This cannot be happening right now. Not on my first day here. I watched the unclaimed luggage spin on the belt like a merry-go-round. My eyes followed a leopard print case around the belt, inadvertently latching on.
My mind flew back home, back to the baggage check, where I had stood with my mom. I remembered jittery smiles. Shaky hands. A few tears shed as I said goodbye. Through the security line, anxiety gnawed at my gut, making me twitch at any too-close person. However, hidden under it was a twinge of strength, independence. I wanted to see the place that I had spent four years learning about. I wanted to go on adventures, speak the language, capture beauty in the net of my memory.
Now, any semblance of confidence had disappeared, deflated like a month-old birthday balloon.
“None of those were yours?” Eva* rested both hands on the handle of her massive suitcase.
“No.” I shook my head, feeling pressure behind my bleary eyes. All my stuff… my clothes… what am I going to do without my migraine medication?
“What did it look like?”
“Black, white, gray, a hatched pattern.” I pushed a greasy strand of hair behind my ear.
“Oh.” Eva furrowed her brows. The other three girls looked the same, a mixture of pity and relief. Glad it’s not me, the softness of their eyes said.
“I’m gonna... I guess I’ll go fill out a form.” I gestured towards the ‘Lost Luggage’ window, where a line of ten people already waited. Dark circles lined their eyes. Shoulders drooped under baggy sweatshirts.
“We’ll wait for you.” Eva nodded. “We’ll just be over there.” She and the others walked towards a seating area.
Travelling alone, even just a half-hour subway commute in high school, made me queasy: too many strangers, too little personal space, too much unfamiliarity. Given this, travelling alone to Italy made me exponentially anxious. I had never visited a foreign country, and I hadn’t flown in eleven years, much less alone. I met Eva and the others at Frankfurt Airport during my five-hour layover. Relief had rushed over me. I discovered that these girls were studying at the same school as me, and all on the same flight to Florence. I wouldn’t be alone, even if they were sorority girls, far from my normal crowd. They could help me find the housing office at least.
What am I going to do? I only have… one extra shirt and pair of underwear… I don’t even have any soap, or my acne treatment…I should have known something like this would happen, I should have packed better. I should have double checked that my bag was checked through. I don’t know what I’m doing. My mind spiraled, speeding as fast as a bullet train, but my body moved slowly. Sighing, I dragged myself to the back of the Lost Luggage line. My muscles stiffened, the presence of strangers putting me on edge. Please, be quick. My back ached from nearly a full day of travel. Any sense of reason I’d started the trip with gradually slipped away. I wanted to peel myself out of my skin, scrub every strand of hair with a whole bottle of shampoo, which I didn’t have. My stomach was empty enough to cannibalize the rest of my body. I wanted to sleep for as long as possible. Mostly, I wanted my bag, and all my stuff from home. I thought of the blanket in my backpack, and my mom’s words when she gave it to me: you’ll be glad to have something like this when you get there. Tears stung my eyes.
“No,” said an older woman at the front of the line, “I got here a week ago. You need to call someone. This is unacceptable.” She leaned towards the window, lips curled.
The dread rushing through my veins sped even faster. What if I never get my stuff back? What if...
“I’m sorry, madam,” the employee said, in a slight Italian accent. “We do not have your suitcase. If you’d like to come and look yourself...”
“Yes, I would.”
The employee sighed, and walked away from the window, opening a door beside it, and revealing a room filled with suitcases. She beckoned, and the woman marched into the office. A low mumbling spread through the line. I slipped my backpack from my shoulders and set it between my feet on the scuffed floor.
“Hey.” Eva tapped me on the shoulder. “We have to go, the housing office closes at six, so...”
I glanced down at my watch. 4:30. Already.
“Oh, yeah. Yeah, go ahead.” I swallowed a lump in my throat.
“Good luck with your bag.”
“Uh, thanks. I’ll see you guys around.”
The four girls walked towards the doors on the opposite end of the airport lobby, marked “Uscita/Exit.”
What if I get lost? I’m never going to get out of this airport. All of my clothes are lost. My favorite sneakers…
I stood alone in the Lost Luggage line of the Amerigo Vespucci Airport, just as lost as my suitcase. A voice snapped me from my anxious thoughts.
“Do you need a form?” The woman in front of me offered a paper. She wore round glasses and had short brown hair. Smile-lines wrinkled the skin around her mouth and the corners of her eyes.
“Oh, yeah, thanks.” I took the form. As a city-dweller, I was used to ignoring most people I came across, looking down at the cigarette butts rather than smiling. Avoiding eye contact, I rummaged in my backpack for a pen.
“I can’t believe this line.”
“Yeah, it’s awful.” I shook my head, tone flat. Avoid conversation. People are weird. You never know, a voice instructed.
Shakily, I filled out the form, glancing forwards to see the woman doing the same. It asked for my contact information, where I was staying in Florence, and my permanent residence. In this line, I scribbled my address in Philadelphia. I glanced at her again, noticing her also write Philadelphia in the address line. What are the odds? The tension in my shoulders relaxed. Someone who knew my city, my home, even if she was a stranger.
“Oh, you’re from Philly? I grew up there!” The woman gestured at my form, having noticed me writing “Philadelphia” in my loopy handwriting.
