Chapter 12 #2
Inside was a link to a listing of a modest but pretty, two-bedroom walk-up in Williamsburg, and then a purchase contract, dated June 2015, along with a series of emails between Josie and a realtor. She’d bought this home more than two years ago.
There was no way she could have afforded it on what the employment contract said she was being paid for the radio job, but Josie had clearly received her grandmother’s inheritance in both versions of reality. From the emails, she had invested a 50% down payment.
Josie flicked through the listing photos, to see if anything about it was familiar. Nothing.
Her home was not her own.
Her job was not her job.
Her husband was not her husband.
Her dead brother was alive.
A rush of bile rose in her throat, and the tea came with it. She managed to lean over, panicking as she grabbed the bedside bin and threw up into it. She continued retching until there was nothing to bring up, tears running down her cheeks.
Josie fell back against the pillows, exhausted. Then she sat up, gripped by another appalling thought. If Rob wasn’t her husband in this bizarre reality, did he even exist?
She grabbed the phone again, her hands clammy and slick with sweat as she Googled the name Robert Billing.
A Wikipedia entry came up, and she exhaled. It seemed to be the entry she remembered. Stuff about his parents and B+B Developments. Then she got to “Personal Life.”
As of April 2017, Robert Billing is dating Surin Chan, a luxury real estate agent whom he met when she pitched him her agency’s services.
Chan is the daughter of Manhattan real estate tycoon Bernard Chan and society heiress Annabelle Chan, formerly Davis, daughter of the late oil magnate Tyson Davis.
Stunned, Josie clicked through to photos, her pulse quickening as she saw Rob and a gorgeous, very petite woman on a red carpet, the words “Luxury Listing NYC” printed on the backdrop behind them, Rob and this same woman with Hans and Mike at a party, Rob with this woman at . . .
She turned her head and retched again into the bin, but there was nothing left. Sucking in deep breaths and exhaling slowly, she tried to calm herself, to suppress the panic, to create some order out of the chaos.
Breathe . . .
Think.
Okay.
Rob wasn’t her husband.
He was dating some Manhattan heiress.
Her home was some small apartment in Brooklyn she didn’t recognize.
She worked at a radio station for a mediocre salary.
So, good stuff?
Breathe . . .
Think.
David was alive. That was better than anything. Charlie too.
She was physically fine, and she did at least have a home.
She had a job. Admittedly doing something she’d never done before.
And Suzie was still her best friend. That was comforting.
But what next? What should she do?
The only thing that made sense was her initial instinct — to go back to the UK. Take time off to figure out what had happened. How she had gotten here. And how she could fix it. If she wanted to fix it. Here, David was alive. He was her priority.
So, if she accepted, really accepted that she was in some kind of alternate life — a Sliding Doors reality — if she really accepted that, then what would she do?
She had so many knowledge gaps, including how to do her job — she’d never done any radio work.
She’d have to claim amnesia and fake not remembering anything at all from the past three years.
Of course, that would mean doctors, tests, but what was the option?
None, as far as she could see. Who would believe anything else?
Josie went back to the travel folder and clicked through to the London flight booking.
She was able to change the flights to a red-eye arriving December 9, returning January 2.
That would give her a week from now to recover physically, go to this Brooklyn apartment, and pack for the UK, go to the doctor to be tested for amnesia, and arrange time off work until January.
Josie felt a small sense of relief. At least she had a plan.
Feeling slightly more relaxed, she got slowly out of bed, her muscles aching, bruises throbbing.
She headed into the bathroom for the first time since arriving at Suzie’s.
She was so dehydrated from vomiting she couldn’t pee, so she went to the bathroom cabinet for the spare toothbrush, glancing in the mirrored door as she opened it.
What?
She closed it again with a slam and frowned at the woman frowning back at her. She looked so different.
Aside from the scrape on her jaw, she was very pale, although not that surprising, given everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours.
She was a lot chubbier around the cheeks and chin, more like she’d looked a few years back, and her hair was more its original dark blonde rather than the golden blonde she’d been highlighting it.
It was shorter, too, at her shoulders, with no extensions.
In fact, her lash extensions were gone too, and her brows unkempt. She looked like the pre-Rob Josie.
She examined her hands. They were also chubbier than usual, and where were her acrylic nails?
She pulled off her T-shirt in one swift, painful movement, looking in the mirror again, then down at herself.
Wow.
She turned herself in front of the mirror, ignoring the bruises on her wrist and hip, examining the mound of belly fat and the cellulite on her butt and thighs. She was easily thirty pounds heavier than she remembered.
She thought about the weight she’d been when she met Rob — somewhere in between, maybe, around ten or fifteen pounds lighter than this. She had lost that weight gradually, a few pounds on purpose before the wedding, but more after David’s death.
So, in this life, without the wedding, without David’s death, without Rob, and the glamorous life he offered, she had been putting on weight over the past three years instead.
Terrific.
She stepped into the shower, her plumper body feeling weird as she washed. And her pubic hair! It didn’t look like it’d seen the inside of a salon in months. Drying herself seemed to take longer than usual: there was more to dry.
As Josie returned to the bedroom, the reality of her situation — or of this reality — began to sink in. She sat on the edge of the bed, burying her head in her hands.
On the nightstand, the green mobile was flashing. She had a moment’s hope. David? Rob? She glanced at the screen, the disappointment crushing.
Peter
So relieved you’re not hurt. I still really want to see you and talk. I have news that I hope you’ll like. Call me when you’re feeling better and we can meet up. Thinking of you, P