by Ben Schrank
Emily Babson, mid-April 2012
Emily took a few months to be entirely alone and then she went out on dates with different men. None of those dates were good. So she stopped and spent more time doing yoga.
And then, after Valentine’s Day, once she’d perfected her headstand, she started again. She and Eli agreed to file separation papers. She had thought that would be easy. Instead, it was terribly ugly for a few days after her father suggested she consider the value of her contribution to Roman Street Bicycles. And then it was easy again, once she figured out that whatever her share of Eli’s company was worth, it could not be enough to fight over. She suffered the loss of a set of silverware that he said his family wanted. There was an extremely hard night of coming home to find his clothes and the red suede chair she’d never liked gone.
After the holidays, she heard that Eli was as much in Los Angeles as he was in New York. She hoped that he and Jenny were happy together. Well, not exactly hoped. But at least she wasn’t trying to learn more about them. She had thrown away that phone bill.
She went on a date with a man named Jesse Michaelson at the beginning of April. It was a setup. He was a composer who had been Sherry’s TA when she was in college. They’d stayed in touch and he had always asked after Emily, who he’d met once, a decade ago. Sherry said he hadn’t settled down with anyone for some reason, maybe because he was so self-involved. All that music in his head. But maybe you’ll like him, she said. All Emily could think of was how little she knew about music. What would they talk about?
They met outside Carnegie Hall. Jesse had passes for the afternoon dress rehearsal of a quartet from London. They could sit high up in the back where they could whisper. When she looked at him, she thought of a slice of pizza eaten quickly on the street after a cocktail party where there wasn’t enough food. Not glamorous, but good. He wore a white, button-down Brooks Brothers shirt that was so old it was furry, and a green tweed blazer. His nose looked big.
“I brought a flask of cider.” Jesse flashed the silver vessel, which was in the inside pocket of his coat. “Still warm.”
She smiled and wondered how he’d found out she liked cider. They went inside and stood in the lobby. She said nothing. She had begun to tell herself that she was through filling the silences men made. She was not obligated to make them comfortable.
“What was the fallout from the whole Canoe escapade?” he asked.
She said, “You are really cutting right to it.”
“I am?” he asked. She stared at him. He was wearing docksiders and no socks and she thought he must be cold. He had a sparrow chest. Why were they even on this date? But she tended to hang on until they were over. He said, “I know I don’t look like it but I keep up. The gist that I got was that you and the old writer were in love.”
“Go ahead.” She frowned. “Believe what you want.”
“How’d so much information get out? I never understood that part.”
“Ladder & Rake didn’t do it,” she said. “They wanted the whole contest to go away. But somebody found a website that would pay them fifty dollars to prove that we were the winners, me and my ex. And that was a hilarious revelation since there was evidence we’d broken up. So there was something for people to laugh at. There’s your answer.”
“You’re sure you didn’t leave your husband for Peter Herman?”
She glared at him before she realized he was joking. She laughed and then suddenly, she relaxed. He wasn’t jealous or judgmental. That was a start. And she didn’t feel like she had to explain how she’d come to enter and win the contest.
The music was beautiful. There was a cello and she loved the sound of a cello. She was amazed when they began making out in the back of the nearly empty concert hall. She wondered what Peter Herman would think, and didn’t understand why she would wonder that, since it was not as if he had any better explanation for attraction than anyone else. Later she would realize it was okay to dwell on Peter, to think of him as just a nice man she’d met, who had tried to help her out during the end of her marriage. She would discover that at the same time she realized that she was still unwilling to live without her several editions of Marriage Is a Canoe.
She was at home again, hours later, after they’d eaten cheeseburgers together in the basement restaurant of a hotel down the street from Carnegie Hall, after they’d parted and he’d kissed her. When she was alone, she congratulated herself on not needing to help Jesse with anything, not his career or his ability to make himself understood. Nothing. He had held her hand while they finished their wine.
He called the next day and was sort of funny and confident on the phone, too. His full name was Jesse Edward Michaelson. JEM. She liked that. It was regal without being stuffy.
“I don’t think it was such a bad date, really,” he said.
“That’s awfully kind of you to say.”
“Do you want to try again? Maybe on Tuesday?”
“Tuesday,” Emily said. “Sure.”
She liked Jesse. It would be a long, long time before she could be serious with him, though. There were negatives. He walked much faster than she did. He wore string bracelets on both wrists. But she could learn to stand that. So long as he was never jealous or mean. And didn’t cheat. She could feel it, as she imagined walking fast down a city street with Jesse, this possible return to a state of happiness.
The next time she saw him she realized he was taller than her but not so much taller and that his nose wasn’t big, it was straight and sort of Roman. He was handsome, but not so handsome that it could get annoying.
“How do you compose music?” she asked.