“Yeah, South Philly! Where’d you grow up?” My wall broke, and I smiled.
“Up near Olney.”
“No way, that’s where my high school was!”
“That’s crazy! Where’d you go to high school?” Her eyes brightened with a smile.
“Central.”
“I went to Girls High, but my brothers went to Central! One of them used to teach there.”
My shock grew, this person whom I had met seconds before somehow becoming familiar, safe.
“Wait, what’s your brother’s name?”
“Jacob Trout.”
My eyes widened.
“That’s insane! I had him for English classes for two years!” Mr. Trout was one of my favorite high school teachers. It made me sad when I heard that he had quit.
“Really?” The woman laughed. “What a small world.”
“I’m Lydia.”
“Adrienne.”
For the first time in twenty-four hours, my anxiety abated, though thoughts of a week without my own clothes still swirled in my brain. The line inched forwards.
“So, what brings you to Florence?” I asked.
“Well, I’m a philosophy professor, and I was supposed to go to a conference in Tuscany in 2020, but, because of the pandemic, it was cancelled. They rescheduled it to this year.”
“Oh wow, that’s awesome.”
“I assume you’re here to study?”
“Yeah. I took four years of Italian classes in high school, and I did AP my fourth year. I scored really well on the exam, so I got a scholarship to do a summer term at a school here.”
“Wow, congrats. Is this your first time in Italy?”
I nodded.
“Florence is a beautiful city, you’ll love it. My husband and I have been a couple times.”
A thought crept into my mind. She knew the city. Maybe...
“Buona sera, may I have your form please?” The employee behind the window reached out a hand.
“Oh, yes.” Adrienne handed her the form. The employee asked her where she had flown from, how long she would be in Florence. She politely answered, calm despite the situation.
“We should have your bag within a week.”
Adrienne nodded, pressing her lips. She stepped aside. I walked up to the window, handing the employee my form. She asked the same questions, which I answered, mind fuzzy from lack of sleep.
“Once again, we should deliver your bag within a week.”
“Grazie.”
To my surprise, Adrienne had waited for me. After a moment, I forced a question from my mouth.
“Would you mind showing me how to get out of here?”
“Of course.” Adrienne tilted her head. “Do you want to take the tram to the city with me?”
She’s practically a stranger. But I dismissed this thought. If she was anything like her brother, she was trustworthy. And there was something about her smile and the way she carried herself told me she was kind and caring, in a motherly kind of way.
“Oh, uh, that would be great.”
“Can I see the address you need to go to?”
I nodded, pulling out my phone, and showing her the email from the school, detailing where I should go to pick up my apartment key.
“Yeah, the tram will be the best way to get here.”
I nodded, clutching my backpack straps, and following her through the exit doors. We walked through another airport lobby, and I noticed smells for the first time: coffee, sweat, and cleaning fluid. I trailed behind her, through another set of exit doors.
The Amerigo Vespucci Airport could have been anywhere in the world, the flat landscape vaguely green beyond the parking lot. We walked to a covered tram platform, where a train sat in the station. The electronic ticket booth printed our tickets (2.50 Euros each), and we got on the tram. After a few minutes, the doors slid shut, and the train rolled out of the station.
“You should get off on the last stop,” Adrienne said. “I’m getting off at the stop before, so make sure you know where you’re going after that.”
I plugged the housing office’s address into Google Maps and saw that it was about a ten-minute walk from Unitá, my stop. Not too complicated.
The two of us sat in tired silence, the tram car empty aside from a mother and toddler that got on two stops later. The tram gently rocked, flashing snippets of Florentine landscape: apartment buildings in old villas, vibrant green plants between the concrete stations, clotheslines swaying in the warm breeze. It was familiar, but foreign, as if seeing the world beyond a painting’s edges. A small smile spread across my lips.
“Well, best of luck with your studies. And I hope you get your bag back soon.”
“You too.” I smiled. “And thank you for all your help.”
“No problem. It’s the least I can do.” She shrugged. As the train pulled into her stop, Stazione Santa Maria Novella, she stood, keeping a hand on her carry-on case.
“Tell your brother I said hello.”
“He’ll get a kick out of this. Halfway around the world and I run into one of his students.” Adrienne laughs. “Well, goodbye, Lydia. It was lovely meeting you.”
Adrienne exited the train. The doors slid shut behind her. Some of the anxiety returned, but I managed to stay calm. A stranger had helped me, showing me enormous kindness. Maybe I had less reason to be afraid than I thought, even if I had to wait for my suitcase for a few days (or an entire month, as it turned out). I wanted to be brave. I wanted to explore this new and beautiful place. I stared at the map. You can do this. You’re not really alone. The train slowed.
“Unitá, stazione ultima. Unitá, last stop,” a mechanical voice said.
I stood and walked to the doors. You can do this. You made it this far. I stepped out of the train onto cobblestones. The city looked like a different century, as if I had stepped out of a time machine instead of a tram. Beautiful stone buildings, terracotta roofs, roads free of asphalt and cars. Exhausted, but renewed by the kindness of a stranger, I looked down at my map, hitched my backpack onto my shoulders, and set off.
*real names changed for privacy reasons
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