The Meeting by Alix Ohlin, 2021
The magic trick:
A stunning ending
I highly recommend this recent gem. It starts like a mostly familiar workplace drama. Our heroes pushed around by corporate layoffs. We get a mostly familiar faux Silicon Valley company to satirize and critique. We even have a mostly familiar flirtation with a potential Jane Austenian romance with the mysterious boss.
“Mostly familiar” isn’t usually a term of endearment, but here, it works perfectly. The reader is lulled into a false sense of comfort. We don’t know what’s going to happen next, but we think we have a handle on the tone.
And then…
And then we are all the more stunned by where the story lands. The ending will floor you.
And that’s quite a trick on Ohlin’s part.
The selection:
She clicked through her email, forwarding client contacts to her personal inbox. She messaged a headhunter. She posted an article about viral marketing on LinkedIn. Bryan and Simone and some others headed to the Mexican restaurant downstairs to get drunk. “I’ll be there in a few,” she promised, and Bryan said, “Just want to steal a last few office supplies?” and she said, “I’ve been coveting your Swingline stapler for months,” and he said, “If you touch my Swingline I will cut you,” and put it in his messenger bag. Everyone laughed hollowly and loud. There was a last-day-of-camp feel to things, an extravagance of emotion, hugging where hugging had not previously been condoned.
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