I need to pack, but I find myself doing anything to avoid it. I’ve scrubbed the sink and polished the silver. I called my brother, for God’s sake.

            I used to like to pack. She taught me how to pack. Then I killed her.

#

1. Wear your heaviest clothes—coat, jeans (If you must have jeans…),

running shoes. (If you really think you’re going to run….)

2. Decide on one-two-three-four. (One jacket, two bottoms, three undies, four tops.)

3. Roll. (Folding is for novices.)

4. Compress. (You can’t go wrong with Marmot bags.)

5. Fill a quart size baggie with three-ounce containers of Grey Goose. (Ten will fit if you’re creative and committed.)

6. Pack. (Voila. That’s it. Time to go.)

#

            At the first sketching class we took together, I mentioned I was going to Spain for a week.  How many years ago was that? She invited me for drinks at her house; she would teach me the secrets of successful travel. I was curious to see where she lived. Hell, I was curious just to see her outside class. She was smart and funny, an attractive older woman with a silvery laugh and a quick sketching hand. She could capture a model’s gesture in a few strokes, all the while keeping up an ongoing commentary on light and shadow.

            “If you forget the rest, just don’t forget the Goose,” was how she concluded her packing lesson that evening at her house—a tiny, tidy Cape Cod she had shared with her husband and their seven children. Seven! (It still impressed me.)  We were an odd couple—she, already a grandmother, and me, some twenty-five years younger and single.

            “Don’t you think I’ll want a little shampoo?”

            She waved a hand dramatically, dismissing my question as not worth a response.

            “What is Grey Goose? Vodka?” I asked.

            She nodded, as she pushed her compression bag across the table for me to examine.

             “So, I just need to pack some vodka, that’s the secret?”

            “Grey Goose is to vodka what Macallan is to Scotch,” she said. “It’s what Patron Silver is to tequila.”

            She scratched her chin and looked out the window, then started talking as though conversing with someone out there I couldn’t see.

             “It’s what Leica is to cameras. Rolls Royce is to cars. Moleskin to notebooks.”

            She nodded, clearly satisfied with herself.

            “OK. Grey Goose,” I said. “Check.”

            “Why not?” she replied, and then turned to walk into her kitchen.

            I followed her into the kitchen. She opened the freezer, an old baby-blue model with rounded corners.  She pushed something to the side and pulled out a bottle. It was clear, save for a wrap-around, see-through glacier and some text.

            “That’s the Goose?”

            She pulled a couple glasses off a shelf and poured an inch of clear liquid in each.

            “So, we’re drinking now?” I asked her. “I have to get some work done when I get home.”

            “This will help,” she told me. “Drink.”

            She clinked the glasses together and handed me one.  The icy cold surprised me, and I put it down instinctively. I leaned down to take a sniff. Nothing. I looked up and saw her glass was already empty. I lifted mine and sipped. Crisp. Smoky? But a little sweet? I tried to think of what to comment, as it appeared she was waiting for me to say something.

            “I’m not getting a lot,” I told her. “But I’m enjoying it. Maybe a hint of almond?”

            She nodded her approval, as though I had passed a test.

#

            We more than stayed in touch at the end of the session. We took more classes together. We drank more shots. Our first trip together was to France, after her husband died. She had a grandson studying in Paris, and we stayed in town a few days to see him and stare at paintings before we headed south. She drove the rental. She loved to drive, she’d told me. I hated to drive, I’d told her.

            “We are well-paired for travel,” she told me. “I’ll do the driving, you handle the money. Everything else, we’ll share.”

            “Like the Goose?” I asked. We’d each had a nip before leaving the hotel. Mine had gone straight to my head. She seemed unfazed.

            “And Cezanne,” she added. “We’ll share him.”

            We were on our way to the artist’s hometown to see the studio where he’d painted.  I’d wanted to pack a sketch pad and pencils, but she’d shook her head at me as though dealing with a dense toddler. We would buy better supplies once there, she had told me.

#

            The next year it was Mexico to climb the pyramid at Coba and follow the footsteps of Frida Kahlo. Then Amsterdam for some Van Gogh and tulips. Barcelona was on my wish list, but she had lobbied hard for Buenos Aires—a destination chosen by her, I believe, more so she could add another continent to her life list than for any real interest in the art or sights there.

            “We’ll learn to tango,” she told me, patting my arm.

#

            Her children worried that we would push too far off the beaten track. That she’d be mugged. That she’d drink too much and get in an accident. That she’d have a medical crisis with no care in sight.

