It had been close to a year since Amy joined the travel agency.
Matt and Amy had attended a number of group outings with the rest of the travel agency employees, Larry being a firm believer in bonding over after-office activities. However, they had not gone on any solo dates yet. Amy was chaffing at the slow progress but she didn't dare to push Matt, for fear that he would turn tail and run away from her. Besides, she thought to herself, the current situation wasn't exactly unpleasant. Matt was a reasonable boss and he had been a lot nicer to her since the hospital incident.
One day, Amy noticed that Matt was looking particularly stressed. Popping by his desk, she asked, "What's wrong? Your face is quite pale. Is there anything I can do to help?"
Matt, whose head had been buried in his arms on his desk, looked up. Seeing Amy's sweet face, full of genuine concern for him, touched his heart. He beckoned her closer.
"Larry told me that the business isn't doing well. We've got hardly any leads. And many countries are closing their borders again because there's a new variant to the blasted virus, so we can't even organise any trips," he whispered. "We don't want staff morale to go down, so we're keeping it very quiet for now. But between you and me, I don't know how long the agency can continue operating. Soon, Larry will have trouble paying rent and salaries. Larry's thinking of letting some staff go but I've suggested to him to hold off for now and wait till the year has ended before making any final decision."
Amy gasped in horror, her hand moving up swiftly to cover her mouth as Matt admonished her to keep quiet.
"Yes, the situation is dire," said Matt. "If you've got any good ideas to keep the company afloat, now would be a good time to share them."
"I'll think about it seriously," promised Amy.
After work that night, Amy scoured the Internet for feasible travel-related ideas. It can't cost too much money, and it needs to have mass market appeal cos we need many people to buy it, she said to herself. She thought of the zoom calls and webinars that many working adults had attended snice the COVID pandemic ensnared the world. Perhaps the travel agency could organise activities that blended virtual/in-person participation. Fired up, she opened a new PowerPoint file and started drafting her proposal.
It was almost 1am when Amy completed the proposal. Yawning, she stretched and rubbed her temples. She read through the proposal one last time and then emailed it to Matt. She went to bed, wondering what Matt's reaction to her hard work would be.
Amy arrived at work the next day and to her surprise, saw that Matt wasn't at his desk.
Jane noticed Amy looking for Matt. "I was early this morning, and I heard Larry call for Matt to go to his room, the minute Matt arrived in the office. Matt hadn't even had time to turn on his laptop," Jane reported.
Guess this means Matt hadn't seen her proposal yet, thought Amy.
Moseying over near Larry's room, Amy spotted Matt through the glass door of Larry's room. Poor Matt, thought Amy. He was looking stressed again, and if it was possible, he looked even more upset that he had been the day before.
When Matt came out of Larry's room, it was already close to 1pm, and all the employees had already left for lunch. Amy gave Matt some time to settle down at his desk before going over to ask him how he was doing.
"Larry says that cash flow is a major issue, and he doesn't want to wait till the year has ended before he retrenches staff," said Matt flatly.
"Oh no!" Amy inhaled sharply.
Matt put his head down on the table and sighed. "The retrenchment is going to hit our colleagues hard. Jane's planning to get married next year, Margaret's pregnant, and John just bought a new car."
The urge to console Matt was so strong that Amy stretched out a hand tentatively towards him. Just when she was about to place her hand on his shoulder, she stopped short. What am I doing? Amy asked herself. He has never said anything about his feelings to me.
In the midst of putting her hand down, Matt turned around and seeing her half-outstretched hand, asked. "What are you doing? Why's your hand like that in the air?"
Laughing uneasily, Amy said, "Oh, I thought I saw a mosquito. I wanted to kill it but it flew away."
Matt smiled. "I thought you wanted to sayang me and give me a back rub."
"Sorry to disappoint you. I'll only give back rubs to my boyfriend," Amy replied.
"Noted for future reference," chortled Matt. "Jokes aside, have you given any thought to what we discussed yesterday?"
"Yes, I have," said Amy. "That's why I was looking for you this morning. I sent you a proposal last night. Well, technically, it was early this morning. Let me know what you think of it."
"Wow, that's great, thanks! But first, let's go for lunch. I can't think on a hollow stomach. There's this place that sells delicious ramen, and it's not too expensive," said Matt.
Amy enjoyed the lunch with Matt every much, thinking to herself that this was the first time they were alone together since the Thailand trip. On his part, Matt suddenly realised that Amy was growing prettier with each glance that he stole at her. Am I falling for her? Matt wondered. But I only...and she has....Matt's thoughts clashed together and he had to look away from Amy for fear that the confusion would show on his face.
After lunch, Matt started in on Amy's proposal. Amy had proposed merging virtual and in-person experiences, one of which involved a virtual visit to a castle in France followed by a French meal. Calling Amy over for further discussion, Matt said, "I like your proposal, tell me more."
