In other occupations, people could announce new career paths and have their friends congratulate them. But an actor giving up acting was always greeted with pity and scorn and a quick pulling away of friends. Failure might be catching; no one really knows.

Not handsome, exactly—in fact, he teetered on the edge of ugly: short and slightly stocky, with thinning black hair. But his skin was deeply tanned, as though he flew to the Mediterranean instead of the endless Minneapolis-Detroit-Chicago route, and his thick lips were sensual, his teeth startling white. He exuded a vitality and alertness that was

She said the wedding photography was strictly temporary, but Oscar wondered. He thought maybe wedding photography was like organized crime, or tax evasion, or adultery—you got into it without really meaning to and the rewards were so great you stayed and the years rolled by and suddenly, there you were, not the person you’d intended to be at all. (

Finally, Joel speaks. “How are your parents?” “Oh, well, they’re moving,” Fawn says. “You know. To a retirement community. It’s an adjustment. In lots of ways. Good and bad.” She keeps adding phrases, hoping they will add up to a reasonable conversation.

What happened last time! Is there a worse phrase in the English language? Well, maybe. The bank is foreclosing isn’t great, and North Korea just launched a missile is pretty awful. But what happened last time is the worst because it almost always refers to an event of which the participants have wildly differing interpretations.

It wasn’t accurate to say she lost weight—it was more like she chased the weight off her body the way a farmer would chase a stray dog off his property. And like a suspicious farmer, Fawn still patrols the borders of her body, a shotgun propped in the crook of her elbow, ready to shoot any fattening food that tries to sneak back in.

BY THE TIME YOU GO to bed that night, you have acquired an unexpected companion: your teenage self. She has a tendency to show up around your father. She’s the one who argues with him about immigration. She’s the one who gets back out of bed to finish the Oreos. She’s the one who says under her breath, I can’t take so much fucking Fox News.

And she takes the people who are not only nervous about the road test but seem nervous about life. People who come to the DMV wearing pajama pants and slippers, or cardigans with food dribbles and shoes without laces. Or—this is somehow worse—people who have dressed up. They wear clothing which has moldered unworn in their closets for years: shiny

YOU GRAB YOUR CAR KEYS and storm out of the house, but once you get in your car, you’re at a loss as to where to go. You’re still wearing your pajamas so your options are pretty limited. In the end, you just sit steaming with anger in your car, the radio turned all the way up. This is exactly what you did after fighting with your father when you we