Love Is a Canoe: A Novel (28 page)

“They’re just resting at the inn now, is all that’s happening.”

“So it’s going according to plan?”

“Yes. Certainly.”

“That’s good news!”

He lapsed into silence. Did Lisa know he’d kissed more than one of the maids? She must have. Did she even care? He looked at the blue-and-white needlepoint rug that covered most of Lisa’s floor. She was a wonderful woman. But wonderful didn’t mean she had a lot of love in her.

“What else should I be telling you, Stella?”

“All I want to hear is that they’re happy.”

“They are. Or, they will be.”

“You know … We were asked to video and photograph and record everything that happened and I fended all that off,” Stella said. “I’m just reminding you that I agreed with you when you said that was inappropriate. I mean I know you said no to all that but the point is I agree with you. You wouldn’t believe how pushy Helena can be about these things. So if there’s going to be none of that then I’ll need … you. And I need them, too. Maybe essays from both of you? Or something recorded? Although photographs would be so much better.”

“Helena?” he asked. “She’s watching over all this?”

“Helena watches over everything. She really badgered me for pictures. So much of corporate life is show-and-tell, you wouldn’t believe it. That’s why I’m hoping you can share what’s happening. So I can … share with Helena and the rest of the team here. Because I can’t show anything. Of course I can call back tomorrow if you’d rather talk then. But maybe you could take pictures with your phone?”

Peter laughed. He said, “Helena. Helen. I knew her when she was just discovering how to be that way. We meant a lot to each other.”

“Then you can imagine what this is like for me. Please let me tell her we can get some pictures, perhaps here in New York.”

“Yes, go ahead and tell her that. Tell her whatever you want and consider me on board.”

“Oh,” Stella sighed, and he could hear that she did not quite believe him. “Terrific. That’s terrific.”

He said, “I promise posed photos with our winners. They will be fine. Though, long-term, who can say with such young people? I should go and prepare for their return.”

“So dinner will just be a kind of a toast to the day?”

“Sure, if you say so. I mean yes. Let’s call it that.”

She responded with silence. She doubted him and she was angry! He could hear it and he realized she had a right to be. She wanted more than she was getting from him. And she deserved more. She said, “Can you also create a good shared anecdote for me that I can feed to publicity? You can make sure to tell them to take care of each other, as you say in your book.”

“I’m glad you called to remind me of that. You’re right, of course. I will do that.”

“I’m glad, too, I’m glad because…” She began to rush her speech. But he had stopped listening. He muttered a goodbye and clicked the phone off.

Was his love with Lisa a great love? He kept returning to that question, even though he knew the answer. They’d had Belinda. Belinda was a kind of love. They had tried to have other children and failed. They loved Belinda and raising her was a wonder. He missed Lisa now … and Belinda, whom he wanted to see. They had talked a few days ago but now he wanted to call her again, and would, tomorrow. And why didn’t Helena call, if she was such a badgerer? Too busy, probably. Always had been that way, since the beginning. She badgered, but didn’t call. When all this was over, he would call her. And what about Maddie? Would he call Helena from an apartment in San Francisco? What if Maddie overheard? He couldn’t do that to Maddie. He would have to go into the street to call, use a cell phone … He pressed at his teeth with the tips of his fingers.

“Peter?” a voice called out.

“Yes?” Peter struggled to his feet and left the dark study and went into the brightly lit hall.

“Mike and I are going to go. We didn’t want to bother you but felt we ought to say goodbye.”

“Jenny! Goodbye now.” He put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed. He didn’t like her smile, how she seemed to think he was old now, and harmless.

She twisted free of him and said, “You know how to heat everything up? Want to see what we have in store for you?”

Peter followed Jenny into his kitchen, which now smelled and felt like the kitchen at the inn.

“Hello, Mike. Henry treating you good?”

“Better than you ever did, big fella!”

The three of them talked for a few minutes and then he saw them out, after he’d been instructed on how to plate the lamb shanks and when to warm up and serve the other dishes, the brussels sprouts with bacon, the crispy polenta rounds, and the chestnut soup.

