Universally Challenged Read online

  Chapter 1 – Jessica Anderson

  Jessica didn’t know how long she’d been awake; the pain was so intense that she could have been awake for just seconds, but it felt like hours. Her tongue was furry and her mouth felt like it had been sucked dry by a vacuum cleaner. She couldn’t face opening her eyes. She could sense it was light, but she didn’t want to anger her head further.

  It wouldn’t have been the best start to any morning, waking up feeling like the cast of Stomp were dancing in her head, but Jessica knew the timing of this hangover was incredibly bad. She’d only meant to have one little drink to calm herself down after her flight. She used to be quite the expert in hangovers in her younger years, and she knew instinctively that this was a multiple drink plus shots hangover.

  She couldn’t bring herself to think about last night. Every time she did it caused her to wince, sending shockwaves of pain around her body. She cringed at the thought that she’d sat by herself in the bar flirting with the lead singer of the grungy band while they were between sets. The last thing she remembered was trying to stand up to go to the toilet. She’d tried to look all sexy, but instead slid straight off the barstool and landed in a heap on the floor. It could only have got worse from there.

  Damn Jake Harrington, thought Jessica. It was clearly all his fault. If he hadn’t left a message cancelling their working dinner then none of this would have happened. She could have strode into the New York branch of LMG Global and hit the ground running. Now she’d be practically crawling across reception and she’d be lucky if she could pronounce her own name.

  She groaned, LMG Global. Landing in New York City and sitting in a bar sipping Long Island Iced Teas might have made it feel like a holiday but she was here to work.

  She reached over to the bedside table to check the time on her phone and knocked something over. Whatever it was it hit the floor with a loud bang. Scared she’d broken something in the hotel room, she slowly opened her eyes and rolled over. It looked like it was just an empty glass.

  She was trying to focus on the room but her head kept spinning. She hadn’t spent a lot of time in her hotel room before she left to go to the bar, but she got the impression that she wasn’t in it. It looked distinctly like someone’s bedroom.

  She rolled over slowly to see that the sheets on the other side of the bed were peeled back and the pillow had a head-shaped dent in it. Whoever had been in the bed next to her wasn’t long out of it.

  She lifted the cover to see what state of dress she was in. She breathed a sigh of relief as she noticed she was still wearing her trademark boy knickers, even though she was topless. Surely that indicated merely a drunken fumble.

  Now all she had to do was figure out whose bedroom she was in. The room was like something out of an IKEA catalogue: stark white walls and contemporary furniture. The only colour came from two wall-mounted electric guitars. Jessica pulled the covers over her head in shame at what she’d done. She’d only gone home with the lead singer of the band!

  Before she could curl up and die as she wanted to, she heard a shower turn on. She jumped out of bed, which was no mean feat with her raging headache. Yet somehow the fear of bumping into the lead singer again was pumping adrenaline round her veins and keeping her sickness at bay. She had to leave where ever she was before he came out of the shower.

  All she needed to do was find her clothes and bag and then she’d grab a taxi back to the hotel. She looked around the floor of the room not seeing her clothes anywhere.

  She wondered if they’d got a bit frisky outside the bedroom. She tentatively opened the bedroom door, and was comforted by the continuing shower noises. The door opened straight out into a living room; the blinds were still drawn, but there was enough sunlight peeping through so that Jessica could just about make out the furniture. She looked on the sofa, under the sofa and round the back of the coffee table. Her clothes were no where to be seen. She poked her head into the galley kitchen, no clothes. That only left one closed door, which had to be the bathroom, and she wasn’t going in there.

  She went back into the bedroom. She’d obviously not looked hard enough. Crouching down on her hands and knees she searched under the bed. This wasn’t how her business trip was supposed to go. She was supposed to be dazzling the New York office with her amazing business acumen, so much so that they’d make her vice president of renewable energies. She wasn’t supposed to be scrabbling around the floor of a random man’s apartment in just her pants.

