Love Is a Canoe: A Novel (22 page)

“I hear you’re leaving town,” Arthur yelled. He stood on a plywood platform, so his round stomach pressed against the counter and was framed on the sides by a pair of thin black suspenders from his mime days. He was five and a half feet tall and had a thick brown beard, just like the one most men in Millerton wore in the winter. He was dressed in his uniform of jeans, dirty white turtleneck, and red hunting cap, flaps up.

“Am I?”

“If I heard it, it’s got to be the truth.” Arthur smiled.

The place smelled of the briny pickles that Arthur made himself, and the oily wool scarves and misshapen hats made by Arthur’s new wife, Vanessa, who had moved up from New York after a weekend stay at the inn with some girlfriends. She’d come in alone on a Saturday afternoon for tuna, sharp cheddar, and sprouts on a pita, and had left with an old man’s admiration and a chance at a new life that would leave behind the city that had let her down in the love department.

“Do the glassblowers like dark beer or light beer?” Peter asked.

“You’re talking beer fashion? Hell if I know,” Arthur said. “Ask my beer guy. Or better, ask Henry. He knows that stuff.”

Peter nodded and dropped his basket on the counter. He set out shoelaces, dried cranberries, Cadbury chocolate, Grape-Nuts, a bag of baby carrots, and a quart of low-fat milk.

“And how are you?” Peter asked.

“Me? Who cares?” Arthur said. “I read about your contest in
The New Yorker
.” Arthur gestured at the laptop computer that sat between the credit card swipe machine and a red tin bucket filled with maple syrup candy. “Good piece.”

“What piece?”

“The save-your-marriage thingy?” Arthur made a ball with his hands and mimed laying it in a hoop. “Neat idea. That’s probably the most Fred Benton’s talked to a stranger in ten years. She must’ve been a hot young thing, that reporter. If I were still married to Françoise, I’d have entered your contest with a little entry essay that’d knock your socks straight into Connecticut. But with Vanessa, there’re no problems.” Arthur’s voice went up and he sounded just a little giddy. “Look at you!” he said. “Between your imminent departure and your contest, you’re the busiest old boy in the ’burg.”

“Back up,” Peter said. “Fred Benton talked to a reporter about me?”

“He said he didn’t know you. As I recall you and he had words back at the Sally Forth years ago, when you couldn’t keep your hands to yourself and he and Annika hadn’t yet made it legal. But Fred’s not one for speaking ill of his enemies.”

“Because he’s not one for talking, as you noted.” Peter frowned and grabbed up
The New York Times
and a
Poughkeepsie Journal
from the wire rack. Then he took a
Millerton Gazette
, which was free.

“Anyway, it’s true,” Peter said. “I did promise Maddie I’d move to California with her.”

“And I admire you for it,” Arthur said. “She reminds me of that young girl on
The Office
—Mindy Kaling. Steady gaze, hot, modern—maybe Maddie doesn’t have as much of a sense of humor but the rest of it makes sense. On your charge?”

“Yes.”

“So you’ve got these winners coming to meet with you. Why not bring them down to Pantomime’s and we can put on a show. We can talk folksy about marriage and they’ll see how human you are. I’ll make out to be real impressed by you and then I’ll tell them about me and Vanessa. We can give them some apple cider donuts. We take pictures and I’ll get some press that’ll help me with the tourist trade. What do you say?”

“God. I don’t know, Arthur.”

“Couldn’t hurt.”

“No, I suppose it couldn’t. And I’m moving away soon afterward, aren’t I? Since you only hear the truth.”

“Indeed.” Arthur leaned forward. “Look, Peter. A woman wants you—go with her.”

Peter dragged his paper bag off the counter. He cradled it in his arms. The bag felt heavy and alive. He hadn’t managed to get comfortable with shopping for one and it still felt wrong. Did he buy too much? Too little? He could never tell.

“You’ve had a good run here,” Arthur said. “Now you’ve got a woman who cares about you and you’re getting out. Believe me, that is okay.”

“I’m glad everybody’s got an opinion about where I ought to lay my head.”

“What the hell else are we supposed to talk about?”

The door opened and a young couple came in, stretching from what appeared to be a long spell of driving—most likely from the city to visit someone for the weekend.