“Of course I know how to handle all this. I’m going to clean these dishes before your pick-up tomorrow better than you can imagine! Now, go! And you have my eternal thanks…”

After they left, he stood in the kitchen doorway with his hands stuck deep in his pockets. What were the things he used to tell couples when they cornered him, every so often, at restaurants in town? What did he say on book tours, and during his few lectures on marriage?

He went over his old prescriptions and swore to himself he’d give a better performance than he had this afternoon. He’d mention all his old favorites. He would try his very hardest to help them plaster over the husband’s infidelity. He owed everyone that.

Don’t renovate a home together in the first five years of marriage.

Only live with your in-laws as a last resort.

Don’t spend too much time with any one single other couple.

Eat at home and together as often as you can. Make each other breakfast on each other’s big days—the day of the big presentation at work. The day of the test your spouse has to take to go to the next level.

Don’t leave clothes lying on the bedroom floor.

Let each other flirt with others at parties.

Those and dozens of others like them. His army of strident little comments. He was proud, not of any one of them in particular, but of them as a whole. He would pick out the ones that applied and press them on the winners. He would even go through the exercises with them if they wanted. He was bumping on something. What was it?

And then he realized what bothered him was that Eli seemed proud of his cheating. Wasn’t he a bit exultant about it? Yes, that was what felt wrong. He was exultant and maybe a little rebellious. That was the thing he was glad he’d kept from Stella. Though, he thought, smiling, why should Stella care? In the short term, the contest could only be a success. And no one should be bothered that the woman, Emily, had married an arrogant bastard. That was no one’s fault but hers. She wasn’t stupid. She’d conveyed that this afternoon, that she’d chosen this life for herself. He liked Emily and he understood her. She loved her man. Just the way Lisa had loved him.

He decided to make sure that during the evening he would stick to his little aphorisms, rather than rush into any more of the intimacy that prompted all this terrifying honesty. He went and found a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label that he kept in the cupboard in the dining room, next to the good wineglasses. On the other hand, he might tell a few stories about how he and Lisa had been together. Though it felt risky, it also felt as if some of what he had been through with Lisa paralleled the situation with Eli and Emily. He took a sip of scotch from a water glass. Yes. Some of his real life did seem to apply.

Emily, Winners’ Weekend, November 2011

“Where are you going?” Emily asked.

Emily lay in bed with the covers pulled up. They had made love again. So much sex. It did feel as if, in addition to all his awkward and new honesty, Eli was trying to prove his love through sex. In order to stop thinking about that, she had closed her eyes. She’d been dozing when she heard him moving around.

“I want to go for a quick run. I saw a path back there and they told me it goes north for a few miles.”

“Okay.” Emily sat up. “I’m not going to nap.”

“It’s fine if you do. We have time.”

“I won’t,” she said. She looked around. Their clothes were everywhere. They’d made a mess of the pretty white room. This kind of chaos wasn’t like them, she thought.

Eli had on shorts and an Oberlin sweatshirt. He found his sneakers and laced them up. “It’ll be cold,” he said. “But I’ll go crazy if I don’t exercise. I wish I’d brought a bike.”

“You’re taking your phone?”

“In case I get lost.”

She said, “Kiss me.” She knew she sounded plaintive, as if everything depended on the kiss.

His kiss was good but fast and after he left she listened to him bound down the creaky wooden stairs. She threw herself back on the pillows. Not hungry or thirsty or wanting, really, to talk more. But in twenty minutes she knew she would be all those things. No television. Not right now. And yet, still, it was dark and cold out and a weird time for a run and where the fuck was he really going. She took a deep breath and stopped. He needed to exercise. That was true and she believed it. Everything was good.

She called Sherry, who answered on the first ring.

“So what’s he like? Is he everything you dreamed of?”

“You’re actually curious or are you making fun of me?”

“Emily, you think I didn’t read the book? I know I teased you about it but that book was just as much a part of my growing up as it was yours.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right,” Emily said, happy to find her sister both caring and defensive.

“So what’s he like?”

“He’s cautious. He’s been playing the part for so long and I don’t think he likes to break out of it. And I am asking an awful lot of him. We are. I’m not saying I don’t love the fact that I’ve finally met him. I totally do. This was so worth it.”

