Universally Challenged

by Anna Bell

  ‘Your office?’ said the woman. ‘You know her? Where are my manners, I’m Elodie,’ she said, holding her hand out for Jess to shake, ‘Jake’s girlfriend’.

  Chapter 35– Jessica Anderson

  Jessica made sure she got to Samuel’s early. She wanted to make sure that she met Benjy outside. She’d peered through the windows at the busy deli, marvelling at the hustle and bustle of the lunchtime rush.

  ‘Hey, babe,’ said Benjy, walking up to her. He placed his hand on the small of her back and leant into kiss her on the lips.

  ‘Hey,’ said Jessica. She still couldn’t get over how much of a different person he became when he wore his suit.

  The feelings from last night’s dinner washed over her and she almost forgot she’d been cross about the card she’d found. Perhaps it wasn’t worth bringing it up. She was getting too obsessed with what had happened in the past. She wondered if she should concentrate more on getting her relationship with Benjy back on track, instead of constantly trying to fill in the blanks.

  He took her by the hand and walked through the door into the lunchtime rush. Jessica felt hassled as she scanned the long list of sandwich combination. She settled on a barbecue chicken and cheese sub which sounded like a heart attack in a sandwich, but she thought it would taste delicious.

  ‘I’m so glad you phoned. I’ve been having the shittiest day at work,’ said Benjy, running his fingers through his hair.

  ‘Why, what happened?’

  ‘First of all, I had all these problems with that Tech company I was signing, and that took forever to sort out, and then my dad called and we got into a massive fight.’

  There were no surprises there. From what Jessica could remember Benjy and his dad were often at loggerheads. Jessica always thought that his dad could solve most of their problems by cutting Benjy off financially. It wouldn’t have done him any harm when they were students for Benjy to have had a little less income.

  ‘What about? Thanks,’ said Jessica as the man handed her her sandwich. Benjy settled the bill and they walked out of the deli and Jessica followed Benjy as he walked.

  ‘What happened?’ asked Jessica.

  ‘Well, I wasn’t going to tell him about the tour as you know what he’s like: he wouldn’t get it. But Dan Jefferies, I guess, ran into him at the weekend and it must have slipped out that I was quitting Mutual and he went ape shit at me.’

  ‘You’re quitting?‘ Jessica blurted it out before she thought about it. She recognised the name Mutual, Benjy’s dad had been a CEO at the insurance company Friends Mutual. He’d pulled strings to get Benjy a job there after she’d taken the job at LMG. She’d found that out during the last conversation she’d had with Benjy, before he told her it was too hard to be in contact.

  ‘Jess, we’ve been through this. You know I have to quit. My dad just kept going on and on about it. How this was the first job I’d had in years that was going anywhere and that I was lucky that anyone wanted to take me on at all with my track record. He also kept going on about the fact he’d pulled a lot of strings to get me a job back at Mutual after I’d quit before, and that I’m throwing it back in his face by quitting after a year.’

  This was news to Jessica. What had he been doing for the other seven years? Why was this his first job with prospects? What had happened to the original job he’d got there after university? It didn’t make any sense. How did they afford their lifestyle and their apartment on a teacher’s salary? She didn’t believe he could actually make any money from his tours.

  ‘He just wouldn’t listen. I mean, we’ve never had such a good chance. Tom’s friend in Austin has managed to line us up three nights’ worth of gigs there, and he’s got us the gig as support act for Silver Toad. I mean, they’re huge in the circuit down there. We’re bound to be spotted, this is finally our time.’

  Jessica hadn’t been paying attention to where they were walking and all of a sudden she was looking at the river. They reached the edge of Battery Park and they sat down on a bench.

  Jessica wondered if she’d heard all this a hundred times before, this was our time. He used to talk like that when they were at university.

  ‘So, how did you leave it; did he say anything else?’ said Jessica.

  ‘He said that...’ Benjy paused.

  Jessica doubted that any good was going to follow.

