Universally Challenged

by Anna Bell

  Before Jessica could ask him what he meant about not being there much longer he was in the shower, singing loudly. She dozed and was barely aware of him dressing at lightning speed. Before she knew it she’d heard the front door slam shut.

  Jessica pulled her robe on and got up. She retrieved her phone from the sideboard and saw the message icon flashing. She didn’t think she could bear to listen to messages from Jake about last night. She’d never stood anyone up before, and she didn’t know whether she had it in her to listen to him get angry.

  The more she tried to avoid looking at the phone, the more she could sense the message light pulsing. She gave up, reasoning the sooner she listened to it, the sooner she’d get it over with.

  ‘Hi, Jessica, it’s Jake. Something’s come up: I can’t come to the ball tonight. I’m so sorry, I hope you understand. I’ll speak to you soon.’

  Jessica hung up the phone. He’d cancelled on her! She placed the phone down on the sideboard and laughed. All that agonising that she’d done when Benjy had initially taken her out. It had taken her ages to relax into the date. And Jake had cancelled!

  Thank goodness she hadn’t got all ready and dressed up to go the ball; she’d have felt like such an idiot all dressed up with nowhere to go.

  Maybe it was down to fate. It was fate’s way of confirming to her that she was making a mistake over what had happened with Jake, and she should be concentrating on her marriage.

  She looked down at the sideboard and wondered if it was time to actually face her fears and start delving into her life. If she was going to give this marriage, and this life, a go she might as well start trying to piece it together. Now that she’d worked out the big picture, she wanted to start filling in the little bits of the last seven years.

  She opened the sideboard and picked up the first photo album she got to: she recognised it instantly. It contained the pictures of her summer in the US with Benjy. She flicked through the pages, seeing how happy they were travelling down the East Coast. She stroked the picture of her and Benjy sat at the most easterly point in the US, watching the sunset over Key West. She looked so happy. It had been moments before Benjy had told her that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. Before he’d begged her to stay.

  She turned the page. Her album at home continued with pictures from her first Christmas party at LMG Global and her family Christmas celebrations. But in this album there were pictures Jessica had never seen. Her and Benjy in a cabin. Benjy walking by a beautiful lake. Surely, if this was her life she’d have remembered that? She had no idea where it was even taken, the labels below naming places that Jessica had never heard of.

  It was disturbing seeing her face smiling back at her, with people she’d never even met, and places she’d never even been to. It had to be the trip to China they’d apparently taken. She looked over the pictures of them with the terracotta warriors, on the Great Wall and with countless strangers they’d obviously met on the way. Then there were photos taken on hikes through sweeping valleys and nearby rivers.

  The thoughts of China made her think of LMG and SinoDam. She traced her fingers over the photos. She recognised some buildings in Shanghai from when she’d been there to the expo. Her thoughts turned briefly to what she’d discovered the day before about the dam and Google. She knew that she’d decided not to think about Jake but she couldn’t help it.

  She couldn’t just forget about SinoDam; she had to at least warn Jake about the lack of dams. She dialled his number and it went straight through to answer phone. She hesitated over whether to leave a message, but what would she say? He’d already made her go and see a shrink, as he thought she was slightly crazy.

  Instead, she hung up then, snapped the photo album shut. She’d have to let that life go eventually. What she needed to do now was find out more about her life as it was now, and she wasn’t going to fill in any gaps with the album. She carried on rooting around the sideboard, but there was nothing else to find.

  Remembering seeing boxes in the bottom of her wardrobe, she got up and walked into the bedroom. She found a box of cards and letters. They were mainly birthday cards from her parents, with the same message each year: ‘Hope to see you soon, love Mum and Dad’. There were a few letters from her friends back home. Her friends that she still saw regularly, but judging from the letters she was scanning, in this life she hadn’t seen them in years. She obviously hadn’t been home to the UK to see them or her family, and no one seemed to have come to stay with them.

