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I’m not able to take your call right now. Please leave your name and phone number with area code, even if you think I have it …”

    Shit. I debated whether to call her cell phone. She was probably working; she worked a lot of the weekend. I shouldn’t interrupt her. I could handle this on my own, at least for a while longer.

    Plan, plan, just come up with a plan. How hard could it be? Break it down, like Dan said. What’s my objective? To be a writer. No, that’s the goal. Or is it the dream? Shit.

    Go to the drawer.

    It was like a command issued from my very soul. I stared over at the drawer in fright. The dresser drawer, which held my never-finished everythings, dating back to college: short stories, novellas, novels, poems, plays, screenplays. I’d even managed to walk away from a short short story—conceived as a two-pager, I went to make grilled cheese at the end of the first page and lost my will. I’d saved them all because I was a chronic recycler. One particular character named Lucius popped up no fewer than six times in completely unrelated works.

    I hadn’t written anything in at least a year, though I nursed the assumption that deep down, no matter what, I was still a writer. But if I opened that drawer, and read what was inside, I might learn that I didn’t have talent. I might learn that even my dream was wrong. I’d have nothing.

    No, I’d have clarity. I needed to know: did I have talent or didn’t I? If I didn’t, I was going to walk away, once and for all. If I did, well, that was another problem entirely. Taking a deep breath, I opened the drawer.

    Three hours later, I collapsed in despair on top of a libretto I’d attempted my sophomore year. The best I could say was that I was not untalented, but I surely didn’t have enough talent to wait around to be discovered. I’d actively have to do something, probably a lot of something. I’d have to practice my craft. I’d have to figure out my market. I’d have to work hard, and suffer, and buttress myself against rejection, and take risks.

    I was no good at those things.

    Which was why, at that point, I started e-mailing everyone I knew to ask for a job, any job. Some were people I’d met only once, some were friends of a friend, some were men who’d tried to date me. Finally a real-life application of my coordinator skills. I sorted according to categories. Men who’d tried to date me got e-mails that made no mention of my relationship status. “Friend of a friend” e-mails featured a prominent mention of that friend in the introductory paragraph. People who knew how the game was played—i.e., that everyone has to use any connection in a market like this—got to-the-point e-mails with a resume attached. People who were more sensitive to exploitation got chatty e-mails that sandwiched my job situation in the middle of the update and had no resume attached.

    Taking action was calming. I’d never had a problem getting a job before, especially since I’d cultivated such low standards; something would come through. And just when I’d sent the last e-mail, the phone rang. I leaped for it. Kathy, with her impeccable timing. But something told me to check the caller ID first.

    It was my mother, the very reason I had caller ID. My mother has always seen disaster lurking around every corner, particularly when it comes to me. She called every other week, and a maximum of five days could elapse between her screened call and my return call. If it took me longer than five days to respond, she called again and insinuated that I hadn’t called her back because I had something to hide. But by varying the number of days between her call and when we actually spoke, I could manipulate the system so that we’d talk about every three weeks. During our phone calls, she asked the same series of questions, all designed to make sure I wasn’t screwing up my life too badly. These calls did not in any way resemble normal conversation. When I