"I was thinking that since it's difficult for people to travel overseas, we can bring the foreign country to them," shared Amy. "Using the France holiday as an example, we can book a hotel conference room. Guests will be seated at dining tables in small groups. We can project the virtual tour on a large projector with a good surround sound system to provide an immersive experience. The tour can be conducted live via video link by an actual tour guide in France. We can include live drone footage so that the guests can enjoy excellent views of the area. After the virtual tour, the guests can be served popular French cuisine such as onion soup as a starter, coq au vin or bœuf bourguignon as main options, before finishing off with chocolate soufflé for dessert. We can work with the French Tourist Bureau for the details."
Propping her elbows on Matt's desk, Amy looked into Matt's eyes and asked, "What do you think?"
"I think it's brilliant!" Matt said ecstatically. "Let me go through your proposal in detail and give you my comments by the end of the day. Tomorrow, you can clean it up and send to Larry for his approval."
The next day, Amy worked on the comments and suggestions which Matt had indicated. By the end of the day, the revised proposal was ready and she brought it to Maia.
"Matt told me you were working on a blended tour proposal," Maia said. "I hope it really helps to bring in customers for our company. I'll pass this to Larry soonest."
"Fingers crossed!" said Amy.
A few days later, Larry called Matt and Amy into his office.
"This is a great proposal! I'm fully supportive of it. Amy," said Larry to Amy, "let's do a pilot with two countries first. Before COVID, France and Korea were the top destinations for our customers. We'll work with them first."
Turning to Matt, Larry continued, "You've got contacts at French Tourist Bureau and Korea Tourism Organization, right? Drop them an email and loop in Amy, then she can take it on from there. While Amy works on the arrangements, I'll need you to develop and execute a marketing plan to promote this. We can start with our database of clients, before moving onto placing advertisements."
"Got it," said Matt.
A small team was set up to work on the initiative, and Amy was proud to see her hard work bearing fruit.
Three weeks later, the first blended tour was launched to loyal clients of the agency. They gave the blended tour a unanimous thumbs up, after which the initiative was scaled up to include more locations across Asia and Europe. News of the blended tour spread by word of mouth, and soon, the agency could hardly keep up the demand. The success of the blended tours dispelled talk of staff retrenchment, for which Matt and Amy were thankful. By unspoken agreement, they kept the possible retrenchment a secret from the other employees.
One day, after another blended tour had been successfully completed, Matt came over to Amy, who was packing up the leftover materials to bring them back to the office.
"Need some help?" Matt asked.
"Yes, please. I can manage the leaflets but can you carry the box with the souvenirs?" requested Amy.
"No problem," said Matt.
They packed the materials in the boot of Matt's car, after which Amy got into the front passenger seat and buckled the seatbelt. Matt slid into the driver's seat but to Amy's surprise, did not start the engine.
"I was wondering," said Matt, "would you like to go for dinner with me after we drop the stuff at the office?"
Inside, Amy was shouting "Yes, finally!" but she remained calm on the surface. "Sure, I'd love to. Where do you want to go?"
"What do you feel like eating?" asked Matt.
"Anything but French cuisine," laughed Amy. The blended tours for France had proven to be wildly popular, and they ran one almost every week, which resulted in Amy being thoroughly sick of French food.
"Let's do Thai," suggested Matt.
"Okay," said Amy happily. "I think it's about time I learned to eat spicy food."
When they were having dessert, Matt suddenly stopped eating and looked at Amy.
"What? Do I have food on me again?" asked Amy, and began dabbing a serviette all around her mouth.
Matt grabbed hold of Amy's hand and smiled at her. "No, there's no food on you. I think....I think I'm falling in love with you."
Looking into Matt's eyes, Amy said, "I think I fell in love with you some time back. Right when you stopped calling me 'uni grad'."
"Sorry, I know I wasn't very nice to you when you joined the company," said Matt apologetically.
"What was that all about – the calling me 'uni grad' thing?" demanded Amy.
"Well, I wasn't sure whether I could manage a staff who's a university graduate since I only have a polytechnic diploma. I suppose you could say I had an inferiority complex," admitted Matt.
"I don't really care about educational qualifications. Your heart and character are more important," said Amy.
"Thanks, I'm glad to hear that, but still, I guess I lacked the confidence to manage you. And I took it out on you. I'm really sorry," Matt said.
"Let's put all that behind us and move on," suggested Amy.
Nodding in agreement, Matt signalled the water for the bill. Leaving the restaurant, he searched for Amy's hand and held it tightly in his own while they were walking to the car.
Six months later, border restrictions were lifted and guests were able to travel freely once again.
Matt and Amy had been scheduled to lead a tour group of business executives on an incentive trip to Vietnam. One night, when they were alone in the office, Amy looked over Matt's should as he did the hotel booking and noticed that he had booked two rooms – one each for himself and Amy.
"We don't have to share a room anymore? Did Larry give us a bigger budget this time?" Amy wondered.
"Nope, he didn't. Budget's still tight so we need to keep a tight rein on expenses. Actually, I'm paying for the extra room myself," Matt said.
"Oh, why's that?" asked Amy.
Pausing the hotel booking, Matt turned to look at Amy, saying, "I'm afraid I can't control myself if we're sharing the same room."
"What makes you think I want you to control yourself?" breathed Amy. Her hand closing over Matt's, she changed the hotel booking from two rooms to one room and clicks 'submit'.
- THE END -