It's 2 a.m. on a weeknight, and you just got off the phone with your boss. "I had a dream about you," he says. "You were suntanning on the roof with your top off. You looked so beautiful. So vulnerable."

"You shouldn't be telling me this," you say to him.

"Why?" he asks. "We didn't do anything. I just looked at you."

"You're married," you tell him, as if, somehow, he'd forgotten.

You're 23, with a freshly minted master's degree in journalism and a well-paying job at one of the country's largest newspapers. But since your first day at work, no one has taken you as seriously as you take yourself. Years from now, when you start to grow envious of youth, you will better understand why. But now you're feeling confused, angry, disoriented. This man has offered you career opportunities that you mistakenly believe will be the only ones you will ever have. At this point in your life, what other people think of you means more to you than what you think of yourself. That will change. Until then, you're worried he won't help you anymore unless you play the not-so-innocent ingénue.

You want to talk to your parents, who are back home in New York embroiled in a bitter years-long divorce. Yet you don't want to bother them. You prefer that they think you are doing just fine, climbing the ladder, closing in on the stars. Still, you need to talk to someone, anyone.

"A married man is coming on to me, and I don't know what to do," you confide to a fortysomething reporter who works in your office. In the past, she has been your friend.

"Is it _______?" she asks, mentioning his name.

"No," you lie. You know she doesn't believe you.