Hello Adventure

Chapter 3

"There is this small project that I could use someone for," Stasia said then.

My body jolted to life, blood whooshing to my head, and I couldn't speak.

"Sloane? Are you still there?" Stasia asked.

"Yes!" I squealed, heaving myself upright. "A small project?"

"It's a gig involving the Spade properties. I trust you know them?"

I blurted: "They're a group of luxury boutique hotels based mainly in Europe and North Africa—"

"Of course you know them, and I'm sure you know they're our clients."

I nodded into the phone. I felt woozy enough to pass out. I had to remind myself to breathe.

"They're looking to bring in younger clientele, so we've just put together an exciting collaboration between them and Doux Stockholm."

"Doux? That new bakery that makes those adorable miniature tiered cakes? It was just featured in this month's Departures!" I blurted.

Departures magazine—the sleek publication for American Express cardholders, which I had read in the Swish office while waiting for my interview to start—had just done a slick profile on the upmarket "dessert bar" that was taking the world by storm with their exquisite and photogenic itty-bitty cakes. It was like they took these upscale occasion cakes and then zapped them with a shrinking ray until they were small enough to sit in the palm of your hand. They were completely adorable, fabulously chic, and violently on-trend.

"Yes. Doux is very hot right now, and because their Stockholm storefront is so tiny, the cakes are constantly selling out." Stasia told me. "Photo-friendly desserts are trending hard right now."

"I keep seeing that one Doux cake all my Instagram feed. It seems like everyone is jetting off to Stockholm to get one..." I searched for the cake's name.

"That's their Swedish Princess Cake, and it's every influencer's must-have accessory du jour. Doux's social media plan has been so well thought-out that you probably never even knew they had one because it comes off as organic. But it's all about the behind-the-scenes marketing," Stasia said with an unexpectedly human wink to her voice, like she knows who runs the world (basically, PR girls).

"Because of Doux's ability to attract the right clientele, we've partnered with them to open up four new desserts bars—each within a Spade hotel."

"Wow, that's huge news," I said.

"It's also still confidential. Doux is so popular partly because it's so limited: There's only one location in Stockholm and it's known for reinventing traditional Scandinavian desserts in a camera-friendly manner, right? So instead of just copying and pasting Doux Stockholm into a new country, each of the new Doux dessert bars is going to have a bespoke line confections representative of that country's local flavors. So what you can get in Doux Stockholm is going to be totally different than what you can get in say, the Doux Como, in Lake Como."

Lake Como! The name spoke to my heart and my brain flashed me a dolce vita montage: men in elegant linen suits; blue alpine lakes; delicate plates of pasta drizzled in gold olive oil, the exact hue of a canary diamond.

"The Spade hotels are going to get so many bookings and foot traffic from this—there's a reason to visit each individual property because the offering is varied and unique. Do you understand?" Stasia asked.

"Of course," I told her. "It's genius."

"It's slated to be a success," Stasia demurred. "What Swish needs to do now is to announce the collaboration in a manner that makes people want to visit every new location in each of the four Spade hotels."

Finally, I couldn't help myself from exclaiming out: "So is that the job? Do you need someone to come up with a PR campaign?"

My brain darted off like a short-distance sprinter. I knew how to conceptualize and organize this type of creative media campaign, I knew how to get results on a launch, and I knew how to measure those results. I am so ready for this.

"Sloane, the strategy is already in place," she said, slamming the break on my racing neurons. "I've met you once," she added icily, and she didn't need to say more. I got the subtext and bit my lip. She'd never put me in charge of something so major so quickly.

"Our digital plan is to release a series of still ads and mini-commercials on social media via a top tastemaker. The creative plan has already been signed off by the client. In fact, everything is in place to make the launch happen: we have the talent, a photographer, a creative stylist, a post-production designer, and we've even brought onboard one of the apprentice pastry chefs from Doux to make all the new confections for the shoots. Who else am I missing?"

(Me? I hoped but didn't dare ask.)

"We are in dire need of a babysitter."

"Oh!" I couldn't help but exclaim. "For like, a baby?"

I immediately heard how dumb I sounded and belly-flopped onto the bed with a thud. Stop speaking now, Sloane.

Stasia exhaled like she was already starting to regret this. "I need someone to look after the talent—she's a top influencer who's big in the world of luxury travel. On paper, the role is for someone to make sure that the team does their job, but this is a fully functional professional team that has worked together before, so to be frank, the job is to make sure the talent doesn't shit the bed during the shoots. Is that something you think you can handle? It will be six weeks in four locations: Lake Como, Marrakesh, Venice, and Zermatt. In that order to make the best of the weather during the changing seasons." She paused to make sure I was keeping up.

A babysitter? The word made me wrinkle my nose as if I smelled something acrid and gone-off, but suddenly the line "six weeks in four locations" registered and annihilated anything other than the sweet, sweet smell of success.

Fine, it's not exactly my dream job, but I could be a babysitter for some Insta-famous holy terror, I concluded. Hell, I would babysit the next batch of insufferable freshmen to come through Boston on a night of binge drinking if it meant I got to travel to Lake Como, Marrakesh, Venice, and Zermatt!

Something in me snagged on Zermatt and got caught there. And I knew exactly why. I had been dying to go to Switzerland—and it had nothing to do with the snowy landscape, world-class cheese, or wickedly rich chocolate. Instead, it had everything to do with who was there—the guy who I happened to be in love with.

"Are you offering me a job?" I couldn't breathe. I had actually stopped breathing. I stood up to give my lungs some space and started inadvertently mimicking a hippopotamus in labor with all my dramatic huffing and puffing and wheezing.

"No." Stasia said flatly. (Well, that made my labored hippo breathing even more dramatic.) "It's just a short contract. A trial of sorts. I want to see what you can do."

I started sputtering. Seriously, I just started making incomprehensible hacking sounds like I was trying to dislodge a piece of food stuck in my esophagus.

"Stasia. You will not regret this," I finally managed to gutturalize. "Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" I bleated, sounding aggressively desperate.

"No, but you just might. You screw this up and it won't do your reputation any favors. Come to the office on Monday," she told me, "we need to get started right away." Then the line went dead.