Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

By Elle May

Looking at the bewitching night sky observing all the beautiful stars its easy to imagine about all the other worlds that are out there. Its possible to have other planets exactly like ours in a parallel universe. Daily decisions are made from small seemingly insignificant ones to life changing ones. How often are life choices reflected and people wonder what if? The first book of a trilogy.
Georgie was a daydreamer often wondering whether shed made the right choices in life. Her marriage to Steve had hit a low point and they are living apart. Their son Jake is always trying to bring them back together.
Georgie had often wondered whether she ought to have taken up the chance to live in America rather than marry Steve. By chance she sees a double of herself on American television which coincides a business trip she is to attend there. When there she challenges her double. She discovers that Gia her lookalike is from a parallel universe and picked up her life.
The women try to work out a way to get back to their respective lives. Gias planet is the same as earth but changed purely by someone taking a different thought and action.
Their adventure is fraught as they swap lives, Georgie stays in America to live the life she regretted giving up, soon realising it wasnt meant to be. Gia goes to England and faces temptations of Steve who is the equivalent of her husband Sen, who she desperately misses. Both women have their ups and downs and are challenged constantly with being caught out and trying to work out who they can trust.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Jan 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781467879132

Elle May

As a single mum who has faced many of life’s challenges, Elle has observed the world around her. With a logical mind combined with a spiritual outlook inspired by the phrase ‘what is meant for you won’t pass you by’ and if there is any resonance in it. By observing people’s daily actions and how certain people meet success she wrote an everyday story based on ‘What if’ with undertones of how people overcome obstacles. Initially enthused by events around her the story is completely fictional.

Book preview

Stop The World,

I Want to Get Off

Elle May

US%26UKLogoB%26Wnew.ai

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

© 2011 by Elle May. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

First published by AuthorHouse 12/28/2011

ISBN: 978-1-4678-7912-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4678-7913-2 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

With love and gratitude to my family, Sally, Flavia, Adrian, Alan, Melody, with special mention to lovely Jane and Jon L.

Thanks for believing in me.

Earthly people

Parallel People

Chapter 1

Wistfully, Georgie looked out the window and wondered, as she often did, how life might have been. She studied the golden brown and russet coloured autumn leaves, looking beautiful against what would be one of the last few warm days in England. She imagined that the cold, dark, grey days of winter would soon be back. She let out a deep sigh, thinking about winter and all that it brought with it. Christmas would soon be looming, and she didn’t relish the prospect of it being like it had the last few years. She thought dismally about the same old struggle to find presents, which even for a generous person is hard when your heart just isn’t in the Christmas spirit. The staff’s annual party was always in the same old restaurant, the same old topics of conversations regurgitated. She often wondered why it is that people who spend all day getting fed up with what goes on at work socialise by talking about the very thing that gets them all stressed. They mix with people they spend all day trying to avoid. It’s no wonder people’s partners don’t really want to go. They usually say they don’t want to talk about work, but after all the uncomfortable silences they realise they’ve not much else in common. After a few drinks people tended to lighten up and have a good laugh about things.

After that it would be the New Year celebrations, reminding you that yet another year has passed and nothing much has changed. Dreams had often been shattered, resolutions broken; whatever determination there had been on January first had usually diminished by the third. For such a magical time of year it can be so painful if your life has fallen apart and you are alone. She had spent a few months relatively alone since she separated from Steve. It was just she and her son, Jake, the best thing to come from her relationship with Steve.

If she had a spare moment she looked at some of the single parent websites and read the messages. She knew that they were there to help, it was daunting as she couldn’t face her marriage being over. Looking at some of the sites might just help her through, but as she looked it made her feel sad to see the large amount of people reaching out for love. Their loneliness just screamed out at you from the impersonal computer screen. It seemed to magnify their pain. Nobody wants to be alone. We all want to be loved. She wondered why relationships had to be complicated, or come to an end for that matter. The signs were all there. She’d convinced herself that Steve didn’t want her and she didn’t know if she still wanted him. They’d become stale and had no fun anymore. It happens to a lot of marriages, but she never thought it would happen to her. Goodness knows how hard she had tried to make it work, but she wondered how to resolve his lack of interest in their family life. Every weekend he’d either be down the pub, watching football, or sleeping off his hangover.

The cold weather was another thing she particularly hated at this time of year, and she began to wish she lived in a sunnier climate. It was even worse in the flat she was renting. The central heating was constantly making an awful grinding and banging noise, and she had written countless letters to the landlord complaining, all to no avail. Thoughts of all the countries with warmer climates at this time of year filled her mind. One place in particular that kept springing into her mind. She had almost moved there once. It was unimaginable that she would have the chance to go back and live the life she’d decided against five years ago. She had thought about it so many times. The loud ringing of the phone brought her back from her thoughts.

Is that Georgie Taylor? questioned the caller before she had chance to reel off the company’s standard welcome patter. Georgie recognised the voice of the most difficult client she had to deal with. She knew that working in a recruitment agency didn’t make you the most popular person. She’d often heard recruiters described as a ‘necessary evil’ that cared only for their personal commission. She often felt that clients were trying to catch her out.

