Love by the Book (26 page)

Women, on the other hand, are incredibly easy to buy for: just go to the nearest Boots, swipe every nice-smelling lotion/serum on the beauty shelf into a basket, throw in a loofah and go to the checkout counter. It literally could not be simpler.

Anyway, I was in a jam about what to get Bike Guy, so I turned to the book for some advice. Helpfully, there was a whole chapter on gift giving, with Mrs. Humphry agreeing that choosing a gift for a man is a near-Sisyphean task. “Men are very troublesome about presents,” she says. “One is often at a loss about what to get them, especially if they do not smoke.”

Luckily, it was already well established that Bike Guy was a smoker, though probably not the type of smoker Mrs. Humphry was referring to. Her list of suggestions is as follows: custom-made smoking table (don't think it would fit in the attic), a cigar box of precious metals (above my pay grade), cigarette case with a jeweled monogram (don't think he's meant to be carrying joints around with him), or matchbox. Bingo! I found a sweet little Victorian matchbox on eBay and managed to win the auction with a last-minute stealth bid. It was dark wood with a little frieze of wood nymphs inlaid in ivory on the back, and on the front was a copperplate photograph of a woman who appeared to be in a sailor's uniform, complete with little hat. It was weirdly fitting for the upcoming boating party.

Bike Guy had replied to my invitation by text, which wasn't exactly the level of formality I was hoping for, but at least I knew he'd show up. He mentioned that he was a little afraid of water, but I'm sure that won't be too much of a problem; after all, we'll be on the water, not in it.

So invitation accepted and gift acquired, the only thing left to sort out was the menu. The book lays out a very specific (and, for my culinary aptitude, very ambitious) three-course meal, each course made up of four scary-sounding French dishes consisting, if my translation is right, almost entirely of cream and ice in various iterations (Victorians must have been busting out of their corsets left, right and center eating all this stuff). I think I need to scale it back a little before Saturday. And I probably need to invest in a cooler.

I told Lucy about the letter. I'd been avoiding her for days but she finally trapped me on the balcony and wouldn't let me inside until I told her.

“You were
married
?!” I thought her head was going to pop off her neck and fly over the railing.

“Well, technically, I'm
still
married. But we're separated. Obviously.”

“Hang on, when the hell did you get married? How old were you—ten? I knew that sort of thing happened in the South, but I wasn't expecting it from someone from Maine. That's near New York!”

I brushed Lucy's hazy knowledge of geography aside for the minute. “We were twenty-three, only a couple years out of college. Babies, basically. We'd been together in high school, split up for a while and then got back together when we both moved back to Portland.”

“High school sweethearts! That sounds so romantic! How did he propose?”

I really didn't want to talk about this, but I figured I owed Lucy an explanation considering I'd been lying to her for a year. “He hid it in a doughnut.”

Lucy wrinkled her nose. “A doughnut? God, I haven't eaten one of those since the nineties.”

“Yeah, we had this Saturday-morning tradition of going for a run together and then getting doughnuts from this amazing little bakery on the waterfront. He hid the ring in my doughnut one morning. I nearly swallowed it, but my sensitive gag reflex came in handy for once.”

“Not quite as romantic as I'd pictured, but it's still sweet.” She paused and I watched the whole thing sink in afresh. “Fuck. I
cannot
picture you in a wedding dress.”

“Well, it happened, and there are pictures to prove it somewhere in my parents' living room.”

“Lo, this is major! I can't believe you didn't tell me! And here I was thinking we were best friends and all.”

“Look, I'm sorry I didn't tell you earlier—I just couldn't deal with it. I still can't, really.”

“So what happened between the two of you? I mean, he seems pretty perfect from the sounds of that letter.”

I shrugged. “It just didn't work.” I could feel myself welling up and pressed my fingernails into my palms to stop myself from crying. “Can we not talk about this right now?”

Lucy handed me another cigarette and gave me a little squeeze. “Of course, babe. Sorry. Let me get you a whisky.”

So the cat's out of the bag now, officially. I guess that means I'm going to have to deal with things: write him back, find a lawyer, the whole nine yards, but just not yet. I felt drained at the thought of it.

