TO NEW HORIZONS 15

Janet Powell laid the last silk blouse across the top of her carry-on and pressed it flat with both palms, as if a crease might betray her. The apartment was quiet except for the radiator ticking in the corner and the distant grind of a bus on Lake Shore Drive. She opened the worn leather notebook on the dresser and ran her pen down the list. Passport. Chargers. Compact first-aid kit. The small bottle of melatonin she would never admit she needed. Check. Check. Check.

The final signed divorce decree sat under a stack of architectural blueprints on the desk, the paper still stiff from the courthouse copier. She had folded it once, then again, until it was small enough to slide between two site plans for a mixed-use building in Evanston. No one would look there. She told herself that twice. Then she closed the notebook, snapped the elastic band around it, and zipped the bag.

Five days earlier the golden envelope had arrived, thick paper, wax seal the color of old honey, Angelica's looping script across the front. Boarding instructions. Packing guidelines. Flight numbers. The destination left blank, as always, until they stood at the gate. Janet had read the letter twice at the kitchen table and then put it in the drawer with the takeout menus. She had not called anyone. She had not cried. She had made coffee and gone to work.

Now she locked the apartment, rode the elevator down with a couple arguing about parking, and walked into a March wind. The car was already packed. She drove north on the Kennedy by-pass with the radio off, both hands on the wheel, counting the minutes the way she counted columns on a drawing. Exhaustion sat behind her tired, dark eyes. For months she had smiled through client meetings and late-night emails and the empty half of the bed. She had told herself the trip would put her back in order. She no longer believed it but she went to join them anyway.

O'Hare swallowed her at Terminal 3. She parked, dragged the carry-on over a cracked curb, and followed the signs toward the international gates. Fluorescent light made everyone look slightly ill. She found Gate K12 by habit, the same cluster of seats they had used two years ago for Lisbon, and stopped. Angelica Mendoza was already there.

She stood with one hip cocked against a pillar, camera bag slung low, dark hair twisted up in a way that looked accidental and was not. Sun had browned her arms and the bridge of her nose. When she saw Janet she smiled, wide and sudden, and Janet felt the old stutter in her chest, the one she had trained herself to ignore.

"There she is," Angelica said. She crossed the space in three long steps and pulled Janet into a hug that lasted a bit too long. Janet's cheek pressed against the warm skin of Angelica's neck. She smelled like citrus soap and airplane coffee. Janet's hands settled at Angelica's waist and then, carefully, let go.

"You look like you haven't slept since Thanksgiving," Angelica said, still holding her by the elbows, studying her face.

"That's generous," Janet said. "I was aiming for early December."

Angelica laughed, low. "I missed that. The dry stuff." Her thumbs moved once against Janet's sleeves, then she stepped back. "Five days. You opened it right away, didn't you?"

"I opened it at the table like a civilized person."

"Liar. You steamed the seal."

Janet almost smiled. "I did not steam the seal."

They stood there a moment, the fluorescent hum filling the gap. Janet wanted to say something true and could not find the sentence. Angelica's gaze stayed on her a second longer than friendship required. Then a voice cut across the gate.

"If you two are going to have a moment, at least do it where I can photograph it for the group chat."

Sandra Fletcher arrived in a cloud of perfume and rattling jewelry, oversized sunglasses still on indoors, a plastic cup of something pink in one hand. She wore white linen that had no business surviving an airport and a lipstick the color of a warning. She air-kissed Janet, then Angelica, and dropped into a chair as if she owned the terminal.

"Darling," she said, "the bartender charged me eighteen dollars for this and I paid it because I am a woman of principle. Where is everyone? I refuse to be early and sober at the same time."

Janet sat across from her. "How's Mark?"

Sandra took a long sip. "Mark is Mark. Alive. Employed. Still under the impression that an anniversary trip requires matching luggage. I told him if I wanted a reality check I would have stayed at the office. Pour the wine and tell me another lie, right?" She laughed, sharp and bright. "He's fine. We're fine. Don't start with the gentle eyes, Janet. I will combust."

Janet let it go. Sandra's left hand, the one with the thin gold band, stayed wrapped around the cup.

Sally Jensen appeared next, rolling a sensible bag and already talking. She was still in scrubs under her coat, a smear of something that might have been yogurt on her sleeve. She hugged Janet hard enough to crack a rib, then Angelica, then stood back and surveyed Sandra.

"You look like a magazine," Sally said. "I look like I delivered twins at six this morning, which I did. Do not ask me about sleep. Ask me about the coffee I stole from the nurses' station."

Next to find her friends was Lulu Grainger who followed in paint-stained jeans and a sweater that had once been expensive. She carried a canvas tote exploding with scarves and a single hiking boot. "I packed the other one," she announced. "I think. Anita, tell them I packed the other one."

