by Claire Adams
“Well,” I said finally. “Thank you for coming in and talking with me.”
“Absolutely. Thank you so much for taking the time to interview me. I look forward to hearing from you.”
She still looked nervous as all hell, though. “Jonathan or I will be in touch,” I said, not bothering to get up when she did. Instead, I watched her stand and smooth down her skirt.
“Okay,” she said. Cue two point five seconds of awkward silence. “Well, um. Bye.”
I steepled my fingers in front of my mouth again to hide my smile. “Have a good one, Daisy.”
She turned and left as though she couldn’t get out of my office fast enough, which at least gave me a fleeting view of her ass before she disappeared around the corner.
I wasn’t going to hire her. I’d hire the girl I interviewed yesterday, Lynn. I’d already decided I was going to do that anyway, though Jonathan hadn’t been privy to that information. I returned some emails and a few phone calls before I found her resume with her phone number.
“Hello?” she said after the second ring, though the way she said it, I could tell she already knew who it was. There was a hopeful note in her voice that she was trying to keep under wraps.
“Daisy,” I said. “It’s Ian Roubideaux.”
“Hi, Ian.”
“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.”
I made a tutting sound and gave Jonathan a look as though I was very disappointed in him. “This isn’t a beauty pageant. Look, Jay, I said I’d do you the favor by interviewing her; I never said that I’d give her the job. What’s it to you, anyway?”
I knew what it was though—he liked her, though he wouldn’t admit it.
“Well, let’s see. She’s just as—if not more—experienced with admin duties than Lynn is, she’s my friend, and she’s hot. Oh, she’s also a freak in bed.” He added this last part and then looked at me to see if I’d go for the bait.
It was a risky gamble though, what he was doing. He was banking on the fact that I wouldn’t be able to resist the idea of hiring this freak between the sheets (yeah right) while at the same time hoping she would be far more beguiled by his charms than my own. Not impossible, but not likely. Although, if she were more into the boy-next-door-type then Jonathan certainly would be her man.
Jonathan sat there, giving me what basically amounted to dog-begging-for-treat eyes. Christ, he was whipped. How had I not seen this before?
“Okay,” I said finally. A grin broke out onto Jonathan’s face before I’d even started my next sentence. “I’ll hire her. I already called her and told her it was a no-go, but I’ll call her back and tell her I’ve reconsidered. Which is going to make me look like an indecisive asshole, of course, but I’m willing to do that for you.”
“That’s awesome, man,” Jonathan said. If he had a tail, it would be wagging.
“Just remember to send me an invite to the wedding,” I said.
Chapter Two
Daisy
After I had gotten off the phone with Ian, I sat there at the kitchen table and stared at a water stain in the shape of a heart. How long had that been there? Why was I just noticing it now? I was asking myself these ridiculous questions because I was trying not to think about the fact that I hadn’t been hired, despite me foolishly thinking that the interview had gone pretty well.
He hadn’t even waited a day to call and tell me that I didn’t get the job; had it even been two hours? I took a deep breath and then forced myself up. I got a glass from the cupboard and had some water.
You didn’t get the job.
No one is ever g
oing to hire you.
You shouldn’t have left the hair salon.
Except, I hadn’t left Shear Genius—I’d been fired. And what had Rosie, the manager that I’d turned in for embezzling, said to me? That I’d never get hired anywhere again?
Something along those lines.
I went into the living room, which looked out onto Locust Street. My apartment building was right on the corner of Locust and Pine, Pine being the busier of the two roads. I looked out the window and saw a maroon Rav4 parked on Locust. The glare was hitting the driver’s side window just right so I couldn’t make out who was sitting there, but I knew anyway: Noah. I took a deep breath as I felt my heart rate accelerate, and not in a good way. It was fairly warm out, but my arms were suddenly covered in goosebumps. I hurried out of the living room and grabbed my phone and my purse and left through the front entrance on Pine, hoping that I could make it to my car and drive out of there before he saw me.
I went to my best friend’s apartment. Caroline lived on the top floor, so there was no chance of anyone peeking into her windows, five stories up. We’d been best friends for years, and had seen each other through some pretty bad breakups. Well, she’d been the one doing most of the dating; I’d been on a few dates that had been disastrous, and now this, with Noah—we hadn’t even dated, yet he was acting as though I’d scorned him.
All we’d done, in fact, was get a smoothie at the gym’s café one afternoon. We’d seen each other around the gym for a while, and he seemed perfectly nice. Quiet, maybe, but then again, I could seem quiet, too. I had just been coming out of a spin class, probably five weeks ago, now, and he caught up with me and asked if I’d like to go to the café with him. I could tell he was nervous and that it had probably taken a lot for him to work up the courage to ask me, so of course I agreed. He wasn’t awful looking, but he wasn’t the sort of person that you’d probably look twice at, were you to pass them on the street. Not like some of the guys Caroline had dated, certainly not like Ian, but I liked to think I wasn’t so superficial. That just because someone wasn’t a ten on the hotness scale didn’t mean I couldn’t give them a chance.
It had been pretty awful, though. Not at first. For the first couple of minutes, we were able to talk about topical things, like how our workout had been, how long we’d been coming to the gym for, what classes there we liked. But then the conversation seemed to stall, or we’d start talking at the same time. We just didn’t gel, there was no coalescing, and it became clear after ten minutes that we really didn’t have anything in common. He worked from home as a freelance web designer; the whole reason he’d signed up at the gym was because he spent most of his day sitting in front of his computer. When our smoothies were finally finished (I’d made the mistake of allowing him to pay for mine, but only because the cashier had rung them up together) I said thank you and good-bye and figured that we’d both breathe a sigh of relief that we wouldn’t have to do that again.
