14
Dale suddenly realized that while he’d focused on talking to two people, the whole world had focused on him.
The room was still cramped and crowded, decorated in a dozen different shades of beige and too full of haphazardly rearranged folding chairs. It smelled of too many people who’d worked too long a day and then dragged themselves into this tiny room with not nearly enough air conditioning. The thin industrial carpet mocked Dale’s sore feet.
But all those conversations that had been going on around him had dissolved into a thick semicircle of faces watching him.
Dale’s heart fluttered. He felt uncomfortably aware of every pair of eyes, as if they could see through his flabby body and pick out his lousy diet and discomfort with people and the fact that he’d rather be home hacking
