Love Is a Canoe: A Novel

by Schrank, Ben

  “You told me twenty people,” Emily said. “This is more like forty.”

  “Micky’s friend is coming with his klezmer band,” a voice called out, close to Emily’s ear.

  “I’m hearing that savory is the true challenge category,” Eli said, joining them. “Somebody actually did mince. Is it secret ballot or a panel of judges?”

  “Bits of paper with numbers in a hat and then we count them and see which pie got the most votes,” Sherry said.

  “I’m going to eat.” Eli found a paper plate. “Secret ballot. I like that.”

  Sherry and Emily exchanged a smile. The other thing about Eli was that, at thirty-seven, he was still kind of a big kid. Though Emily was only thirty-two, she never felt younger than him. Sherry went away and Emily watched Eli spy on people as they tried out the pies. He was never far from her, and not more than a minute went by when he didn’t at least have one arm around her. He liked to hold her high, his hand covering her ribs just below her breast. Or he would slide his hand low on her back. They could easily have gotten pulled away from each other. But it didn’t happen. Instead, he knew her shyness and by staying where she could see him, he kept it from overwhelming her. He was there, guiding her, keeping her fresh and near and safe and happy. He didn’t talk about it with her. He just knew.

  Though people kept threatening that the klezmer band was minutes away, it hadn’t yet arrived, so Sherry brought a speaker dock down from her apartment and someone plugged their phone into it. An old Neil Young song came on: “Sugar Mountain.” Emily strained to listen to it. Outside, it had begun to rain and the sudden summer shower made the people standing by the open windows laugh and show off their wet shoulders. Emily told herself that Eli was like a Neil Young song she wanted to hear over and over again. People were still coming in. A short young woman with dark hair yanked the door open and threw herself inside. She had just the sort of long loose ringlets Emily didn’t care for. Untamable creature, Emily thought, as the woman shook the water out of her hair and looked around. But that wasn’t fair. The woman was beautiful, a beautiful mess. Emily tried to feel sympathetic. It would have been unbearable for her to arrive late and wet and empty-handed and have people look her over. The woman threw down a camouflage-patterned duffel bag and smiled wide at no one. Emily resisted an urge to tell her to put her bag somewhere farther from the door, so no stranger lurking on the street just outside the party would take the opportunity to reach a hand inside and steal it.

  “Jenny?” Sherry called out. “Hi!” Sherry went over and hugged the woman, who was wearing a denim skirt and flip-flops and a billowy blue-and-white-striped sleeveless top that showed off her jangly breasts.

  “Hey. I didn’t bake anything. I literally just got out of a cab from Kennedy is why. But I am sure ready to chow down on some pie!”

  “Jenny, this is my sister, Emily. Jenny’s moving back from L.A. soon and this is, like, her scouting trip.”

  “Yeah, you know, like where I look for an apartment and a job.” Jenny made a bummer face by rolling her eyes and frowning. Emily saw Eli come back toward them. He’d been pushing people to vote for his pie. There had been a lot of jokes about electioneering too near a polling place.

  “We are looking good,” he said. “Great feedback. I love that the chiles are making people sweat.”

  “And this is Eli Corelli, my brother-in-law.”

  Jenny raised her eyebrows. She’d already grabbed a plate and scooped up a piece of someone’s pistachio-currant pie—a pie that had barely been touched.

  “Roman Street Bicycles, right?” Jenny spoke with her mouth full. “I’ve totally heard of you. I’ve ridden your bikes.”

  “You have one?”

  “No. I have an old beater I never use. In L.A. we don’t get to ride enough to justify buying an RSB bike. I’m excited to start biking again.”

  “Who made the pie called Uncle Frito’s Special?” someone called out. “We’re ready to vote!”

  “Excuse me.” Eli smiled. “I need to make myself available for last-minute questions.”

  “Even though nobody is supposed to know who made what,” Sherry called after him.

  “I better get my eat on before it’s all gone.” Jenny gave Sherry a quick hug. “You look super-hot, by the way. I’d take an extra cup of joe from you for sure.”

