Vacationland

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91 O n a v i g a t i o n E ach word makes a huff in the cold air—words Cassi and her great-grandma Bana set down playing Scrabble the night before. Inhaling heft, exhaling cowl, she swings her arms to stay warm. In, out, in. Hasp, pucker, quiz—each word brings Cassi another step into the bog, from hump to hump of squelchy moss. Some words are less interesting in her mouth, like jerk or pant—the sounds they make only what they are, boring onomatopoeia . Of all three-letter words, she adores fez. She hops the humps. Hop keg hop mum hop sot. Hokum was laid down for a triple, but Cassi’s not sure what it means, since Bana had only offered twaddle as a definition. She plans to consult the dictionary once she’s back at the cabin. For now, she yells five-letter words at a trio of black spruce, Comic pansy vomit! Anything goes as long as it’s in the dictionary. Cassi had hooted when laying the b in front of Bana’s itch to narrow the gap in their scores. Cassi’s mother, Ara, grinding away at some countertop, only shook her head, but Gran Carina stopped stabbing forks into their drawer long enough to sigh one of her colossal sighs, saying, “Those two,” which only made Cassi laugh louder and made Bana clack through her dentures, “And those two think fun is scouring the chrome off my taps.” Cassi blinks at the soggy ground ahead, wondering if she’s very far off the path, and deciding, hopefully, not much, maybe. Tamarack needles stick to the wires basting her earbuds to the iPod in her hip pocket. She turns up the volume and squeals 92 P n a v i g a t i o n along to Joanna Newsom, “Svetlana sucks lemons a-cross fr-um meeeee.” She’s a little thirsty herself. High above, a hawk wheels as if attached to a maypole. Hawk—sounds more like something you’d cough up, Cassi decides , no name for anything so, so . . . eloquently aloft. Happy with that description Cassi blinks one eye, then the other, her lips moving soundlessly until a haiku forms and whispers itself out: Swooping for breakfast, Loop and pluck and swallow whole, Some unlucky vole. Good or bad, normally she would stop to copy down such lines, to ease them from her head onto a page. Making poems orders her thoughts, and writing them down keeps them from piling up. But she’s got no paper or pen. Her notebook, along with her hoodie, is in the backpack she believes she’s circling toward , not realizing she’s a quarter-mile from the path, that she’s only aiming deeper into the bog. Bending, she reties the lace that keeps coming undone. While not hungry or cold enough yet to panic or wish, Cassi merely imagines being back at Bana’s warm cabin, watching from the vantage point of a ceiling tile, scanning rooms and halls as her family moves in and around them—some more slowly than others. Why do some people seem old when they’re not? Her mother isn’t, only acts like it, crabby all weekend like her thong has ridden . And Gran Carina, who is not fat, wears pants with elastic anyway, and hums. Bana, even with her face like bark, is ten times more fun—old as dirt, she says herself, tickled that she’s lasted as long as she has. She was a beer-truck driver once and before that worked in a munitions plant as a mechanic. Bana can fix any kind of engine, built her own log splitter, brews nasty beer, and could care less about Cassi’s grades or what Cassi says or eats or wears n a v i g a t i o n O 93 or doesn’t. Bana’s own appearance is unintentionally amazing: old dresses layered over long underwear, wrist warmers made out of old woolen tights, and a crocheted beret perched on the long braids crimped around her skull like pie crust—the perfect place to park pencil stubs and paperclips and fishing lures. Her cleated surplus boots ching with each step around the workshop. In winter these outfits are always topped with a ratty fur coat and doeskin choppers that hang from each sleeve by...