Love Is a Canoe: A Novel by Ben Schrank

immediately realized she was wrong. They were rushing to talk to one another. Still, she was able to look across the room and catch Eli’s eye. She could see that he felt her presence. He turned and smiled and left the conversation he was in to come to her.
    “Hi, sweet thing,” he said, and kissed her. “You always look so graceful when you enter a room. I’m, like, proud to be with you.” He reeked of beer and workday sweat, but on him it smelled good.
    “I’m sorry I’m late. I hope I didn’t miss anything.”
    “Don’t worry about it. It’s been crazy. Before everybody arrived we were on a funding call with these West Coast donors and I got tense.” Eli nodded and smiled at people as he talked to her. “But Jenny made some jokes about the price of fuel next summer and we came out with real promises. Don’t forget to say hello to Rick and Steven, okay? They always ask after you. Don’t get shy now, okay? I want to be right next to you but you know I can’t pull it off since I’m hosting.”
    “Is Jenny here?” It had been three weeks and Emily still had not confronted him. She hadn’t gotten further than telling herself they were both too busy, no matter how much her mother and sister pushed her to at least talk to him. The situation with the hug seemed static. She had come to hate the word hug and intended never to think the word again. She’d been training herself to use only the word embrace . Except when it applied to them. Eli and Jenny. Their hug.
    “Is Jenny here?” Eli repeated. She watched him grit his jaw. He said, “Sure, of course she is. She’s around somewhere. It’d be great if you two could connect. Look at how many supporters we’ve got. This is really great for Roman Street and the new thing, UBA!”
    “UBA?”
    “Urban Bicycle Advocacy! What do you think, word lady? I wanted to surprise you.” Eli smiled. He had bright white teeth. She smiled back and tried as hard as she could to stop him from bringing up Jenny again without actually saying it. She was determined to get through the party without speaking to her. She had been sisterly and supportive once. That would not happen again.
    “Word lady,” she said. “Don’t call me that.”
    “Sorry. I meant word person,” he said with a smile. “But what do you think?”
    “Another acronym.”
    “Yeah, but this one is different. It sounds primal. Jenny figured out the name. She’s probably with Rick or Steven—we’ve been working here all day.”
    “Wow, you and her … really keyed into something.” Emily bit her lip. She couldn’t find it in herself to smile.
    “Come on, Emily. How about not losing your patience in a heartbeat? Tonight is important.”
    “I wasn’t,” she said. Then, “I didn’t.” She tugged on his plaid shirt. “Can’t I be a little jealous? What’s wrong with noticing when somebody has a crush on you?”
    “A crush?” He laughed. “This is all about UBA.”
    She hated the name UBA and could have come up with a better one in half an hour if she’d been asked. But she hadn’t been—and that made her almost as angry as their hug. She had helped enormously in giving direction to his messy business. And now it was out of her control. Jenny had thought up the name. Fucking idiot. She wanted to fire Jenny. She caught Eli looking at her, shaking his head at her frown. Then he gave her his tight-lipped smile and faded into the crowd, like an old Jules Feiffer cartoon found in one of the books her parents had had when she was a child—he just grew thin-lipped and crinkled his sweet eyes and faded away.
    She was suddenly alone, standing a foot from the bar, which was manned by a handsome kid, probably an undergraduate from Pratt. She grabbed a glass of white wine and didn’t move. She touched the tablecloth and looked at the rows of glasses and the huge wedge of Parmesan that people had begun to hack into chunks. There were bowls of fat purple kalamata olives, too. It was going to be