  ‘And please don’t get mad,’ said Benjy.

  Jessica stopped unwrapping her sandwich and looked up at him. He was looking directly out to the river and was wincing, as if he was pre-empting her reaction.

  ‘He said that he was going to start increasing our rent, and that if we couldn’t afford to pay the actual rate of what is was worth then we’re going to have to move out.’

  Suddenly it all made sense. How they were able to live in a beautiful apartment. She’d just assumed that Benjy was amazingly successful, after all she doubted teaching would be that much better paid in New York than it was at home. But with Benjy’s dad owning the apartment it took away the need for Benjy to be successful.

  It seemed from what he was saying that he didn’t have the best CV, probably he quit jobs every time he went on a tour with the band. It made total sense that Benjy’s dad owned the apartment. She remembered that he’d had real estate all over the city. Benjy and Jess had stayed in one of his studio apartments during the summer they’d spent in the city after university.

  She wondered what kind of a discount he gave them. Having seen similar apartments in central London she guessed the rent would be a small fortune if they had to pay actual rates. They definitely wouldn’t be able to afford it on one salary.

  ‘I know you’re mad, but you have been saying for years that we should stand on our own two feet and support ourselves. And maybe you’re right. So we lose the apartment but, you know, I’m sure we could get something else. We could look at Brooklyn so that you’d be closer to work, and it’s got a great up-and-coming music scene. I’m sure the guys would be up for playing in Brooklyn more often. Besides, I know something is going to come out of this tour. Imagine if we got signed to one of the big labels, and I could pay Dad his proper rent. He’d shit himself.’

  Jessica carried on eating her sandwich. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It was like having lunch with Benjy seven years ago. He’d always talked about his band and getting signed, but she’d always assumed that when he was out of college he’d grow up. She couldn’t believe that they were married, almost thirty, and living in an apartment paid for by his father. Surely they should have been living outside the city in somewhere suburban, like Connecticut, raising a family?

  She felt stupid for believing him last night when he’d said he’d do anything to change. She’d naively assumed that meant giving up both the band and going on tour, but here he was about to give up a job.

  ‘Maybe your father is right. Maybe you shouldn’t quit your job. What about taking a sabbatical? It’s a big company, surely they’d let you?’

  A few of the bankers in her office had taken unpaid sabbaticals. If the person was that good at their job they were always worth the wait. And it wouldn’t be as if the tour would be that long.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Jess,’ said Benjy, turning to look at her. He looked mad as hell. ‘We went through this on Sunday night. I’ve got to have been there at least three years to be able to take a sabbatical. The only option is to stay or to quit. And I’m not staying. It wouldn’t be fair on the rest of the band. I can’t let them down.’

  ‘But you can let your wife down?’ Jessica was cross. She didn’t feel like Benjy’s wife, but she felt like she should stand up for herself. Even without knowing the situation she could tell that Benjy was acting like a spoilt little rich kid who needed to grow up. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t like Benjy’s tone.

  ‘I’m not letting you down. I’m doing this for us. I’m doing this for our future.’

  Jessica coughed with laughter. ‘For our future? Have you been doing
that for the last seven years, then? Is that why we are still living in an apartment subsidised by your dad? How does that help our future?’

  ‘If I made it big, then imagine the life we’d have.’

  ‘Oh yes, I’m sure it would be a great life. You always on tour, working nights, me stuck teaching, waiting for you to come home for a few weeks a year.’

  ‘If we made it big, you wouldn’t need to work, you could come with me on tour.’

  ‘Great. How satisfying.’

  ‘What has got into you? I have to go on this tour. And no matter what you say, it is for our future.’

  ‘What a load of bollocks.’ Jessica wrapped up the rest of her sandwich. She’d heard enough. She wasn’t angry at Benjy. She was just disappointed. He was so selfish. She could see this was all about him, and had nothing to do with their future. Whatever had happened during their argument on Sunday night, he’d clearly not changed his viewpoint.

