She’s the enigmatic, aggressive, and strangely magnetic art gallery assistant who bulldozes her way into the narrator’s life. She’s not the heroine. She’s not the sidekick. She’s the unsettling mirror held up to privilege, passivity, and the lies we tell ourselves about "waiting for the right moment."

And then comes Miss Rita Cohen, leaning across the table, phone in hand, demanding:

But what if, just for a moment, we let Miss Rita Cohen answer the questions we’re too polite to ask ourselves? Let’s be honest. Most of us—especially in creative or freelance careers—have a version of the narrator’s problem. We coast. We complain. We say things like: