I break off a piece to try. It doesn’t taste at all like castella. This is glutinous and tough, like rubber. What did I do wrong? I can’t understand it. I thought I followed the recipe exactly. While chewing on an overly sweet horrible lump, it suddenly strikes me as funny and I fall about laughing. I’m not devastated; if anything I feel good.

“Well, I mean... Anybody can do it. It’s not like it was my dream job or anything I desperately wanted to do. I just kind of fell into it. But I live on my own, so I have to work to support myself.” “You managed to find employment, you go to work every day and you can feed yourself. That’s a fine achievement.” Nobody’s ever summed up my life in

Humans only see what suits them most, and make that their main focus, but for plants... Both are main. My mind jumps to the article about parallel careers where each job is complementary, neither is secondary.

“Everybody is connected. And any one of their connections could be the start of a network that branches in many directions. If you wait for the right time to make connections, it might never happen, but if you show your face around, talk to people and see enough to give you the confidence that things could work out, then ‘one day’ might turn into

“You have to turn that ‘don’t’ into a goal.”

So there I am, the budding career woman and local girl made good, crying and shaking with anger. This is not how I ever want Saya to see me.

Catching sight of the emergency exit, I wonder if it even opens.

What are you looking for? she had asked me. I think about it. A place for these dreams that I don’t know what to do with?

I feel so dumb now for telling the librarian that my job in the womenswear section at Eden was “nothing great.” I haven’t been doing a great job, that’s all. The day that customer first appeared, I was so itching to take my break I didn’t give her my complete attention and I’m sure she sensed it.