  ‘Jessica, what’s got into you? I know you were mad about this. I mean, after the argument on Sunday, I thought you were going to walk out on me, but then I thought you’d come to your senses. I mean after the way you acted on Monday. The way you cuddled up to me, and the sex, I just assumed you’d realised that this was something I needed to do.’

  ‘I was just...’ Jessica didn’t know how to respond. She wondered what had been said to give Benjy the impression that she was going to walk out on him. Whatever it was, he probably deserved it. She wondered if this was the point that she told him that she didn’t know how she’d woken up in this alien life.

  ‘I wasn’t feeling myself, I just felt like, well I was reminded of when we first were together. Remember that, remember how amazing it was? What went wrong, Benjy?’

  Jessica wanted him to answer, to tell her how it had apparently gone so horribly wrong in the last seven years.

  ‘I don’t know. All I know is, I have to do this tour.’ He still wasn’t looking at her. It was almost like he was telling himself rather than her.

  Jessica stood up. She knew she couldn’t listen to him anymore.

  ‘I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later on.’

  ‘Jess, we should talk about this.’

  ‘I can’t, Benjy. Not now.’

  ‘Ok, we’ll talk tonight. I’ve got a late meeting, I’ll see you after eight.’

  Jessica nodded and walked off. She was so angry she couldn’t stand to look at him anymore. Her new life had just come crashing down around her and she didn’t know if she would be able to put it back together.

  Chapter 36 - Jess Burns

  Jess was fuming by the time she got back to LMG Global. Elodie was Jake’s girlfriend. With all the time that they had spent together over the past week she couldn’t believe that an opportunity had not presented itself when he could have told her about Elodie.

  She kept casting her mind over everything she’d told Jake. She’d gone through the biggest upheaval of her life and Jake had been the only person she’d confided in, and he’d not thought to mention that he had a girlfriend.

  She kept thinking about being on top of the Empire State Building and what it felt like to kiss him. She felt stupid to have started to have feelings for him. She was so sure she hadn’t imagined their chemistry. And if he did have feelings for her too, then he wasn’t being fair on either her or Elodie. She’d had an awful week, and now she’d felt she’d lost the only person she was close to.

  She was so distracted that she’d gone twice round the revolving doors before she walked into the lobby. The snooty receptionist that had been eyeing her suspiciously all week, smirked at her.

  Jess ignored her and swiped her badge before heading up to the twenty-first floor. She had to put thoughts of Jake out of her mind. If this was her life, and this was her job, she couldn’t let that fall apart, too. She couldn’t go back to London on Sunday with no job on top of a life she had no idea about.

  Jess looked around the twenty-first floor and wondered whether Jake had already arrived back at work. She didn’t really want to face him. But there was no sign of him. No one else was batting an eye lid at her arrival; everyone was hard at work. Jess wanted to shout at them. No one had any idea they were about to make a business deal that would cripple the department.

  Jess still felt hot and frazzled. She could do with a few minutes sat at her make-shift desk working through exactly what she wanted to say Roger and to make a plan of action of how she was going to convince him. He hadn’t exactly been receptive to her the first time.

  She walked passed his office and hoped to sneak to her desk before he noticed she was back.

  ‘Ah, Jess,’ said Roger, walking out of his office with some paperwork.

  She winced and froze on the spot. Slowly turning around.

  ‘Did you take some time out? Feeling better?’ asked Roger.

  Jess took a deep breath. He actually looked a lot better than he had a few hours earlier. The bags were still there under his eyes, showing the heavy toll of the night before, but at least he now had a little colour in his cheeks and he looked less like Casper, the friendly ghost. His mood also seemed to be a vast improvement, as he almost seemed cheery in his greeting.

  ‘Ah, yeah, a little,’ said Jess, not wishing to give too much away. She just wanted to have a few minutes to compose herself.

  Roger looked up from his paperwork. ‘Right, well I need you to come to my office for a moment,’ he said, holding his arm out to usher her in to his office. He leant up against his desk and motioned for her to sit down.