  “Where do you know her from?” Emily watched Jenny use her fingers to pull bits of crust off someone’s imitation of a Momofuku crack pie.

  “College. She’s funny. She has a million weird hobbies so she’s really adaptable to scenes. She was always like that.”

  “Scenes?” Emily smiled. “Is she an actress, too?”

  “No—like you and the industrial design scene. Don’t be fake-naive. You know what I mean,” Sherry said. “Drink this wine. That rich guy over there brought it so it must be good. Jenny should call Eli,” Sherry said.

  “Why?”

  “She managed some photographers in L.A. and that went really well. I’m sure she can help with Eli’s company. You know, help figure out how to grow the business. Isn’t that the thing he’s always whining about?”

  Emily nodded a yes. Eli was close again. She reached out with her hand and Eli slipped his arm around her waist.

  “What are we talking about?” Eli asked. “That guy was really critical of my pie.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sherry said. “In my experience sweet never beats savory. But at the same time, yours is maybe a little out there.”

  “Whatever. My genius is misunderstood.”

  “We were just saying it would be great if you hooked Jenny up with a job. She’s amazing once she gets focused. She totally knows how to run a business.”

  “Does she? Maybe we can set something up,” Eli said. “I definitely need help.” He took a long pull on his beer.

  Emily looked around her at the field of little tables, some with nothing but an empty pie plate in the middle, picked clean and scarred with knife cuts, and others with barely touched pies that were beginning to break down at the seams, pies that had turned someone off too early and that nobody was willing to touch now.

  “Don’t worry,” Emily said. “I’ll help you clean up. And you’re right. If she’s good at organizing, Eli should hire her. He needs that.”

  Sherry smiled. She said, “About the mess? I wasn’t worried. If this thing with Jenny works, we totally did a mitzvah. I’ll tell Mom.”

  “She only cares if it makes you happy,” Emily said.

  “Well, if Jenny helps Eli and makes him more successful and that’s good for you, then that does make me happy. So I’ll tell Mom, okay?” Sherry winked at some late arrivals. “I’m sure I’ll talk to her tomorrow and she’ll ask about tonight and whether you had a good time and were social and fun—which is hilarious since how social is she? Not very. I am going to call her out on that tomorrow. Maybe.”

  “I am social!” Emily said, too loud. “How big of a problem is that, anyway? It is not a problem, actually.”

  Sherry raised an eyebrow at Emily. “It kind of is. You’re definitely defensive about it.”

  “Emily is a sensitive soul.” Eli pulled Emily in and tried to kiss the top of her head, but she squirmed away. “And I love her for it.”

  “Thank you very much,” Emily said. “I love being labeled. Now can we move off the subject of me right now, please?”

  Peter Herman, July 2010

  “Lisa?” Peter called out to his wife. She was in the bathroom and he didn’t want to interrupt her, but he would if he didn’t hear from her in another moment. “Are you all right?”

  He stood up to go to her. The phone rang.

  Peter stared at it. Generally it was Henry calling to give him an update about what was going on at the inn. Henry loved to call and discuss the problems that made good stories—drug-addled cooks and pregnant maids and missing wedding rings. There would always be empty rooms and young employees who could not resist putting those overstuffed mattresses to good use.
And then there were fights and missed workdays and inevitably, someone had to go. The day-to-day life of the inn could be overwhelming. For most of his working life, Peter had been the one who was best able to manage the human element. He had done a fine job, with his cool head and a charm he’d acquired in his early twenties, when he’d moved to Millerton soon after he published his little book, Marriage Is a Canoe. Though Peter’s relationship to the inn had grown tenuous now that Lisa was so ill, Henry still called to get his help.

  The phone kept ringing. Peter picked up a handset from the bedside table where it sat next to a stack of Poughkeepsie Journals and The New York Times, both of which Lisa still liked to have within reach even though she no longer bothered to even pretend she was able to read.

  “Yes?”

  “Hello, may I speak to Peter Herman?”

