The Woman He Was Thinking Of
A story by AG
Jack should have been thinking about Emma.
She was his wife, the woman holding him close in their familiar bedroom. Instead, his thoughts had wandered back to the diner—to the beautiful Black waitress who had served his lunch, her generous figure and easy smile lingering in his imagination.
Then a pale light swept through the room.
The warmth vanished.
Jack was sitting on a sagging sofa in an unfamiliar apartment. A game show played on the television. Somewhere nearby, a refrigerator rattled.
He stared at the screen, waiting for his bedroom to return.
It didn’t.
He looked down.
A faded diner uniform covered a woman’s body. His feet throbbed inside battered work shoes. His lower back ached, and exhaustion seemed to have settled into every muscle.
“No,” he whispered.
The voice was female.
Across the room, a small mirror reflected the diner waitress.
Only now, she wore his frightened expression.
Her name was Denise.
Jack discovered that from the badge pinned to his uniform. The apartment told him more: an overdue electricity bill, a cupboard full of tins and rice, and a work rota crowded with double shifts.
Beside the sofa lay a notebook filled with figures. Rent. Wages. Food. A small amount crossed out beneath the heading course fees.
He had spent lunch admiring her body.
He had never wondered how tired she was.
When he finally reached Emma, she answered on the sixth attempt.
“Jack? Is that really you?”
“Yes. Emma, listen—something’s happened.”
“I know something’s happened.”
A frightened stranger had appeared beside her in his body. Denise had pulled away immediately, confused and apologizing for something she hadn’t chosen.
Neither woman had understood.
By morning, the news offered an explanation. The cosmic wave had crossed the planet. Among those affected were people whose private fantasies had fixed upon someone else during an intimate moment.
Emma listened to the report.
Then she looked at Jack.
“The waitress?”
He opened his mouth.
“The woman who brought you your lunch?”
“Yes,” he said at last.
Emma stepped away from him.
“I need you to leave.”
Denise wanted her body back just as desperately as he wanted his.
When Jack asked if he could collect some clothes from her apartment, she folded her arms across her chest. Seeing the familiar gesture on someone else unsettled him almost as much as her answer.
“I’ve got one wardrobe, Jack. Most of it took me years to afford.”
“Nothing I own fits.”
“Nothing I own fits me either.”
Her anger faltered.
“I didn’t ask for any of this.”
“I know.”
She studied him, as if to decide whether he did.
Eventually, she gave him a cardigan, two tops and permission to use the toiletries already in her bathroom.
“Until we work something out,” she said. “And please look after my things.”
He left with those clothes, a bag Emma had packed and enough money for a few nights in a cheap motel.
At Goodwill, he bought jeans, underwear and shoes that didn’t hurt quite so much. Choosing sizes took three attempts. By the time he reached the till, he was too tired to care about being embarrassed.
Back at the motel, his phone lit up.
Emma was speaking to a solicitor.
For one panicked moment, he imagined losing the house, his savings, everything. He didn’t know what a divorce would mean financially. He barely knew which name to put on a form.
But Emma’s final sentence needed no explanation.
I need time away from you. Please respect that.
He set down the phone.
For once, he did.
Work offered little comfort.
His Boss, Graham, stared across the desk, struggling to reconcile the woman opposite him with the employee he had known for twelve years.
“We’ll need to sort out identification. Payroll. Your access pass.”
“I can still do my job.”
“Of course. It’s just a complicated situation.”
Jack heard the hesitation.
They sent him home while the company decided how to proceed.
Three days later, Human Resources confirmed that he could return under the temporary identity arrangements being introduced after the wave.
He arrived wearing dark trousers, a plain blouse and Denise’s cardigan.
At reception, a security guard directed him towards the visitors’ book.
“I work here.”
“Name?”
“Jack Mercer.”
The guard checked his temporary pass twice.
Jack tried to be patient. Plenty of confused people that week.
Then, in the lift, a colleague he had worked beside for years looked him up and down.
“Well,” the man said, “at least you landed on your feet.”
Jack stared at him.
The colleague grinned, expecting agreement.
The doors opened before Jack could reply.
At ten o’clock, he joined the weekly planning meeting.
His project folder was exactly where he had left it. The problems were familiar. The delivery schedule was slipping, and the company was promising customers dates the warehouse couldn’t meet.
For the first few minutes, familiarity steadied him.
Then Graham handed him a notepad.
“Would you mind taking the minutes?”
Jack looked at it.
“Usually Martin does those.”
“Doesn’t matter who does them, does it?”
“No,” Jack said slowly. “I suppose it doesn’t.”
Across the table, Martin was already opening his laptop, relieved to be free of a task nobody had bothered to discuss.
