Love Is a Canoe: A Novel (21 page)

“I feel you. I’m on it.”

From
Marriage Is a Canoe
, Chapter 5, On Beginnings

My summer wasn’t spent entirely with the older folks. There was little Johnny, who became a good companion, if not a close friend. And then there were kids who lived in houses up and down the lake. I didn’t play with them too often, but enough so I was invited to a square-dancing birthday party in the Lindermans’ barn, which was up on a hill about a mile from my grandparents’ house. The birthday girl had honey-colored hair and she said I could call her Honey. Everyone did. Honey Linderman. Thirteen years old and she rode a fourteen-hand mare, one I’d heard had come all the way from a stable in Wyoming.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Honey said, when she saw me. “Come on!”

I had to chase her to the middle of the barn where the picnic tables were. I knew my grandparents thought she was spoiled. But she was so happy, it seemed right to spoil her. She did curse. It was damn this and the hell with that. And she always cursed and I always wondered why her parents let her.

There were twenty or twenty-five of us kids at that barn dance. First we had an icebox cake with vanilla frosting and strawberry ice cream and we sang “Happy Birthday” to Honey, all of us in a circle. We presented our presents, which most of us had bought at Casey’s store in town. There was a kaleidoscope and a white patent leather pencil case from her best friend at school. One boy gave her a copy of the new Dion record and I saw her mother thank him and then hide it out of sight.

“Goddamn it, Mom,” she said, so only us kids could hear.

The adults began to arrive when the square dancing got started. But first it was a children’s dance, with a violinist who we recognized as the druggist from town, and a caller, a tall man with a mustache and a pinstripe suit who no one knew at all. There was a lady singer, too, who got up and sang with her hands clasped in front of her. We danced and sang and I knew I was perspiring and that I probably smelled. I stared at Honey all through the songs and she stared back at me. When we were partnered, I felt sure we were holding our hands together more tightly than anyone else.

The caller let us know that he was going to take a break. He disappeared behind the barn with the lady singer and the druggist. We all knew for sure they were going to smoke and drink whiskey. But we said nothing. Instead, we played and chased and ran. And then Honey came behind me and covered my eyes.

“Come with me,” she said. “But don’t follow too close. Hurry up.”

A moment later, she was gone. I was sure she was going down the path to the stables, just a few hundred yards from the barn. There was moonlight, thank goodness. And I followed her, but not too close, just like she’d said.

“You found me!” she said, too loud, when I came in after her. There were just a few lights hanging from the rafters, swaying up there, and we could hear her family’s three horses asleep in their stalls, snuffling through their dreams.

I remember staring at her beautiful face, her tawny hair and sunburned summer skin and bright green eyes. Maybe she wasn’t beautiful. Maybe her eyebrows were a little thick. Her voice was husky and that didn’t fit either, because though she had a mouth on her, I would later discover that in the really big moments, she was shy.

That first kiss in the stables was more than everything. It was a perfect thing. All around us was the smell of wet hay and strawberry ice cream on our fingers from the party.

We kissed twice and embraced, our long arms encircling each other’s backs. We were unsure of what else we might do.

“Don’t tell anybody,” she said. “Don’t tell anybody about this.”

“I really like you,” I said, not caring if she told anyone or not and aware that in that thought was my first movement toward some maturity. Useless as it was just then, but there.

“Shhh!” She was giddy. “Shut the hell up!”

We ran back to the party, breathless, maybe twenty seconds apart, sure that we’d fooled everyone, though of course anyone who cared knew just where we’d been and what we’d done.

Bess and Pop had arrived and they were drinking with the other grown-ups. I came over and got between them. “What are you drinking?” I asked.

“Take a tiny sip,” Pop said. And I did. It was lemonade laced with whiskey that Lisa’s parents had made. I have loved that strange too-sweet taste ever since.

“Are you making sure to act like nothing less than a proper gentleman?” Pop asked, with his hand gripping the brown scruff of hair on the back of my neck.

“Yes,” I said, and ran back to find Honey and dance some more.

Later, as we made our way home on the moonlit road, I ran in circles around my grandparents, like a much younger boy, thinking of when I would see Honey again.