  She stood up panicking. Unless the lead singer was going to take the world’s longest shower, she had to come up with a plan. One that didn’t involve her walking back to her hotel topless. She was pretty sure that would get her arrested.

  She opened one of the large wardrobe doors and was taken aback by what she saw. She was overwhelmed at first by the wonderful colour-coded organisation of the clothes. It took her a few seconds to realise that it was a woman’s wardrobe and what that meant. She’d slept with someone else’s partner. And worse than that, she’d slept in their bed. She suddenly felt sick to her stomach.

  She rummaged through the wardrobe until she found a cheap looking electric blue vest dress with thin straps. She slipped it on over her head. She thanked her lucky stars she still had pants on, even if they were yesterday’s.

  She dug around at the bottom of the wardrobe and found a pair of cheap looking flip flops and slipped them on. She tried not to think of someone else’s sweaty feet having been in them and instead just focused on the fact that they fitted.

  She hadn’t seen her handbag on her scan of the apartment. She was thankful that all she’d taken out was her small travel purse with cash, having left her wallet and phone safely in the hotel room. Spotting a twenty-dollar note on the chest of drawers she picked it up. She wouldn’t usually advocate stealing, but this was a necessity. Besides, she’d make a note of the apartment number and street, and once she got back to the hotel she’d have the clothes laundered and couriered back, along with the twenty dollars. She had to think of it as a short-term loan to get a taxi rather than stealing.

  She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror on the front of the wardrobe as she passed it. She did a double take, looking closer before running her fingers through her hair. It was at least three inches shorter than it had been last night. It was in a short bob, which was a deviation from Jessica’s classic shoulder length style, and if it had been under any other circumstances she might have been shocked at how good it looked. But not today. Not when she was wearing someone else’s clothes. Jessica wondered just what sort of a weird fetish this guitar player must have to make him cut the hair of a one-night stand.

  She looked around the room, giving it one last look before she went back to the hotel. She noticed her watch twinkling away in the sunlight, and thanked the heavens for small mercies. She didn’t care that she’d lost her handbag, but her watch had been a 21st birthday present from her late grandparents, and it was the only possession Jessica truly treasured.

  Jessica heard the shower turn off, which was her cue to leave. She ran out of the bedroom and straight through the living room. She scrambled with the chain and the lock and finally got the door open. Ignoring the lift, unable to face standing there waiting for it, Jessica headed for the stairs. Like a homing pigeon, she followed the staircase down to the ground floor and out onto the street.

  ‘Hey Jess, rough night?’ said a guy as he walked by her. She turned round to look at him and he was half walking backwards waving at her.

  Jessica waved back and cringed. She was used to these moments of no recognition. She had spent a term at university in America and used to get really drunk, talk to lots of random strangers, and not recognise them the next day. Being one of the few
English girls on campus she found that they would always remember her.

  Jessica couldn't believe she’d introduced herself to strangers as Jess. When she’d started work she’d reverted back to being Jessica and only a handful of old friends called her Jess.

  Jessica watched the guy walking down the street in his dishevelled state. He only had one Converse boot on, and the other foot was bare. His T-shirt was baggy and loose, hanging over his skinny jeans. His hair looked messy, but not on purpose. He looked as rough as Jessica felt.

  She reached the end of the block and took in the street signs, making a mental note of Bond Street and Bowery, so she could send the package of clothes back later. She was definitely still in the village as there was a cute-looking coffee shop called ‘The Village Jolt’ across the road. She couldn’t be that far away from her hotel.

  She folded her arms self-consciously over her chest and glanced at her watch. It was just after 7.30am. She had half an hour before she was meeting Jake.

  Feeling a slight panic that she’d find Jake at the hotel before she’d had time to clean her teeth and shower, she decided to do what she never did and ask for directions. She found a newspaper vendor.

  ‘Excuse me, can you tell me where The Grover Hotel is?’

