“CHACALLIT is about one hundred seventy-eight and a half miles from Boston,” said Lorna, looking up from the map that she had spread out on the kitchen table.
“ ‘About’?” said Herb. He poked her. She bumped him with her hip.
“About,” she said. “Here. Let’s try something.” From a drawer, she took a ball of string. She stretched a length of it from Boston to Chacallit. She held the Boston end in place, and with her pencil at the other end, she scribed an arc. Then she held the Chacallit end in place, put her pencil at the Boston end, and scribed another arc.
“What have we got?” asked Herb.
Together, they bent over the map.
“Well, we’ve got West Burke, Vermont,” said Lorna, pointing out the northern intersection of the arcs, “or,” turning to the southern intersection, “Babbington, New York. On Long Island.”
She looked at Herb. He looked at her. “I like the ocean,” he said.
“I’ve never seen it,” said Lorna, beaming.
Separately, each of them knew that they’d need money to move, and, separately, each of them knew how to get it, and neither of them wanted the other to know how it would be gotten, so each of them concocted a lie, and the lies, like the arcs Lorna drew to find a place to go, overlapped and intersected, and they concealed truths that overlapped and intersected too.
“I have some money — ” Lorna began.
“So do I,” said Herb.
“But my uncle Luther is — holding it,” said Lorna.
“My uncle Ben has mine,” said Herb.
“I — I invested it — that is, he invested it for me,” said Lorna.
“I lent it to Uncle Ben to help him out, but I’m sure he can pay me back now,” said Herb.
“It will take a little while for me to get it,” said Lorna.
“I’ll have to go home and explain to Uncle Ben,” said Herb. “It could take — a while.”
In Topical Guide 295, Mark Dorset considers Places: Real and Fictional; and Maps: Real and Fictional from this episode.
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🎧 295: “Chacallit is about . . .”