had Benjy cheating on her.

  Ironically Jessica was an outsider to her own marriage and she could clearly see that Benjy’s dream of being a rock star was killing their marriage. She wondered if she’d ever issued him an ultimatum of her or the band. She thought she could guess what he would have chosen.

  ‘Look, Jess, I know over the years I haven’t been the perfect husband. And I know how much you gave up coming out here to be with me. Just imagine if you hadn’t you’d probably be running that investment bank by now,’ he said, laughing.

  Jessica cringed inside; he wasn’t far from the truth.

  ‘But I don’t want to lose you, Jess. You’ve always been my world, and I want to make it work. I’ll do whatever it takes: date nights, going to see the New York Philharmonic or whatever it is, I’ll do it.’

  Jessica looked into Benjy’s eyes. There was the Benjy she’d known all those years ago. He was right there. She wondered if he would give up the band for her. Surely that was what needed to happen for their marriage to actually work?

  Before Jessica could say anything and ask him, a rose seller came up to them with his bucket of over-priced red roses wrapped tightly in cellophane. Benjy paid the money and handed Jessica the rose.

  ‘A rose for my English rose,’ he said, in a truly cheesy style.

  Jessica couldn’t help laughing. ‘Cheesy, real cheesy.’

  ‘Oh yeah, well at least I’m trying. Come on, you’ve got to give your husband credit for that.’

  Husband. Jessica swallowed at the reminder. She did owe it to him to give him a chance. She vowed then and there to give it a go with Benjy. He was obviously going to start making an effort, and maybe he had realised what the root of their problems was.

  She knew then that she wouldn’t see Jake again. She just had to get used to the fact that this was her life. Whatever she thought had been her life, it was either in her imagination or a million miles from there. This was her life now. Benjy was her husband.

  She reached over and took his hand. Benjy smiled. ‘We’re going to be just fine, baby, I know it.’

  Chapter 32 - Jess Burns

  The alarm woke Jess with a jolt and she wondered just how long she’d been asleep. She was still wearing her robe and she was on top of her bed covers with papers all around her. She looked at her alarm: 7am. The meeting with SinoDam was at 3pm. She had just eight hours to convince Jake and his boss that they couldn’t go through with the investment.

  She’d been up practically the whole night scouring the internet and pouring over the facts and figures that she had in her research pile. But still, the only piece of evidence she had were the Google maps and the email from Eric.

  She’d gone through the list of dams that were supposedly built and in operation and also the ones that were in development. None of the dams appeared on Google Maps. The only dam that did was the one that Jess was supposed to have visited.

  She just wished she had some concrete proof. SinoDam’s paperwork was pretty convincing. There were copies of deeds of land documents with English translations stapled behind them, plans of the plants, technical specifications and financial breakdowns. To her, as an outsider, they looked solid.

  She knew in her gut they didn’t exist. All she needed now was to convince someone. She wanted Jake most of all to believe her. She knew he had feelings for her. Despite the fact that he’d cancelled the night before, she knew he cared. And she hoped that was enough to make him believe her. The suggestion that the dams were fake surely had to be one of the least crazy things that she’d tried to convince Jake of all week.

  She picked up her phone and dialled Jake, and yet again heard the voicemail message. She hoped he was on the subway. ‘Jake, it’s me. Can you call me as soon as you get this? We’ve got trouble with the SinoDam deal.’

  She desperately wanted to have the world’s quickest shower so that she could get to the office and start convincing people. She ran her fingers through her hair, which still contained practically a whole can of hairspray from her up do last night. It wouldn’t be that quick a shower, after all.

  Jess ran through the lobby of LMG Global at 8.00am. She knew that Jake arrived in the office earlier than that. The office was already buzzing and smelling like freshly brewed coffee.

  Jess hurried over to Jake’s desk but his PC was still off. Jess swore out loud, and got a bemused look from a passing colleague.

  She sat down at her make-shift desk next to Jake’s and loaded up her laptop. She tidied her piles of papers and had them out, ready to present to Jake.

  By 8.30am she felt worried. What if Jake’s emergency had run over and he wasn’t coming in? She wouldn’t be able to convince Jake’s boss Roger by herself. She hadn’t exactly wowed him with her business acumen over the past week of being in the office.

  She pulled out her Blackberry and phoned Jake’s number. It went straight through to voicemail. Surely he wouldn’t have been on the subway for an hour and a half, since she’d begun calling at 7am?

  ‘Jake, it’s me again, look we have a massive problem with the SinoDam deal, can you phone me as soon you get this?’ said Jess. She was whispering into the phone, as she didn’t know who was listening in the open plan office.

