Hers is so far the only response I have had to my flyer, but it’s been just two days since I did the rounds adding them to everybody’s mass of waiting junk mail. The McCord agency is in Midtown Anchorage, but Rob is making inroads here in Girdwood with a view, I think, to setting up a branch office. And I will be ready to slip my shoes under that desk. It’s a better option than some, definitely. I have completed the forty-hour pre-licensing course at Alaska Real Estate Training, which allows me out in the world as a newbie agent, but working for an established broker.

The course was held over two successive three-day weekends in an office seminar room full of change-of-lifers, with all the conflicting optimism and desperation that crowd brings. We bring. The others were no doubt sizing me up the same way. The elementary-school teacher who had fielded her last unreasonable late-night email from a parent, the council parking-permit manager superseded by an app and needing one final shot at a nest egg before retirement, the guy with the banged-up leg who won’t be teaching skiing this season – we were all there, comparing notes during our breaks as we unwrapped sandwiches from home or wandered back in with the nearest burger or pizza slice.

‘That’s got to be your favourite restaurant, right?’ two separate people said, pointing to the Outback Steakhouse on the other side of A Street, pleased with themselves for making a clever connection.

I now have at least two years as an agent ahead of me, apprenticed to Rob McCord, before the next round of study and assessment to become an associate broker.

I am a real-estate agent.

I am a real-estate agent.

I’ve tried repeating it but that doesn’t yet make it feel true. Hi, I’m a real-estate agent. Handshake. Nice place you’ve got here.

I walk in with my clipboard, head full of the rules of the game and statements I need to come out with, rehearsing, rehearsing. It’s a role-play, like back in training, but now the potential client is disconcertingly real. Real and, sometimes, willing to put the sale of their greatest asset in my hands. I was ready for Ellen Baker, at any point in our conversation, to fix me with a stare through those big lenses and say, ‘You’re faking it, aren’t you?’