I Love the 80s by Megan Crane Read Free Book Online Page B

that they had. The Wild Boys had received almost as much press as when Letterman went head-to-head with Leno years later.
    ‘I don’t know why,’ she told Ken with a sort of chuckle, as if she was making it up as she went along, ‘but I havea feeling that we skyrocketed past them in the ratings. By an enormous margin.’
    ‘I like that feeling,’ Ken said, grinning. ‘From your lips to God’s ears, babe.’
    The elevator doors swished open, and Jenna found herself on the very posh top floor of Video TV. The intense poshness of it was perhaps what kept her from pointing out to Ken that ‘babe’ was not an appropriate way to address a co-worker. She was far too impressed with all the gleaming wood and the quiet. As this was where the executives spent their days, there were no cubicles, no tiny rabbit warrens of depressing workspaces. The carpet was far more plush, and everything felt hushed and moneyed. The receptionist smiled as if personally delighted that Jenna and Ken had arrived in front of her. It was a far cry from Jenna’s own floor, where workers scurried about with their heads down, trying to avoid attracting any attention.
    Ken raised a hand in the direction of the receptionist, but didn’t slow his pace.
    ‘She’s a nice gal,’ he told Jenna out of the corner of his mouth, ‘but I wish she wouldn’t smile like that. It’s like one of those puppets in that Genesis video. It creeps me out.’
    Not as much as his casual use of the word
gal
creeped Jenna out, but she didn’t have time to comment on that or even the reference to the disturbing ‘Land of Confusion’ video, because Ken was charging down the quiet, very fancy hallway, and only stopped when he arrived at itsfurthest corner. He threw open the door and stepped into what Jenna quickly realized was an outer office, complete with a couch for visitors, framed movie posters on the walls, and a large, aggressively healthy ficus plant beneath the window. Ken kept moving, and wrenched open the interior door.
    ‘Make him wait,’ he said, with a grin over his shoulder, and disappeared inside, closing the door behind him.
    Jenna blinked, and made her way across the room to the desk. The brass nameplate read JENNIFER JENKINS, but she didn’t have time to absorb the shock of that, because she’d already noticed the pictures. Her stomach dropped all the way to her feet, and she heard herself make a sound that was close to a whimper.
    There were photographs everywhere – clipped to the bulletin board behind the desk and displayed proudly in frames. Jenna was in every picture. Her hair was different, sure, and she was wearing clothes she’d never laid eyes on before, but it was Jenna. But a dislocated version of Jenna, because she couldn’t identify a single other person in any of the pictures. Not the blonde girl next to her on a roller coaster, screaming in joy with her hands in the air. Not the group of laughing girls in atrocious ballgowns. Not even the adorable mutt she hugged, in front of a Tudor-style house she’d never laid eyes on.
    It wasn’t just weird. It was full-on spooky. Jenna closed her eyes for a moment, and then took a closer look.
    Okay. She blew out a breath. Maybe that wasn’t her. It was just someone who looked a whole lot like her. As in,enough like her to pass as her, though Jenna thought that their noses were a bit of a different shape. And she thought her teeth were straighter – as they should have been after years of painful orthodontics. But if she wasn’t this mysterious Jennifer Jenkins, who was? And where was she now? Had she woken up to find herself in the Video TV supply closet twenty years from now? Was she even now navigating Jenna’s actual life, such as it was?
    Of course she wasn’t, Jenna told herself sharply, because none of this was happening. It was just a dream. There was no Jennifer Jenkins, and no time travel, for the love of all that was holy. And that was a good thing, because if it was real,