“Where’s your coffee?” the man asked. Arthur smiled and held up a hand in a just-a-moment gesture. Peter moved toward the door.

“Don’t stick around for no reason!” Arthur called out. “I’ll never forget when Peter Schumann walked in that door and asked me to join up with him and his Bread and Puppet theater operation up there in Vermont and I said no because I wanted to make my own way here. A bunch of fucking geniuses about to make history and I said no!” Arthur made two fists and pumped his arms at his ceiling, which was decorated with bits of colored paper from piñatas and Cinco de Mayo celebrations. “Peter Schumann saw a kindred spirit in me and I said no. He makes history and I make coffee. Somebody asks for your hand, you give it to them, you get me?”

“Yeah. I’ll see you soon,” Peter said.

“And remember to bring your winners here! I’ll put together some fresh quinoa salad and some other stuff. It’ll be a party.” Arthur turned to the couple. “Now, you young people, what kind of coffee would you like? Because I am going to make it fresh for you. And while I do, I am going to tell you the story of that man who is right now walking out the door.”

Back at home, Peter got Lisa’s computer going and read the
New Yorker
piece.

Well, he thought, if the winners are as awkward as old Fred was with that reporter, it will be a hell of an awful long Saturday.

He glanced at the framed black-and-white photograph on the wall above the light switch, of his Pop coming in for the day with a few fish in a bucket, wearing a green vest and a blue T-shirt, blue jeans, a Lucky Strike hanging off his lip, nearly perpendicular to the grassy waterfront. Not even sixty in the picture and looking about as Peter did now, save that he was smaller and had more of a paunch. Just an occasionally kind and generally affable old man who could bear the weight of Peter’s aphorisms in death. Not a drunk, thank god. Just a retired salesman with a pension from the army and a little bit of money on top of that from his wife. A wife who, in turn, was much as he was. A daughter who had started out well enough and then moved to New York City for no good reason. An easily confused woman who became Peter’s mother and who was dead of alcoholism before her son finished college.

Peter went and found the cordless phone in its cradle in his study, picked it up, and weighed it in his palm.

He got Stella on the phone and said, “I am sorry to be slow about returning your calls.”

“Oh, no,” Stella said. He could hear her getting up to close a door. “Not at all. We are doing this on your schedule. Though we have scheduled the weekend for our winners and we do need to confirm all that with you.”

“I read the
New Yorker
piece. A little smug.”

“That’s the right word! They are so smug. They just do whatever they want. I’m so sorry if any of it offended you. I can call someone over there and complain?”

“No, no. I’m sure they’re impossible to control. And Fred could’ve been a whole lot worse,” he said. “There’s a backstory there.”

“I’m sure there is.” She laughed. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Peter considered. What good was there in telling her? Young people didn’t need to know about decades-old misunderstandings. Well, offenses, really. He’d taken it too far with Annika one night when they thought Fred had passed out. They’d been wrong and Fred had popped one eye open and reached across the booth there at the Sally Forth, grabbing Peter by the throat and swearing never to forget. An unfortunate evening.

“Better not,” Peter said. “What a pretty laugh you have.”

“Thank you.”

“Yes, it’s high and sweet. Delicate as a balsa-wood canoe.”

“That’s so, Peter—that’s so well said … I mean, my voice is nothing. But your words…”

“Let me go into the other room, to hear you better,” he said. He’d figured out that the older he acted, the better Stella liked him. People always walked around while on the phone, without telling the person on the other end of the line where they were going. And so did he, old ham that he was.

“Listen,” he said. “You are saving my life. I’m old enough to be truthful. You were decent and you waited for me to mourn and then you approached, brilliantly, and now here we are. Those people at LRB ought to give you a medal, or at least promote you.”

“That’s kind, but I’m very happy. I love this job.” She was breathless.

He was in the front living room looking at himself in the ancient mirror, at his beardy-white jowls and peppery gray hair mushed over his head, his too-tall body stooped to fit into his khakis and itchy red Bean sweater.

“I can’t wait to meet you,” Stella said. “You’re a legend around here, you know. It’s everyone’s dream to write one book that backlists forever. Not that a new book wouldn’t be…”

“Maybe after all this contest business I will come and spend some time in New York. It has been a while.”

