Vacationland

Tintinnabulation

280 O t i n t i n n a b u l a t i o n A spiring student reporter tiffany swifthawk is in the honors program at Hatchet Inlet High School. Her radio interview assignment is worth a third of her grade in Media Today. She hopes to plump up her digital audio résumé because she’s applying for the summer session at the School of Broadcast Journalism down in Minneapolis, which holds a three-week camp for juniors and seniors. Mr. Maki had instructed students to seek persons with interesting occupations, histories, or talents, interview them, edit the piece, and post it on the school’s podcast, the best of them to be aired on the local public affiliate, WSQW. Unfortunately, while other students were off scrambling to line up interviews, Tiffany was down for two days with strep and a fever, and by the time she was back on her feet pickings were slim. It’s not like Hatchet Inlet is a hotbed of notable individuals—there’s the oldest living resident, Ursa Olson, who has a mouth like a sailor and so not great for radio; the topiary man kids call Alpo Scissorhands, who hardly talks at all; the identical Kapalanen twins out at the Musher dogsled resort; the stump-sculptor-bartender Chainsaw Sally; and Annie Littlebow, the medicine woman and old-timey midwife. By the time the antibiotics had kicked in, all were taken, even creepy Wolfman Willie, which left the sheriff, the mayor, and others even more uninteresting . Anyone from the reservation is out of the question— Tiffany isn’t about to interview some creaky, slow-speaking elder on the air. She wants out of Hatchet Inlet, not deeper in. Tiffany clomps into Pavola’s, shedding snow from her mukluks . There was Meg the painter sitting at the counter, the lady t i n t i n n a b u l a t i o n O 281 her uncle rents a cabin from up near the last boat launch everyone calls Bumfuck Narrows. Tiffany unzips the top of her banana-yellow snowmobile suit and slides half-peeled onto a stool next to Meg. Meg, nice as always, asks how she is. Tiffany tells, describing the assignment, dramatizing her failure to procure a decent interviewee and the unfairness of it all, so distraught that a little projectile of spit punctuates her complaint, the wet BB arcing over the crust of the meat pasty Meg is fortunately just finishing. Without missing a beat, Meg lays down her fork and takes up a knife to cut her wedge of cake in half, pushing the dessert plate toward Tiffany. After a Coke and the cake, Tiffany revives some. Looking at Meg anew, she pauses. “Hey. You were someone, right?” And now Meg sits staring at her laptop at the Minnow Bucket, which has WiFi and espresso but no minnows. Tiffany has e-mailed a list of preinterview questions for her to “practice” for the real thing. Later, they will meet at the high school computer lab to record the actual interview. Tiffany’s plan is to add music and narrate parts in a sort of This American Life monotone. She’s also asked for some JPEGs of Meg’s art to post on the home page for extra credit. With luck, it will air next Friday on WSQW right after the Polka Peggy show. Meg scans the list. She has all morning. “What was it like growing up at a resort?” “How come you only paint water?” “What other artists aspire you?” Meg assumes Tiffany means “inspire.” “What advice would you give a young artist?” “You lived other places—Chicago and England. What did you miss the most about home?” “Now that you’re back in Hatchet Inlet, what do you miss about real life?” “If you could live during any time or era, when would it be?” 282 P t i n t i n n a b u l a t i o n PO Just out the window, chickadees crowd the feeders. When a flicker swoops in, they all fall like scraps, pulling tiny avalanches of seeds with them. Back in debate class at St. Agnes, Meg learned that to improve any answer you first wrote it out, then read it aloud—a rare nugget of her mostly forgotten education dredged forth. She taps out her first answer...