“They’re all so accomplished,” he said.

She shrugged. “Good for them.”

“That doesn’t bother you?” he asked, turning his head. “They’ve done so much, and here I am…and you…what have we done?”

“Look, if they want to put stock in shiny things that sit on their mantles, pieces of paper with fancy calligraphy, book endorsements from people scrounging for shreds of recognition in an over-crowded field of ‘I thought of it first/I’m the most edgy/I’m the most woke’ then they can refresh their Amazon ranking and Insta-posts all they want and live that life of begging for the spotlight one 15 minutes at a time. Spare me. I’d rather not, thank you.”

He blinked, staring at her. She gazed far off into the distance, squinting, as if trying to make out the truth somewhere in the night sky and report back on what really matters.

“Me?” she said with a smirk. “I’ll just do my best not to spill breakfast on me before it’s too late to change for work and call it a success.”

“That’s refreshing,” he said.

“Damn right it is.” She nodded. “Actually, I’m going to change my Twitter handle to ‘That’s Refreshing’ right now…”

“Doesn’t that negate your whole point?” he laughed.

“Nah,” she said, “not as long as I still don’t give a crap who reads it.”