Love Is a Canoe: A Novel

by Schrank, Ben

  “And the event is happening this weekend?”

  “Yeah.” Stella took a deep breath. It was happening and she’d created it and she had shockingly little control over it.

  “Boy, have you got an unenviable set of problems,” Sara said.

  “I know.” Stella folded her arms over her chest and frowned. “If you got caught being me for half an hour, what would you do?”

  “Yikes. Let me think for a moment.”

  Stella stared jealously at Sara. Sara wore a charcoal dress under a charcoal cardigan. She looked sexy and smart, less like someone in editorial and more like the head of a sales group that was beating its numbers. It was just after lunch and Stella had run into Sara in the elevator and asked her to stop in. Stella had heard that Sara was one of the few people who really understood how LRB worked. And on top of that were the glasses, which she’d given to Sara in a padded envelope via interoffice mail eight months ago. She knew the gesture had been totally over the top but what the hell? Back when she’d started, Stella had wanted to be known for grand gestures. She’d quickly discovered she couldn’t afford to sustain the habit.

  “I like that pen you’ve got there.” Sara smiled.

  “This?” Stella held up a black mother-of-pearl pen she had bought in Chinatown when she’d arrived in New York after college. She’d promised herself that she’d use it to write one smart thing. Just one intelligent thing that she would never regret. It hadn’t happened yet. Sara snatched the pen from Stella and swished it through the air.

  “Maybe she’ll forget,” Sara said.

  “No. Lucy is there whenever I talk to Helena.”

  “Ah, the trusty little iPad girl who’s always trying to read for me. Well, maybe you can Photoshop something together. Do you have favors logged in with the art department?”

  “Yes. Stop. I mean the opposite,” Stella said, remembering her last crappy meeting with Julie and her team.

  “You don’t know the history there, do you?” Sara squinted and tapped the pen against her cheek.

  “History where?” Stella asked. “With Julie and the art department? I don’t mess with her.”

  “Helena and Peter. They’ve got a history, those two.”

  “I’m not following.”

  “Imagine her younger than you. She liked to wrap her arms and legs and her whole body around a problem. You know? Granted she can be icy now, but imagine how hot that iciness was forty years ago.” Sara tapped Stella’s pen against her lips. Then she bit it.

  “Oh, no.” Stella felt miserable but tried to sound glib. “Kill me. Use the pen. Stab me. She told me and I didn’t listen. I’m a dead person.”

  “Look, the only things more fragile and carefully protected than the current state of publishing are the oldest relationships in publishing. Helena discovered Peter Herman. Peter is a large part of how Helen came to be Helena. I mean, she’s really just a poor Jewish girl from the darkest wilds of Brooklyn, out where only Chowhounds dare to go. And sometimes an editor has to create a writer in order to become a bigger editor. See? I do believe Peter is entirely hers. Plus in those days, people worked intimately. Way more than now. Get me?”

  Stella rubbed her face with her hands to keep the blood flowing. “She spoon-fed that info and I missed it. I’m playing with an old flame.”

  “And old flames never die. But it’s stronger than that. Once you make someone famous it sticks with you. It’s kind of annoying, actually, to make other people famous. That plus whatever happened on the personal side? It’s a volatile combo. So be careful—”

  “Not to get burned. I get it. God you’re good.” Stella jolted forward in her chair and knocked Sofia Coppola’s Memories of Youth to the floor with her elbow.

  “You’re young enough so your awkwardness is still charming,” Sara said. “But that won’t last much longer. So swallow this: If this contest works, she thought of it.” Sara smiled again. “I really admire all the media you got for this thing. Stephen King making fun of the contest in EW? I should dream! Though admittedly you’ve got marketing throwing around too much money. A banner ad on the USA Today books page isn’t cheap, and trust me, it’ll beat the stuffing out of your P&L. When the marketing people get nervous, they spend arbitrarily and that can end up looking very uncool.”