*   *   *

In his third revision, Peter added the following:

Less than a decade later, I would come back to Millerton as alone as when I was a child, to bury my grandparents and to find Lisa again.

I married her in our Millerton town hall and we had the party in that very barn, her family’s barn in Millerton. She was still the same—headstrong and charming and clear about love.

I’m not suggesting that we all should marry the first girl we kiss. But then again, why not? Once you’re in love, if you follow the path that love provides for you, why not stay in love? With that one person—even if they’ve got a bit of a foul mouth!

Most likely, true love is nearby.

From
The New Yorker
’s November 14, 2011, Talk of the Town section

TROUBLED WATERS

We don’t know about you, but come mid-November, we look forward to indoor parties with fondue and Scrabble-and-scotch sessions with friends. But a few days ago, we decided to shake up our routine with a brisk canoe ride. The desire for such a trip was stirred by news from Ladder & Rake Books that it plans to reinvigorate
Marriage Is a Canoe
, the book of marriage advice by Peter Herman. LRB has created a contest that’s meant to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the events upon which the advice book is based, which had to do with a summer Herman spent as a boy with his grandparents on Lake Okabye in upstate New York.

One lucky couple has already been selected to spend a Saturday with Herman, who has maintained a Pynchonesque quiet for the last decade (everyone knows where he lives, no one will give you directions). We were in no mood to chase down a sage. Better to leave the task of intimate talk about marriage with Herman to the contest winners. Our desire was simply to take a paddle on a lake in Herman’s inarguably sylvan part of New York State.

Further investigation led to Fred Benton, who has run Hudson Valley Canoe Tours since 1985. Benton is married to Annika Benton, who teaches kindergarten in Poughkeepsie. The couple have two children, Roderick, nine, and Annaliesa, fifteen. Benton agreed to take us on a morning trip around Silver Lake, one of his favorite spots, which probably wouldn’t be too windy.

And so, on a gray Thursday morning, we found Benton at his preferred meeting spot, in the parking lot of the Village Diner in Red Hook. The “historic” Village Diner is clad in steel and shiny, not unlike the canoes used at camps all up and down the East Coast. Benton waved us over. He is a thin man in his fifties with gray eyes and a horseshoe of stubble around his otherwise bald head. The Michael Stipe of East Coast canoeing?

“In the summers I give tours to families and I’ll run expert paddling seminars out of Jay’s Camping Outlet on Mamaroneck highway on the weekends if enough people sign up,” Benton said as he drove us to the lake in his hunter-green Ford F-150 pickup truck. There were several canoes tied up in a steel canopy built in the truck bed and they jostled one another in the wind as we rode. “But once fall hits it’s the off-season. So today, it’s just us.”

We parked and watched Benton nimbly untie a canoe and bring it to the water. He had chosen his favorite, a bright red Olde Towne Guide 147, made of three layers of polyurethane.

“It’s a cheap and basic model but I swear by it,” Benton said. “Can’t hurt it even with a baseball bat, practically. The wooden ones are museum pieces if we’re being honest.”

Fred handed over a Carlisle Scout paddle to this paddler. He got us out on the water and we felt the welcome of the great outdoors, safely bundled as we were in bright orange Extrasport Volksvest safety vests. Fred himself didn’t wear one. He used a beat-up black plastic paddle.

“Bad habits,” Fred said, alluding to his lack of vest and junky paddle. “Can’t break ’em.”

We paddled and gazed at the turning leaves. Fred explained that Silver Lake was about a hundred and eighty feet deep and was typical of the lakes in the Hudson Valley region. It was his favorite lake because of the Silver linden trees that lined the banks. They averaged only about forty years of age and were still buoyant and held their leaves longer than most.

Did Benton know Peter Herman?

“I believe I’ve met him once or twice over the years,” he said, once the shore felt to this city paddler to be several midtown blocks away. “I’m not much for social life. Ask my wife about him if you like.” Benton called Annika on his cellular phone. Once he explained the nature of the query, he handed the phone down the length of the canoe.