  She felt disheartened going through cards from the UK with the common theme of ‘I miss you’. Then there were a pile of postcards and an ‘I’m sorry card’ from Benjy.

  Dear Jess,

  I’m sorry for everything. Please stop being mad at me – I hate it when you won’t talk to me. I didn’t mean for it to happen. There isn’t a minute that goes by in a day that I don’t regret what I did.

  Our marriage is the most important thing in my life, more important than any band. I’ve told the guys I’m quitting after Sunday’s gig. I can’t stand to be in the apartment without you. Come home? Please? I love you.

  Benjy x x

  Jessica read the card twice before slowly exhaling. She wondered if this had anything to do with the Rachel incident. Whether or not it had been a one off, an affair, or a string of women, Jessica didn’t know. But she wondered whether this was what had bought her back to him, and maybe that was why she’d saved it?

  She flicked through the rest of the cards, desperately trying to find anything else that would fill in the missing parts of the story. What happened next? What else had he done? Surely she hadn’t gone back after that short a note.

  She rifled through the rest of the box of cards, but all she found were postcards that hardly filled in the blanks. The postcards were from different cities in the US, a lot that Jessica wouldn’t be able to point to on a map. They said the same type of thing on the back of the card, ‘Miss you’ or ‘Wish you were here.’ The writing varied and some were barely legible, but she knew they were from Benjy.

  She opened up Benjy’s wardrobe. It was the weirdest wardrobe she’d ever seen. Half of it had neat hanging suits and neatly ironed shirts, and the other half was a sprawling mess of t-shirts, shirts and jeans. She couldn’t see the bottom of the wardrobe for piled-up hoodies and trainers. It didn’t strike her as the kind of place to find the missing clues about her marriage.

  She sat back down on the floor in front of her wardrobe and read the card from Benjy for a third time. She was willing it to force a memory back into her mind about a heated argument, but nothing was forthcoming.

  She needed to hear some truths from the horse’s mouth. She knew she couldn’t wait until he came home from work. She went into the living room and hovered over her phone and calmed herself down enough to dial his number.

  ‘Hey, you! I was just thinking of you, and all the naughty things I’m going to do to you when I get home,’ said Benjy.

  ‘Well, how about I meet you for lunch?’

  ‘Shall I come home?’ he asked, with a hint of hope in his voice.

  ‘No, I need to get out of the apartment. It looks like a beautiful day,’ said Jessica, looking at the sun streaming through the blinds.

  ‘Sure, I’ll meet you at Samuel’s at one. We’ll get take out and eat in the park.’

  Jessica wondered where Samuel’s was? Bugger, she thought, she didn’t know how to ask him. She’d have to Google it.

  ‘Ok great, I’ll see you there,’ she said, hoping she’d be able to find it.

  ‘See you then, baby.’

  ‘See you.’

  Jessica hung up and did a quick Google search. The search results confirmed it was a deli in the financial district.

  Jessica let out a sigh of relief. She just hoped that this was the right place or else she’d sound like a complete idiot.

  Jessica carefully put the card from Benjy back into the shoebox and safely into the wardrobe. She still felt like she
was snooping through someone else’s belongings and that eventually someone would tell her off.

  Chapter 34– Jess Burns

  Jess peered down the street following the numbers until she found the East Asian Studies department. She barely glanced at the little antique shops or the restaurants lining the road; she was a woman on a mission.

  She stopped at the door of a big stone building that looked like a generic office block. She tried the door but it was locked; her heart sank. She’d known it was a long shot to think she’d find someone in during the holidays, but she’d still hoped.

  The buzzer didn’t give her many options to try. Aside from a swipe access point, there was just one button for deliveries. Jess pressed it and kept her fingers crossed.

  ‘Hello?’

  Jess was so relieved to hear a voice that she was then unsure of what to say next. She’d been so focused on trying to find the right place and worrying that no one was going to be in, she hadn’t planned what she was going to say.

  ‘Hi, I was just wondering if there was anyone that could help me.’

