22 x 14 x 9

If Alice had one superpower, it was her ability to get shit done.

This first manifested itself in the throes of childhood, in one of the torture prisons known as “Girl Scout camp” where you pack seven outfits but return home wearing the same underwear. All the chatty pre-pubescent girls would gather around the minivans, singing songs about mosquitoes and ill-named, ill-fated children we did not want to become (“she had ten hairs on her head, five were alive and the other five were dead”). The caravan would wind its way through the backwoods of Michigan to deposit twenty girls and thirty pounds of trail mix at a shady A-frame cabin filled with cardboard pallets parading as bunk bed mattresses. The troop leaders would dole out acetaminophen for the occasional rash but otherwise retreat to the adult cabin and leave the youths to fend for themselves on latrine duty and kitchen cleanup. How anyone thought it was a good idea to let seven-year-olds handle bleach and “sanitize” dishes is beyond adult comprehension.

That’s when Alice took charge.

She was not going to get salmonella poisoning. If Angie couldn’t handle the scalding water, Alice would assign another girl and banish Angie to the punishingly isolated task of kindling collection. Alice orchestrated campfire meals as an assembly line, rotating each foil packet at the precise moment to get equal access to smoldering coals. Did the other girls openly hate her? Sure. But did her group win every competition/costume contest/survival trial? With war-like pride. She planned on depart that outdoor hellhole alive and in possession of multiple merit badges.

So, yeah, she took the bull by the proverbial horns at a young age. These days, she didn’t bully people into washing dishes but still managed to live pretty effectively. Tasks that normally took her husband a week to accomplish she could knock out in a coffee-fueled morning (though that may be saying something more about him than about her). Sure, she’d succumb to lazy streaks like anyone else, but, generally, she could be counted on to 1) Identify the task. 2) Make a list. 3). Set a timeline. 4). Get it done. This made her both a good (always on time, always with a bottle of wine, always sends a birthday card that arrives two days before the celebration) and annoying (makes you feel bad for being late, calls instead of texts, struggles through any beachy, no-real-plans “girl trip”) friend. A consistent runner. A predictable employee. An effective human.

But for her life and for the love of God, she could not pack a suitcase.

She discovered this handicap well into adulthood. She must have blacked out every time she packed a bag as an adolescent because she had no recollection of physically moving things from a closet to a miniature wheely roller case. Honestly, she couldn’t even remember packing things in college. The only confirming evidence was clothes turned up in her closet and cheaply framed posters hung on her walls.

It must have begun early career, a painfully-eager baby fundraiser clacking around airports in high heels when she should have been wearing sneakers or at least ballet flats. The mantra “dress for the job you want” haunted her pencil-skirt-wearing-Chipotle-stuffing body from meeting to meeting. She had a peculiar feeling that these donors, who had no connection, would start to notice any repeated outfits and then find and call each other to gossip about her limited wardrobe.

“Bonnie, she wore the navy blazer and gray slacks for our meeting on Monday.”

“The blazer with the brass buttons?”

“The very same.”

“She wore that to our meeting on Wednesday!”

“That whore.”

She went through the typical shopaholic phase, cycling through clothing like plastic water bottles before the world turned “conscious.” As her career escalated, the distance and geography lengthened. No longer did she spend two days in Tallahassee with a pit stop in Atlanta. She was circling the country, hitting LAX > PDX > IAH > TUL > ORD in a week. How does one pack for five climates in five days? How do you appropriately dress, even with an infinite closet, for snow in the morning and sunblock in the afternoon? She was both consistently sweating and constantly shivering, much to the chagrin of her airplane seatmates who surmised she suffered from internal organ failure.

Much like hard drugs, the travel eviscerated her mental and physical shape. One too many airport fainting spells and she found herself plopped into a cube with a brass-etched nameplate. She scaled back her wardrobe to a respectable seven blazers. Was it weird to miss Airport Chipotle?

Her friends suggested a trip. Alice, enthusiastic and naive, felt the spark of excitement to once again engage in the TSA tango. The night before the fated departure, she pulled down her trusty hard-shell roller and replaced her travel toothbrush.

And panicked.

What’s the weather like in New York these days?

Fifty-seven on Friday but down to thirty-six by Sunday? Woah. Fleece zippy and a parka.

I’ll probably walk a lot so I need comfortable but stylish footwear. It is NYC, after all.

We’ll likely see a show. And dinner. What can I wear to a show and dinner? Can I change clothes in between?

What outfit says “museum!”?

What if I get hit by a taxi? Do I really want to die in this outfit? This underwear??

Do I need a hat? Should it be a weather hat? A fashion hat? Why would I take up space with a non-utilitarian hat?

30% chance of rain? Now I need a rain jacket, rain boots, an umbrella. Two umbrellas because Kate never packs appropriately and she’ll probably ask to borrow mine.

Tylenol, antacids, a couple of hand sanitizers just in case, sleeping pills? Does anyone snore?

What if my socks get damp. I can’t walk around in damp socks. I’ll get trench foot.

This purse is too casual for going out, but it is big enough for my umbrella. So I’ll need this bag, a clutch, a crossbody bag for sightseeing, a miniature wallet, a regular wallet. My binoculars?

Two credit cards, paper bills in varying denominations in case New York City stops accepting credit cards, ID, passport, three health insurance cards — including the expired one, just in case — and a stack of old subway tickets.

What if my phone dies? What if my laptop dies? What if my charger dies? I should bring triple backups of each.

What if I finish this book and I can’t find another book, and people stop selling and buying books and I just have to stare out the airplane window for forty minutes lost in my uncomfortable thoughts and ask for more sparkling water from the angry flight attendant?

Oh yes! That’s right. Jessica definitely snores. Better do earplugs, too.

This went on for hours until Alice had a backpack, a purse, duffel bag, laptop bag, and one fifty-pound suitcase you’d take on your summer holiday to Spain. Immediately embarrassed, she unpacked everything to start again, telling herself she needed to keep it simple and minimal. No one wants to be that diva that arrives sweating, swearing and lugging multiple pieces onto the inner-airport tram.

But she could not pare it down. All the incidentals, all the “what-ifs,” all the confusion about weather and moisture and airborne disease rendered her putty splayed around heaps of clothing at 2 a.m. the morning of the trip.

She felt broken, that she couldn’t function in adult society. That she no longer grasped basic concepts like layering and monochromatic color schemes. She would have paid someone to take this globe from her shoulders. Three glasses of pinot later, she managed to stuff five outfits appropriate for five climates into a standard carry-on, a box of plastic that once looked cavernous but now groaned like a split hotdog shedding its casing. She was not proud.

In the Uber on the way to the airport, she put on a meditation podcast to clear her head. Inevitably, she focused on her new mantras. Steve Jobs wore the same outfit every day, most chic women stick to all black. You are an efficient, effective human being.

But what if it rains.