“He’s a widower, right? Is he cute?”

“Please. He’s the same age as Dad. Also, he doesn’t think that what he wrote is clichéd! Can you believe that?”

“He takes it all seriously?”

“Completely. I mean, I love every bit of it but I know it’s kind of kitschy. But he … he thinks his stuff is still super-relevant. And when he talks to us it’s like he’s right there, in our marriage with us. I mean he jumped right in. Which is maybe what we needed. I forgave Eli for what he did. In front of Peter.”

“I thought you already did that?”

“Before it was kind of like improv. Now we’re making it real. We’re beginning to be happy in a real way.” Emily gathered the quilt around her and went over to the window. Outside there was nothing but darkness in all directions. She couldn’t even see the parking lot. How could he be running out there, she wondered. He would run into a tree.

“The thing is you sound kind of skeptical?” Sherry asked.

“I know, I’m happy but at the same time skeptical. I’m nervous. We’ve been having sex like crazy.”

“Where is Eli?”

“He went for a run.”

“What? Oh, okay. A run. Let’s have dinner Monday night, and you can tell me all about it.”

“Sherry?” Emily took a deep breath. She knew she shouldn’t ask so much of her sister. She understood that having to reach out to her right now was not a good indicator of how things were going.

“What?”

“Do you like me? Do you think I’m a fun person?”

“What? Of course I do. What are you talking about?”

“Sometimes I think he’s dutiful about being married to me. I don’t want him to feel that way, like it’s homework.”

“Um, I think marriage
is
homework. That’s why I’m nowhere near it.”

“Don’t say that. It’s true but don’t say it.”

“He loves you. You’ll be fine. I’m glad you did this crazy thing.”

“It’s dorky and maybe a little dangerous.”

“No. It’s cathartic. You realized a dream. I’m jealous. And Emily?”

“What?”

“It’s actually kind of glamorous, when you think about it.”

Emily said, “I get that I’m leaning too much on you if you feel like you’ve got to say that.”

“Well, at least it sounds like you’re doing something that’s good for you. If not glamorous, then good. It’s like a cleanse, only really special and unique to you.”

“Stop. I’ll call you tomorrow when we get home. Dinner Monday night, for sure.”

Emily went into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

The bathroom was big. There were pink roses painted on the white tiles. Eli still wasn’t back. For some reason, she locked the bathroom door. She wanted to get back to a time with Eli, to some moment even before last summer, when they’d had sex where they did new things and laughed together and were awkward in the mornings when they’d brushed their teeth. How to get back there?

The water felt good and she took a hotter shower than she knew was good for her. Not how to get back there. How to go forward to combine that pleasure with the trust they’d developed … earlier today. Maybe that was a little ambitious. But that was what she’d ask Peter. How to do that. In just a little while, in an hour or so. She loved her husband. If he was capable of today, he would work with her to get to the place she could describe to him.

Peter, Winners’ Dinner, November 2011

“It’s so nice to sit here in this beautiful dining room in the candlelight with the two of you,” Emily said. “You are my two favorite men in the world.”

She smiled carefully. Both men looked pensive, their heads hunched forward and their faces heavy so they supported them with their hands. But where Eli was immobile, Peter kept trying to rise out of the somber state they’d found him in.

“I’m glad I found candles,” Peter said. “Usually I can never find the darn things.” He was at the head of his table. Emily and Eli were on either side of him, facing each other. He had given them some scotch when they arrived because he’d had a glass in hand when he opened the door. They had skipped the soup because Peter had forgotten to heat it up and it looked lumpy and a bit suspect. They had laughed about Peter’s forgetfulness and moved right to the lamb shank, which they had all discovered was cool in the center. Peter had gotten confused about the heating time for the polenta, too, so the disks were hard and shiny, like wheels pulled from a toy truck.

“Have more brussels sprouts,” Peter said. “I didn’t mess with them.” Peter had his scotch glass with him at the table. Emily and Eli had switched to wine. “If the meat’s undercooked, I can put it back in the oven,” Peter said.