I took my whisky to bed with me and watched reruns of
Gilmore Girls
, wishing I was safe in the arms of Stars Hollow.

Bike Guy's Birthday Boating Party was today! It went moderately to plan.

I spent yesterday evening hauling the canoe out of Lucy's cousin's garage in Walthamstow, strapping it to the top of a Zipcar, and driving—terrified—through east London before storing the canoe on the balcony next to my new bike.

I then spent five hours cooking the various dishes I was bringing to this boating party.

As previously mentioned, Mrs. Humphry's menu involved a truly unbelievable amount of food for a day on a boat. For lunch alone, her menu consisted of lobster with mayonnaise, salmon with tartar sauce, quail stuffed with truffles, roasted chickens (plural!), beef tongues, lamb, and strawberries and cream. Who were these Victorians and how were they rich enough to afford lobster, salmon and truffles all in one meal? And how the hell did they digest all that? On a boat, no less! They must have been impermeable to seasickness.

Anyway, my scaled-down menu was as follows:

Lunch at 1:00

ROAST CHICKEN
(one, slightly charred)

STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM

Tea at 4:00

CAKES AND BISCUITS

(well, some Jaffa cakes, which I figured covered both categories)

TEA

ICED COFFEE

Dinner at 8:00

BOEUF
ÉPICÉ

(spicy beef to you and me—
basically
I just stir-
fried
some steak
with a shit-
ton
of Sriracha sauce)

SALADE
FRANÇAISE

(some salad leaves in a bag)

GELÉES
AUX
FRUITS

(Remember those Jello molds with the pieces
of canned fruit f loating in it? That.)

Mrs. Humphry doesn't mention booze anywhere in her menu (an oversight, surely) so I added a few six-packs of Carlsberg and a bottle of cheap cava.

Bike Guy arrived at my flat at exactly the moment I was trying to wrestle the canoe back on top of the Zipcar.

“Hello!” he called as he cycled up next to me. “Let me give you a hand with that.”

“Stupid fucking—arrrghh!” I shouted as we hoisted the canoe onto the roof. I tied it up quickly with a piece of bungee cord I'd found in the hall closet. “Happy birthday!” I yelled, throwing my arms around him.

“Bloody hell!” he said, eyeing up the canoe now balancing perilously on top of the tiny car. “You weren't joking about this boating party, were you?”

I gave him a peck on the lips. “Would I joke about something as serious as a boating party? Come on, let's get this baby onto the canal in time for lunch.”

I handed him the keys and climbed into the passenger seat; after my perilous journey yesterday (where I clipped three wing mirrors and nearly de-limbed a cyclist), I was very happy to leave the driving to him. Besides, Victorian women couldn't even vote; I was pretty sure they weren't meant to drive.

We zoomed through the City, down Commercial Street and out to Limehouse. We parked up by the basin and pulled the canoe off the roof.

“Can you give me a hand with these bags?” I asked, pulling the seat forward and folding myself into the back seat.

Bike Guy peered in and saw the two overstuffed Sainsbury's bags. “How the hell are we going to get all that onto the boat? Mate, we'll bloody capsize the thing!”

A little spark of worry shot through me: I hadn't fully thought out the logistics of this, but it was too late now and I was damned if I was going to throw away a single morsel. I'd slaved for hours over that luncheon and, by God, we were going to eat every bite.

“It'll be fine!” I said, tugging one of the bags out and handing it to him. “We can drag the beer along beside the boat. Anyway, we're both pretty small—there'll be plenty of room once we're in.”

The two of us hauled the canoe and the two grocery bags down to the edge of the river and set them down.

I looked at the canoe skeptically. I'd never actually set foot in one before, so had no real idea how we were meant to go from dry land to sailing on the open seas. Were we meant to just climb in while the boat was still docked on the sand? Or were we meant to—God help me—leap in once it was afloat?

Bike Guy was outdoorsy, so I figured he'd know. I looked at him expectantly before remembering that he was afraid of water, and probably wasn't quite as expert as I'd hoped.

