In March of the second year, a woman named Claire Dunmore asked to interview me. She was writing a piece for a trade publication about corporate restructuring and the quiet cost of layoff lists, and she had gotten a tip from someone who had been on the Meridian list. She would not say who.
We met at a coffee shop near my office. She was in her thirties, sharp, with a recorder she asked permission to use and a notebook she used anyway.
"I want to ask you about the Meridian restructuring," she said. "Specifically the seventeen-person list and the extended packages that came out a few days after the initial announcement."
"Okay."
"Two people have told me the extension came from nowhere. HR announced it as a re-evaluation. But the timing was odd. It was right after you left."
"I can't com