  “This is Peter.”

  Lisa returned from the bathroom. She stood in the doorway, her graying auburn hair pulled back badly in the braid Peter had learned to make just a few months earlier. Her face had turned pale over the years and the blue in her eyes had grown lighter, too. Just the sight of her wearing her purple robe leavened him. Though he’d been frowning at the phone, now he smiled. Eleven in the morning and she thought she should be getting ready for bed. He beckoned her to him. But she remained in the doorway.

  “My name is Katherine and I’m calling because of your book.”

  “You’d be better served by sending a letter to me care of Ladder & Rake. I can’t take calls.”

  “I’m sorry—I do understand and I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but your book means so much to me. There’s a passage in the beginning, after you explain how marriage is a canoe and then later when you say the voyage you take in it is driven by passion—let me find it—anyway, I’m having trouble with passion and how it relates to staying in the canoe and—”

  “Listen, listen now, Katherine, is it? Here’s the thing. You’ve called my home. And my wife is ill. So you can see how this call is an intrusion.”

  “Of course. But Peter, now that I’ve reached you—”

  “Goodbye.” He pressed OFF and threw the handset on the rug. He caught his breath and put his hands on his lower back. He weighed less than a dozen pounds more than he had in college. He had a couple of blazers from back then that still fit, and though now he had a visible belly, he could get into the Levi’s he wore in the mid-seventies, when their daughter, Belinda, was born. His spine had begun to bend, so he’d lost the couple of inches that had put him above six feet. But the mornings when he woke up and had to roll rather than spring out of bed were still blessedly rare.

  He spread his arms wide and waited. Lisa padded toward him.

  “Who was that?” Lisa’s voice contained a glimmer of her old jealousy. She didn’t mind sharing him with Millerton. But over the years she had come to hate when he was asked to go away, down to New York or to do a talk somewhere. He had begun to live his life much closer to home because of her preference, and that didn’t bother him at all.

  “Oh, Lisa. Who was that?” He didn’t want to tell her that the call was from a fan of Canoe. She didn’t like those people and never had, and if he downplayed the call she would get upset but she would not be able to understand why. So he began to sing. “Who? Who?”

  “Stop … Peter, stop.”

  “Who are you? Who are you? Come on, tell me, who are you?”

  She started to laugh, finally sitting on the bed next to him, putting her head on his chest, banging her fists on the tops of his thighs.

  “It’s the oddest thing,” he said.

  “What?”

  “You’re not a particularly goofy person and yet here we are being playful all the time. It’s a change.”

  She did not respond.

  “Lisa?”

  She looked up at him. He wanted to stop. He knew he was being a little mean. But he was losing her and he was angry about it. He had built his adult self around the guarantee of her stability. And now with so much of her gone, sure, he was resentful—in flashes—before returning to this new caretaker role.

  When he didn’t move, Lisa pulled the flannel sheets back, grasped his shoulder so she was pushing him down with her into the bed. He felt her spittle on his chest and was reminded of thirty-five years ago, just after Belinda was born, when they would go to sleep holding each other and he would wake in the morning with his undershirt drenched from her breast milk.

  He said, “Wait. What are you doing?”

  “Going to bed. Bedtime.”

  “No, no,” Peter said. “Can’t you feel the sun? It’s nearly lunchtime.”

  “Bedtime.”

  “No.” Peter bit back the catch in his voice. “Please don’t.”

  “At least kisses, then.”

  “Yes to kisses!” Peter quickly took her in his arms and kissed her, her thick braid flopping onto his shoulder.

  “Now what?” she asked after half a minute of quiet. He knew she would, by then, have forgotten that she wanted to go to bed. But the phone call would have penetrated somewhere else, into some more emotional place in her mind. In a different voice, she said, “What was the call? More stupid stuff about Canoe?”

  “No, no,” he said. “Nothing for you to even bother thinking about.”