Jack set the pad beside his folder.
When the delivery problem came up, he leaned forward.
“We need to change the booking sequence. At the moment—”
“Yes, we know there are delays,” Martin interrupted. “The question is what we do about them.”
“That’s what I’m explaining.”
But Graham had turned towards someone else.
Jack waited, then tried again.
“If orders are grouped by region before the warehouse assigns—”
“Let’s hear everyone out,” Graham said.
Jack sat back.
Ten minutes later, Martin suggested grouping deliveries by region.
Graham nodded.
“Good thinking.”
For a moment, Jack could only stare.
Then he heard a quiet sigh beside him.
Priya from logistics looked down at her papers.
“You noticed?” she murmured.
Jack turned towards her.
Her expression made him uncomfortable.
“How often does that happen?”
“To you? Apparently since Monday.”
She straightened a page.
“To me? Rather longer.”
He remembered a meeting two months earlier. Priya explaining a scheduling change. He interrupted because he had understood her point before she finished.
At least, that was what he had told himself.
He looked at her folder.
“Have you already worked this out?”
“Yes.”
“Can I see?”
She hesitated, then slid it towards him.
The figures were clear. The proposal was practical. There was even a trial schedule.
The first page showed a date from six weeks ago.
Jack felt his face grow warm.
As Graham moved to the next item, Jack spoke.
“Before we leave deliveries, Priya has a proposal we should hear.”
Martin lifted a hand.
“I’ve just suggested—”
“Priya’s worked through the warehouse capacity, costs and customer bookings. She has a trial ready.”
The room quietened.
Jack turned to her.
“Would you talk us through it?”
Priya glanced at him, then stood.
Halfway through her explanation, Martin interrupted.
“That’s essentially what I was—”
“Let her finish,” Jack said.
His voice sounded sharper than he intended.
Graham looked up.
Jack steadied himself.
“We keep asking why these meetings produce so little. We could start by listening to the person who’s done the work.”
Priya finished.
By the end, Graham had approved a two-week trial.
As people gathered their things, he tapped Jack’s notepad.
“Could you send those minutes round?”
Jack looked towards Martin.
“Let’s rotate the job from now on. I’ll do today’s. Martin can take next week.”
There was a small silence.
Then Graham shrugged.
“Fine.”
It was such a minor victory that Jack almost laughed.
He wondered how many minor defeats everyone else had been swallowing.
Priya found him in the kitchen afterward.
“Thank you,” she said.
“I should have listened six weeks ago.”
“Yes.”
He had expected her to soften it.
She didn’t.
“I’m sorry.”
Priya stirred her tea.
“Help me get the trial running properly. That would be useful.”
“I will.”
As she left, he called after her.
“Does Graham always ask you to take notes?”
“Notes. Birthday cards. Leaving collections. Finding someone to clear the meeting room.”
She paused.
“You’ve asked me a few times yourself.”
After she had gone, Jack stood beside the kettle until it clicked off.
Over the next fortnight, he began noticing things he had once dismissed.
A junior colleague’s careful suggestion became “a bit emotional” when she defended it. A man making the same objection was described as thorough.
People asked Jack whether he was coping before they asked what he thought about the project.
One client congratulated Graham on sending “someone more welcoming” to a meeting Jack had chaired for three years.
When Jack firmly challenged an unrealistic deadline, Graham suggested he try a gentler tone.
Jack remembered being praised for his directness.
He also found company where he hadn’t expected it.
Priya invited him to lunch with two women from accounts. They talked about work, mortgages, terrible television and a printer that appeared to dislike everyone equally.
Nobody demanded that he explain himself.
When he admitted that his shoes were rubbing, one of them produced blister plasters from her bag without making a joke.
He laughed more during that lunch than he had since the wave.
The next morning, he looked forward to going in.
Denise met him at a café on Saturday.
She arrived in one of his old shirts, sleeves rolled back. He arrived wearing her cardigan.
For a moment, they regarded each other.
“That color always suited me,” she said.
“I’m trying not to spill anything on it.”
“Good. It’s hand-wash only.”
He smiled.
She almost did.
Over coffee, they compared the practical problems: documents, bank accounts, medical appointments, employers who wanted everything resolved before anyone knew how
Then Jack told her about work.
Being interrupted. Being assessed before he spoke. Hearing his own ideas returned in someone else’s voice.
Denise listened.
“Now imagine going into a room where they’ve already made up their minds about you before you’ve even sat down,” she said. “And working out which part of you they’ve decided is the problem.”
Jack looked at her.
“Has someone said something?”
“Plenty of people have said something. Plenty more haven’t needed to.”
