Traveling for business meant leaving directly from the office to go to the airport, but Eloise Lang actually appreciated that part of it. It was hard, she often found, to leave the house knowing she wouldn’t be coming home for days or weeks. The nagging question always found its way into her head—did I forget anything? She wasn’t a scatterbrained person by nature, but she was a worrier, all right.

Leaving from work was different. It was gentler. It felt like leaving in stages. She had locked the front door this morning knowing that if she discovered she’d forgotten anything, she’d still have several hours to run back and pick it up. She had unzipped her suitcase twice today to confirm that she’d remembered various things. Now, it was easy to collect her bag from the chair it had been sitting on and walk out the office door.

Eloise’s office wasn’t actually an office. It was really more of a foyer, an entranceway to the office that belonged to her immediate boss and the CEO of MAFA Financial, where she had worked for the last four years.

Most days, Eloise spent eight hours at her desk looking over memos for grammatical errors, booking meetings, taking calls, arranging lunches, and filing contracts and paperwork. She could also be called upon to fetch coffee or dry cleaning, pick out a gift for somebody, do research, scout a location for a potential client meeting or business-related party, and, as on this occasion, fly to any location in the world to ensure that she was conveniently located to continue doing her job.

Her parents worried about her wellbeing with all her job’s demands.

“It isn’t normal”, her mother had insisted over dinner one weekend, shortly after Eloise had been promoted from her initial job at MAFA in customer experience to the role of personal assistant she now held.

“It isn’t normal for her to have all these responsibilities she can’t anticipate, for the job to be something different each day.”

“Of course it’s normal,” her father had replied. “The question is, is it our El?”

She’d understood what he’d meant.

As a child, Eloise had spent plenty of time fantasizing about the glamorous or exciting career she would one day have. All children daydream about what they’re going to be when they grow up, of course, but Eloise’s dreams had always been both wildly ambitious and somehow very practical.

During the year she’d spent fantasizing about becoming an astronaut, she had checked out books written by astronauts from the library and compared her qualifications to theirs. She’d had good vision, which had been a good sign. But a lot of astronauts tended to come out of the military, and Eloise had always been a lover, not a fighter.

Later, Eloise had wanted to become a veterinarian. She had been part of a group of girlfriends who all loved animals and talked about opening an animal hospital, but Eloise had been the only one who’d taken the extra step of finding a shelter that had been accepting young volunteers. She’d spent an hour after school every day walking dogs and changing litter boxes, an activity none of her friends had joined her in.

It was in high school, though, that Eloise had found her true passion—writing. Words flowed out of her fingers easily, naturally.

In her freshman year, she’d won an essay writing contest, which had stunned her. She’d always known writing was something she enjoyed, of course, and something that came easily, but this was the first time she’d realized she had a talent. She’d joined the school newspaper and the literary magazine, as well as creating an online journal where she could publish her short stories and enjoy feedback from a small but devoted audience.

Her dream, then, had been to become a writer. But what would that look like? People didn’t simply sit and write for a career. You had to be a novelist or a journalist or an investigative reporter or a critic or…well, there were any number of ways, she’d realized, to build a career on her love of writing.

For a few glorious years, the future had seemed wide open and full of possibility. Eloise had gone to college and majored in English. She’d learned the jokes all English majors seemed to share, and laughed when her friends in the department groaned about how they were throwing away an expensive education by majoring in a field that held no job opportunities.

But every time someone talked like that, Eloise had been slightly stunned. Was that really what they believed? That there were no jobs for writers? There were millions of jobs for writers! Magazine editor, marketing copywriter, speechwriter to the president!

Eloise had imagined herself in all these roles. The only problem, as far as she could figure, would be settling on just one.

Then, the bank had repossessed her parents’ house.

It had taken all three of them by surprise. The Langs had been in their home for over twenty years. They had raised Eloise there. It was a huge, sprawling, ranch-style number, the backdrop of all of Eloise’s childhood memories.

She hadn’t known that her parents had taken out a second mortgage to send her to college. With the economy in decline, the rates of interest on the mortgage had increased so suddenly and sharply that Eloise’s parents hadn’t been able to pay.