  Stella stood up. She kind of wished Sara would leave, if she was just going to be insulting. At the same time, she desperately needed help. Stella said, “I pitched the contest in front of a room full of people. They’ll all remember it was mine. How can I change that?”

  “Are you stupid? You can’t. But if it works, they’ll remember it was hers—and you should pray for that outcome.”

  “Wait. You’re saying I blew it up too big before I was sure it’d work? Melissa said the same thing. Except she used an awful metaphor.”

  “Melissa’s no dummy. You see anyone telling her what to do? She’s brilliant.” Sara smiled. “Anyway, we’re all saying the same thing.”

  “So what do I do?”

  “What would you imagine Helena would say to you?”

  “DFU. Don’t fuck this up.”

  “Sure, that. What else?”

  “Find the romance. Wow.” Stella’s voice was tentative. “The romance. That’s what she told me to do and I forgot…”

  Stella listened while Sara ticked off several more things she would need to learn about LRB so she could find real success at the company, until Stella felt that Sara sounded smug. And in a moment that coincided with that, Sara got up to go, reinforcing her incredible prescience.

  “Remember, if you bet wrong and the whole thing is a bust, you must never speak of it,” Sara sang out. She turned to go and then stopped. “Oh—your pen.”

  “It’s yours. Take it.”

  “Why, thanks, Stella. You have such a generous spirit. I admire that about you. I’ll see you at the summer-power-titles-three-sixty-sales-review meeting at four in the Gilman Room!”

  Stella dialed her boyfriend before returning to work.

  “I was just thinking about you,” Ivan said.

  “You were?” Stella felt confused. Did people really say things like that? Her other boyfriends never did. In her experience they were usually thinking about something else.

  “I loved watching you asleep this morning, watching you breathe. Your chest going up and down. Remember how I woke you?”

  “I do,” Stella whispered. He wasn’t teasing. Stella squeezed her eyes shut. What was he up to? She said, “You said you loved me.”

  “That’s what I said.” He didn’t add anything to that. He was waiting for her to say it back. And she was almost there. She was there. She was just too frightened to say it.

  “Ivan, can I call you later? Somebody’s at the door. I can’t stop thinking about you, too.” She got off the phone. Ivan was pretty great. But sometimes he was kind of a Russian poet who didn’t care about the real world and that made her nervous. He had no comprehension of the pressure she was under.

  Stella sat there and stared at her Canoe quotes and a mock-up of the new edition of the book they were rushing out. She liked the old edition better. The crappy one with the two hands intertwined and the wedding bands and the sunlight. This new one seemed false. It was a hardcover bound in pink imitation moleskin. Who had approved pink? She surely hadn’t said yes to pink. And the jacket was just the title, big and super-embossed in metallic foil, Michelin-man puffy, just that massive stupid title with Peter Herman in script underneath it and the new tagline below, which she’d come up with in the cold middle of yet another sleepless night:

  The definitive edition of the book that already saved your marriage!

  A line she’d written with her Chinatown pen, based on studies that said people bought and rebought self-help books about problems they were enmeshed in and couldn’t hope to fix. Like dating books for the eternally single. And diet books for the perpetually fat. Duh. No kidding. Writing that awful line had bummed her out a ton because it was such a cynical
piece of marketing, and wasn’t she an editor, at her core? Fuck! She’d once spent a whole Christmas afternoon at her parents’ house rearranging her memory chest, removing pictures of boys and ex-friends and haircuts she wanted to forget so she’d be happier when she opened it the next time she visited.

  She held the new Canoe edition in her hands and tried to figure out how she was feeling. Maybe just a little disturbed with her role was all. And she wished she wasn’t so self-referencing and self-analytic. She read through Emily Babson’s letter again. At least she didn’t have that woman’s problems. She’d figured out that Emily was at least five years older than she was and married to a handsome guy who had totally cheated. Emily was clearly miserable. But Peter would fix that, right? And then Emily and her husband would want to celebrate the weekend and everything would be okay. There would have to be photographs. If not in Millerton, then in New York. Why did she just give in to stupid old Peter Herman? He wasn’t so tough. All he did was pause and sigh and go quiet on the phone and then hang up on her, and she gave right in to him. But she had to keep him happy. Did other people do this? Did other people set things in motion only to lose control of them? Or was she unique in her habit of rushing forward without calculating the consequences of her actions? But it was too late. The winners would be on their way to Millerton the next day. And she had to make the contest a success.

