I'd just settled in back in the city that evening, when I received a Facebook message from Ashley confirming what Krista had told me. I felt bad for Ashley, because not only was it a really sour note to end an already crappy weekend, but also because she missed arguably the best tennis match of all time, Nadal's five set triumph over Federer. I felt bad, but not bad enough to respond. I was still pretty pissed, so I went to sleep.
Now let me pause to tell you briefly about my set up at work at this time. I was working on an extremely large trading floor. How large you ask...you can air out a fly pattern from one end to the other pretty easily. And more, not a single soul inhabited a single seat on the ENTIRE trading floor except for my friend Jenny, who was in my program and was also interning in the same group. The two of us sat next to each other in the back corner of the last row. It was the world largest corner office as far as I was concernd, with windows all around, and just the buzzing of computers and fluorescent lights. I'm sitting at my desk on Monday and it couldn't have been much before 10am that I received a text from Ashley saying hello. We were clearly regressing, as her last two attempts to reach out were via Facebook and texting, and not talking over the phone. I had bigger fish to fry though. I'd told this story to a few friends at this point and as you could imagine it piqued some serious interest. As such, I thought that it might be better to assess this situation with Krista and Ashley with multiple people versus just me. So I assembled what came to be known as "Team Krashley", you know, a mash-up of Krista and Ashley, like Brad and Angelina's "Brangelina".
Team Krashley would end up expanding extraordinarily quickly, but I'll just tell you the original participants. Eric, who I mentioned in last week's edition, had taken an immediate fascination with this story and like me, really wanted to know who this girl actually was, aside from just the "stats" that I'd gathered over the past few weeks. James, an early proponent of the "there's something here that we're missing" school of thought, and methodical thinker and puzzle solver. Amanda, basically Amanda was the closer, like Mariano Rivera. If we were close, she was going to tie a bow around it, and actually had done so in another strange "caper" back in college (don't even bother asking because I don't have the time). My sister, who's Facebooking abilities are unparalleled, and also, my Dad was still maintained an interest, because like everyone else (and you) he was curious as to what the hell had happened that Saturday.
Team Krashley knew one thing: something was clearly amiss, and we were going to stop at pretty much nothing to figure it out. So we held several conference calls that monday laying out what we knew as the facts. I re-hashed the story and the lead up to that Saturday more times than I cared for but it was worth it, because we began asking each other questions that pointed to a number of strange issues. But before I go there, back to Ashley...
On Monday night I called Ashley. I wasn't having any of this Facebook or text messaging grab-ass anymore. She picked up, and we spoke, but really didn't hit too much on that past Saturday since I think we'd beaten a dead horse already. I said, "let's meet up tomorrow" for a drink. She said no, citing some event and some other issues at work, which had apparently become a major concern for her. I knew work was tough and she thought she could get let go, but now she seemed to suggest that this could easily be her last week. After she said no, I kind of just let the conversation die. I wasn't interested in talking about politics or Sesame street or scallops or otters. I wanted a date. Talk was cheap. I said goodnight.
The next day Team Krashley had an early conference call. First item up was the issue of Ashley's employment at Elle Magazine. Now earlier I told you that Ashley was only a contributor to the mag. I'd googled and I couldn't find a story with any byline mentioning Ashley York. Team Krashley agreed that we needed to figure out if Ashley really worked at Elle. We all agreed we'd call Elle's office and ask to speak to Ashley York separately to see what happened. Well, it was unanimous, there was no Ashley York who worked at Elle.
I protested though saying that she wasn't a full-time employee, but I had to say that it was interesting that nobody at Elle knew anything of this Ashley York, contributor, full-time, part-time or otherwise. But if you remembered from last week, I'd seen a blond in a black BMW drive by me as I sat outside of La Fondita. It had to have been her. It really did. What did a bitchy secretary at Elle know about part-time contributors anyway.
I thought a lot about it that night. I think I saw her. I knew I spoke to her. This Elle thing really was strange though but I could easily explain why her name wasn't on anything associated with the magazine. We actually caught up from a brief second that night after her event. She said that she wished we'd gone out instead of her going to this horrible work event. I'd wished the same thing, but I kept to myself. She sounded really sweet over the phone, like she knew she'd messed up, but maybe that was me projecting. We said goodnight and then I got a message from Krista..
July 8, 2008 at 12:18am
She justgot home and its the first time Ive seen her since. She came back from this foo foo fete. I askked her in passing bout u and she said shes a little confused. Shes ok w/ everything and said u wrote a nice email to her YAYAYAY! But shes a lil irked bout this past wknd. But thenwas like u wanted to see her tonite. And that u were really persistent bout it.
I think u need to just be u and let it come naturally. Think u two went thru somethin awkward and need to just do what u to do and talk. Maybe dont add the pressure of mtg up but get her all gaga bout u again. Just my opinion. U still like her?