  ‘Sure, Jess, how’s it going?’

  ‘Good,’ said Jessica, smiling. Just how many people had she been talking to the night before?

  ‘Great! So it’s not far, just up four blocks, then take a right and it’s on 2nd and 5th. Got an early meeting there?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks for that,’ said Jessica, cutting him off. Jessica was always shocked when she was in the US that perfect strangers would be over familiar in conversation; she was used to the British way that often seemed rude in comparison. She didn’t really want to explain her movements to a newspaper vendor.

  ‘No worries,’ said the man turning to talk to another customer.

  Jessica hurried up the next four blocks. The village was slowly waking up and she was feeling even more out of place, even though none of the passersby were giving her a second look as they hurried off to the subway with their oversized commuter cups.

  She finally found the safe haven of The Grover. She went round the revolving doors a little too quickly and almost made two trips.

  The tall, imposing, male receptionist was standing behind the counter tidying big piles of paperwork. He peered over his glasses, looking at her like she didn’t belong in the grand lobby.

  ‘Good morning, and how may I help you?’

  ‘I’m staying here, I’m in room 107. I dropped my key in before I went out last night.’ She did the best posh English accent she could, as if it would some how make up for the way she looked.

  The man tapped away at his computer. ‘Hmm, it seems you already have the key.’

  Jessica wondered if she’d lost that along with her wallet. But she was absolutely sure that she had handed the key in. In fact, she remembered it vividly as she’d given it to the receptionist when she’d got Jake’s cancellation message.

  ‘Can I take your name, Mrs...’

  ‘It’s Miss, Miss Anderson.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I just saw your wedding ring and assumed. Right.’

  Jessica looked down at her left hand. There on her third finger was a wedding ring. She rubbed her fingers over the shiny band of metal. What the hell had she done last night? She started having slight palpitations, but then she thought logically. This wasn’t Vegas. She couldn’t just get married. It must have been some prank in the bar last night.

  And then Jessica felt awful. What if she’d put on the lead singer’s girlfriend’s – or make that his wife’s – wedding ring? It just didn’t bear thinking about.

  ‘I’m sorry, ma’am, we don’t have anyone by the name of Anderson staying here.’

  ‘But that’s impossible. I’m staying here, my stuff’s up there, my passport is in the room.’

  ‘Could it have been booked in another name?’

  ‘No. I checked in yesterday. It was booked for LMG Global.’

  The man tapped away on the keys and his brow furrowed. ‘We do have someone staying from LMG Global, but it isn’t you. In fact I saw her this morning on her way to work.’

  This was getting weirder by the minute. There had to have been some mistake. Jessica was the only person from LMG Global, Europe, who had come over. ‘Your computer must be broken, I mean I even had messages that I picked up yesterday from Jake Harrington.’

  ‘Mr Harrington did leave a message but it was not for you and it was picked up by that person. Listen, ma’am, I don’t know what’s going on, but maybe you should give your office a call.’

  Jessica looked at the receptionist. She felt like she was going crazy. It reminded her of some awful movie where the CIA had erased the main character’s past to make them think they’d gone completely mad. But she couldn’t remember having witnessed some awful crime, and she didn’t know any government secrets.

  ‘Yeah. I’ll do that.’ Jessica didn’t think the receptionist was going to let her use his phone. He kept giving her disapproving looks, presumably at her dishevelled state.

  She instead decided to wait outside for half an hour, until Jake arrived. She hadn’t met him, but she’d seen his face on the company intranet, so she knew who she was waiting for. He’d clear up this mess and make the stupid receptionist realise that he’d got it all wrong.

  Chapter 2– Jess Burns

  Jess woke up with a raging hangover, her head pulsing angrily. She groaned loudly and flapped her arms in the sheets. The really, really comfortable sheets. She instantly knew she wasn’t in her own bed. Her bed was lumpy and the comforter usually fell off in the middle of the night. But this bed felt like it had sheets made of silk and snugly blankets. And the pillows made her head feel like it was being cushioned by angels. If her head and stomach weren’t acting so furiously she’d would have wriggled all over the bed, it felt that good.