“Isn’t that kind of a broad question?” he asked. “I mean, where do you want me to start?”
“Totally up to you,” she said. “But I may as well tell you right now that I do like a man who can give a good explanation.”
Peter Herman, Millerton, New York, late April 2012
Peter heard Helena pad down the stairs. He was still in Lisa’s study, working on the new introduction to his book.
He called out, “I’m coming to bed. I just need ten more minutes.”
“I’m going to make tea. Remind me where you keep the honey.”
“In the pantry if there is any—but come in here for a moment. I want to show you the new opening letter.”
She came in and put her hands on his shoulders. She read the screen. He could hear her soft breathing and he reached behind to pull her near, pull her arms around his neck so she came down and her chin nestled on his shoulder and he could smell her hair. The closeness he’d discovered with Helena felt tingly and euphoric. It was new for him, the way they touched each other and were slow to move away. He did not know why they were happy together, but did know enough not to question his luck.
“Huh,” she said. She straightened up but didn’t let go of Peter.
“Well? Does that sound about right?”
“Yes, I suppose.”
“Isn’t that what’s wanted?”
“It’s maybe a little sweet. Even for you.”
“Is it?” He turned to her and reached up, touched her chin. “I guess it’s always been hard for me to tell what’s too sweet.”
“Don’t look sly at me, Peter Herman,” she said. “Leave it for the morning. I think I can lop off the burnt-sugar smell of it and get to whatever it is you actually mean. Let me do that before you send it in. We wouldn’t want to make a fool out of you.”
“Fair enough,” Peter said. “I wrote what I meant. But I can wait for you to take a pass at it.”
From the introduction to the revised and annotated edition of Marriage Is a Canoe, retitled Love Is a Canoe, February 2013
Dear Reader:
Perhaps Hank and Bess Latham were not trying to help me understand marriage, after all. Who can help us with that difficult state? I can’t. They couldn’t either. I was a boy. It was only a summer we spent together.
I’ll keep sharing their thoughts and s
tories. I know they believed that love comes for you. I can write that now, from my advanced age, with my eyes wide open and my head held high. Be open to love when it does come. Don’t run from it like a young man from a daunting obligation.
Love is more forgiving than we realize. Love is not so fickle and mean—not as tough as marriage can be. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love can be supple. Love gives you another chance.
Acknowledgments
I must first acknowledge and thank Suzanne Gluck, who pushed extremely hard, for a very long time. She is a force beyond reason. I owe her a great debt. I am grateful to Sarah Crichton for her charm and her wisdom, for her championing and editing. She is a wonder. I am happy to know her and happier still to have been given the chance to work with her.
Many people at WME read and helped with this book, including Laura Bonner, Cathryn Summerhayes, Shana Kelly, Caroline Donofrio, Eve Atterman, and Anna DeRoy. Jonathan Galassi, Jeff Seroy, Kathy Daneman, Dan Piepenbring, Nick Courage, and many others at FSG astonish me with their good humor, their kindness, and their unwavering resolve to uphold the great traditions of publishing. Thanks are due to Rodrigo Corral for reading, for being a good friend, and for giving me a wonderful cover. Joshua Furst, Kate Christensen, Gabrielle Danchick, John Wynne, Harris Schrank, Linda Schrank, and Faith Childs all read and shared welcome comments.
I acknowledge and thank my group at Razorbill, Don Weisberg and the team at Penguin Young Readers, and Penguin, for making a home for me and for being cool about me taking the time to write and publish this novel.
Lauren Mechling worked alongside me on each page of this book. She is a fine editor and a beautiful writer. When this novel is good, it is good because of her, and when it is dull, the fault is mine. I am grateful to her for helping me to become a better writer. But I am most grateful to be married to her. Also our son, Henry Chester, is really cute.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ben Schrank is president and publisher of Razorbill, a Penguin imprint that is home to many award-winning and New York Times–bestselling books for children and young adults. Ben is also the author of the novels Consent and Miracle Man. He wrote “Ben’s Life,” a monthly column for Seventeen magazine, in the 1990s. He grew up in Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife and son.
ALSO BY BEN SCHRANK
Miracle Man
Consent
Sarah Crichton Books
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
18 West 18th Street, New York 10011
Copyright © 2013 by Ben Schrank
All rights reserved
First edition, 2013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schrank, Ben.
Love is a canoe / Ben Schrank. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
“Sarah Crichton books.”
ISBN 978-0-374-19249-5 (alk. paper)
1. Authors—Fiction. 2. Bereavement—Fiction. 3. Self-help techniques—Fiction. 4. Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3569.C52913L68 2013
813'.54—dc23
2012018563
www.fsgbooks.com
www.twitter.com/fsgbooks • www.facebook.com/fsgbooks
eISBN 9781466828148
