“In a different world, it would have been the beginning of a romantic comedy with America’s sweetheart of the moment. Lifestyle blogger is invited to speak at a conference in Chicago. Packs light in her father’s old hand-me-down black Samsonite. Flight is delayed. Grabs suitcase out of baggage claim and races outside the terminal. Takes forever to get a cab, so when she arrives at the host hotel, she asks the desk to hold her suitcase until she can check into her room later.
Her talk is a success! They laugh in all the right places and stand in line to meet her and get her autograph. She enjoys her little taste of celebrity. Finally she checks in and her suitcase is brought to her room.
Except when she opens it, it isn’t packed with her comfy loungewear or the bath salts, scented oils, and face masks and moisturizers she’s been planning to spoil herself with before joining other conference attendees for dinner and drinks. Her little black dress and strappy heels are also missing.
She stares dumbly at the thick packets of files jammed into the suitcase. She opens a few, and as the words and numbers begin to register on a brain that can barely remember the access code to the gate of her apartment complex, she has a nightmarish realization. She is Emma Stone or Anna Kendrick dropped without warning into a Jason Bourne movie.
Her mind races–call the desk? wipe off her fingerprints and throw the suitcase out the window? figure out if she took the wrong suitcase at the airport or if the hotel made the mix-up?
Does some international spy have her bag, and how long will it take the KGB or Interpol or the CIA to track her down? She’s not built for this.
Come on, come on, she reproaches herself, the world is not always about Will Smith or Harrison Ford or Daniel Craig.
‘What would Super Spy Angelina Jolie do?’ she asks the suitcase, then claps her hand over her mouth and scans the ceiling for where the bugs are likely to be planted.”
I take photos. I write. My volunteer job is taking photos of rescued dogs and cats transported by the rescue group whose records I manage. Since working and volunteering don’t leave me a lot of time to write, I’m spending 2017 borrowing from what these dogs and cats are writing. They said it’s okay.
Oh I am so in on this one … and I love the title!
The title cracks even me up.
That Peyton is a story tease!