  She didn’t know why she wasn’t in her own bed. Her head was throbbing with pain and it wasn’t allowing her time to think.

  She slowly opened her eyes. It looked distinctly like a hotel room. Son of a bitch, she thought. Benjy wasn’t going to get back into her good books that easily. The last thing she could remember before the tequila shots, was the vicious argument. Once again Jess had begged Benjy not to go on some crappy tour with his useless band. He was about to give up another job, one that had real career prospects, to chase his teenage dream.

  But this was a new low in Benjy’s way of making it up to her. He must have spent some of his advance from the tour on a fancy hotel room. Well, as much as Jess loved the comfy bed, and boy was it comfy, she would still be mad with Benjy when he showed his sorry face.

  It was typical of him. Always using money to make things better. Well, not this time. She was sick of burying their arguments under expensive presents. She glanced over to the other side of the bed, and the pillow didn’t look like it had been slept on.

  ‘Benjy,’ she called faintly, but she already knew he wasn’t in the room. Wild elephants were quieter than Benjy when he was up. She wondered if he’d passed out on the floor, or if she’d made him sleep on the floor in protest, but again it was too quiet. Benjy was a noisy sleeper when drunk.

  She looked around the room and could only see a dress draped over a chair. And then on lifting her head higher she saw her old faithful blue suitcase. ‘Oh my god,’ she said out loud. Benjy hadn’t made it up to her by booking the hotel room, she’d upped and left him.

  Jess looked down at her ring finger, trying to make her eyes focus on it and, more importantly, at her lack of a wedding ring. She really had left him. She rubbed her finger where the ring should have been. In the seven years they’d been married it had never left her finger. And here she was with no marks, no evidence of it ever being there. As easy as that, she had left him.

  She scrunched her eyes up trying to concentrate on finding images in her memory of throwing th
e ring at Benjy, or her being ridiculously dramatic, but none came. All she could remember was the tequilas – there had been a lot of tequilas.

  She sighed. She couldn’t believe she’d done it, she’d left Benjy. He’d be a mess. After an argument he’d always be the sorry one; granted it was usually his fault, but he was always so upset that they’d fought.

  She rolled over to find her cell phone, but she couldn’t see it. Not wanting to get out of bed for fear that her hangover would make her throw up, she instead picked up the hotel phone. After she navigated her way to getting an outside line, she dialled Benjy’s cell phone number.

  ‘Hello,’ said a woman’s voice.

  Jess’ blood ran cold.

  ‘Put Benjy on the phone NOW.’

  ‘Benjy who? Who is this?’

  Jess tried to keep calm, but she couldn’t. ‘Benjy is the owner of this phone.’

  ‘Honey, you’ve misdialled, this is my phone, and I don’t know no Benjy.’

  The woman hung up and Jess put the phone down, confused about whether she’d misdialled or if the woman was lying. She knew the number inside out. She tried not to think the worst of Benjy. She instead told herself that she must have made a mistake with the numbers. In the nerves of having left him, she had simply misdialled. She went to pick up the receiver to redial the number properly when it rang.

  ‘Hello,’ said Jess tentatively, afraid that the scary cell phone woman had called her back.

  ‘Miss Anderson, there’s a call for you. It is Mr Jake Harrington, shall I put him through?’

  ‘Um, yes.’ Jess was confused. She didn’t know who Jake Harrington was, but she couldn’t believe she’d given the hotel her maiden name. She really had taken it seriously when she’d left Benjy last night.

  ‘Jessica? This is Jake Harrington. I was just checking you’d got my message last night. I’m so sorry something came up. But are we still on for breakfast?’

  Jess had no idea what was going on, or why he was calling her Jessica, only her parents called her that. ‘I, er.’