Page 7 of Every Step She Takes
Sadie
I am not Diane Lane.
This becomes apparent in the seventy-two hours I have to prepare for this red-wine-fueled life choice. Diane Lane didn’t have to drop two grand at REI for a new Osprey 40L backpack, new hiking boots, and moisture-wicking everything because she had a sister who didn’t trust her with her top-of-the-line trekking supplies. Diane Lane didn’t have to endure a crash course in Instagram influencing from said hypercritical Gen Z sister. She didn’t have to worry about regulating her mother’s emotions while dealing with her own mounting panic, and she didn’t have to pull an all-nighter to ensure her assistant manager wouldn’t burn down her Nan’s life’s work in her absence. Diane Lane didn’t have to ask her psychiatrist for emergency Xanax for the flight. Probably.
And Diane didn’t spend her thirty-fifth birthday wandering around a Hudson News because her anxiety forced her to get to the airport four hours early.
No, inUnder the Tuscan Sun, Diane Lane made her mental breakdown look tragically beautiful. I make my mental breakdown look, well… tragic.
I arrive at my gate an hour before boarding just as the woman at the front counter picks up the phone to make an announcement.“Welcome to British Airways flight 520 to London,” she trills in a lovely accent. “We will begin boarding momentarily, but we want to remind you that this is a full flight. Overhead storage space will be limited, so we’re looking for fifteen passengers who’d be willing to check their bags free of charge.”
My bag weighs at least thirty pounds and is already crushing my shoulders, so I briefly consider ditching it when my phone buzzes in the pocket of my yoga pants. It’s a mildly threatening text from Vi reminding me to post before boarding. I snap a maybe-artistic, maybe-just-crooked photo of the gate sign before slapping a filter on it and uploading it to the cestlavi account, along with fifteen of Vi’s pre-approved hashtags.
Two seconds after I press post, I get another text demanding the next one is a selfie.THE ALGORITHM WANTS PHOTOS WITH PEOPLE, she text-shouts at me. My phone buzzes again as another bubble appears on the screen.AND YOU HAVE TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF TO MY FOLLOWERS.
A beat, and then a third text.I DON’T WANT ANYONE THINKING I TOOK THAT JANKY-ASS PHOTO.
The spiraling thoughts start as my steps echo through the jetway before boarding the plane.
What if I can’t find any overhead space for my backpack?
What if I can’t navigate my way through Heathrow and I miss my connecting flight to Porto?
What if the plane crashes and I end up in some kind of cannibalisticYellowjacketssituation? Or worse, aLostsituation, where I won’t know what’s going on for six years, only to discover I was maybe dead the whole time anyway. At least, I think that’s what happened in theLostfinale.
What if I’m the only person who is still confused by theLostfinale?
What if my seatmate packed a tuna sandwich and wants totalk to me?
My anxiety brain thoroughly and efficiently runs through every worst-case scenario, trying to protect me from upcoming disappointment by anticipating it. Because I am Molly Wells’s daughter through and through.
When I arrive in front of seat 18B, I discover there’s easy access to bin space (though my heavy bag requires the help of three strangers). There is only one seat next to mine by the window, and the older woman on the other side of the aisle has already removed her shoes and started in on a knitting project. She doesn’t seem like a talker.
The flight was the one thing Vi couldn’t easily transfer into my name when I decided to take her place on this trip four days ago. She planned to buy me a ticket using her airline miles, but the owner of the tour company stepped in and kindly offered to arrange my flight, including an upgrade to premium economy. I guess it pays to be an influencer.
I would never splurge on such an indulgence, but I can’t complain about the extra room. Apparently, only straight-size people under five-feet tall are allowed to be comfortable on airplanes, and I am neither of those things.
I take off my coat and shove it under the seat in front of me before cuing my downloaded “sad girl indie” playlist on Spotify and spritzing a small amount of lavender onto my left wrist to calm me. Then I set up my things in the seat pouch in front of me: two Lärabars; my Owala water bottle; Dramamine; a phone charger; aLonely Planetguidebook about Portugal. I glance down at my phone and the screen is an endless stream of notifications from Vi’s Instagram, comments and mentions and tags. There are texts from my sister about content, and texts from the assistant manager of the store about inventory, and texts from my mom about whether I packed enough doses of my Lexapro.
I ignore everything, put my phone in airplane mode, and slide it into the pouch too.
The flow of people entering the plane soon thins to a slow trickle, then stops completely, and the window seat next to me remains empty. The flight attendants start closing the overhead bins, and I begin to relax a little as Gracie Abrams croons in my AirPods. I let my elbows spread wide and my long legs stretch out a little farther, enjoying the freedom.
Until out of nowhere, a blue-haired figure materializes in the aisle, swinging a backpack that dangles off one shoulder and accidentally smacking people with a Hydro Flask covered in stickers: several different pride flags, aSHE/HERdecal, and a “Protect Trans Kids” glittery rainbow all catch my eye. Giant headphones jostle around her neck, and sheabsolutelylooks like a talker.
Anxiety gathers deep in my lower gut.Please. Please don’t let her be my seat companion.
She slings off her backpack and starts opening and closing overhead bins in search of a spot to stash it. The bag looks like it was once maroon, maybe orange, but has long since faded to a fecal-brown color. It’s covered in patches from places around the world, like Van Life’s answer to a Girl Scout vest. She makes a triumphant sound when she finds a small spot for the backpack and stands on her tiptoes to cram it in. As she starts punching the bag into its tight space, her shirt and fleece ride up, and her jeans slide down her hip bones to reveal the waistband of her briefs and a tattoo of some kind of vined plant that snakes down her left hip and disappears into her underwear. I force myself to look away as a flight attendant brusquely marches down the aisle to help.
“Thanks, friend,” she says to the attendant in a vaguely European accent. She shrugs off her mustard-colored Cotopaxi fleece to reveal a threadbare gray T-shirt and a distinct lack of bra. Hereyes scan the seat numbers until they land on 18A, and her gaze drops down to me. As her mouth widens into a friendly smile, something weird happens in my stomach.
It’s not my usual anxiety knot; it almost feels like my stomach lifts into my rib cage the way it always does during takeoff, and I have an inexplicable sense of déjà vu as I look up at her face, like seeing someone from childhood you forgot existed. But I know I’ve never met this woman. It’s an unexplainable familiarity, like an itch in the back of my head that I can’t scratch.
“That’s me,” she says, pointing to the window seat.
Because of course it is. I tug out one AirPod. “Sorry,” I say as I unfasten my seat belt and quickly move out of her way.
“Nothing to be sorry about, friend.” She smiles breezily.
