Page 79 of Truth, Lies, and Second Dates
“No! Nothing like that.” If only. Not to belittle the movement, but she’d rather worry about being sexually harassed than a serial killer chatting her up. “Nobody’s sexually harassing me. Well, India thinks I should score, so he’s trying to fix me up with one of his wife’s relatives. Would that be sexual harassment by proxy?”
“I can honestly say I have no idea.”
“Besides, if someone ever tried it, G.B. woulddevourthem.” She paused at the thought and decided it wasn’t much of an exaggeration. Two years ago, the new VP cornered one of G.B.’s colleagues when he thought he had the room to himself. For some reason, the gentleman in question thought taking his dick out was an appropriate way to make an introduction. He never heard G.B., who clocked him over the head with a water pitcher. It took him four minutes to regain consciousness, and three hours to file his termination paperwork.
“It’s not a #MeToo thing,” she reiterated. “But an employee got a bit in my face and was asking me a lot of questions about my personal life and acting incredibly strange and I have to tell you, it made me uneasy.”
“Becka Miller.”
(??????????????????)
“Ava? Are you there?”
“Okay, how did you know that?”
“She’s an admirer. Your name is all over her application paperwork.”
“Okay, weird.”
“It’s notthatstrange. I think,” Jan said gently, “and this is off the record and I can’t prove any of it and we never had this conversation, which I’m definitely not recording to cover my ass, but I think she has a bit of a crush.”
“I…” Ava trailed off. The close talking. The shouting. The excitability. The murder talk. Coincidentally running into her in Boston. “… I don’t think that’s it. She was prettytogether the first time we met. But she knew I wasn’t from Boston, then followed me to Boston, and she didn’t start acting weird until we saw each other in Boston.”
“Would you like to file a complaint?”
“No.”
“Then what can I do for you?”
“I just—look, I get that this is skating right up to the line—”
“Whenever you say that, you’re already over the line.”
“What can you tell me about her?”
A sigh from the other end. “Ava. I could lose my job.”
“I know. I know it’s a lot to ask. That’s why I made sure to remember you were in California before I called.”
A snort. “Look, all I can say is, she sailed through all her paperwork and her psych evaluation looked great.” Although not required by the FAA, Northeastern Southwest required psychological screening for all air crew before they could join Team “We fly everywhere!”.
“And?”
“And that’s it. Honestly. No red flags. She even joked a little about how being an orphan actually helped her choose this line of work—no family to let down when she’d inevitably work during the holidays.”
“But… she has a family. A brother, at least. That’s what she said when we saw each other in Boston and she freaked right out. Because, again, something’s up with her.”
“Ava, honestly, that’s all I can tell you. And I shouldn’t have told you even that much. If you don’t want to file a complaint, my hands are tied.”
“There’s nothing to file a complaintfor,” Ava fretted.
“Then I’m ending this conversation by assuring you that I don’t think you’re in any physical danger from Becka Miller.”
“Well, that—wait, just physical danger?”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Am I in emotional danger? Psychological danger? Jan? Hello?” Dammit. One thing about Jan, she was as ruthless as Ava about ending phone calls. When she said she was hanging up (so to speak—did they even have the phone receivers required to hang up over at Human Resources? Or were they all on their smartphones?), she never bluffed.