Oh, how wrong I had been.
He caught up with me the next time I was at the gym, a happy smile on his face, saying that he’d had such a great time and we should do it again, and what was my phone number? I gave it to him, only because he caught me so off guard. He wanted to know what I was doing after my workout that day, and if I would let him take me out to lunch, at a real restaurant this time, not just some lame café. I lied and said I had plans with Caroline. I realize now that I should have been clear right then, that I should have just told him I wasn’t interested and perhaps that wouldn’t have led him on. But maybe not. Maybe he’d be doing this anyway, regardless of what I said.
“I think Noah was hanging around again,” I said when Caroline opened the door. “I caught sight of him outside the living room window. He was sitting in his car. Well, I’m pretty sure it was him.”
She peered over my shoulder and then ushered me inside. “What a creep,” she said. “You really should go to the cops. I mean, there’s got to be some sort of law against that kind of thing, right?”
“He hasn’t done anything yet. He’s technically not trespassing; the worst that’s happened is I thought I saw him looking into one of my windows one night. But I wasn’t even sure it was him.”
“Of course it was him. Who else would it be?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know, and it probably was him. But I’d need proof, wouldn’t I? I can’t just go to the police and say that there’s this guy who I think is stalking me. I guess that’s what I get for living on the ground floor. And he hasn’t tried to break into my apartment. I don’t want to piss him off. I’m hoping he’ll just eventually lose interest.”
“Ugh.” Caroline rolled her eyes. “He’s so gross. This is what you get for being nice to someone. Let this be a lesson: Don’t start up a friendly conversation with a psycho guy at the gym. Come on, let’s have some wine.”
I followed her into the kitchen and then sat at the breakfast bar on one of the high stools.
“How did the job interview go?” she asked as she poured me a glass.
“I didn’t get it.” I slid the glass across the container and took a big gulp. Part of me still couldn’t believe it.
“Come on now, Daisy. Don’t be so negative. I bet you did really good on the interview. You’re just being too hard on yourself.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m not. I know I didn’t get the job because he called me and told me so.”
She tilted her head to the side slightly, brow furrowed. “He called you today? Already? But you just had the job interview, didn’t you?”
“Yeah.” I sighed. “So that means he didn’t even need time to think it over or anything. Is that like some sort of world record or something? For fastest decision ever made about a job interview? He just knew that I wasn’t the right person for it. Do I exude some sort of vibe that says I’m completely incompetent? I should never have told Amanda what Rosie was doing. I should’ve just kept quiet about it.” I took another gulp of my wine and then stared straight ahead, willing myself not to cry. People lost their jobs all the time, and things turned out okay. Unless they didn’t. There were some people who got fired and were never able to recover from it; they went crazy, they never got another job, they ended up moving back in with their parents or living on the streets, panhandling or having to eat food from the trash.
“I don’t want to have to eat food from the garbage!” I said, realizing too late that I was actually speaking these words out loud.
Instead of looking at me like I was insane, though, Caroline just reached over and patted my arm. “You’ll find a job,” she said. “And don’t think for a second that you shouldn’t have said something about what Rosie was doing. It was messed up that Amanda fired you, too. She shouldn’t have done that.”
Of course, I wanted to believe that I had done the right thing, and up until the moment that Amanda had told me she was letting me go, too, I believed that I had. Rosie had been managing the salon for almost as long as Amanda had owned it, and I was just a glorified receptionist who had taken on more of Rosie’s responsibilities when I realized that things weren’t getting handled the way they should have been. I wasn’t doing it to be a brownnoser or even because I was trying to get a raise; I just wanted things to run smoothly, and part of that meant making sure things were done properly. Like the money in the drawer being counted and reconciled at the end of each day. Maybe Rosie had just gotten bored; maybe she thought she’d been at Shear Genius for so long that she was untouchable; maybe she didn’t think that someone like me would dare turn in someone like her. She was glamorous and beautiful, outgoing and charismatic. In other words, all the things I was not.
When I figured out what she was doing, how she’d write up slips for a haircut when the client actually got something far more expensive, like color put in, and then she’d take the difference, I thought at first that I was the one who was misunderstanding. I just couldn’t believe that she’d do something like that. She was also taking tips from the stylists. Some cl
ients would hand the cash themselves to the stylist after they were done, but most of them would leave the tip when they settled their bill up front with me, and put the tip in these little manila envelopes we had. If the client didn’t write the stylist’s name on the envelope, I would, and then I’d put the little envelopes underneath the cash drawer in the register, and the stylists would collect them at the end of each day. Rosie was smart enough to never take all the envelopes, but she’d help herself to four or five of them, and because we were such a busy salon, most of the stylists didn’t even notice.
Maybe I should have gone to Rosie first. Maybe I should have told her that I knew what she was doing, and that it was totally wrong and she needed to stop. If I could do it all over again, perhaps that’s what I’d do, but there was no way to go back in time. I had gone straight to Amanda, who didn’t believe me at first. Almost fired me on the spot, in fact, but then she reconsidered, saying that she had noticed there seemed to be a significant drop in the number of more expensive services that the salon provided, and a hike in just the basic wash and cuts. She ended up having a camera installed, and she got video of Rosie taking the tips envelopes from the drawer. I didn’t feel good about Rosie getting fired, but I had been completely unprepared for the fact that I would be let go, too.
“We need a fresh start,” Amanda had told me, almost two weeks ago now, while I’d done my best to hold it together and not burst into tears in her office. “If you need to file for unemployment, I won’t dispute it, but I just feel totally burned by this whole thing.”