THE INTERVIEW

2: First Contact

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The interview room was cold.

Dale noticed it the moment he crossed the threshold—a drop of several degrees, enough to make him glad he'd kept his jacket on. The cold had a quality to it, institutional and deliberate, the kind of temperature that said this room was for business, not comfort. Conference rooms were always cold. He'd sat in enough of them over thirty-two years to know. Something about keeping people alert, or maybe just saving money on the heating bill.

Ms. Vance gestured to a chair on the near side of a rectangular table. "Please, have a seat."

The table was laminate, fake wood grain, the kind of surface that showed every fingerprint and water ring. Two chairs faced each other across it—burgundy vinyl, cousins to the one in the waiting room. A glass of water sat in front of his chair, already poured, a ring of condensation pooling at its base. He didn't remember seeing anyone pour it.

On her side of the table: a legal pad, a silver pen, and a coffee cup with steam rising from its surface.

"Thank you." He sat. The chair was harder than it looked, the cushion compressed by years of bodies before his. His back registered the new position and sent up a fresh complaint. He ignored it.

The room had no windows. He noticed this the way he'd noticed it in the waiting room—delayed, reluctant. Four walls, painted that same shade of nothing-beige. Drop ceiling, acoustic tiles gone slightly yellow with age. Fluorescent lights in a panel fixture, one tube flickering at the edge of his vision in a rhythm that felt random but probably wasn't.

On the ceiling, above and behind Ms. Vance's chair, there was a water stain.

He found himself looking at it—an oblong shape, brown at the edges, some old leak from years ago that no one had bothered to fix. It sat there like a bruise on the ceiling, darker at the center, fading toward the margins. Something about it made him want to look away.

He looked away.

Ms. Vance settled into her chair across from him. She moved without hurry, without the small adjustments most people made when they sat—the shifting of weight, the smoothing of fabric. She simply sat, and then she was still.

"Before we begin," she said, "can I get you anything? More water?"

"No, thank you. I'm fine."

He wasn't. His mouth was dry, had been dry since he walked through the door, but he didn't want to drink yet. Didn't want to seem nervous. The glass sat in front of him, sweating.

"Well then." She picked up her pen, opened the legal pad to a fresh page. "Thank you for coming in today, Dale. I hope the drive from Greensboro wasn't too difficult."

"It was fine, thank you. Not much traffic this time of morning."

"Good, good." She made a note, her handwriting small and precise. "So. Let's begin."

---

Q1. "Tell me a little about yourself. I'm curious about the man behind the resume."

Standard opening. He'd answered this question a hundred times. The words came automatically, a script he could recite in his sleep.

"Well, I've spent thirty-two years in warehouse and distribution—started as a picker right out of high school, worked my way up through supervision, operations management. I'm the kind of person who—" He paused, recalibrating. Don't sound rehearsed. Sound natural. Sound like a human being having a conversation. "I'm someone who shows up. Does the work. Whatever needs doing, I figure out how to do it. I've always believed that reliability matters more than anything else in this industry. Anyone can have a good day. The question is whether you're there on the hard days too."

Ms. Vance nodded, writing. The pen moved in quick, precise strokes.

---

Q2. "And you've been with several companies over those thirty-two years. Linden Creek would be—what? Your sixth?"

"Sixth, yes." He kept his voice steady. "Though one of those was only a few months. I've had to adapt to a changing industry. Plants close, companies consolidate. But I've always landed somewhere."

"Until recently."

It wasn't a question. He answered it anyway.

"Until recently. Yes."

She looked at him. Her eyes were an indeterminate color—not quite gray, not quite blue. Like her blazer. Like something that refused to be named.

"Eleven months is a long time to be searching. That must be difficult."

"It has its challenges." Understatement. The word difficult didn't cover 3 AM panic attacks, didn't cover the way Linda looked at him now with something that might be pity, didn't cover the slow erosion of every belief he'd ever held about hard work and fairness. "But I've stayed focused. Kept my skills sharp. I know what I bring to the table."

"I'm sure you do." She made another note. The scratch of pen on paper was the only sound in the room now. The HVAC had gone quiet. Even the flickering fluorescent tube seemed to have steadied.

---

Q3. "What interested you about Linden Creek specifically?"

Another standard question. He'd researched the company the way he researched all of them—the website, the press releases, the Glassdoor reviews. Mixed, like everywhere.

"Distribution is distribution in some ways, but Linden Creek has a reputation for investing in its people. The training programs, the promotion-from-within philosophy. That matters to me. I've been at companies that treat warehouse staff like interchangeable parts, and I've been at companies that understand the value of experience. I'd like to be at the second kind again."

