A Familiar Device and a Trope: "For the Best?" You Decide

Ann Beattie's story "For the Best" in the March 14, 2016 New Yorker opens with a familiar device: there will be a meeting of possible consequence later in the story and, of course, we are immediately curious as to what's going to happen even though we know little more about anything at this point. It's a part of human nature that writers regularly prey upon and most of the time, we're hooked.

Gerald, a well-off elderly Manhattanite is, as usual, invited to a friend's annual Christmas party, but this time a "heads-up" email sent just before the invite arrives tells him his former wife, who he hasn't seen in 31 years, has been invited as well. Just to make sure readers understand the portent of this development, we are told the email contains not just one but two exclamation points.