  She sighed and sat down. She’d have to give it her best shot now. Maybe it was better timing, getting it out of the way before Jake came into the room and distracted her by talking of Elodie. And besides, there wasn’t much time before the SinoDam delegation arrived.

  She took a seat in the leather guest chair, and hoped that she’d manage to prize her sweaty self out of it after.

  ‘Now, I’ve just taken a call from Ling. He’s going to be half an hour late to the meeting, as they’ve been delayed.’

  Jess almost clenched her fist with glee. A sense of relief flooded over her. It was the first good news she’d had all day. She wondered if that was the extra time she needed. If she could just convince Roger to take a look at the documents that needed translating then she could get the deal called off.

  ‘Well, maybe that’s a good thing. Ok, I’ve been to the East Asian Studies department at NYU, and I had a professor look over the deeds to the dams.’

  ‘Oh, Jess, will you stop with this.’

  ‘Roger, you’ve got to listen to me. Apparently, they’re not the right deeds. The Chinese dam’s paperwork that they gave us doesn’t match the translations. The deeds are for small factories, and definitely not the utility companies.’

  ‘That’s it?’ Roger looked at her blankly.

  ‘No, that’s not even the half of it. Clarity are running the story.’

  ‘Clarity? Not this again. You’ve had that confirmed?’

  ‘Well, no. But as good as. The guy I met at the conference told me he was digging into an energy company. He said that there was something to do with Google Maps and the energy companies not existing. And that is exactly what I found with SinoDam. Professor Zhang also told me that one of his graduate students who researched Chinese companies, was working on a huge expose for Clarity. They’re publishing the story today, presumably after markets close to make the markets sweat over the weekend. If we make this deal then we’ll all be screwed.’

  Jess took a deep breath and looked at Roger, trying to gauge his reaction.

  Roger pushed himself up from his perched position round the back of his desk and sat down in his comfy chair. He leant his arm on the table and propped up his chin.

  ‘Right, so you want me to believe that you’ve miraculously found this information out about SinoDam an hour and a half before we’re going to sign a multi-million dollar deal,’ he shouted. ‘Come on, Jessica. I know that you’ve been researching this for mo
nths; how did you not check it sooner?’

  Jess thought steam was going to blow out of his ears. She couldn’t tell him why she hadn’t had the translation done before now.

  ‘I had no reason to suspect anything untoward. I mean the rest of the figures added up.’ Jess guessed that was true, although she wasn’t entirely sure what the figures she was supposed to know were.

  ‘Right, and this guy from Clarity, he told you directly it was SinoDam they were investigating?’ he asked, rubbing his temples in exasperation.

  ‘Well, not in so many words. But it has to be, doesn’t it? Don’t you see, it’s far too much of a coincidence.’

  Roger banged the table and made her jump.

  ‘It’s too late, Jessica. My boss has approved the investment, I’m not going to him at this late stage and tell him that we’re pulling out now. Besides, he is going to sit in on the deal. He personally wants to come and sign on the dotted line. No way am I going to him with this.’

  ‘But we could lose millions.’

  ‘Jessica, it’s a risk we’re going to take. It’s too late.’

  Jess wanted to shout at Roger, but he wasn’t going to listen to her. After all, he didn’t know her; he’d only met her on Monday.

  She sighed and stood up. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way, Roger, but I’m telling the truth and this is going to come back to bite us.’

  ‘Jessica, if I was your manager I’d probably fire you for speaking to me like this. Now, I know you’re supposed to be the whizz kid in the UK, but I ain’t seen any of that sparkle this week. So I’m sorry if I’m not taking you seriously.’

  Jess opened her mouth and closed it again. She couldn’t think of anything to say that wasn’t going to make the situation worse for herself. She hadn’t realised that Roger had paid attention to what she’d been up to this week. But it was true she’d spent the first part of the week like a fish out of water; she wasn’t surprised he felt that way about her. No wonder he wouldn’t trust what she said.