Anita Wyatt came last, quiet, a paperback already bookmarked in her jacket pocket, hair in a braid that had started coming undone on the Blue Line. She hugged each of them in turn, lingering with Janet, her palm warm on Janet's back. "You made it," she said, as if that were the accomplishment.

They formed the old circle without planning it. Bags piled. Voices stacked. Lulu wanted to know 

if anyone had brought the good snacks. Sally wanted to know if anyone had brought ibuprofen that was not hospital-grade. Sandra offered sips of her overpriced drink and then snatched it back. Angelica watched them with the half-smile she wore when she was already composing the first photograph in her head.

Janet stood a little outside the noise and let it wash over her. Fifteen years. The same six women, different cities, one secret destination every spring. She had organized the early years, the spreadsheets, the group texts at 2 a.m. when someone's flight was canceled. She had been the one who remembered birthdays and dietary restrictions and who could not sit in an exit row. She had been reliable and  had been the version of herself they expected. The decree under the blueprints felt like a heavy rock in her bag.

"Okay," Angelica said, clapping once. The sound cut through. She unzipped a slim folder and fanned six boarding passes like a dealer. "Gather round, children. The reveal."

They leaned in. Even Sandra pushed her sunglasses up.

"San José," Angelica said. "Costa Rica. Then a transfer. We are not staying in the city. We are going off the grid. Cloud forest. Coastal ruins. An eco-lodge that does not have a minibar and does have howler monkeys at dawn. I packed you a list of what not to wear, Sandra. You will ignore it."

A beat of silence. Then Lulu whooped. Sally swore, delighted. Anita's face opened into something almost young. Sandra stared at her white linen as if it had personally betrayed her.

"You absolute maniac," Sandra said. "I brought three pairs of heels."

"I know," Angelica said. "I am very proud of you."

Janet felt the thrill first, a clean lift under her ribs, the old hunger for somewhere unnamed. Then the terror arrived, cooler and more precise. "We'll be in the jungle so there will be no cell service. We will be sharing rooms." She pictured the decree sliding out of the blueprints on some muddy lodge floor. She pictured Angelica's face if she told the truth. She pictured Sandra's jokes turning into something else.

Angelica handed her a boarding pass. Their fingers touched. Angelica did not pull away at once.

"You okay?" Angelica asked, quietly enough that the others, already arguing about insect repellent, did not hear.

Janet nodded. "I am always okay."

"That is not what I asked."

Janet looked at the gate number, the time, the name of a country she had never seen. "I packed the notebook," she said. "I packed the wrong kind of shoes but I am here."

Angelica's mouth tilted. "Good enough."

They sat. Sally produced a bag of pretzels and passed it around. Lulu described, in detail, a painting she had abandoned in February and would finish when she got back, or never. Anita mentioned a rare orchid she hoped to see if the trail maps were any good. Sandra ordered another drink from a passing cart and toasted "to poor decisions and excellent company."

Janet listened. She answered when spoken to. She laughed at the right places. Inside, the list in her head kept running. Hide the paper. Do not drink too much on the plane. Do not sit next to Angelica if sitting next to Angelica made her hands unsteady. Do not let anyone ask the question she could not answer yet.

The boarding announcement crackled. They stood as one doing same old choreography... gathering bags, checking pockets, Sandra complaining about the line already forming. Angelica walked a half step ahead, camera bag bouncing, already turning to make sure Janet was still there.

Janet followed. The carry-on rolled smoothly over the tile. The blueprints sat heavy in the main compartment, and under them the folded decree, unsigned by anyone who mattered, but about as final as a closed door. She thought of the golden envelope in her kitchen drawer. She thought of five days of not knowing, and now the knowing, and the long flight south into heat and rain and whatever waited when the organized version of her life finally ran out of room.

At the jet bridge she paused. Angelica looked back.

"Coming?" Angelica said.

Janet tightened her grip on the handle. "Yes," she said. "I am coming."

They walked into the narrow tube together. Behind them, Sandra's laugh rose, bright and brittle. Sally told Lulu to watch the damn boot. Anita hummed something under her breath. The air changed, recycled and cool. Janet did not look at the city falling away. She looked at Angelica's shoulder, the small tear in the camera strap, the place where sun had caught the hair at her nape. Her heart did the stutter again. She let it. For the length of the jet bridge, she let it.

Then they were on the plane, finding seats, stowing bags, the six of them scattered and then clustering again as the cabin filled. Janet took the aisle. Angelica took the window. The space between them was the width of an armrest and fifteen years of things unsaid. Janet opened the leather notebook, wrote nothing, and closed it again. The engines wound up. Chicago vanished. The clouds closed over the lake like a lid.

She did not know if she would come back the same woman. She knew only that the list was finished, the bag was packed, and the destination, at last, had a name.