He lowered his eyes to his cup.
“I keep thinking I understand. Then something else happens.”
“You’ve had a fortnight.”
“I know.”
Denise took a sip of coffee.
“Keep paying attention.”
After a while, he asked about the notebook in her apartment.
“The course fees?”
“Business administration. Evening classes.”
“You want to leave the diner?”
“I want choices. I’m good at running that place. Stock, rotas, suppliers, covering when people don’t turn up. But being useful doesn’t always get you promoted.”
Jack nodded.
At least that, he was beginning to understand.
The delivery trial worked.
Priya’s plan reduced missed bookings, cut overtime, and stopped the warehouse from receiving promises it couldn’t possibly keep.
Jack spent his days helping staff use the new system, answering awkward questions and making sure the people affected could suggest changes.
He discovered he liked that part.
He had always enjoyed solving problems. He had paid far less attention to whether people could tell him what the problems were comfortably.
At the review meeting, Graham praised Jack’s leadership.
“The original proposal was Priya’s,” Jack said. “Put her name on the report.”
“Of course.”
“And invite her to the client presentation.”
Graham hesitated.
Jack waited.
“All right.”
Priya caught his eye across the table.
This time, her smile was unmistakable.
The offer came a month later.
The company needed someone to lead a small team improving operations across several departments. It would mean more responsibility, a salary increase, and a chance to build the team from the beginning.
Graham slid the papers across his desk.
“You’ve handled a difficult few weeks well.”
Jack read the first page.
For so long, he had imagined his future shrinking.
Here was something growing.
“I’d like Priya as deputy,” he said.
“We’d have to discuss—”
“Then discuss it with her. She should have the chance to apply.”
Graham leaned back.
“You’ve become rather persistent.”
Jack smiled faintly.
“I always was.”
He accepted the role after they agreed on the budget, the responsibilities, and a proper selection process for the team.
That evening, he rang Denise.
“I got a promotion.”
There was a pause.
Then she said, “Congratulations.”
“I wanted you to hear it from me.”
“Thank you.”
“And if you still want to do that course, the college is running extra enrolment appointments for people affected by the wave. Priya sent me the details. Shall I forward them?”
“Yes,” Denise said. “Please.”
Emma agreed to meet him on a Sunday afternoon.
They walked through the park, keeping a little space between them.
He told her about the job. She told him about her sister’s new baby.
For a few minutes, talking felt familiar.
Then they reached a bench.
“I’m glad you’re managing,” she said.
“I wasn’t, at first.”
“I know.”
He looked at his hands.
“I’m sorry, Emma. For hurting you. For making you deal with something you never chose.”
She watched a child trying to launch a kite.
“The wave didn’t create every problem we had.”
“No.”
“I’d been trying to tell you I was lonely for a long time.”
Jack swallowed.
“I wish I’d listened.”
“So do I.”
He wanted to promise that he was different now. To tell her about the meetings, the things he had learned, the man he was trying to become in a body he was still learning to live in.
But she had heard promises before.
So he let her speak.
When they parted, she hugged him briefly.
It wasn’t reconciliation.
He was grateful for it anyway.
Three months after the wave, Jack moved out of the motel.
His new flat was small, with a bright kitchen and a window overlooking a row of trees. He bought a proper desk, two comfortable chairs and a lamp that made the living room feel warm after dark.
Denise came round with a plant.
“Apparently these are difficult to kill.”
“You sound unconvinced.”
“I’ve met you.”
He laughed and put the kettle on.
She had enrolled in her course. The diner had finally agreed to pay her for the supervisory work she had already been doing, and she was applying for other jobs.
“I miss my body,” she said as they unpacked the last box.
Jack stopped folding the cardboard.
“I know.”
“Some days more than others.”
“If they find a way back, you’ll be the first person I call.”
She nodded.
“So will you.”
Neither of them needed the other to pretend that settling in meant they had stopped hoping.
On Monday morning, Jack stood before the bedroom mirror.
His blouse sat properly across his shoulders. He'd chosen the trousers himself, bought them without panic. His shoes were comfortable.
He was still getting used to the reflection.
But he no longer looked at it only to search for what was missing.
His phone buzzed.
A message from Priya.
Client approved the next stage. Team lunch Friday?
He typed back.
Definitely. Your choice of restaurant.
Then another message arrived, from Denise.
Passed my first assignment.
Jack grinned.
Knew you would. Congratulations.
He picked up his bag and checked for his keys.
There were difficult conversations ahead. Papers still to sign. No certain answer about whether he and Denise would ever return to their own bodies.
A team was expecting him, work he cared about, and a Friday lunch he was looking forward to.
He switched off the light.
Then he went to work.
