The old saw “Knee high by the Fourth of July” was hopelessly out of date. July 4 was four days away, and it was already more than waist high.
He laughed again, and shook his head for the joy of it all, got in his car, swung it around, and headed back down the hill to collect his wife. She was going with him for the ten-day visit to Moscow.
Catherine was waiting for him out on the porch with their luggage when he pulled up in the driveway. She was a small woman, somewhat rotund, but with a pleasant, smiling face, rosy, dimpled cheeks, and beautiful, prematurely silver hair. Whereas William ran the farm operation, Catherine ruled the house with an iron will and a very firm hand. And although they were traveling to Russia (the first time anyone in the family had been outside the United States) so that William could tell the Russkies how to grow corn, Catherine felt it was her God-given duty to oversee the trip, since technically it did not involve the actual operation of the farm.
“William Owen Bormett,” she scolded. “I’ve been waiting here on this porch for the past half-hour, wondering if somebody hadn’t kidnapped you or something.”
“Had to take a last look out at the east fields to see how they were coming along after the rain,” he said, getting out of the car. He went around back and opened the tailgate, his wife right behind him.
“We’ve got barely an hour to catch our flight, and they wanted us there an hour early,” she argued.
He smiled. “It’s all right, Katy, we’ll get there in plenty of time. They won’t leave without us.” He went up on the porch, got the luggage, and brought it back to the car. “Where are the kids? Are they ready to say goodbye yet?”
“They said their goodbyes last night at supper. Justin is in town, and Albert is out with Harold at the airstrip. Harold is giving him another flying lesson.”
Bormett nodded, slightly disappointed that his sons would not be here to see them off. Yet at sixteen and nineteen, he himself had been much more interested in his own life than in that of his father or grandfather. They would come back into the fold in due time. It would be fifteen or twenty years yet, before they would have to take over the farm. There was plenty of time.
“You’ve got the tickets? Our travelers checks? The passports?” he asked his wife as he helped her into the car.
“Everything,” she said.
Before he closed the door, he looked in at her. “Excited to be going?”
She grinned. “Plenty excited.” She fingered her dress. “Do you suppose I’ll be dressed okay for Washington?”
“You look fine, Katy, just fine.”
They would be staying in Washington for two days, during which time they would be meeting with the Secretary of Agriculture and his people, as well as someone from the State Department who’d tell them what to say and how to act while they were in the Soviet Union.
It was a lot of nonsense, as far as he was concerned. Hell, he was just going over to talk farming with the Russkies. He wasn’t going to give them any secrets, leastwise nothing they couldn’t get themselves by studying American farm magazines.
“You are going over there representing the United States of America, Mr. Bormett,” Finney had told him.
“I know that. I won’t embarrass you.”
Finney had smiled his tight-assed little smile and shook his head. “I’m sure you won’t, sir,” he said. “We — that is, Secretary Lundgren — mostly just wanted to meet with you in person and get to know you a little better before you leave.”
“Wants to pump me full of propaganda. Shit, I fought the Commies in Korea. I know what the hell the score is. You don’t have to tell me that.”
“No, sir,” Finney had said. “But before you leave, you will have to meet with Secretary Lundgren and someone from the State Department. It’s required of all Americans before they go to the Soviet Union.”
“Bullshit,” Bormett had said. “But I won’t fight you on it. Not at all. We’ll meet with your boss and whoever else wants to meet with us. It’s just fine with me.”
“Oh, that’s very good, Mr. Bormett,” Finney had said, obviously relieved.
Their flight left at 8:30 A.M. They switched planes in Chicago, and arrived at Washington’s National Airport a little after lunch, where Finney met them with a limousine and chattered incessantly all the way to their hotel.
“Secretary Lundgren is tied up today for lunch, but he wants to meet with you for breakfast about eight tomorrow morning,” Finney said.
“I’m used to having my breakfast around five-thirty or six,” Bormett said, poking fun at him.
“Oh, dear,” Finney said. “I don’t think Secretary Lundgren would be able to…”
“It’s all right there, now,” Bormett said. “I suppose I could hold until eight A.M. just this once.”
In actuality Bormett had stopped eating big breakfasts years ago, preferring instead to work through until around 9:30 or 10:00, when he would stop for coffee and a doughnut. But he was a farmer, and in front of easterners, he wanted to behave like one.
It was like the old bib-overall joke. The city folks thought the bibs made a man look like an ignorant, sod-busting hick, down on his luck. The country folk knew the farmer wore the bibs cause they had large pockets to hold all his money.
“I’ll drop you off at your hotel, where you can rest for an hour or so. You have a meeting at three with Leonard Ruskin, an Undersecretary with the Foreign Trade Mission Desk at State.”
“An impressive title,” Bormett said.
Finney smiled. “Then at five, the Vice-President and his wife would like to have cocktails with you and Mrs. Bormett at their home.”
Catherine gasped, her eyes wide, and she began to blush.
“Now that is an impressive title, even though I didn’t vote for the rascal,” Bormett said.
“I didn’t either,” Finney said. “But don’t tell anyone.”
They all laughed at the little joke. Within ten minutes they were at their hotel, being shown their suite of rooms. Everything had been paid for by the Department of Agriculture, including, Finney informed them, their airfare to and from Moscow, their accommodations in the Soviet capital, and their meals and drinks.
“We have our own money,” Bormett had protested, but Finney had shaken his head.
“Use it to buy souvenirs, if you’d like. Everything else has already been taken care of.”
When Finney was gone, Bormett took a shower, and afterward, while his wife was in the bathroom, he ordered himself a bourbon and water from room service. He was sitting looking out the window at the capitol a few blocks away when she came out.
She was glowing. “Nothing like this has ever happened to us, Will,” she said.
He looked up at her and smiled. She was a good woman, and although at times she was a bit shrill, he loved her.
“Are you glad you tagged along?”
“I wouldn’t have missed it for the world,” she said, but then her brows knitted. “It’s just that I don’t know what to wear to see a vice-president and his wife.”
Bormett thought about that for a moment, then snapped his fingers. “When I’m meeting with the State Department people, why don’t you go out on the town and buy yourself something?”
“I couldn’t,” she protested.
“Of course you can,” Bormett said, crossing to the telephone. “I’ll call Finney now and see if there isn’t someone who could go along with you. Sort of show you around the town.”