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think she wants to get back together. Maybe he does too. Should I ask him? That looks too needy, doesn’t it? Am I overreacting?”
    â€œHang on, Tabitha. Breathe.” In the momentary silence broken only by Tabitha’s sniffles and the distinct sound of her blowing her nose, my mind raced. Here was another woman asking me what to do— desperate for me to tell her what to do—when she didn’t know the first thing about me—not even my real name.
    Was it possible that a lot of people were this hungry for direct, one-on-one help in the face of relationship problems?
    Tabitha was still making wet noises on her end of the line, and I realized she was waiting for me to say something. “What do you need me to do for you, Tabitha?” I asked slowly. “How can I help?”
    â€œI want to hire you.”
    And just like that I had my second client.

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    I got the gist of the story in between hitching breaths: Tabitha had started dating her boyfriend, Cooper, five months ago, very shortly after his wife had an affair and then moved away. Now the wife was back in town, and Tabitha was nervous.
    She was at work and didn’t have time for us to go much further into it. And my mind was suddenly bubbling with an idea I couldn’t wait to act on. So after I quoted Tabitha the hourly rate for my breakup doctoring services that Sasha had come up with—without even a warble of hesitation in my voice—and we agreed on a time for our first consultation early next week, I got to snap out something I’d always wanted to say:
    â€œStop the presses.”
    â€œUm...what?” Tabitha said blankly.
    Apparently I was the only Howard Hawks fan between us. I rephrased, asking her to hold off on printing the article I had sent her—I’d be sending in a new one in a couple of hours. And then I hung up the phone and let my fingers fly over the keyboard.
    I finished the article in half the time I’d promised, checked it once more to make sure it said what I wanted it to, and pressed send.

five

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    My first column ran the next morning.
    My father called at seven a.m., as soon as his paper was delivered, full of congratulations. “Wonderful job, doll.”
    â€œThanks, Dad. Mom likes it too?” I asked.
    â€œOh...sure, sweetheart. We both love it.” But I knew from his tone that he was speaking only for himself. I suppose it was expecting too much for my mom to call and tell me she was proud of me.
    Sasha showed up at Kendall’s condo at seven thirty—right after he hustled out the door for work with a promise to read the column that night—balancing an armful of newspapers and two big Dunkin’ Donuts coffees.
    â€œIt’s too early for champagne,” she said, her smile stretching her face. “I thought you’d want extra hard copies. Rockin’ it old-school.”
    â€œIt’s just a silly little article,” I said, but I reached for the papers in her arm and eagerly opened the top one to locate my column.
    There it was, with the big, splashy headline, “Ask the Breakup Doctor.”
    Sasha tore her eyes from the article and looked over at me. “You changed it!”
    I nodded as Sasha and I read it together, bent over the kitchen table shoulder-to-shoulder with the paper spread out below us like an offering.
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    A broken leg requires an orthopedist. A broken car requires a mechanic. And a broken heart requires a specialist too. Every week in this column I’ll be helping you navigate the rough waters of dating and the stormy seas of rejection: The Breakup Doctor is now in.
    So you got dumped. We’ve all been there, and it stinks. But what defines us is what we do next, in the relationship’s postmortem: how we handle ourselves, how we recover, how we move on and find someone new—and bring ourselves that much closer to finding the right one.
    Handling a breakup gracefully and in a