“I completely understand.”
We sat there for a minute, neither of us saying anything. I leaned back in my chair. She was waiting for me to speak, but I was enjoying watching her squirm in the silence. Awkward silences can tell you a lot about a person. Some people will immediately try to fill them with chatter; others will shut down, and others will start fiddling with the nearest thing they can get their hands on. Daisy, while she looked a bit uncomfortable, folded her hands in her lap, looked me in the eye for a second, and then looked over my shoulder, toward the window, as though something very captivating had just caught her eye.
“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.”