I think u need to just be u and let it come naturally. Think u two went thru somethin awkward and need to just do what u to do and talk. Maybe dont add the pressure of mtg up but get her all gaga bout u again. Just my opinion. U still like her?
I responded...
July 9, 2008 at 12:40am
I got to work the next morning and stared at my computer screen. I recalled Ashley saying that she had had an event at the MoMA in Brooklyn. I remembered at the time thinking that there was no MoMA in Brooklyn, so I called the MoMA and asked to speak to someone in event planning. A very nice girl picked up and we had a lovely conversation. I asked her if Elle had recently had an event at the MoMA, and her answer, "yes". So maybe Ashley had been telling the truth. The girl interrupted, "wait, no, I'm sorry, they have an event scheduled for this Fall, they didn't have an event last week". And as for the MoMA in Brooklyn, "no, there's no such thing". I scratched my head and called Team Krashley. We all agreed that things were getting awfully weird and really weren't adding up.
What else did we know? Well between the bunch of us we knew a lot of people who had gone to Spence during the years that Ashley had attended the school. And if you don't know, there are probably 30 or so girls in each grade, so it's a very small school. The next day when we reconvened, the answers were unanimous, nobody had recalled a pretty British girl joining their classes. I had 500 people in my high school class, and I'm pretty sure I could name close to 80% of them if really pressed, so in a class of 30, if someone didn't remember someone, I mean, I don't know, but that's suspect. To be thorough, we then asked all of our Georgetown contacts too, and nobody had heard of her either, not even the alumni representative for the Class of 2004 which was Ashley's class.
The best part of Team Krashley was that we fueled each other's madness and we would constantly update one another even with the most trivial piece of information. It was kind of fun. As for Jenny, my deskmate, she thought I was absolutely crazy and couldn't understand why on God's green Earth my phone was ringing off the hook...until I told her the story and Team Krashley grew by one. And that was the real beauty of it. Team Krashley continued to grow with every new person that got involved. It was viral. It was crazy. Everyone loves a good mystery. Everyone loves solving a good mystery even more. And we were a bunch of over-achieving New Yorkers with a big network and a slow month of July.
Later that night I checked my facebook and had two messages from Krista from that day continuing on our prior conversation. One message from the morning and one from the evening. I didn't have a blackberry at this point so there was no mobile Facebooking for me, thus all the evening Facebook activity (just so you know).
She wrote...
At this point things had really tapered off with Ashley. I had pretty much stopped "chasing the hot smart girl!!!". Ashley seemed to get kind of desperate on the text, saying she missed me and how she hoped we could give it another try. While I took a pretty passive approach to it all, it was kind of hard to forget about the person I'd really come to enjoy speaking to over the phone. I hadn't completely given up but I just needed to figure some things out, but the more I figured out the more this whole thing not only bothered me, but scared me. In fact, seeing as that Ashley knew where I lived I started getting a little bit paranoid that she was going to sneak up on me as I was coming in my building. I'm being honest. Team Krashley advised me to be alert, and then as we spoke about security James suggested something that I cannot believe we didn't think of earlier. We had a friend who was working at the Department of Homeland Security. Why not just do a background check? Like a full on Hunt for Red October meets The Bourne Identity meets Blackhawk Down meets 100% USDA Certified BACKGROUND CHECK. I mean, we all paid our taxes, so we were surely entitled to one measly government background check per year, right?
We called our friend and left a voicemail. Later that day I get a call on my cell phone from a 202 number. Not 202-something. Just 202. Washington. D. C...it was The Government.
I quickly gave my friend the full rundown. He asked me to send him as much information on Ashley as I knew and he'd see if he could run it to his friend who had the access to run a check. I gave him the kitchen sink. I mean, I poured everything everything everything into email and sent it off. Team Krashley was riding high, but what did this all mean for me?
Everything seemed to point to Ashley not being honest, about anything, yet I was speaking to someone the entire time. It was a real person, and an engaging person at that. But why would this person lie so badly to me, seemingly about everything. It didn't make sense.
That night I got on the computer and started checking out some of the mutual friends I had with Ashley. None. Krista...one. My friend Troy who I'd known since summer camp when we were 8 years old. He grew up in Old Westbury, where Krista had grown up. When I say that Troy knew everyone in Long Island I do not exaggerate.
The next day at work I called Troy and left a voicemail. We didn't speak often, so I just said that I was hoping to catch up with him and that I had a question about someone from Long Island he might know.
Contact with Ashley was beginning to trickle to a slow drip. The second half of the week was even more strange because loudmouth Krista was eerily quiet. We'd made a lot of good progress that week and I awaited two incredibly important calls, one from the United States Department of Homeland Security and one from Troy. I knew one would come through big time, but the one who would come through big time was not the one I anticipated, and further, the call I would get the following week would not only blow this case wide open, but also would take this Ashley York saga into uncharted waters even I wasn't not willing to swim in.
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