“How the fuck are we meant to get in then?” he asked, giving the canoe a little shove with his foot.

Ah, shit. Well, I might as well pretend I knew what I was doing. I cleared my throat and spoke in what I hoped was an authoritative manner. “First, we have to get all the stuff in the boat so that the weight is evenly distributed.”

We got to work unloading the food, tucking Tupperware containers in every available crevice and squeezing the aluminum-foil-wrapped chicken into the bow. We attached the two six-packs to the boat with a long piece of string; they could trail peacefully behind us, chilling nicely in the river while we rowed away. I couldn't find space for the cava so I opened it, took a swig and passed it to Bike Guy. “Bottoms up!”

We drank half the bottle while circling the canoe and discussing the physics of buoyancy, until—emboldened by the aforementioned cava—I gave the canoe a little shove into the water and hurled myself in, hitting my pubic bone on the yoke on the way. “Fuuuuuuuuck!” I yelled. I pulled myself upright and squeezed myself into the bow, curling my feet around the chicken. I looked back to see a panicked-looking Bike Guy running along the sand, trying desperately to keep up with the rapidly receding boat. I found the paddles and started rowing furiously back to shore. “Get in!” I hollered as the boat bobbed close.

“How?!” he hollered back.

“Make a jump for it!”

Bike Guy backed up a little and then took a running leap at the canoe. He sailed toward me and then flopped sideways across the boat, his arms clutching the sides while his legs thrashed furiously in the water.

“Gaaaaaah!” he yelled. “Help me on! I'm going to fucking drown!”

I peered over the side and saw silt. “It's shallow! Just stand up!”

“Oh.” He stopped thrashing and stood up. The water was only knee height. “Eurgh, it's all seaweedy!”

“I thought you were meant to be outdoorsy and shit!” I gave him a hand and pulled him into the boat, the two of us collapsing with laughter.

He pulled off his soaked shoes and placed them on the lapboard to dry in the sun. “Fuck me, that was all a bit dramatic! I need a drink.”

I spotted the half-drunk bottle of cava lying sadly on its side on the shore. “Beer it is!” I pulled two cans out of the river and handed one to him. We clinked. “To the high seas!”

We started paddling lazily toward Shoreditch, whacking floating debris and the occasional tin of baked beans out of the way. Now that we had set out, I took a minute to survey our surroundings: it was a beautiful day, sunny but with a hint of autumnal crispness in the air.

By the time we made our way to the Towpath Cafe, it was one o'clock: time for luncheon. Bike Guy was eyeing the cafe's chalkboard menu beadily, but I was determined to carry on with my Victorian feast. I reached down to my feet and pulled out the chicken. “Hungry?” I asked, unwrapping the foil and offering it up for him to see.

He looked confused at first—I assumed it was the first time anyone had ever offered him a whole roast chicken while in a canoe—but after a moment's pause he picked a bit of skin off and popped it in his mouth with a grin.

I hadn't packed any cutlery (I knew I was forgetting something) so we had to pull it apart with our hands, which was fun in an animalistic sort of way. It felt briefly like we were on one of those survival shows. I could see the tagline now:
LOST AT SEA WITH CHICKEN
.

The morning's exertions had obviously taken their toll—we demolished that chicken in seconds. I looked at the picked-over carcass lying limply in the foil. “Do you think I should just throw it overboard?”

Bike Guy had given up all pretense of paddling and was lying back with his head tipped to the sun. “Why not? Feed the ducks and all that.”

“Isn't that, like, cannibalism? Ducks eating chickens?”

He considered this, then shook his head. “Nah. Different species.”

“Really?” I looked down at the chicken remains and over at a flock of ducks floating peacefully nearby. “It still feels sort of sick. Like a human eating a monkey: you're basically eating family.”

Bike Guy sat up and started rolling a joint, shielding it carefully with his hand to prevent the bud from blowing away. “Pigs are closer to humans than monkeys and we eat them all the time.”

“That's fucked up,” I said, throwing the chicken bones into the river and tucking the ball of used foil back into the bow.