Derek had terrific upper body strength. Annie had seen what he could do when they were out canoeing on the Connecticut River in a squall. As he pointed out with pride, he’d gotten the green Old Town canoe safely back to Hamburg Cove, a sheltered spot tucked in off the river itself. Then, in a moment of triumph, he suggested they stop in Chester on the way back, to celebrate, at the pricy French restaurant. Of course, Annie ended up paying, but she didn’t mind since she made more money than Derek. And, as he often noted, Derek had his own way of contributing to the relationship. He sometimes fixed things at her house, for instance. When her dryer died, he took it apart and spread its guts out on the floor of the laundry room.
“It’s this thingamajig” he announced, and he went to Home Depot and found the right part for less than five dollars. “But consider the labor a gift,” he had said.
So there was that.
Annie appreciated that Derek was adventurous. Together, they’d done all of the navigable parts of the Quinnipiac River, although Derek had miscalculated the tide and they ended up having to lean forward, completely flat, to get under the railroad bridge, as they fought the current with all their might.
But, otherwise, it had been a successful paddle.
More successful than their holidays, for instance. At Christmas, there had been the disappointment of the small wrapped box. To Annie, the box looked like it might contain jewelry. A bracelet, maybe. Annie liked bracelets. When she shook the box, it clinked. Derek had left the present, matter of factly, under the lone pine branch that he had artistically set up in his living room. He’d decorated with small, red Japanese bells. He told Annie that he found conventional Christmas trees too garish and a waste of money.
“Can you believe the Boy Scouts want seventy-five bucks for a little bush?” he whined.
As the days counted down to Christmas, Annie found her expectations growing. She had gotten a cashmere hoodie for Derek and wondered if, maybe, it wasn’t enough. But when she finally opened Derek’s gift, she found that it contained new hinges for her pantry door, which never shut properly and annoyed Derek no end when they were making dinner at Annie’s.
“I’d been eyeing some sturdier hardware for some time,” said Derek, oblivious to the surprised look on Annie’s face.
Indeed, their best times were out on the water. The canoe belonged to Annie, but they kept it at Derek’s place because, as he had once remarked, he lived closer to most of the places they liked to paddle.
When they canoed Derek always sat in the stern and she in the bow. He controlled the direction of the canoe and, of course, used his powerful arms to propel them forward.
“I don’t know what you’d do without me. It takes two to canoe,” Derek often said.
It was only later, after she had broken things off with Derek and brought her canoe back to her own house, that she learned a trick. By turning the canoe around and sitting in the bow facing the stern, it was entirely possible to canoe solo. The canoe moved quickly with just her weight in it, and she liked controlling the craft herself. She found out that lots of people do this, or they just buy a single person kayak, and they tackle all sorts of bodies of water just fine.
INSTANT NOODLES 