  He stroked her neck and shoulders and she closed her eyes. His life had always been one way with Lisa and he had never imagined he’d have to relearn her. He had become fairly good at taking care of her, but she had never needed him before and nobody had prepared him for this reversal of roles. There had been no time for her to explain how she managed him. When they were younger they had never bothered to delve deeper into the meaning of their lives together than what could be found in the passages of his book. He watched her now. Had she ever even read it? Really read it? She must have, he had to believe that, but now it was too late to ask.

  No one seemed to understand how much he was struggling with the loss of her. They thought he was full of wisdom. After all, he had created Canoe, remembered and recounted and celebrated for coming up on forty years in print. Really, it was just a bunch of simple life lessons, none more complex than what was found in greeting cards or country songs. He was the main character. The oracle! The book had meant a hell of a lot to the multitudes. Marriage Is a Canoe helps people! Peter Herman, you can’t deny it! When he’d tried to deny it, people wouldn’t let him, even if they made fun of the book in the next breath. He had come to understand that when people decide a thing you made is part of them, you shouldn’t dare try to change it. They’ll think you’re trying to take it away from them. It was yours once, sure. But now it’s theirs. After some years of wrestling, he had given up. His little book belonged far more to its readers than to him.

  “Let’s go get you some lunch,” he said. “We’ve got the doctor later.”

  She shook her head no, and her turned-down mouth was a reminder of how she’d been for so many years. She made her way and wasn’t pushed around by anyone. Certainly not him.

  “Fine, no lunch. Then at least kiss me.”

  Again, she shook her head.

  He pouted his lips and tugged at his big ears and kissed her. This new version of her laughed and forgave him.

  And why shouldn’t she? He was still tall and handsome, with a wild thatch of gray hair. He had begun to hope that this new levity in her personality had in part come about because she had begun to see him as he had been forty years ago. What was coming true now was a product of the hard work from back then, when he had tried to fool the world into thinking he was kindhearted gentry in his green tweed blazer and pale blue button-down shirt, with a dream backstory of one great book and an endearing inability to outfox anyone, ever. He was distinguished, like Gregory Peck but with softer edges, a small-town Gregory Peck. By the time Reagan was president, Peter fit in as well as anyone in the Hudson Valley. If the fact that he’d written Canoe demanded that people see him as a study in contrasts, then they invariably concl
uded they were not especially sharp contrasts.

  “Not going,” Lisa said. “I am not going to the doctor today.”

  “Okay, we won’t go. You’re stubborn. Do you remember how stubborn you are?” he asked. They’d had forty happy years. Fifty, if smudged, and why not smudge a bit? Smudging the truth had been the smartest thing he had ever learned how to do.

  “No, you,” she said now. “You’re stubborn. Stop petting me down. You … Who called you?”

  “Someone from Ladder & Rake.”

  He was testing her. Mentioning Ladder & Rake used to make her glare and flare her nostrils. She would be angry that the royalties weren’t right, worried that they might want to take him away for some event or another, reminded again of the world just beyond their little town encroaching. But now she had no reaction. How lost you are, he thought, as he appraised the uneven work he’d done on her braid.

  “Come downstairs with me,” he said. “There’s Triscuits. And cheddar from Pantomime’s. We’ll try eating that. Then we’ll see about the doctor.”

  She said, “People call you … Hubbell Gardner.”

  He shook his head no and watched her try to find other words. She made noises, looking for a tune to sing. But she was lost. Her voice turned into meaningless low notes that wandered into the corners of their bright bedroom at the top of the house, big as any country person could ever want, bay windows overlooking Lake Okabye, gray-and-green-striped carpet over oak floors and white plaster walls solid as stone.

  He held her hand and stared at her lips, the sheer pink of them. They didn’t age. No one besides her had ever called him Hubbell Gardner. A few weeks earlier they had watched a DVD of The Way We Were on the downstairs television because she loved Barbra Streisand. He hated the movie when he was young, and had even brought it up in interviews as a kind of antithesis to Canoe. Though he knew the reference was a clumsy one that had never quite worked. But his post-publication antics never hurt the book.