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With a pillow-muffled groan she reached an arm out and slapped at the top of her alarm clock. It took only two strokes to locate the snooze button and the machine fell blissfully silent. She could only hope that this was the first snooze of the morning because really, her habit was out of control.

Cracking one eye she moved her face closer to the alarm clock, stopping when the numbers became clear. It did not look good. In fact, it looked awful. Her face once again buried into a pillow, she forced herself to reckon with the fact that she’d been unconsciously snoozing for more than an hour. She absolutely had to get up. There wasn’t enough time to snooze again—not even once more.

As she pressed away from the bed, pushup style, the mattress gave way and her laptop tumbled toward her. She’d forgotten it was there. Forgotten she’d been up way past her bedtime surfing the internet, researching her newest client.

‘No wonder I snoozed for an hour without even realizing it,’ she thought to herself, fighting the early morning haze.

She was getting too old to stay awake past midnight and still get up before six am the next morning. This fact was rather painful to admit, but it was true all the same: she was getting older, and at no uncertain clip. Time was literally racing past faster than she could keep up. She hesitated to acknowledge that it was July of 2008. She was pretty sure when she’d gone to sleep the night before it had been May of 2005.

The apartment was still quiet as she traipsed to the bathroom groggily, eyes heavy and more than a little allergy encrusted from the hours she’d spent lazing around in the park the day previous. Her roommate Meg had not yet awoken, which was relief. Meg knew her well, to be sure, but in the morning it simply did not matter if Meg knew how to deal with her moods. She was not human before nine am, and she knew it. Morning was not her finest time of day, to say the least. She did not like to be around people before nine am because inevitably, she was rather unkind to them. Inevitably that ruined her day before it even had a chance to begin.

Long hair still up in a bun, bangs pinned back from her face, she began her modified morning routine. Modified, because this was a much earlier morning that she was used to. Her early meeting was located across town and about thirty blocks south of her apartment and she’d need plenty of time to get there.

Wash, moisturize, and dry in front of Today in New York. Back to the bathroom for makeup and hair.

Thankfully, paranoia about oversleeping had led her to leave an outfit out for herself the night before, streamlining the process of selecting her look for the day. She always had a look, from her clothes to her makeup, shoes and accessories, everything coordinated. Everything. There was always a concept. It was a control thing. Not a strand of hair was to be out of place. Not an accessory was lightly chosen. She always wanted to be put together. Today, she would be put together as a sophisticated rocker.

Smudging one last layer of charcoal liner around her eyes, she surveyed herself in the mirror as best she could. In the months since she’d moved, the most she’d seen of herself inside the new apartment was from the breasts upward. Neither she nor Meg had found a full length mirror that they could justify purchasing…not when twenty dollars could buy a perfectly good cocktail or a quarter of a pair of shoes. A quick glance at her Blackberry, sitting on the commode, warned her that whatever she looked like in that very moment would have to do. She was, as always, cutting it close on time.

With a flip she moved her side swept bangs out of her eyes. One last glance at the mirror confirmed that her normally pin-straight, vivid red hair was drying into messy waves—silently, she thanked her miracle-worker-cum-hairstylist, Alice—and her makeup was at least close to the look she’d been envisioning. It would all have to do. There was barely enough time to throw her Blackberry and her sandals into her oversized purse/briefcase before she had to scamper out the door to meet the humid July morning.

***

She paused for a moment in the record company lobby, trying to find a nook somewhere out of the way where she could cool off. Although the morning’s low 70s temperatures weren’t bad for Manhattan in July, the 93% humidity had been enough to push her over the edge of discomfort. She was simultaneously glad she’d thought to pack a shrunken blazer to cover her sweaty top, and depressed by the idea that she’d have to put on another layer of clothing.

‘Thank you Monroe family,’ she thought to herself as she tugged at the hemline of her shirt, shaking it violently back and forth to create some airflow. ‘What a genetic blessing…sweat.’

Taking another moment to gather herself, run her hands through her hair and slide on the blazer, she took off across the lobby again. Her high-heeled sandals seemed to thunder across the stone floors as she flashed a guest pass at the building security and wove through the crowd to the elevator bank.

‘What an auspicious start to my morning,’ she thought, feeling damp and uncomfortable as she stared at her toes in the wonderfully silent elevator. ‘This meeting is obviously going to be just remarkable.’

Even in her own brain she was sarcastic, cynical. She could not turn it off. Could not even think otherwise—especially not before nine am, especially not before coffee. Her meeting that morning, with one of the label’s hottest young artists, was going to be a big test. After subway delays and a sweaty cross-town, cross-Times-Square trek, she was not feeling terribly positive about her morning. Or about the potential outcome of her day.

Suddenly, she felt ill-prepared and under-practiced for the meeting. Her boss—and uncle—had trusted her to take this meeting. She’d given such an impassioned argument for why it was the perfect account for her, why it would be even better if she took the meeting with as few of the company’s elder-statesmen as possible. And somehow, she’d sold him on it. Somehow, he’d agreed and sent her to run the show accompanied by only one other staff member for support. Now, she was doubting herself.

She came to a halt outside the conference room she knew she was meant to enter. Her coworker, Marc, was standing outside waiting for her. With a smile and a deep breath, she nodded at Marc, who reached for the door handle.

‘Relax. They’re a bunch of kids. You’ve been there before. You’ve got this in the bag.’ She began to hype herself up. ‘And remember, everyone is always faking it. Always.’

She reminded herself of this fact frequently. It was something she’d realized a few months into her first job out of college. Back then, she was constantly in fear of losing her job. Of making the one mistake that would be the last straw. She was convinced, every day, that she was about to be fired. That it would be her last day. Because 90% of the time she was speaking nonsense, making things up, pretending to be well-informed and well-prepared. Pretending she knew what she was doing.

And then, one day, it dawned on her. This was what everyone felt like. It wasn’t just her. They were all faking it, from the Managing Principal of the firm to the Director of HR and the lowly minion next to her. They were all faking it 90% of the time. And they were all doing just fine. And she would do just fine, too. As long as no one ever saw the cracks beneath the surface.

She smoothed her hands over her hips, tossed her hair back out of her face, and stepped through the open door.

“Good morning, everyone,” she said, smiling.