“That would be absolutely great! If you’re not too busy, we can go for lunch or drinks. I’m sure there are plenty of people here at Ladder & Rake who want to see you. But for now, for right now in advance of then, shall I continue to firm up plans for you to meet with our winners?”

“You’re free to make all the plans. I loved that young woman’s essay. What was her name? Emily Babson? Solid name. Well done.”

“Thank you, Peter. Your trust is inspiring! I’m sure you’ll love our photographer. Would you like me to e-mail you a link to her website?”

“Photographer? No, no. There can’t be any pictures. That will make us all uncomfortable. No to that.”

“I see.” He heard her disappointment. He decided to ignore it.

He began to root around in the coat closet, looking for a blazer he might wear in Manhattan. But, wait. Maddie could help him pick a jacket. She could choose something for him, no problem. Why didn’t he think of her more? They were a couple, weren’t they?

He said, “We ought to talk about a new project when it’s all over, too.”

“Ohhh, Peter! We would love that…”

“Something about how as we age, we need to welcome the future, even as it changes.”

“Yes, yes, absolutely! You’re sure about the photographer? Because pictures are key—”

“Out of the question.”

“All right then,” Stella said.

“But a new project is not.”

“A fair exchange,” Stella said. And he could hear that she hadn’t meant to say that aloud. A new book? He shook his head. A new book was a trick he’d used before with handling editors. Still worked, apparently. No, nothing he did could hurt anyone too badly. Except sometimes. Except of course he had hurt one or two people, way back when. But a bit of carrot on a stick never hurt anyone, did it? Carrot … He jerked his head up and realized he’d left his sack of groceries on the front passenger seat of his car.

Stella, November 2011

Every third Tuesday, if Helena was in the office, she took the morning to do a surprise set of “management by walking around” visits. Most employees had figured this out and set their Outlook calendars accordingly, but Stella had never been able to get the hang of the schedule. Of course up to now it hadn’t mattered, since she didn’t rank high enough to get on Helena’s stop-by list. However, because of the new multigroup focus on her
Canoe
activities, Stella was on alert. And sure enough, Lucy Brodsky shot Stella an early morning e-mail titled “Watch out!”

Stella didn’t fool herself into thinking she’d been warned because Lucy liked her. She knew Lucy had done it because if Stella really screwed up, Helena would be in a nasty mood all day and Lucy would suffer.

Stella just had time to snag a flower from someone in Ad/Promo’s engagement bouquet and put it in a coffee cup on her desk. She printed a fresh copy of Emily Babson’s essay. She hadn’t spoken to Emily personally, not just yet, on the off-chance that Helena wanted to weigh in on the winner and reject Stella’s first choice. Stella wasn’t afraid of the messy sequencing—she believed she could spin with the best of them. Nobody knew who the winner was, so they could just pick another. And in-house counsel could deal with Emily Babson if she caused a fuss. The only real problem was that Stella didn’t have a runner-up, since all the other entrants appeared to be so irreparably damaged that to put them through the weekend and then reveal them to the public would be an act so immoral Stella would not even consider it. Not because of the act’s immorality, but because it would be a professional disaster.

Stella bustled around her office one last time, clearing her head and rolling her shoulders in her blue-and-silver paisley shirt. The shirt was intentional. She would be electric today. Helena would absorb her energy and then want to be around her more. She adjusted the
Canoe
quotes on her bulletin board, moving aside rejected covers and pulling down a few photographs of her out at night with coworkers, women whom she wasn’t actually friendly with at all, though they all had their cheeks together and were blowing air kisses in the pictures.

“Knock, knock!” Lucy Brodsky called out, musically, from somewhere down the hall.

“Who’s— Hello!” Stella moved backward as Helena and Lucy stepped into her tiny office.

Lucy made bug eyes at Stella and then went to stand and listen in the doorway, as was required of her, while she punched in updates on her iPad, which listed Helena’s next stops. Although it subverted the surprise, Lucy alerted the targets with an ETA that was plus or minus one minute so everybody was in their office and off the phone and prepared and no time was wasted—or at least, Helena’s time was not wasted.

“Hello, hello,” Helena said as she stepped inside and dropped into the single chair across from Stella’s desk.