Idyll Banter (25 page)

He resolved firmly that if his daughter wasn't outside in sixty seconds, he would go in after her. Four minutes was his limit; it was all he could endure.

But what if four minutes was too long and he lost her—lost her forever? Then what? He couldn't imagine. He just couldn't imagine. He tried to slow his breathing while wiping his forehead under his cap with his handkerchief. He was sweating, sweating profusely—a human fountain oozing fluids from every pore—even though it was the end of the day and he was in the shade. The cotton square in his hand was now the color of oatmeal from his perspiration, and it was as damp as a used beach towel.

Inside, he heard another great whoosh of water, and a moment later the woman in the Camp Mickey sweatshirt strolled through the arch, applying a coat of burgundy-colored lipstick across her mouth as she walked. She had eyeglasses the size of coffee cup saucers, and he decided to ask her if she had seen a little girl in the bathroom, a charming first-grader in a gray denim baseball cap with what looked like a fish on the front but was in actuality a whale—a souvenir from their summer trip to Cape Cod, their last as a family of three.

He lunged toward the woman, one hand before him, and stumbled, recovering awkwardly.

“Harold!” she cried, moving quickly away from him, her eyes wide behind the goggles that passed for eyeglasses. An older man appeared out of nowhere, wide-shouldered and robust, with a mound of hair on his head the color of ash from a woodstove. He took the woman by the elbow and led her away, where they disappeared quickly into the crowds that milled by the souvenir stands and ice cream carts, and the conga lines that snaked around almost every ride.

He wondered if they were going to report him to security, and he was about to meet the Disney World Secret Police. But he didn't care about that, all he wanted was to see his daughter—all he wanted was to see that little person with eyes as green as her mother's, scuffing her sandal-clad feet through the ladies' room arch.

He turned, oblivious to his resolution to wait a full four minutes, uncaring that he still had a solid fifteen seconds to go, and started into the ladies' room—was he crying out her name as he walked? He hoped not, but he thought he might be, when he realized he could see the line of white sinks opposite the stalls, and she was standing on her toes, whipping the last drops of water from her small fingers.

In his head he murmured thank you, thank you, and it was all he could do not to fall on his knees or, perhaps, spread wide his arms in a giant “V.” Victory. Hallelujah. Amen. He turned, hoping to retreat before she knew he was there, but it was too late. She'd seen him.

When she emerged, her arms were folded across her chest and she was shaking her head. He knew she was about to chastise him for checking on her, for worrying, but she saw his tears and she paused. She looked up at him, then straight at him because he was kneeling before her, and, understanding everything, she touched her palm to his cheek. He lifted her and stood, and held her against him for a long time, trying to make light of his panic but not really caring that his jokes must have sounded pathetic and lame.

He promised her that he would try not to worry next time, though he was quite sure that he would. He felt her nodding before she buried her head in the small pillow of flesh where his shoulder met his neck, her chin a pear against his collarbone, and her body relaxed completely in his arms.

Acknowledgments

I WROTE MY
first story for the
Burlington Free Press
in February 1988 (four years before I would start writing my weekly column for the newspaper). It was a six-hundred-word article about advertising in Vermont, and it was the first time my name had appeared professionally in print in any capacity other than as a novelist or short story writer. My editor then was Candace Page, an immensely gifted journalist. I will always be grateful to her for her willingness to toss her years of wisdom and experience aside, and give me twenty-one column inches to call home.

I've had a great many editors over the last decade and a half who were as patient as they were talented, as insightful as they were inspiring. Among the very best? At the
Free Press
I've had the privilege of writing for Joe Cutts, Geoff Gevalt, Mickey Hirten, Rebecca Holt, Stephen Kiernan, Stephen Mease, Casey Seiler, Ron Thornburg, Mike Townsend, and Julie Warwick. At the
Boston Globe,
I will always be appreciative that I had the opportunity to work with—and learn from—Bennie DiNardo, Louise Kennedy, Nick King, and Julie Michaels.

Finally, I am deeply indebted to Jennifer Carroll, currently director of news development at the Gannett Company. When Jennifer was the executive editor for the
Burlington Free Press
in the mid-1990s, we talked often about “Idyll Banter,” and it was she who encouraged me constantly to write about Lincoln. She saw before I did that this one small town was a microcosm for a changing America, and there were a series of stories here just waiting to be written.

About the Author

CHRIS BOHJALIAN
is the author of eight novels, including
Midwives
(a
Publishers Weekly
Best Book),
The Buffalo Soldier,
and
Trans-Sister Radio.
In 2002, he won the New England Book Award. His work has been translated into seventeen languages and published in twenty countries. He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter. Visit him at
www.chrisbohjalian.com
.

OTHER BOOKS BY
C
HRIS
B
OHJALIAN

The Buffalo Soldier

Trans-Sister Radio

The Law of Similars

Midwives

Water Witches

Past the Bleachers

Hangman

A Killing in the Real World

The columns in this book all appeared in the
Burlington Free Press
between 1989 and 2003, with the exception of the following longer essays, which appeared in the
Boston Globe
between 1993 and 2002: “Now That the Cows Are Gone”; “Losing the Library”; “Why the Green Mountains Turn Red”; “Of Memory and Hope”; “Untethered in Spain, Set Free on Route 66”; “Talking Then, Talking Now”; and “The Ladies' Room Just Inside Tomorrowland.” In addition, “A Person Can Learn a Lot from Ian Freeman” is being published for the first time.

Text illustrations are details of
Stone City, Iowa
by Grant Wood;
Joslyn Art Museum, Omaha, Nebraska.

Copyright © 2003 by Chris Bohjalian

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published by Harmony Books, New York, New York. Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.
www.crownpublishing.com

HARMONY BOOKS is a registered trademark and the Harmony Books colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bohjalian, Christopher A.
Idyll banter: weekly excursions to a very small town /
Chris Bohjalian. — 1st ed.
I. Title.
PS3552.0495I39            2003
813'.54—dc22            2003014941

eISBN: 978-1-4000-8071-7

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