LITMIR.BIZ

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your tongue!” I’d interrupted.

      She ignored me and went on. “…and if your mother ever breaks her back, it’ll probably be because she tripped over something. Not because you walked down the sidewalk like a healthy, well-adjusted person. The world just doesn’t work that way.”

      “Doesn’t every action have a reaction?”

      “No.”

      “But I’ve always thought that life is like the game of pool…”

      “It isn’t.”

      “Pinball?”

      “Nope… Well, maybe. But only if you think of yourself as the flippers and not the ball, see? Remember, Holly—you were the one who told me you want to be an actor, and not a re-actor.”

      “Look,” I sighed. “I know you’re right. I want to be the flippers. And I know that my mom’s probably going be okay if I step on that crack, and that her health isn’t something I have any control over—but it feels wrong to do it. It seems so… I don’t know…reckless. Like, why take the chance?” It was lunchtime, a weekday, and pedestrians swarmed around us, irritated by our lack of motion.

      Zukowski shook her head. “It only feels that way because you’ve been avoiding the cracks for so long. This problem isn’t something I can just turn off inside your head. To overcome it you’re going to have to actually do it. Over and over again until it doesn’t feel wrong. Until it just feels normal. And soon it won’t feel like anything at all. Okay?”

      I nodded.

      “So let’s start with our deep breathing…good…good…and now we can try visualizing it, just like we did upstairs in my office…”

      Bravely, brazenly, I took a step in my mind. And another. And then another, letting my feet fall where they might. It wasn’t so hard.

      “Now do it,” she prodded.

      I raised my foot and started to move forward, but an image of my mother in traction weaseled its way into my brain. My chest tightened and my palms began to sweat. I retreated.

      “Holly,” she sighed. “How do you expect to move forward if you can’t take one simple step?”

      She could barely conceal her exasperation, even though my insurance company was paying her $115 an hour.

      “I’ve been getting along fine for years,” I informed her. “You were the one who seized on this whole thing. I just mentioned it in passing, and jeez, look at us now.”

      “Let me put it in perspective for you. I have patients who can’t leave their houses. Patients who can’t work or eat or sleep. People who are so paralyzed with fear that their lives are barely lives at all. I can help you through this, Holly, but you have to be willing to move.”

      “I’m pretty happy, you know,” I said. “I just want to be more happy. I want to be able to write my book.”

      And this is what she said: “The difference between a dream and reality is the difference between a goal and a plan. If you want to write a book, then commit yourself to doing whatever it takes to make that happen, because things will never change unless you change them.”

      Now, two years later, Zukowski’s words resonate within my very empty bedroom as loudly as if someone had struck a gong. If I ever want my dreams to become reality, I know what has to be done.

      The goal? To free myself from the bonds of serfdom and write my book, the subject of which was now also plainly evident.

      The plan? To marry a millionaire. Or at least date one seriously.

      chapter 4

      A Room of One’s Own

      The cursor blinks hopefully. Chapter One, I type. Finding a Mark. How hard can it be?

      I dial George’s number at work. “Can you get out early?”

      “I guess so.”

      “Meet me at Taylor’s at six.”

      “Why? That place sucks.”

      Taylor’s is an upscale-ish piano bar in the business district. The only reason I even know about it is because it happens to be next door to the only place in town to get decent Chinese takeout after 11:00 p.m., probably thanks to all the late-working lawyers and financial types in the neighborhood.

      “I know, G.” I tell her. “Just indulge me.”

      It’s Friday, the end to a fairly crappy week. I’ve spent pretty much the whole of it tied up on a comprehensive 2500-word piece on the best fall getaways in upstate New York—a rare and pleasant change from the usual bland tasks I’m entrusted with.

      Maybe they really are beginning to value me here, I dared to dream as I handed it over to Cy just before deadline yesterday afternoon. I was actually quite pleased with how the story turned out, especially the cute little sidebar on the haunted inns of the Finger Lakes district. After thanking him for the opportunity for the umpteenth time (even though it was actually Mark Axelrod, Travel Editor, who okayed the pitch in the first place), Cy cleared his throat and informed me he’d decided to bank the story indefinitely and reprint something similar he’d seen that morning in the Times’s travel section instead. “Maybe we’ll run it next fall, Holly, although you’d have to update it. No big deal.”

      Not to him, maybe. But at that very moment I knew for sure that I didn’t want to be at the Bugle next month, let alone next fall. And although it was just one silly story on chintz-stuffed country inns and pick-your-own-pumpkin patches, and Cy hadn’t even read it (which meant he couldn’t possibly hate it), panic set in. The proverbial coffin was being nailed shut—I could feel it in my bones.

      I had to compose myself in the ladies’ room before I could go back to my desk and begin inputting the ads I’d been neglecting all week. Getting through the stack would surely take me the rest of the afternoon…

      “Holly?”

      I spun around. Virginia Holt, Life & Style Editor, tapping her tweed-wrapped toes like she’d been waiting there all day.

      “Oh. Hi, Virginia.”

      “Did I interrupt you?”

      “Uh…”

      “Not working on anything important, then?” Her nostrils flared in anticipation while she smoothed back her brassy red bob.

      You know perfectly well that I rarely work on anything important, Virginia, thanks in large part to you turning down every story idea I’ve ever had.

      “Well, actually—”

      “Good. Because I need you to run these down to accounting immediately. It’s the contributors list for last month, and the check numbers don’t match up with the invoice numbers on any of them. Wait there for those halfwits to redo each and every one of them and then bring them back up to me personally. Do not give them to my assistant—she’s been completely unfocused since she came back from mat leave and this absolutely has to be fixed before the end of the day, ’kay?”

      She threw a pile of envelopes and papers down onto my keyboard and clicked away before I could refuse. Apparently, the fact that my desk happened to be within fifteen feet of her office automatically cast me as her backup lackey.

      But I couldn’t. Not today. I opened my top drawer and slid Virginia’s papers inside, knowing the blast of shit I’d catch for not doing exactly what she’d asked, but somehow unable to stop myself, either. Through bleary eyes, I entered one ad after the other, vowing with each new garage sale and adorable puppy giveaway to set my new plan into motion the following day, the first day of the rest of my life.

      The real first day of the rest of my life.

      I meant it this time.

      In Buffalo, where ninety percent of the bars cater to

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