“Well, that explains why I’ve gotten a bunch of calls from random numbers,” she said.
“What?” She pulled out her phone and went to recent calls to show me a list of various numbers that had called her. Several had been since I saw him at the grocery store.
“He hasn’t left any messages. Not yet, at least. It’s a bunch of random numbers. I figured they were from him. When I looked up the numbers online, I found out that there was a website I could do a search for the owner of the number. When I did, they all said they are internet-based numbers. No actual owner. I think he’s just using an app to mask his real number.”
“I didn’t even know you could do that,” I said. “Look, when he calls the next time I’m around, I am going to answer it. I don’t care if it gives him confirmation, and he spreads it all over town. He’s going to hear from me when he calls again.”
“He hasn’t called in the last fifteen minutes or so. I got one call on the way here, but I haven’t looked it up to see if it’s another web-based number or if it’s just some spam call,” she said. “I just don’t know what else to do.”
“We call the police,” I said. “This is harassment. He can’t just call you over and over with no repercussion, and if you want, you can file for a restraining order against him. I think it would qualify as stalking at this point.”
“Really? Would they do that since it’s just phone calls?”
“If he’s threatening you, I think so,” I said. “We can go to the police station tomorrow and file for it, and they will have a judge look at it.”
“Then what?” she asked. “It doesn’t seem like there’s enough for a restraining order. It’s just phone calls.”
“And what he said to me too,” I said.
“How soon would it take effect?” she asked, and I could tell there was actual fear in her eyes. I hated that. I would protect her with my life, and I had no worry that if it came down to me versus Ashton, I would win that fight. But I hated that he could make her feel this way. That anyone could make her feel that way.
“I don’t know, honestly,” I said. “But it’s step number one. The alternative is me finding him again and taking him out myself.”
22
LAUREN
Rebecca had a rare Saturday afternoon off work a week later and called to see if I wanted to get together for lunch. We’d had such a good time together when I invited her out to hang out with the girls and me, and I was looking forward to spending more time with her. We were already friends when we worked together at the diner, but there was something different about our friendship now that it was in a different context.
Something I learned during my years working at the diner was that it was easy to form relationships with the people around you when you’re working in a situation like that. There were exceptions depending on who came and went, but when in the trenches with people during busy brunch shifts or coping with difficult customers, or just because of the sheer number of hours spent together, we learned to lean on each other.
It was much the same with some of the customers. Seeing them every week and learning things about them, like how they liked their coffee and their favorite meal, created the sense of a close relationship. But the truth was, those relationships tended to be limited to the diner. Once the bond of working together or seeing each other regularly was gone, it became more obvious that there was not a lot to build a friendship on, and the relationship faded.
I knew that wasn’t going to happen with Harleigh. We’d been best friends long before starting to work at the diner, so our bond wasn’t reliant on spending those hours together and grappling with the same challenges as we dealt with customers.
Others at the diner, such as the new manager, Molly, didn’t fare as well. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It didn’t mean those people weren’t valuable during our time working together. It just meant we didn’t really have a place in each other’s lives when that context was over.
With Rebecca, our friendship was good while we worked together and was only getting better now that we didn’t. It was like we were learning more about each other and seeing each other in a new light and realizing we liked the new sides even more than the sides we already knew. I was happy about that, especially seeing how well she also got along with Harleigh and Desiree.
We made plans to go to a salad bar restaurant that had recently opened, and when I got there, I found her peering through the front window.