By the time Eloise had found out about any of it, the house was already gone, in the hands of the bank. Her parents had called her from a motel by the freeway to explain the situation, and Eloise had felt as if the floor had dropped out from under her.

They’d had no choice but to move into an apartment. Eloise had gone apartment hunting with them, but at each place they’d visited, her father had shaken his head, looking sadder and sadder, her mother wringing her hands. Finally, they’d confessed that they didn’t have much in savings, and Eloise’s father’s salary alone wasn’t enough to cover the rent on these places.

Eloise had been due to graduate from college in two months. She’d been planning to take an unpaid internship at a magazine, but that hadn’t been an option, anymore. Her parents couldn’t support her for a year while she paid her dues. In fact, they couldn’t even support themselves.

Eloise had needed to get a job, and fast. For the first time in her life, she’d turned her mind to the subject of employment—not dreaming about what career she would love to have, but looking practically at her qualifications. What jobs were there, which ones would hire her, and what paid well? Those were the only questions that had mattered, then.

The job at MAFA had been, at first, an absolute godsend. They had been hiring dozens of entry-level workers straight out of college, and the fact that Eloise’s degree had been in English rather than math had been, surprisingly, no obstacle. Even better had been the starting salary. It was enough to finance her own simple lifestyle with some left over to contribute to the cost of her parents’ rent on an apartment in a neighborhood she wasn’t afraid to have them living in.

Her mother had objected—it wasn’t Eloise’s job to take care of her parents. She should be pursuing one of her many passions. She should be finding herself. She had never dreamed of working for a financial company.

Eloise had replied that career was one thing, but her parents were family. Nothing was more important than that. It was a true reflection of the way she still felt, to this day. This hadn’t been the career she’d dreamed of as a little girl, and it hadn’t been the perfect writing job she’d hoped for.

But working at MAFA allowed her to provide for her family, and Eloise had her priorities.

Working in customer experience had been easy enough, but it had also been boring and unfulfilling. Some of the employees on Eloise’s team had talked about the joy of helping a customer find the answer they needed, but that wasn’t a thing Eloise had ever really felt.

Instead, she had often become frustrated with the customers. They called in looking for answers to problems they should have been able to solve themselves, and they were unkind to her when she didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear. So, when news had gone around the office that the company CEO was hiring a new personal assistant and was leaning toward an inside hire, Eloise had tossed her name into the hat. It was worth a try.

That had been almost a year ago. Since then, she had been personal assistant to Patrick Gainsborough, and though her parents had often questioned the decision, Eloise had never looked back. The pay was exceptional—even better than her starting salary in customer experience had been—and although her executive boss could be obnoxious at times, there were elements of fun to her new position.

She’d enjoyed her day at a fancy jewelry boutique, sipping free wine and picking out a tennis bracelet for his wife. She had been invited to any number of glitzy events, and she frequently had the opportunity to travel.

However, she’d never taken a trip quite like the one she was leaving on today.

Alani, Eloise’s best friend and coworker, knocked on her wall.

“Got a minute?”

“For you? Always.”

At thirty-one, Alani was five years older than Eloise, and she had served as something of a role model when Eloise had started her position at MAFA. Since then, the two had become close friends, often grabbing dinner or drinks together after work. Alani was tall, with neatly groomed dreadlocks that fell to the midpoint of her back and a killer fashion sense; it wasn’t uncommon for the two women to be mistaken for models on nights out together.

She stepped into Eloise’s foyer and took the seat opposite her. “Do you have all your travel documents?”

“I think so.” Eloise felt for her passport. It was right where it ought to be, in the inner zipper pocket of her purse. “I’m good.”

“You need to sign this release form.” Alani slid a piece of paper across the desk. “It just says the company isn’t liable if you break the law in Al-Zhera. Standard stuff.”

Eloise laughed. “If I break the law?”

“Patrick has to cover his butt. You know how it is.”

Eloise scrawled her signature at the bottom of the piece of paper and handed it back across the desk.

