THE INTERVIEW

11: The Silence

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Q50.

The door clicked shut, and the room was silent.

Not quiet—silent. The HVAC hum that had been a constant backdrop since Dale sat down was gone. The fluorescent buzz had stopped. Even his own breathing seemed muted, swallowed by an absence of sound so complete it felt physical, a pressure against his eardrums.

He sat in his chair and listened to nothing.

How long had he been here? He checked his watch. The face was blank—not stopped, just blank, the digital display showing nothing at all. He tapped it with his finger. Nothing. He pressed the button on the side. Nothing.

He looked up, searching the walls for a clock. There—he hadn't noticed it before, but there was a clock on the wall behind where Ms. Vance had been sitting. Analog, institutional, white face with black hands.

3:47.

The second hand wasn't moving. He watched it, waiting for the tiny jerk forward that would mean time was still passing. The hand stayed still.

3:47.

That couldn't be right. He'd arrived at nine. His watch had shown 10:47 the last time he'd checked it, nearly two hours into the interview. It couldn't be 3:47. That would mean—

He didn't know what that would mean. He didn't want to know.

Dale looked around the room. The beige walls. The drop ceiling with its yellowed tiles and its water stain—darker now, definitely darker, the brown spreading outward like something growing, something alive. The table with its fake wood grain, the empty chair where Ms. Vance had been sitting, the legal pad she'd left behind.

The legal pad.

He leaned forward, trying to see what she'd written. The pad was angled toward her chair, the pages covered in her small, precise handwriting. He couldn't read it from here. He could stand up, walk around the table, look at her notes. He could see what she'd been writing all this time.

He didn't move.

The door behind him—the door he'd come through, the door that led back to the waiting room, back to the parking lot, back to his car and the highway and home—that door was still there. He could feel it at his back. He could turn around and look at it. He could stand up and walk to it. He could leave.

The thought rose like a bubble and burst against the surface of his mind.

He could leave.

He should leave.

Something was wrong here. He could feel it now, in the silence, in the stopped clock, in the way the room seemed to be holding its breath around him. Something had been wrong since he walked through the door, maybe since before that, and he'd been too focused on the interview, too desperate for the job, to let himself see it.

He should leave.

But what would he tell Linda?

The question surfaced from somewhere deep, practical and damning. What would he tell her when he walked through the door at home? That he'd left in the middle of the interview? That he'd gotten spooked by a stopped clock and a woman who stepped out of the room? That he'd thrown away his thirteenth chance because something felt off?

She'd look at him with those careful eyes. She'd say it was fine, of course it was fine, he'd made the right choice. And underneath the words he'd hear what she was really thinking: Another failure. Another excuse. Another reason to wonder if she'd married the wrong man.

Dale stayed in his chair.

The silence pressed against him. He became aware of his own body in a way he hadn't been before—the ache in his lower back, the stiffness in his neck, the dull pulse of the headache behind his eyes. His mouth was dry. The water glass sat in front of him, empty now. When had he finished it? He didn't remember drinking the last of it.

He looked at the ceiling. The water stain had definitely grown. The oblong shape had spread, its edges creeping toward the corners of the room, reaching like fingers across the acoustic tile.

He looked away.

The legal pad sat on the table, full of notes he couldn't read. The empty chair sat across from him, still holding the impression of Ms. Vance's body. The walls surrounded him, beige and blank and close.

How long had she been gone?

It felt like minutes. It could have been seconds. Time was doing something strange in this room, stretching and compressing in ways that didn't match his sense of duration. He tried to count, to impose some structure on the silence. One. Two. Three. But the numbers felt arbitrary, disconnected from anything real.

He thought about his phone. Still in his pocket, last he'd checked it showing 12% battery and no signal. He could take it out, check the time on that. But he didn't want to see the cracked screen with Melissa's eight-year-old face, didn't want to be reminded of the daughter who'd stopped reaching for him, didn't want to think about the life waiting outside this room.

If there was still a life waiting outside this room.

The thought came from nowhere, cold and strange. Of course there was a life outside. Linda was at work. Melissa was in Charlotte with Tyler and—and the baby. Their baby. His grandson.

What was his grandson's name?

The question surfaced and he reached for the answer automatically. He knew his grandson's name. He'd held him twice, met him twice. Eight months old. He knew the name.

It started with—

It started with—

The name wouldn't come.

Dale pressed his fingers to his temples. The headache was worse, a pressure that seemed to fill his entire skull. He knew his grandson's name. He'd said it earlier, to Ms. Vance, when she'd asked about Melissa. He'd said—

He couldn't remember what he'd said.

Stress, he told himself. Pressure. The mind does strange things under pressure. The name will come back. It always comes back.

But the silence was too complete, and the clock was frozen at 3:47, and the water stain was spreading across the ceiling, and his grandson's name was—was—

The door opened.

Not the door behind him. The other door, the one Ms. Vance had gone through, the door he still couldn't quite believe had always been there. It opened, and she stepped through, and the silence broke like a fever.

The HVAC hummed to life. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The room exhaled.

"I'm sorry about that." She settled back into her chair, smooth and unhurried, as if no time had passed at all. "Where were we?"

Dale stared at her. She looked the same—the blazer in that indeterminate color, the symmetrical face, the patient eyes. But something was different. He couldn't say what. Something in the air, or the light, or the way she held herself.

"How long were you gone?"

Ms. Vance glanced at the clock on the wall. "Just a moment. A few minutes at most."

Dale looked at the clock. 3:47. The second hand was moving now, ticking forward in its steady rhythm.

"The clock says 3:47. It said 3:47 when you left."

"Did it?" She followed his gaze, then looked back at him. "These old analog clocks. They're always getting stuck. Maintenance never seems to fix them."

"My watch isn't working either."

"Technology." She smiled, that professional smile. "It fails us when we need it most. Would you like me to have someone check on that?"

"No, I—" Dale shook his head. The headache was still there, but duller now, receding. "I'm fine. Let's just—let's continue."

"Are you sure? We can take a longer break if you need one."

"I'm sure."

He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure of anything. But he'd been in this room for—how long? Two hours? Three? Longer? He'd come this far. He'd answered all her questions, given her all his failures, opened himself up in ways he'd never opened to anyone. He was so close now. He could feel it, the way you could sometimes feel an interview turning in your favor.

He wasn't going to walk away now. Not when he was so close.

"All right." Ms. Vance picked up her pen, turned to a fresh page on the legal pad. "Then let's talk about your marriage."

Behind Dale, the door waited. The door he'd come through. The door he still hadn't looked at since he sat down.

He didn't look at it now.

"Okay," he said. "Let's talk about my marriage."