  ‘You’ll have to speak up, I can’t really hear you.’

  ‘I said,’ said Jess, shouting, ‘I was just wondering if anyone could help me, I’ve got some papers.’

  Jess heard the door buzz and click.

  ‘I’m in the first door on the left,’ said a voice over the intercom.

  Jess thanked her lucky stars and walked in to the building. The corridors were dim and dingy. She soon saw where the woman she’d spoken to was. The door was split in two and the top half was pinned back.

  ‘Sorry, I couldn’t hear you on the intercom, needs to be fixed. What can I do for you?’ said the woman, getting up and standing at the door.

  ‘I know this is going to sound crazy. I work at a company called LMG Global in London, but I’m working this week in the New York Office.’ Jess knew she was rambling but she couldn’t help herself. ‘We’re about to do a multi-million dollar deal with a Chinese company and I think I’ve uncovered something. I need someone to take a look at a document for me: I need it translated.’

  ‘Don’t you have translation companies you use?’

  ‘Probably, only I don’t know. The London office is closed now, and no one in the New York office will take me seriously. I didn’t know where else to come, and I thought if I could find someone who spoke Chinese and English, then they might be able to help.’

  The woman sighed. It probably wasn’t her average enquiry.

  ‘Right, well I can’t help you. I speak very basic Chinese and can’t read any. Let me see...’ She picked up a big book and scanned her finger down a list. ‘Ah, here we go, Professor Zhang is in. He may be able to help. He’s a very busy man, but he may take pity on you.’

  The woman went over to her office phone and Jess mentally willed Professor Zhang to help her. She cringed as the women explained Jess’ waffly story. Jess felt her heart leap as she watched the woman finish up the call and replace the handset.

  ‘He said he’d have a quick scan. He’ll be down in a minute to see you.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much,’ said Jess, instantly relieved. The woman nodded, then went straight back to whatever she’d been working on before the interruption. Jess took a seat on a nearby bench and started getting the papers out of her bag.

  ‘Hello, I understand you need some help?’ said a man who, Jess thought, must be Professor Zhang.

  ‘Yes, thank you so much for coming down, and I’m so sorry for disturbing you. It’s just we’re investing in a company that builds and runs dams and I can’t find these dams on Google Maps. I’m now wondering if they even exist. I’ve got the land deeds, but we’ve only got their English translation. We took them on trust and now I’m wondering if they’re for something else.’

  Professor Zhang took the documents and looked at them briefly. He walked over to a nearby door and opened it up. ‘Come in here. I need to see this in the light.’

  He led Jess into an empty classroom. Professor Zhang sat down at the main teacher’s desk, and Jess sat down in one of the little chairs with the fold-down wooden desk, like a student.

  He flicked through the different pieces of paper, going forward and back through the Chinese and the translations.

  ‘Do they match up?’ said Jess. She felt like she was on tenterhooks and she couldn’t take it any longer.

  He looked up at her. ‘No, they don’t. I’m sorry but these land deeds are for different companies. They are for small factories, same province, but nothing to do with the energy utility companies that it says they’re for in the translation.’

  Jess shook her head. ‘I can’t believe it. I thought I was going to get proved wrong.’

  Professor Zhang stood up. ‘Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, thank you so much for helping me. I can’t believe we almost signed with that company without getting our own translation.’ She glanced at her watch. She had two hours to get back to the LMG offices and try to get them to pull out of the deal.

  ‘I’m glad I could be of help. You know, I think there are going to be a lot of these cases that come up over the next few years.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes, one of our graduates from last year wrote a dissertation on it: the difficulty of Western companies dealing with Chinese companies. In fact, he’s now working over at company that researches companies from emerging markets. He’d love to know about this.’

  ‘He’s not working for Clarity by any chance?’

  ‘Yes, that is exactly it.’

  Jess got the feeling that the former student already knew of SinoDam and that it exactly fitted the bill of the company they were about to expose and publish. She had to get back to the LMG offices before it was too late.

