“Hey. Listen. I just wanted to call and let you know that I’ve decided to go with someone else for the position.”
There was a pause. “Oh,” she said finally. “Okay. Well . . . thank you for letting me know so quickly.” There was another pause. “Was I . . . was I just not qualified? I know I can do everything you said you were looking for.”
“It’s not that,” I said. “Based on your resume and what Jonathan’s said about you, you certainly seem qualified. But you’re not the only applicant in the pool, and I actually had many qualified people apply for the position. I’ll keep your resume on file though, okay? And if something opens up in the future, I’ll give you a shout.”
“Sure,” she said. “I appreciate it. Thank you. And thanks again for calling so promptly to let me know.”
“You got it,” I said.
I hung up. She had a nice phone voice.
I dicked around at my desk for a little while after I got off the phone because I knew Jonathan was out there lurking, wanting to know how it had gone, when she would start. When I finally stepped out of my office, he jumped up from his own desk and hurried over, an inquisitive look on his face.
“So how’d it go?” he asked. “Isn’t she great? When does she start?”
“Uh . . . she’s not, man, sorry,” I said.
He raised his eyebrows. “Really? What—did she totally bomb the interview or something? She can get a little nervous, but trust me, Ian, you’d be a fool not to hire her. Besides, she just got fired from her other job, and she’s really hoping to be able to move soon.”
“And all of this is my problem, why?”
“She’s got this stalker. This guy from the gym. He seemed cool at first, but then he just got real crazy, real fast. Totally outta left field; no one was expecting it. She used to work at that hair salon, Shear Genius. I’m sure she told you that.”
“Aren’t people who are employed at hair salons generally somewhat fashionable?”
“Come on, bro, give her a chance. She deserves it. She’s gone through so much shit lately.”
Jonathan and I have been friends since middle school; all these years later, he was still a sucker for a sob story. You could say my own miserable childhood had been a sob story—maybe that’s why we had maintained our friendship all these years later. He just couldn’t help himself.
I sure as shit wasn’t a sob story now, though I suppose one could wonder where I’d be if it hadn’t been for Jonathan and his family all but adopting me and providing the sort of stable family life that my mother and stepfather, Pete, could not.
“I’m not exaggerating when I say she has a stalker,” Jonathan said. “Straight up bonafide psycho. She deleted all her social media accounts because of him.”
I widened my eyes. “Oh geez, not that.”
Jonathan gave me an earnest look. “That actually is saying something, getting rid of your Facebook and Instagram and Snapchat just because someone is stalking you.”
“But she kept Twitter?”
The joke was lost on him. “Huh? I don’t think she has Twitter.”
What Jonathan was probably bumming about was that he himself couldn’t lurk and drool over candid pictures of Daisy doing a yoga pose with the sun setting in the background, or the bowl or organic soba noodles with root vegetables Daisy was about to indulge in, or the way Daisy looked in a bathing suit, the ocean as the backdrop. Actually, she didn’t seem like the sort of person to post any of those pictures. Well, maybe the food one, but that was such a cliché.
“Again—how is any of this my problem?” I asked. “I own a business, Jonathan. I don’t run a charity.”
“You’d be employing her. It’s not charity. And we’re in the security industry—doesn’t stalking fall under that realm?”
“She’s not a client.”
“So we only help people who are giving us money.”
“If you want to talk about charitable donations or underwriting a public radio station, we can do that at another time. I’ve already decided to go with Lynn.”
“Lynn?” He made no attempt to hide his displeasure.
“Yes, Lynn.” So what if she was overweight and had teeth that could rival any equines? I didn’t need another situation like the one I just had with Annie.
“I looked at her resume,” Jonathan said. “She doesn’t have an iota more of experience than Daisy does. And Daisy’s a hell of a lot better looking.”