“I don’t know when I’d have time to do any lawbreaking. I’ll be spending the whole time running around trying to find someplace in Al-Zhera that can press his pants the way he likes, and someone who speaks enough English to translate between me and the owner of the pants-pressing establishment.”

“You’ve really thought that out,” Alani chuckled. “I wish I was coming with you.”

“You should see if you can! It would be a lot more fun with you along.”

“I can’t really see what they’d need a human resources person for on this trip; Patrick is meeting with a potential partner, not looking for new hires.” Alani sighed. “Unfortunately, the only places I’ll probably get to go are job fairs at local colleges.”

“Well, those will probably be fun!”

“They aren’t. The kids are all in their pajamas and the only food you can get is the kind of dining hall slop America is fine with feeding its children.”

“You’re a downer today.”

“You’re going on a vacation to a far-off land where you’ll probably get to meet all kinds of beautiful people and sample exotic cuisine, and I have new hire meetings all afternoon and then a dentist’s appointment this evening.”

“So, not one of your better days.”

“Ha. You could say that.”

“Well, like I said, I’m not really going on vacation. I’m going to be working the whole time, and Patrick keeps me hopping. I’m sure I won’t have a moment to rest.”

“At the absolute worst you’ll get to try some new foods.”

Eloise felt that this was probably true, but the truth was, she hadn’t been able to get that excited about it—she’d been working insane hours all month just getting ready for the trip.

With Al-Zhera being nine hours ahead of Denver, Eloise couldn’t reach out to her Middle Eastern contacts until after 10:00 p.m. As a result, she had spent many late nights watching videos on her work computer and waiting for the other side of the world to wake up, then making arrangements for dinners, accommodations, transportation, and all the conveniences Patrick would expect to be met with in Al-Zhera.

Her boss was the kind of man who took it for granted that a chauffeur would be there to pick him up at the airport and would drop him off at his five-star hotel. If this did not happen, smoothly and without a hitch, Eloise would be the one held responsible.

She hadn’t even treated herself to any shopping in anticipation of the trip. The capital of Al-Zhera boasted beautiful beaches, and Eloise would have loved to buy a new swimsuit, but she simply hadn’t had the time to make a trip to the store, and a swimsuit wasn’t something you could chance buying over the internet.

So, she had packed her trusty old one-piece, which she’d had for years. It wasn’t the most attractive thing she could have worn, but who was she kidding? There was precious little chance she’d make it to the beach, anyway.

“Bring me back something,” Alani said, gathering up the form she’d had Eloise sign. “Something delicious. Maybe wine.”

“I probably can’t fly home with food. Maybe packaged food.”

“Ugh. Okay. Something pretty then. Jewelry.”

“Who am I, the Queen of Sheba?”

“I’m sure you can find something handmade!”

Or something at the hotel gift shop, Eloise thought.

When did Alani imagine Eloise was going to be going shopping? If she got anywhere near a store, it would be because Patrick needed antacids.

“You got it,” Eloise said, crossing her fingers behind her back and hoping she would be able to deliver on her promise.

“Is everything ready for the meeting?”

“Ugh, are you kidding? I’ve been over it so many times at this point I think I could personally close this deal. In my sleep.”

“Which means Patrick should just about be able to handle it wide awake, right?”

“Let’s hope. It would be really good for the firm.”

“You’d better get moving,” Alani said, standing up. “Are you meeting at the airport?”

“Yeah. At the bar by Gate A22.”

“Figures that Gainsborough would have memorized where in the airport the nearest bar would be,” Alani said, rolling her eyes. “Travel safe, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks. I’ll see you soon.”

“And Eloise?”

“Yeah?”

“Try to have some fun, will you?”

Eloise laughed. “You got it.”

But as her taxi pulled away from the front door of MAFA, Eloise felt only grim acceptance; as much as she would have liked to think of this trip as a fun getaway, an exciting opportunity to explore somewhere completely new, she knew it was unlikely to be anything more than a series of errands broken up by tedious meetings.

The best part of the whole thing, she thought closing her eyes, will probably be the chance for a nap on the flight.