Missing Things - FIRST DRAFT

ensuring findability

"'Coffee Collective'?" Carl whispered to himself as he looked out the office kitchen window at the coffee shop. He hadn't remembered it having a sign. Maybe the sign had just gone up. "'Coffee Collective'. 'Panini Plus'. 'Sandwich Select'." He took a sip of his water. "Alliteration avenue."

He heard someone behind him and turned around to see who it was.

"Mike!" he exclaimed. "How're you doing?"

Mike smiled. "Good, good! What brings you in on a Wednesday?"

"I have a thing this afternoon nearby," Carl said.

Mike was making himself a Nespresso using one of the office coffee pods. "Ah. I thought maybe you had decided to add Wednesdays to your repertoire of days in the office."

"No. One day is enough for me."

"I hear you," Mike said, coming over to stand next to Carl. "Anything good happening outside?"

"No," Carl said. "Just noticing that all the restaurants that open across the streets have alliterations in their names."

"Everyone likes a good alliteration." Mike took a sip of his coffee. "God this stuff is awful."

"You should bring in your own pods the way everyone else does."

"No, then the bastards win." Mike took another sip of his coffee and grimaced. "But maybe I'm willing to concede defeat."

Carl laughed.

"What are you doing for lunch?" Mike asked.

"I hadn't really thought that far ahead," Carl lied. He had thought much farther ahead than lunch. He had thought about answering the bathroom note, then walking around to see if he could find Brad. He had thought about seeing if Brad was free for lunch, and if he was, asking him to go to Sandwich Select with him, and then casually suggesting going to Coffee Collective together, and maybe then asking him if he'd want to go to the event in the evening.

"Great!" Mike said. "Let's do lunch. We can check out that place that opened where that place that replaced Elena's used to be. I'll bring Brad along, too, if you don't mind."

Carl's heart jumped. "No, I don't mind. That's fine."

"Great," Mike said, walking off. "See you at lunch."

***

The restaurant that had replaced Elena's had closed, rebranded itself as a "modern public house", and reopened. It was almost the same menu, but with higher prices.

Brad was avoiding eye contact with Carl, and Carl felt awkward. He tried to relax as they all talked about what to order, but he kept being distracted by the way Brad would look at him then look away.

"So," Mike said to Carl after the waiter had taken their order, "Brad and I took your advice and got phones and laptops specific for work."

Carl smiled. "No kidding? I'm happy I helped you guys out!"

"Yeah," Mike said. "I almost had to buy a new personal phone and laptop, though because Collaborate Plus kept giving me a security error each time I tried to uninstall it."

"What?" Carl exclaimed. "Really? How?"

Mike took a drink of his water and sighed. "It just wouldn't let me uninstall. It kept giving me a popup that said that uninstalling it was a violation of company policy. Not only that, but when I called the support line, they told me that they couldn't help me uninstall it because it violated company policy! I had to look up a hack for how to uninstall it. But eventually it worked. I still had to reset my phone and machine to factory settings, though."

"Fuck!" Carl exclaimed. "That's awful!"

"But because of Mike's trouble, I was saved trouble," Brad said, smiling. "I did his hack right away."

Carl smiled at Brad, but Brad looked away.

"Anyways," Mike said, "now we can talk to each other without worrying that anyone else will spy on us. We should exchange numbers. Brad and I already have each other's numbers. We should get yours too, Carl."

"Sure," Carl said.

They exchanged numbers and their food came.

"Did you hear about Arthur?" Mike asked, taking a bite of his 'hand-pressed' burger.

"No, what about him?" Carl said.

"He was let go," Mike said. "Or maybe he left. Or was asked to leave. All I know is that he's gone and so is Darren's whole team."

Carl was stunned. "Didn't they just hire Darren's team?"

"Yup," Mike said. "But now they're gone. They're gone and Arthur's gone. At this point any of us could be gone at any time. Which is why we need to exchange numbers. That way we can stay in touch even if we lose our jobs tomorrow."