My shoulders dropped in disappointment. Derek was the editor of Tea, a weekly online pop-culture magazine where I’d interned while studying for my bachelor’s degree in journalism during college. It was mostly office work (coffee runs and filing), but I was also responsible for proofreading the editorial calendar and was sometimes allowed to tag along with writers out on a story. A full-time position hadn’t been available after graduation, and I quickly discovered that the chances of landing my dream job as a journalist for the entertainment, media, or lifestyle sections of the New York Times or New York Post without any prior publishing credits—or even with them—were about the same as a sixth grader’s.

“What is it?”

I gulped my wine. “Another oh-so-encouraging pass from DerDick.” She knew all about his particular brand of charm. He passed on all my freelance proposals, always concluding his rejections with a complimentary sentence about my writing skills and eagerly inviting me to keep pitching. But I was certain our history and my access to his direct email account was a gift that would eventually give as long as I kept at it. In fact, when he’d hired me to write Tea’s list column for a month, to cover for a staff writer on medical leave, I scored my first four professional bylines: “Ten books to read between seasons of Stranger Things”; “Five vegan recipes that have meat lovers screaming, ‘Yaaas!’”; “Twenty shopping trends Gen Z is bringing back”; and “Five best pet monitoring apps.” These credentials strengthened my portfolio, and updating my website and social media afterward had filled me with pride. My faith in Derek wasn’t entirely without justification, but it was wearing thin.

Mom mumbled, “Shit,” then frowned. “I’m sorry. Keep pitching. Persistence and patience, right?”

“I guess.” She was repeating what I’d always told her about trying to make a living as a lifestyle journalist. But it was getting harder to persist.

Hustling two jobs teaching spin classes and working the counter at a coffee shop while cold-pitching publications like Tea—not to mention the almost daily scouring of freelance sites like FlexJobs and ProBlogger for writing gigs—was exhausting. The competition in the city was merciless. When Sinatra said if you can make it in New York, you could make it anywhere, maybe he was really encouraging us to aim lower.

“I wonder sometimes…” I brought my wineglass to my mouth and emptied the contents.

“Am I supposed to complete the sentence? Are we playing that game now?”

I returned the glass to the table and looked at her. “New York City can be a lonely place. Sometimes I think we’d have been better off staying in Indiana.”

Mom scrunched her face, the faint wrinkles in her forehead becoming more pronounced. “How so?”