  The lift doors pinged open on their floor and Jess prayed that Jake would walk out. Jess held her breath in anticipation but let it out when she saw that it was just Roger. Roger, who was wearing sunglasses inside and holding an oversized cardboard coffee cup. His face was clouded by his frown. He didn’t seem like he’d be in the mood for pleasantries. He walked into his office without talking to anyone, shut his door and pulled down the blinds.

  Jess w
asn’t surprised. He’d already been in a drunken stupor when she’d left him, and she had no reason to think he’d stopped drinking then. Jess knew it wasn’t an ideal time to approach him, but she didn’t think she had much of a choice. There were only a few hours before the meeting and she couldn’t delay it any longer. She’d expect that Roger would want to get some of the New York office staff to verify what she was saying and the sooner they started, the sooner they could withdraw their offer of investment.

  Jess phoned Jake’s phone once again, just to make doubly sure he wasn’t on his way up, but the voicemail kicked in.

  She took a deep breath and remembered the Empire State Building snow globe. She felt a warm and fuzzy feeling take over. She tried to tell herself that she, Jess Anderson, was a respectable business woman. Roger would respect what she had to say. All she needed to do was make sure she presented herself in a clear way.

  She stood up and walked as calmly as her legs would let her over to Roger’s office. She gingerly knocked on the door. There was no reply. She knew he was in there. She knocked louder. She heard a sigh, and then heard him bark, ‘Come in.’

  Jess slowly opened the door. The office inside was almost pitch black. The blinds to the widows were closed, with just a tiny little stream of light coming through. As her eyes adjusted to the low light levels, she saw other telltale signs of Roger’s hangover. An effervescent drink was fizzing away in front of him and he was propping up his head in his hands.

  ‘Feeling rough?’ asked Jess, nervously laughing.

  ‘State the obvious, why don’t you? Now look, I’m not in the mood to chit chat: I need to feel better by the time of the deal, so make it snappy.’

  ‘Ok,’ said Jess, wishing Jake was here in her place. She felt like a schoolgirl stood in a headmaster’s office. Any flirtations or niceness from the night before had disappeared and all that was left in front of her was an ogre.

  ‘Well, I spoke to someone who works for Clarity when I was at the conference, and they said that they had discovered something big relating to some Chinese utility companies.’

  Jess looked up at Roger to see if he was going to magically put two and two together to save her from going any further, but he barely looked like he was listening to her. He waved his hand casually to get her to carry on.

  ‘It’s just, I’ve been going through the paperwork for SinoDam again, and I’ve spotted a problem.’

  Roger sighed loudly. He put his head down in both of his hands and looked down at his desk.

  ‘What kind of a problem?’ he asked, in a barely audible whisper.

  ‘None of the dams, bar the one I visited, are showing up on Google Maps.’

  ‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got?’

  Roger looked up and his shoulders visibly sunk. He breathed out a deep breath, and Jess was almost knocked over by the smell of spirits. It was much stronger than the Eau d’Whisky he’d had last night. She could smell a hint of tequila mixed in. She wondered just what he’d got up to the night before.

  ‘Well that, and one of my friends, whose aunt and uncle live in one of the provinces, said that the dam doesn’t exist.’

  ‘Right, so you got Google, who the Chinese government really hate, and you’ve got a friend’s relatives. Jess, this is a multi-million dollar investment. Spearheaded largely by you, and now you’re bringing this to my attention. Look, I’ve read the paperwork, I’ve seen the reports, including yours. It’s a solid investment.’

  ‘But it’s just...’

  ‘Look, Jess, I’ve seen this before, you’re about to do a massive deal, it’s normal to be nervous about it, but don’t worry. It’ll be a great deal, and a good bonus for all of us.’

  ‘But Clarity are–’

  ‘Jessica, don’t worry, they’re always rattling cages. If there was something big, we would have heard rumours.’

  Jess went to speak, but no words came out. What was she supposed to say to that? The conversation was definitely over. Roger had signalled that by turning his chair round to face the wall.

  Jess took it as her cue to leave. She went out of the office and slumped back at her work station. She’d just made a complete fool of herself. She couldn’t believe that Roger hadn’t been the tiniest bit interested in anything she’d had to say. Yesterday, when Jake had believed that Clarity had been sniffing around, he’d got quite twitchy about the possibility that all wasn’t well. But not Roger. He’d obviously already spent his bonus in his head.

  She would just have to find some evidence somewhere else. She flicked through the paperwork, even though she’d gone through it what seemed like a hundred times the night before. She was desperately hoping she’d spot something that they’d all missed.