“Yes, of course I know Peter Herman,” Annika said. “Fred and I have eaten dinner at his inn. He’s a wonderful man. You say you’re out on Silver Lake? Aren’t you cold?”

Did she think that the lessons from
Marriage Is a Canoe
actually worked? Did she consider herself lucky to be married to a man who spent his days paddling in a canoe?

“I can’t say I ever thought of it that way,” she said, and apologized for not being able to talk longer. She had to return to her classroom to supervise morning snack (apples and string cheese).

This paddler wondered aloud about what sort of questions the winning couple might ask Peter Herman, and what canoeing had in common with love.

“There’s no secret to a good canoe trip,” Fred said. “Keep a steady stroke. Don’t jam the paddle into the water. Dip it in. Nice and easy.” We gleaned that he might be worried this paddler would splash him with cold lake water and so we evened our strokes.

Did Benton take trips in the canoe with his wife and children? Did he fill the canoe with just enough supplies for a happy day on the water?

“Not since the girl became a teenager,” he said, and left it at that.

This paddler went ahead and reeled off a few of the other lessons found in
Canoe.
What about:
Find time to be together every day—just the two of you—in your canoe
?

“Good luck with that.” Benton’s paddling had slowed. He said, “I’ll allow that I agree it’s a good principle. So sure, Herman may have something going. If I were him I might add a bit about sticking with your old model canoe rather than trading for a new one—you know, to get across that folks ought to stay married to one person. And something else about not needing an expensive canoe to have a good time.” Benton smiled. “Once you get started, this stuff is pretty easy! No wonder he wrote it. What’s the one about infidelity?”

We wondered at Benton, who seemed to know a bit more than he was letting on.

You will look at others with lust, and this will challenge the strength of your marriage. But if you’re going to have a happy journey through this life, stay in your own canoe.

“That’s the one.” Benton wouldn’t say more. He spat into the lake and raised an eyebrow. He said, “Let’s get out of this cold water.”

Fred drove us back to the Village Diner and took us inside for sandwiches and tomato soup. Would the homilies found in
Canoe
apply to his own marriage? Would Fred share an example? Fred ate half his grilled cheese and bacon on white. He chewed for a while and then said, “Not being a metaphorical thinker myself, it hadn’t come to me before today. But now that we’ve focused in on it, I agree that the lessons apply. I paddle around all the day long. Thinking about marriage as a canoe definitely couldn’t hurt. I’m more patient because I understand the water. I know when the wind will help us along and when we need to really work together to keep going in the right direction.” He winked and dunked the other half of his sandwich into his soup. “See? It’s easy. Marriage is a canoe. Makes a lot of sense. Can’t say the same for kayaking. Kayakers are often loons and loners.”

Outside the diner the sky threatened rain and we waved goodbye to Fred Benton, who was checking the bungee cords that held down his canoes. Fred let us know that next month he’d turn to his winter work, tuning up rental ski and snowboard mounts and bindings at Hunter Mountain ski resort.

“I like the summers better,” Benton said. “But the winters are quiet and that’s good with me, too. You tell those contest winners congratulations from me! Annika and I wish them the best of luck. They ought to come back this way in the spring for a tour with me, and if they do, it’s half off!”

—Elspeth Simon

Peter, November 2011

Peter drove into Millerton to do some shopping at Pantomime’s Grocery. He liked to visit with Pantomime’s owner, Arthur Levin. Arthur had built a theater in the grocery’s enormous backyard and run it successfully from the early seventies all the way into the early eighties. But as Arthur grew older, the theater and its demands had proved difficult to handle. Now Arthur was a Millerton old-timer who ran a good grocery store with an illogical name that was equally popular with tourists and locals.

Peter moved up and down the store’s two aisles. Enormous posters lined the walls above the shelves, of
The Threepenny Opera
and
Oklahoma!
and
Macbeth
, posters that Peter imagined were ignored by the men and women who came in after shifts at Gilmor glassworks and the tire-repair places along Old Country Road to buy dark- and light-colored beer, respectively. Or was it now the opposite? Peter stood in front of the beer cases, meditating on this, while Arthur belted out gossip from his perch behind the counter at the front of the store.