  She shook Professor Zhang’s hand, and thanked him again for his trouble, before he showed her out.

  Back out on 11th Street, Jess decided to walk a few blocks to try and see if she could flag down a cab. She scrambled about in her bag, looking for her phone, checking first to see if she had any missed calls from Jake, but there weren’t. She tried his number again: no answer. Where the hell was he?

  ‘Hi, Jake, it’s me again. I’ve just found out that SinoDam is a complete fraud. We can’t go ahead with the deal. You’ve got to help me explain to Roger. Call me.’

  Jess knew that when Jake switched on his phone he was going to be bombarded with voicemail messages, but she didn’t care. It was too important for her to care what he thought of her. There were hundreds of millions of dollars, plus probably both their jobs, riding on this deal.

  The heat of the midday sun was starting to get to her. Her dress was clearly designed to be worn in air-conditioned offices, and not outside in 100 degree heat. She was a hot, sweaty mess. She felt around in her bag for a hair band to sweep up her hair and get it off her neck.

  She hadn’t been paying attention to where she was walking, other than heading downtown. She found herself walking on a familiar street and she couldn’t place it at first. She wasn’t a million miles away from her apartment, but she couldn’t work out how she knew the street. She looked to see if she could see a familiar store or café. But then she saw the brownstone belonging to Dr Rosenthal.

  She’d been on this street three days ago. She couldn’t help but instinctively look up at the little attic and remembered her chat. She felt herself welling up again with anger at the thoughts of Dr Rosenthal telling her she was stressed. Even though the last few days had been stressful, she still couldn’t imagine how she could have created a whole new reality for herself.

  She wasn’t concentrating on where she was going and bumped straight into a man in front of her.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ said Jess, before she looked up and realised it was Jake. He looked surprised to see her but he barely reacted.

  ‘Oh my god, Jake! You would not believe how pleased I am to see you. Did you get any of my messages about SinoDam? I went to
see a professor at NYU and he confirmed that the deeds weren’t real. And the dams don’t exist on any map. We have to tell Roger, we can’t go through with the deal. I know you need the bonus, but Clarity are going to–’

  ‘Slow down, Jess. What are you talking about?’

  ‘Didn’t you get any of my messages?’ She couldn’t believe he wasn’t following what she had to say and he barely seemed concerned.

  ‘No. It’s been, well, my phone’s been off.’

  Jess looked into his eyes; they looked distant, and he looked as if he hadn’t slept for days.

  ‘Well, we’ve got problems with SinoDam: big problems. We’ve got to call off the deal,’ said Jess. Her voice had become more hysterical with Jake’s laid-back attitude to the situation.

  ‘Jake,’ said a female voice.

  Jess turned to see a woman walking out of Dr Rosenthal’s building. She wasn’t just any woman, she was a stunningly attractive woman. She had long dark hair tied loosely into a pony tail, and she was wearing a pretty floral tea dress.

  Whoever she was, she was making Jess feel an even bigger sweaty mess than she was.

  ‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ said the woman to Jake. ‘I’m ready to go now.’ She totally blanked Jess and kept facing Jake, as if he were standing on the pavement alone.

  Jess looked up at Jake. This had to be Elodie. There was something in the way that she looked at him and swished her ponytail over her shoulder which told her that she wasn’t a female relative of Jake’s.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Elodie said, in a more authoritative tone. She put her arm through Jake’s and then she turned to face Jess. She gave Jess a look that would have been reserved for something she’d found on the bottom of her shoe.

  ‘Jess, I’m sorry. I’ll be at the office in an hour, we can go through this then,’ said Jake. He wasn’t looking at Jess; his eyes were fixed on a spot on the floor.

  Jess stared hard at him. She couldn’t believe that he was going off with this woman without even giving her an explanation, without listening to her about SinoDam, perhaps one of the most important deals of his career. And to top it all off, after their night on the Empire State Building, when Jess had found herself falling for him. And now he couldn’t even look her in the eyes.