Spy School Reject

Story Submitted by Steve:

Dina and I met online, wrote each other e-mails, and had a pretty typical getting-to-know-you phase.

That was, until two weeks into the messages and late night phone calls.  I was preparing to ask her on a date, when a message appeared in my dating site inbox.

It read: "Don't date Dina.  Do yourself a favor."

The account from which it had been sent had seemingly been deleted shortly after the message was written.

It was unsettling, especially as I hadn't told anyone else that I was speaking to Dina.  Therefore, she must have shared her interactions with me with a third party.  I usually wouldn't mind that, but now that someone else had become involved, it was confusing and I decided to address it directly.

In my next phone conversation with Dina, I told her about the message.

"That's strange.  I didn't mention you to anyone," she said.

I asked if anyone might have overheard her during a phone conversation with me, but she denied that as a possibility.  So here we stood, someone knew that I was speaking with her, but neither of us, apparently, had told anyone else.

In any event, I asked her on a date, and she said yes.

Two days before, another message appeared in my inbox, on the same dating site, from another deleted account:

"Don't go out with her.  You'll be in trouble."

What the hell?  I ignored it and didn't mention it to her.

The next day, the day before our date, a final message appeared, from yet another deleted account:

"I warned you.  Now reap the benefits."

Okay, then.  All bark, no bite, I guessed.  I didn't plan to mention any of it to her.  Maybe it was a jealous former boyfriend?  Whatever.  It didn't matter.

I arrived at the restaurant on time, and while I sat in the vestibule and waited for Dina, a waitress approached me with a note.

She asked me if I was Steve, and she handed the note to me and walked away.

The note read: "Last chance.  I warned you, didn't I?"

I folded the note and stuck it into my pocket.  A thought struck me: the person sending the messages and leaving the notes, if Dina had told no one else, had to have been Dina herself.  The messages came from the dating site on which we met, after all.  Was she playing some sort of stupid game?

To test this theory, I ducked into the restaurant, asked the same waitress for a piece of paper and a pen, hastily wrote my own note, and pocketed it.

Dina arrived a couple of minutes later.  We sat down to the table, and I acted nervous, as if I expected us to be watched.

As I thought she might, she asked, "What's wrong?"

I said to her, "I got your note."

She asked, "What note?"

I pulled out the one I wrote myself, the one that said, "You're a schmuck."

I smiled at her and said, "The waitress told me that someone matching your description handed it to her to give to me.  It's all just a joke, right?"

She looked at it and said, "That's not what my note said.  She must have switched them up herself.  Mine said 'last chance.'"

I asked, "I figured that it was you.  Why would you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Send me those messages and that note, warning me to stay away from you?  That's a little weird."

She said, "I never did anything like that.  What are you talking about?"

I reminded her, "You just admitted it.  You said that your note said, 'last chance.'"

I pulled out her actual note to confirm.  "See?"

"I didn't write that," she said, "It must have been someone else."

"But you just admitted it!"

"No, I didn't!"

I stared at her, collected my thoughts, and said, "Tell me the truth or I'm leaving."

She said, "I didn't write anything.  I don't know what you're talking about."

"Fine."

I left and deleted my profile as soon as I made it home.