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“The thing is, Matilda, I don’t fly. Ever.”
Cassie was listening to our conversation, and when she heard that, her eager smile turned to a
frown.
“Oh, honey,” Matilda said, laughing. “Is that all that’s holding you back? Once a fear is exposed
it’s no longer a fear. It’s an opportunity for a decision—to stay stuck or to go forward.”
I protested further, trying to explain.
“I hate being a passenger. I need to be at the wheel of things. I just … I can’t give up that control.”
“But you’ve let folks drive you around in a car, haven’t you?”
I told her at least with a car, I knew I could force it to the side of the road and get out. “A plane
ride is not only a full-on commitment, it’s an act of faith, both in the plane’s ability to remain aloft and
in my ability to trust a pilot to keep it there. And as silly as it sounds, I don’t have a lot of faith in
either of those things, Matilda.” I added, “I don’t even have a passport.”
“Pfft. Details. We can get you one in twenty-four hours. Trust me when I tell you, Dauphine, that
you can and will transform this fear into faith. Trust us. Trust this process.”
While Matilda continued to underscore the principles of flight, highlighting its best features and
those also of Buenos Aires in the fall, Cassie carefully turned her paper coaster into an airplane,
which she proceeded to fly over the top of my head. With sound effects.
What can I say? They wore me down, reminding me that I had told the Committee to surprise me.
After I accepted the trip and hung up, Cassie gave me a standing ovation in the middle of Tracy’s.
Later, when I told Elizabeth I was getting on a plane, she was so proud of me she dragged a piece of
vintage luggage, the kind without wheels, to my apartment to help me pack. In my preemptive terror I
told her where all the important papers were, with strict instructions that if the plane went down, the
store and all its assets would go to her, not to my sister, Bree.
“She can have a fur,” I said. “But not one of the minks.”
“Okay,” Elizabeth said. “But I’m sure it won’t come to divvying up your estate.”
“You never know. Life is weird. It throws things at you,” I said, tossing a pair of kitten heels into
the suitcase. Indeed, I’d traveled from my initiation into S.E.C.R.E.T. to this, packing for a
transcontinental flight. My eventual “yes” to Matilda came from the same place I found my yeses for
my fantasy men so far, on a shelf below my doubt, in front of all my fears. Hopefully, there were a
few more yeses left before boarding time.
Having never flown before, I so far hadn’t found much about travel to recommend it. The airport was
both chaotic and bovine, generating this awful “hurry up and wait” syndrome that triggered stress
sweats and the jitters.
“Heading to Buenos Aires?” a deep, accented voice asked, poking through my trance and startling
me.
I turned to face a crisp white dress shirt, stretched over the fit chest of an exceptionally tall,
exceptionally attractive black man. He was behind me in line, loading his plastic bin with a heavy
platinum watch, a black eel-skin wallet and a carefully folded suit bag. Though dressed like a casual
businessman, he had an easy smile that made him look more like a movie star.
“How do you know where I’m going?” I asked. I dropped my S.E.C.R.E.T. bracelet in my bin with
a clang. I had thought of leaving it behind, but now that I had a couple of charms dangling off it, I
enjoyed wearing it.