  Otherwise, Helena would kick her in the teeth with her Joan & David boot. That was the whole point Sara was trying to make. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d promised plenty of photographs in the very first meeting. They had to come out happy. All three of them would have to come out happy and they would have to meet with Helena and everybody else in New York. Maybe at a luncheon. But that would mean a whole lot of people listening to her and doing exactly what she asked. And that sure didn’t seem to happen very much lately, if it ever had. Stella punched herself in the arm. And then, because it hurt, she did it again.

  Emily, Winners’ Weekend, November 2011

  “I’m only saying that when I think of the story of my life, of my journey and what people think about when they think about me—that we won a marriage counseling contest, that’s not on the list,” Eli said. “It’s not something I could imagine wanting.” He had both hands on the steering wheel and he beat out a rhythm with his thumbs while he talked. “And the older I get, the more I dislike driving.”

  “I said I would be happy to drive.”

  “You’re better with directions. And I love you for it. I suck at directions.”

  They were nearly in Millerton, in their old white Saab, which had first belonged to Eli’s cousin who designed high-end speakers and lived in a suburb outside Denver. They had Emily’s iPod plugged into the car’s amazing stereo and they were listening to Exile on Main Street. Emily always wanted to listen to Feist and Eli preferred Dinosaur Jr. Listening to the Rolling Stones and Caetano Veloso was how they compromised, leaving them, Emily knew all too well, both somewhat satisfied and also wanting something else.

  “You see, we’re already into the good part of the weekend.” Emily reached out and touched his thigh. “I didn’t even know you think about the story of your life.”

  “I guess that’s good. It’s like I’m rewriting who I am right now, before we even get there. Like I’m becoming more modern and public and shared.”

  “Sharing your personality, as opposed to the you that makes things.”

  Eli nodded. “Right. I never think about me or us that way, but it makes sense. We’re being more about … us. It’s not you controlling me. It’s me, changing. We exit at twenty-two—that’s the exit, right?”

  “It is,” Emily said. “Go left. Just another quarter mile.”

  They stopped at a red light on Main Street. Harris Harvey Real Estate Agency was on their right. Emily looked through the agency’s window at photographs of white salt-box houses and converted barns.

  “Can you imagine having a country house out here?” she asked.

  “Remember, only one of us comes from that world, and it isn’t me,” Eli said. “And that’s more than half a million dollars we don’t have.”

  “My dad might want to help out. If we had a baby. We’re close to Boston. It could be a place for all of us. Sherry, too.” She reached out and touched his cheek. She said, “Don’t act like you grew up underprivileged.”

  Eli turned and kissed her finger. He said, “Okay. A country house … that could be really sweet with a kid. For apple picking. There are cool people up here. I’m surprised we don’t know more of them.”

  “Apple picking?” She snuggled closer to him and said, “I love cider. We’re here.”

  Eli pulled into the inn, which was set back from the road at what appeared to be a quiet intersection toward the end of Millerton’s main street.

  “Maybe Peter Herman knows of a house out here to buy,” Eli said. “I’ll bet he does.”

  “Wouldn’t that be amazing?” she cried out. “And this town is just as pretty as that woman at Ladder & Rake promised it would be. What was her name? Stella. Cool name.”

  “It is. We’re sort of like her…” Eli pawed the air for the word.

  “Guinea pigs,” Emily said. “I know. I love that you’re allowing yourself to get so into it. It means a lot to me.”

  “It’s because I’m into you.” Eli reached out and nuzzled her neck and kissed her. She shivered when his cold nose touched her skin.

  “Look at me,” she said. They were sitting in the dark, in the car.

  “What?”