"Experience matters to you."

"It's all I have."

The words came out before he could stop them—too honest, too raw. He saw something flicker in Ms. Vance's expression, there and gone, and he moved quickly to cover.

"What I mean is, thirty-two years teaches you things you can't learn any other way. How to read a team. How to spot problems before they become crises. When to push and when to step back. That kind of knowledge—it doesn't show up on a resume."

"No," she agreed. "It doesn't."

She wrote something else. The scratch of pen on paper seemed louder now, more deliberate.

---

Q4. "Tell me about your family, Dale. Do you have support at home while you're going through this transition?"

"I do. My wife Linda—we've been married thirty-one years. She works at a doctor's office, front desk, keeps things steady while I'm—" He gestured vaguely. While I'm failing, he didn't say. While I'm becoming someone she has to carry instead of someone she can lean on. "She's been great. Very supportive."

"Thirty-one years. That's a long time."

"We got lucky." The phrase came out automatic, meaningless. "Got lucky and worked at it."

"And Melissa? How is she handling her father's situation?"

Dale blinked.

The question sat in the air between them, ordinary and impossible.

"I'm sorry?"

"Your daughter." Ms. Vance's pen was still. Her eyes were on him, that not-quite-blue, not-quite-gray. "It must be hard for her too, seeing you go through this. Children worry about their parents, even when they're grown."

He hadn't mentioned Melissa. He was certain he hadn't mentioned Melissa. He'd talked about Linda because she was relevant—support at home, stability during transition—but Melissa hadn't come up. There'd been no reason to bring her up.

"She's... fine," he heard himself say. "She lives in Charlotte. We don't talk as much as we should."

"That's a shame." Ms. Vance resumed writing. "Family is so important."

He reached for the water glass. His hand was steady—he made sure it was steady—but his throat had closed around something that felt like a stone. The water was cold, colder than it should have been after sitting on the table. He set the glass down carefully.

On Ms. Vance's side of the table, the coffee cup still steamed. She hadn't touched it.

---

Q5. "Do you have any questions so far? About the role, the company, anything at all?"

"Not yet." His voice sounded normal. He was almost sure it sounded normal. "I'm sure I'll have some as we go."

"Of course. We'll have plenty of time." She smiled, and he tried to find in that smile the wrongness he'd felt a moment ago, the strangeness of a question she shouldn't have been able to ask. But her face was only professional, pleasant, the face of an HR representative doing her job. "Now—let's talk about your experience in more detail. Walk me through your career, starting wherever feels natural."

The interview continued.

Dale talked about Morrison, about Consolidated, about the brief stint at AMF Industries that he still didn't like to think about. He talked about inventory systems and shift management, about the time he'd caught a loading dock theft and the time he'd trained a crew of temps who didn't speak English and the time he'd worked seventy-two hours straight when the ice storm knocked out power to half the warehouse.

He talked, and Ms. Vance listened.

She was a good listener. Better than good. When he spoke, she gave him her full attention—not the performative attention of someone waiting for their turn to talk, but something deeper, more complete. She absorbed what he said. He could feel it, the way she took in his words and held them somewhere behind those not-quite-colored eyes.

It felt good to be heard like that. He hadn't realized how long it had been since anyone had really listened to him.

The cold in the room had settled into his bones. His mouth was dry again—he'd only taken one sip from the water glass, but he didn't want to drink more, didn't want to show need. The water stain on the ceiling sat at the edge of his vision, that ugly shape he kept not-quite-looking at. The door was behind him—he'd come through it, he knew it was there—but he hadn't looked at it since he sat down.

There was no clock in this room.

He noticed it suddenly, with a small jolt of surprise. The waiting room had a clock. The hallway probably had a clock. But this room—just the beige walls, the fluorescent lights, the water stain spreading across the ceiling.

He was doing well. He could feel it, the way you could sometimes feel an interview going right—the rhythm of question and answer, the nods of understanding, the notes being taken. This was different from the other twelve. This one might actually lead somewhere.

Ms. Vance's coffee cup still steamed. The level hadn't dropped. She hadn't lifted it once.

"I think we've covered the basics," she said, and something in her voice had shifted—a new register, a new intention. "Now I'd like to move into some more specific questions about your experience. Are you ready?"

"Of course."

She smiled. The smile was still professional, still pleasant, but there was something behind it now. Something that made him think of a door being opened onto a room he couldn't quite see.

"Good," she said. "Then let's continue."