She dealt with him as professionally as she could. Georgie replaced the phone and busied herself with resending the copies of CVs the client had requested. Her next interruption came from Caroline, her boss.

Are you busy, Georgie? Caroline asked brusquely.

Just for the next few minutes. I’ve got a bit of a rush job on. Is there something you want me to do?

I need to see you in my office. Could you come in when you’re finished with this?

Georgie didn’t like Caroline’s tone. Even if she was the boss, she didn’t have to make people feel as if they’d always done something wrong. Georgie knew she had probably been daydreaming just a bit too often recently, but that was her escape from the dreariness of her life. Her marriage was a disaster. She had left her husband and there were feuds over money and their son. This was a way of venting their frustrations instead of the issues of their relationship that they weren’t facing. She had also become disillusioned with work and was finding the daily grind dragging her down

Caroline was the manager of the branch and had lived, ate, and breathed recruitment all her career. She was hardnosed and didn’t suffer fools gladly, but on occasion she showed an ounce of sympathy when the going got tough. It was a tough business, and the pressure to meet targets was always there, along with competition with all the other branches.

There were four other women in the branch. There was Jilly, who was in charge of the temps; Clare and Charlotte, who, like Georgie, worked on placing permanent staff in jobs; and Tina, who did all the administration. Occasionally Jilly and Clare would swap jobs—it was Caroline’s way of backing up the business of the branch. Georgie found them all right, but the competitiveness of the office really got to her at times. Every office has its ups and downs and moans about things, but at the end of the day they were quite a good team. If it wasn’t about targets; it was flirting with any males they came into contact with.

They were all different ages and at different stages in their lives. Tina had recently left school, while Caroline was nearing her dream of an early retirement. Deep below the surface their agendas were totally different. Charlotte was posh; she came from an upper-middle-class background and at times the others wondered why she was there. She didn’t need the job; her husband owned a successful sports car dealership. One day they talked about each of them having a nickname, along the lines of the Spice Girls. Charlotte was Posh, and as Tina was fresh out of school, she really could be called Baby. Their stumbling block was that none of them were Ginger or Sporty and nobody would dare suggesting to Caroline that she’d really only fit Scary.

Georgie tapped nervously on the door.

Come in, Caroline called out sternly.

You wanted to see me, Georgie said whilst entering the office. Caroline looked up from her desk, her eyes glaring over the top of her glasses. She appeared to be almost in a trance.

Yes, have a seat, she replied, her tone subdued now. Well, I won’t beat about the bush. Are you happy here Georgie?

Georgie studied the lines on Caroline’s face. Her look was quite intense. She furrowed her eyebrows, another distraction Georgie used. She felt really surprised by the question. She worked hard, achieved more than the sales targets that were set, and was always first at work and last to go. Was she happy there? What sort of question was that?

What do you mean? I thought my record shows how well I’m doing, Georgie said, barely concealing her amazement.

That’s not what I asked you, Caroline responded, now straightening her back. She removed her glasses and put the arm of them in her mouth.

Of course I am, Georgie replied a bit tartly.

I’m not so sure you are. I’ve no complaints about your work. There are some new initiatives coming to our agency. Being a nationwide company will mean more competition from the other branches, and I want to make sure that we are on top of everything.

How many times does she use her corny expressions? Georgie thought. It wasn’t motivating at all, just painfully patronising. She knew she had to stop analysing her words, otherwise she would drift off into a world of her own. Georgie often thought about other worlds. She wondered if she thought about them too much.

She looked at Caroline, trying to listen to her, but she starting thinking. She was still an attractive woman for her age and would probably look a lot better if she had a better sense of dress. Being as driven as she was, she wasn’t interested in shopping for clothes. On the occasion that she did buy clothes, they always had to be a designer brand, albeit one none of the others would actually choose. Caroline was a strong advocate of the expression ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ She was tall and had short, neatly-styled, brown hair. Her figure wasn’t too bad, either, which was a surprise in a way, as she never really ate the right foods. She worked hard and played hard and recently had been more cantankerous than normal because of the smoking ban. She smoked very heavily, and it was frustrating not to be able to smoke in the office. It wasn’t so bad in the summer, but as the weather got colder it wasn’t going to be so easy.

What sort of changes? Georgie asked.

None that I can speak of yet, but needless to say with more competition comes more rewards. I don’t want this conversation to go any further, Georgie. Caroline’s voice lowered and she leaned across the desk. Now, I have a very special assignment, which you must keep to yourself, and I want to be sure that you are able to take it on.

Georgie shuffled nervously in her chair, unsure of what was coming next or whether she would like it. She focused hard on Caroline. It was always immensely difficult for her to concentrate, particularly recently, as she always seemed to be in a bit of a dream. Her son kept her up late most nights. Well, it was probably the other way round if Georgie really admitted to it. She had been lonely since separating from Steve, Jake was good company and very active, and no matter how late he went to bed he would still be awake fresh