            Instead, we didn’t even get as far as the airport when it happened. It was wet outside; I’d run to her house from my car when I arrived early. She had her bag packed and sitting by the front door, but she wasn’t ready to go. She needed to leave a note about the furnace for her granddaughter, who would be staying there while we were in Argentina. And another note for the neighbor, who was coming over to borrow something. More notes? I stopped listening and checked my phone for emails. And the weather.

            It was getting colder.

            “We should go,” I told her. “The temperature’s dropping. It might get icy.”

            “You worry too much,” she said and laughed at me, as she walked into the room. “Here,” she held out a hand with a shot glass.

            “Let’s have a drink at the airport,” I told her. “I’m calling the cab.”

            “Suit yourself,” she said and drained her glass. “I’m almost ready.”

#

            She excelled at the quick sketch.  A few lines and she had the essence of the model in front of us.  Our instructor, “Mad Max” as we called him, applauded her first effort each session, then demanded she start fresh, slow down, and “push” to see the details. 

            “You have the gist,” I remember him saying. “Now, go for the garb. Dress your drawing.”

            She turned that into one of our toasts: “We’ve got the gist, here’s to the garb.”

            I, on the other hand, was a methodical sketch artist. I considered each stroke. I labored over each line. As a result, I could duplicate what was in front of me—but I couldn’t bring it to life. To me, the instructor said things like, “Get your working lines in place quickly.” “Loosen up on that pencil.” “Play.”

            We would laugh about it. That was one of her gifts to me: I was enjoying myself, I was exploring—instead of chastising myself for not being the artists I wished to be. I was done feeling sorry for myself.

#

            In Amsterdam, I almost lost her.  We were crossing the street to get to the Rijksmuseum.

            “Car,” I yelled as I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to the sidewalk. She wasn’t happy with me. She’d grown up in New York, she told me; cars stopped for her, not the other way around.  A similar scene ensued in Paris.

            But she didn’t always attempt death by traffic.  She would stop at a crosswalk as long as I didn’t comment. I came to realize, she just couldn’t handle being told what to do and she couldn’t stand being corrected. If she said we should walk to the top of a tower, it was pointless to question if that were a good idea. We went. Proud and stubborn, yes.  But there was the rest. The way she could completely dissolve into a laugh.  A shared taste in oddities. (Cat art museum, anyone? House of vampires?) The poems that memorialized our trips. Mon ami, merci, merci, merci. For thrusting kir royale on me.

            I didn’t tell her children about the near misses in Amsterdam and Paris. Or about the taxi incident in Mexico. Was it a language barrier? Were we being kidnapped? All I know is that she silently pointed at our doors, and I understood to open mine the next time the car stopped, and we both jumped out. Adrenaline pumped uncomfortably through my body as I listened to her let out a whoop.

#

            I need to pack.  Two weeks in Buenos Aires.  You’re actually going? I’ve been asked too many times by too many people. Alone? Sure that’s safe?

            I have news for these people: Nothing is safe.  Not a drive down the road. Not a flight across the ocean. Not a walk down your icy front steps.

            One two three four. Roll. Compress. Pack.

#

           I knew we should leave sooner, but I let her convince me to take our time. To have a drink.  Two for her. I tried to pick up her suitcase when our Uber showed. She slapped my hand away and laughed. I reminded her to lock the door.

            “Worrywart,” she chastised me. “My door is an open door.”

            She did not lock the door.

            I held onto the railing and made my way down the slick steps. I almost turned to give her a hand, but I knew she would refuse. Screw it; she can fall if she’s going to be that way.

            And she fell. Not climbing the pyramid in Mexico. Not taking tango lessons in a dark nightclub.

            On her own front steps, her feet flew out from under her. I heard a scream and turned in time to see her head smack the concrete.  It was the driver who had the sense to call for an ambulance the second he saw her go down. I knelt and called her name.  Again and again.

            Sitting in the hospital beside her bed gave me time to ask myself all the questions I knew her children were asking silently: Why hadn’t I insisted we leave earlier, before the temperature dropped? Why hadn’t I insisted she leave the light on so we could see where we going? Why had I let an 80-year-old walk down icy stairs in slick flats? Why had I let her carry her suitcase and the bag of trash?

#

            It’s time. I need to pack.

            The Goose. I will pack the Goose.

            Vodka is water. Water is life.

            I dig out the little, blue bottles she gifted me before our last trip. You must travel in style, my dear. I fill each bottle carefully over the sink.  Still, I splash some on my hand.  I lick the cool liquid off my palm.  Almond. Without thinking, I raise a tiny bottle to my lips and guzzle its contents.  It is time to go. It is always time to go.

– Jody Lannen Brady