  “You can be negative about this. If you’re feeling annoyed about it. You don’t have to be sweet every second if that’s not how you feel.”

  “It’s okay,” Eli said. “We’re on a path together. I get that. I mean, we’re staying at an inn in the country. I’m not going to be distant or ironic about it. I’m not that way.”

  “You’re using a lot of words you don’t normally use.”

  “Am I?” Eli shouldered their bags inside where they were greeted by a woman who had on a name-tag that identified her as Jenny, Assistant Manager.

  “Come in, come in! Shake hands. Let’s meet,” Jenny said. “We’re so proud and happy to have you with us.” This Jenny was heavy, in a long black velvet dress, with her hair in a bun that Emily was sure must unravel past her butt. She wore bright red glasses that accentuated her black-rimmed eyes. Emily glanced back at the nearly full parking lot. She looked at Jenny and thought of Jenny Alexandretti. They hadn’t talked about whether she’d already gone to L.A. But Emily doubted it. There would be so much to organize.

  This Jenny said, “Most of our rooms are occupied by guests who are here for a local wedding. Two weddings, in fact. But don’t worry; they’re all off at their rehearsal dinners. May I show you to your room?”

  “Thank you,” Eli said. “I can carry the bags.”

  “You’ll have the Okabye master suite.”

  They followed Jenny down a corridor and up a flight of gold-carpeted stairs.

  “This is wild,” Eli whispered. “I forgot places like this still existed.”

  The dark red walls and staircases were dotted with shelves full of wooden decoy ducks and reproductions of antiques from the Revolutionary War. There were silver kettles that imitated designs by Paul Revere. Hand-stitched coverlets and bits of ancient quilts were nailed to the walls in between framed Hogarth prints and oil paintings of the Hudson River.

  “And later, when you’re settled,” Jenny went on, “we have dinner waiting for you in the main dining room. We have such a long history here at the inn with the Herman family and we’re so proud and happy to be involved with this weekend.”

  “Do you know Peter well?” Emily asked.

  “Know him? Of course! I’ve known him since I was a little girl.”

  “Is he…” Emily wanted to ask a question she was not sure Jenny could answer.

  But Jenny went on, as if she understood. “He’s sweet—and very gregarious. Admittedly, a
fter his wife passed he did step away a bit from the inn.”

  “Do you feel like he’s easy to talk to?”

  “Yes. I would say he prides himself on being just that way.” Jenny laughed to herself. “Here we are.” She opened the door to the Okabye suite, which was full of furniture made of white painted wood. There were armoires on either side of the bed and another stood between the small windows that looked out at a close-cropped meadow and beyond that, a running path. The parking lot was just visible to the right.

  “You have my favorite room in the whole inn,” Jenny said.

  “It’s lovely,” Emily said.

  “If you need anything at all, I’m at the front desk. Ask for me by name.” She pointed at her name-tag and said, “Jenny.”

  When she was gone, Emily turned to Eli. He was sitting in one of the twig chairs, staring at her.

  “She was funny,” Emily said.

  “I liked her,” Eli said. “She loves her job. People like that are cool.”

  Emily found a sweater in her bag and put it on against the drafty room. She went over to him, to kiss him. “She was all facade. I wonder what she really thinks of all this. But I love that you like her.”

  “Come sit in my lap,” he said, and propped his sneakered foot on another chair, a white wicker armchair below a window.

  “We’ll break the chair.”

  “Then let me take you to bed.”

  “You’re not tired from the drive?”

  He shook his head. She thought he looked like a rock star who had been on a tour bus for too long, curly hair and dark circles under his eyes and brooding brow.

  “He’s going to see that we’re so in love,” Eli said. “It’s going to make this whole thing hard for him. You know, like, he won’t have anything to say.”

  “There’s going to be a ton to talk about. And I am going to share what went wrong. I have to. You understand that?”

  “Maybe I’ll be the one to share it.” Eli nodded and set his jaw so he looked serious. “That’s the scenario I’ve been imagining.”