Over the course of the next week following previous encounters, Fernando's #1 Fan came to visit every single day. At first it was an entertaining distraction from the usual grind, but before long things evolved from “entertaining” to “irksome” before reaching “annoying.” She would come by nearer to closing time when business was but a slow trickle. Then she would come by about ten minutes before closing time and linger about the store, resisting Fernando's increasingly obvious hints that she leave so he can accomplish the shit that needs accomplishing in his life aside from running the store. On the occasions when his vexation reached critical mass and he all but bodily ushered her out the door she begged Fernando to relent. Overall, bothersome.
One evening Carlos, one of Fernando's good friends, swung by the store not long after closing to “shoot the breeze,” and it was at a time that #1 Fan was loitering. She skedaddled from the scene when Carlos pulled up and as Fernando unbarred the door to allow him entry Carlos asked, “Who was that?”
So Fernando related the tale of how her presence had come to be a nigh-permanent fixture at the Dominion, all because Fernando had been charismatic and personable to her on one innocuous occasion. Carlos took this all in and finally said, “You need to just put your foot down.”
“I've been trying to do that. She seems to think that we are best friends just because I said some nice things to her one day.”
“That's because she's a high school girl. Do you want me to talk to her?”
“No, I've got to settle this problem for myself. Else it looks like I'm too cowardly to tackle my problems head-on.”
“Alright, man. If you need a wingman or anything, just let me know.”
But #1 Fan did not return to the store the next day, nor the day after, and not for a great long while. Fernando later finds out through the grapevine that Carlos encountered her at a local grocery store one day and made oblique hints that Fernando is a nice guy to everybody because part of his job is being a nice guy (provided the person in question is deserving of such treatment, of course). That seemed to snap her back to reality.
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