  She looked again at the land registry information and she wished she could read Chinese.

  She opened her laptop up in the hope that Jake had emailed to let her know what time he’d be in, but he hadn’t. She noticed an email in her inbox from her assistant, Sasha. Jess clicked, read the routine email, scrolled down to the email footer and dialled Sasha’s number.

  ‘Good morning, LMG Global.’

  ‘Sasha, it’s me,’ said Jess, hoping that she’d recognise her voice.

  ‘Oh, hi, Jessica. How did the presentation go?’

  ‘I was fine. I’m just going over the SinoDam paperwork again.’

  ‘Before the deal? You must be so excited.’

  ‘Well, I’m just dotting some i’s. Look, I was just wondering about the land deed translations in the file. Did we do the translations or did they?’

  Jess hoped that Sasha would have compiled a lot of the file and that she would know what she was talking about.

  ‘They came that way. Why, is there something wrong?’

  ‘I just need to clarify some of the information in the Chinese section. I’m a little bit jet-lagged still. Did we send it for translation, to have it verified?’

  ‘Well, no. But then I don’t do that with any of the translated documents for deeds that we get.’

  Jess’ heart sank. That wasn’t the answer she’d wanted to hear. She’d hoped that they had had an external translation company verify it.

  ‘Is there something wrong?’ asked Sasha, after what had been an unnatural pause.

  ‘Maybe. I hope not. I just need to double check. Is there anyway we can get someone to check the translation for us?’

  ‘On a Friday? It’s 2pm here, by the time I get it over to a translation agency, the chances of getting it back by 5pm my time, are pretty slim. Can you try it in the New York Office?’

  ‘I guess. Thanks, Sasha. I’ll speak to you soon.’

  Jess hung up. She picked up the land deeds again. The first five pages before the stapled translation were in Chinese. They could say anything. Jess guessed that they hadn’t been checked. Not unless she was supposed to speak fluent Chinese.

  Jess looked at her watch: 9am, she still had time before the meeting. She could go and find someone to translate the documents for her and find the evidence she’d need to convince LMG that they were about to make a huge mistake. But where could she go?

  She looked around the office, but since she’d been there she’d barely spoken to any of the other analysts. She had no idea what anyone did or who they were. And they all looked so busy. Frantically scanning spreadsheets and phoning people.

  She also didn’t want to go through the conversation she’d just had with Roger; she didn’t want anyone else to think of her as mad.

  She Googled ‘New York Chinese Studies’ in the hope that one of the universities would be able to help. She found a department in NYU. Perfect. She’d go to the department in the hope that she’d find someone who would be able to help. She might be going crazy in her personal life, but she just had to convince someone in the business world that she knew exactly what was going on.

  Chapter 33 – Jessica Anderson

  Jessica woke out of her dozing state as Benjy snuggled up against her, spooning her. She wond
ered what time it was. Her head felt heavy and it was difficult to think, last night’s wine and champagne having taken its toll.

  The night before had gone surprisingly well. Benjy had been attentive and loving, and just like the Benjy she’d fallen in love with all those years ago. After he told her that they were going to be fine, they’d shared their dessert and spoon-fed each other. It was sickening and lovely.

  It was almost as perfect as the night before, when she’d had her picnic in the park and romantic carriage ride with Jake.

  She thought of Jake and her stomach sank. She wondered how long he’d tried to get hold of her before he realised she wasn’t going. She hoped that he’d gone to the ball by himself and that he’d understand what had happened. She felt awful to have let him down like that.

  She wondered how she could be so confused about her feelings for these two men. Surely she couldn’t be falling for both? She remembered resolving the night before to forget about Jake, but in the clear light of day she didn’t know if she could.

  ‘Morning, baby,’ said Benjy, kissing the base of her neck.

  ‘Morning, you,’ said Jessica.

  Right now she didn’t want to think about Jake. Whatever she had felt about him, this was her husband, whether she remembered marrying him or not.

  ‘Maybe I could call in sick and we could spend the whole day in bed,’ whispered Benjy in her ear.

  Jessica smiled. They hadn’t had sex last night. They’d just cuddled, as she hadn’t wanted to default to using sex just to feel close to him.

  ‘Wouldn’t you get in trouble?’ asked Jessica, rolling into him. She kissed him on the lips, careful not to breath too much on him, conscious of her morning breath.

  ‘Maybe, but it isn’t like I’ll be there for much longer, is it? But you’re right, we can do this this evening.’ He kissed her back.