The Interview, a novella

What would you trade to stop being invisible?

To have somewhere to be on Monday morning. To stop doing the math at 3 AM—the mortgage, the credit cards, the slow bleed of savings that ran dry months ago. To look your wife in the eye without flinching.

Dale Kinney knows exactly what he'd trade.

Anything.

When he sits down across from Ms. Vance at Linden Creek Logistics, he's ready to give the usual performance: the firm handshake, the success stories, the five-year plan. But she doesn't want his resume. She wants to know about his daughter's eighth birthday. His father's dying words. The last time he felt like a whole person.

So he tells her.

And every answer costs him something he didn't know he could lose.

The door is behind him. Open. Waiting. He could walk out at any moment—except he can't, because what would he tell Linda? How do you explain that you quit your thirteenth interview because something felt wrong?

You don't. You stay. You answer the next question.

You give them what they want.

That's the deal. That's always been the deal.