Hot-springs change a girl

The bus drops you at the bottom of the mountain road, and your phone shows one bar, then none. Fourteen months of job applications, four hundred and six of them, and the only thing your aunt's money has bought you so far is a week at a hot-spring resort you've never heard of, in a town whose name you had to look up twice.

Aunt Vanessa is already halfway up the path, hauling a suitcase that contains, by her own admission, "options." She has opinions about your posture, your interview wardrobe, and the fact that you called this a pity trip.

"It's an investment," she says, in the tone she uses for things she will not be argued with about. Steam rises off the pools ahead, and for the first time in a year, nobody is asking you a single question about your five-year plan.

The manager of the resort, a woman with a clipboard and a calm that seems earned rather than purchased, greets you both by name at the gate. Before either of you can have a look around, she is whisking you away into the resort.