Grasping her straw between two fingers, Ebony made a point of taking a sip of her tea as she eyeballed Rachael overtop of the glass. “Really, Rach. I don’t know what’s gotten into you lately,” she said, setting the drink aside. “I know you’ve been distracted, but Frank couldn’t even find you this morning, and when I called, you didn’t answer, not even your cell.”

Rachael tipped her head to the side, confusion washing over her. Not much of what Ebony had just said made any sense at all. Before she could ask for clarification, the waitress came over. A petite blonde with bright white teeth, she seemed a little more cheerful than anyone should be before 5:00 cocktails. “Hi! I’m Marie. What can I getcha?”

One of the reasons Rachael loved this cafe more than most others in the area was because it was a table service, but at the moment, she could’ve done without the interruption.

She hadn’t even looked at the menu yet, though she was familiar with what was on it. On the way over, she’d been considering ordering something new, but since Marie’s beaming smile was starting to sear her eyeballs, she just ordered her usual. “I’ll have the chicken club, chips, and a Diet Coke, please.”

“Sure thing,” Marie said, making no notation but grabbing the menus off of the table and bouncing away.

When Rachael turned back to Ebony, she had her phone in her hand and was scrolling, murmuring to herself about which emails were important, and which weren’t. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” she exclaimed pressing on her phone with one finger like she was trying to jab a spear through a fish. “We lost the Stenzel account?” Ebony slowly shook her head, her eyes wide, and then she read through the entire email quickly under her breath. When she was finished, she huffed and slammed her phone down on the table. “I can’t believe this.”

“Sorry,” Rachael said, trying to sound sympathetic. She’d worked on the Stenzel account back when she was still employed at Merek and Merek, so she knew it was a lot of money, but Mr. Stenzel was such a pain in the ass to deal with, she sort of felt glad for whoever just unburdened themselves from that guy.

“I’m gonna have to get back to the office.” Ebony grabbed her glass and took a long drink. “See, hon, this is why you should’ve been on time. I had a few things I wanted to tell you about, but now I can’t because I have work to do.” She placed her glass back on the table and picked up her giant, burgundy Michael Kors bag from beneath the table, shoving her phone inside. Rachael wasn’t surprised to see the bag matched her shoes perfectly, and the accent color complimented her gray and black pencil skirt and slate top. She really was a snazzy dresser.

Ebony took some money out of her wallet and tossed it on the table. While no one had brought the bill yet, it was definitely enough to cover her part. Standing, she added, “You should think about getting back to work, too. Did you already take a lunch before this one? Why weren’t you here at 12:00? You should at least call Frank back. He’s already pretty pissed you weren’t there this morning. Where were you anyway?”

Rachael watched the whirlwind in front of her, considering whether or not she should protest Ebony leaving. She had just driven all the way downtown to have lunch with her friend. But then… if Ebony was going to act all weird and yelly, did she even want to see her? So many questions floated around in her mind. Why did Ebony think they were supposed to meet at 12:00 instead of 12:30? Why did she keep talking about Frank? And… was she implying that Rachael did not have work to do?

Before she got a chance to reply to anything Ebony had just said or throw some accusatory remarks of her own out onto the table, Ebony’s phone rang. “Oh, shoot!” She opened her bag and stuck her hand in, searching for a second before she pulled it out.

“Eb…” Rachael began, but she could see there was no sense in replying. Ebony was already on the phone, talking to someone back at her office. She took a few steps toward the door. “See you later,” Rachael called, flabbergasted.

Lowering the mouthpiece so the person on the other end would know she was speaking to someone else, her friend replied, “Yep, see you back there,” and then made her way out of the cafe into the throng of lunch-seekers.

Rachael followed her with her eyes until she disappeared into the crowd. “What just happened?” she asked, not for the first time that day. Everything was so weird! First… her cat had been bonkers all morning. Then, there’d been that weird shift in the ground, like an earthquake, but no damage that she could see or had heard of. And now, Ebony was acting like Rachael had shown up super late to lunch and made her company lose a major account. “So bizarre….”

She turned back around to see Marie bringing her food over. The waitress set her plate and glass down. “Here you go!” Eyeing the money on the table, she asked, “Oh, did your friend leave?”

“Yeah, she had to get back to work.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Well, lots of people eat lunch alone.” She gave Rachael a sympathetic smile and picked up the bills off of the table.

Rachael wanted to tell her that she was actually never alone because thousands of characters lived in her head, but she recognized the crazy before it came out of her mouth, so she ignored the remark.

“She was here for a long time by herself, too,” Marie went on. “Guess someone got the time wrong.” She made a soft, “hmph” sound, like she just knew it had to be Rachael, and then added,“Enjoy your lunch,” and headed off to annoy someone else.

If the chicken club didn’t look so delicious, Rachael might’ve just tossed her own set of bills on the table and left. But she hadn’t had any breakfast, so there was no way she was walking away from the food she’d bought. Besides, it definitely didn’t bother her to eat alone. She just couldn’t figure out what was wrong with everyone.

Deciding none of it really mattered much anyway, Ebony was probably just in a weird mood, and her friend probably looked at the text wrong that confirmed they’d meet at 12:30, Rachael dug into her sandwich, getting through the first half and a good deal of chips before the nagging question began to eat at her again. There was really only one way to prove that she wasn’t that late. Dusting her hands off on a napkin, she pulled her phone out of her purse.

As soon as she unlocked it, she noticed she had three missed calls and a voicemail. Since no one ever called her but scammers, which were usually caught by her fraud detection app, and her mother, who wouldn’t call until much later in the evening unless it was an emergency, Rachael found it odd that she had a message and forgot about the text for a second as she flipped to her calls. It would make sense that all three would be from Ebony.

But they weren’t. Only one missed call was from her friend, and that one had been from much earlier in the morning.

Rachael’s eyebrows knit together as she rested her hand on her fist, elbow propped on the table, and contemplated how she hadn’t known she had a missed call before she left home. She was pretty sure she’d checked her phone before she left the house. “Maybe whatever that earthquake thing was knocked out some of the cell towers,” she thought. But… the call was earlier than that, and so were the other two, both from Merek and Merek, though different numbers.

Rachael clicked on her voicemail and waited for it to connect. When Frank Merek’s familiar voice hit her ear, her stomach tightened up. He’d been a nice enough boss, but the thought of being back in corporate America was nauseating to say the least.

“Hello, Rachael. Frank here. I, uh… was just looking for you to talk about the Stenzel account. Haven’t seen you. Hope you’re okay. Give me a call when you can, and let me know what’s going on. Thanks.”

“Everything okay?” Marie was back, her smile tight around the corners of her mouth, like maybe she wasn’t okay, and her eyes darted behind Rachael to the door.

A glance over her shoulder let Rachael know why. There were more people waiting than tables available, and she was just one person. It was just as well. She’d lost her appetite anyway. “Fine, thanks. Can I have a to-go box. And the check?”

“Of course!” Marie perked right up at the idea that she was leaving and bounded off to get the requested items.

Rachael stared at her phone, contemplating what she should do. It seemed awfully peculiar that Frank Merek would call her to talk about the Stenzel account. She hadn’t touched it in almost a year. There had to be someone else who would know more than she did. Maybe the threat of losing it had him desperate to get any information he could from anyone. And of course he hadn’t seen her, not for a long while--she didn’t work there anymore. Deciding it was best to let the current employees of Merek and Merek straighten it out, Rachael put her phone away and got out her wallet to pay the check. Whatever was going on in the universe, it needed to straighten itself out because Rachael was beginning to think maybe she was the one that was losing it.