Martha Cooney

Me and my now-husband dated for almost a year before I invited him to go kayaking. He had questions. 

 

“So when you say kayaking…” Jeff said. “Do you mean like on ESPN2 where they’re in helmets going down rapids?”

 

“No,” I said. “We paddle on flat water.”

 

“What if the boat flips? Are we zipped in? Do we have to swim underwater to get out?”

 

“No,” I said. “It’s an open boat. You fall out onto the water. No big deal.” I told him I once flipped a canoe and the only bad part was I lost my pink sunglasses. “It’s almost impossible to flip a kayak. This is very gentle. Anyway, you can swim. You’ll be fine.” 

 

I reminded him my friend Pete, a Crocodile Hunter/Ben Franklin hybrid, would be there to help orient. “There’s no better person to go with,” I said. 

 

“Okay,” he said. “I just don’t want it to be a thing that it’s my first time. I know it will be very apparent to your rough-and-tumble nature people friends that I am not that, but I don’t want to be coddled. I don’t want to be the new boy.”

 

“We bring people out on kayaks all the time,” I said. “It’s all very chill. You won’t be the new boy.” 

 

I understood. There’s nothing worse than “Good job, you’re getting it!” and here’s-a-cookie. Leave me alone. Do not show me how to play Hot Cross Buns. I’m listening to the sound these piano keys make when I poke them at random. (Who came up with this “note” scheme? That one is obviously Orphan child falling down well and the one over there is Angel food cake ready to come out of oven.) The only exception would be if I’m learning how to better manage money and people want to encourage me by sending large amounts. “Good job, you’re getting it! Now try with some hundreds!”

 

Jeff considered it all and said, “Okay. I’m in.”

 

Then he added, “I trust you.”

 

Pete fostered my kayak in his backyard while I lived in my city apartment. We went to his house in Jersey, next door to an Italian restaurant called Mama’s Balls, to pick it up. I strapped it to my car roof, Pete and his girlfriend Jess loaded their two boats onto his van, and we met down the road at Newton Lake. 

 

People give New Jersey a hard time, but they don’t know. From Philly you can go five minutes over the bridge into South Jersey to paddle on a lake, go another forty minutes to the Pine Barrens to go camping or bury a body, go another forty and you’re at the ocean. Along the way, you can get fresh blueberries, eat great strip mall sushi, and get your gas pumped for you because state law says you can’t pump your own. People in New Jersey are living like goddamn kings! 

 

It was sunny at the lake. We unloaded the kayaks and got situated with our stuff. If you love gear and would never show up to a horse race without a big hat, you’d probably do a water shoe. If you’re not too good for Taco Bell, go for a river shoe – a twelve-year-old pair of sneakers that smell like swamp. The more years I wore my river shoes, the more I loved them. I felt gravel through the hole in the sole, and it made me love them even more. I was one with the earth. I was one with the gravel. 

 

Clothes could get a little wet and muddy. (Get use out of your “Watch Out Dallas! Amy’s Espresso Martini Mania Bachelorette 2023” t-shirt.) On a longer paddle, I brought a floatable wet bag for sunscreen, food, and phone; for short paddles, I just threw my water bottle and car keys into the back hatch of the boat. Minimalism! Freedom! 

 

Once Jeff was in the lake he realized how easy it was. “This is great!” he said. He paddled out to the middle, turned the boat around and smiled. The three of them explored for a while, then Jeff got out and I took a turn. The water was smooth and still, clear and green-brown at the same time. We glided under the cement bridge and navigated lines from people fishing overhead. A family of geese with new babies moved through the flat green leaves of yellow pond lilies. A great blue heron stilted through the marsh, and a plastic naked baby doll floated under trees near the bank. 

 

Pete took off his knockoff slides, propped his bare feet up on his kayak and sang the tune from Deliverance. (That movie where people go on an epic canoe trip and meet their death.) He watched for bubbles on the water to see where carp zigged underneath, and threw out his fishing line. Jess and I paddled toward a line of turtles on a log; they all jumped into the water except one big old guy, who pulled his head inside his shell. I’m not home, person at door asking if I want to switch to Xfinity, even though you see me closing my window shades.  If I can’t see you, you can’t see me.

 

Jeff walked the trail and met us farther down the long lake stretch. He took my boat again for a while, then we reconvened at the shoreline to talk weather. Dark clouds had moved in out of nowhere and we were far from the cars and original launch spot. “This looks like it’s gonna be really bad,” Pete said. “We gotta hustle back if we’re gonna beat it.” 

 

They paddled off, Pete in front, then Jess, then Jeff, at a steady pace. I got back on the walking path. The trees blocked the lake view; it was nice to walk alone under pre-storm sky, but then the rain started. It beat heavy on the path for a good five minutes; then the sun cracked in and the drops thinned into a happy sunshower. From the other side of the trees, up ahead, I heard Jeff yell for help. 

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I worked a catering job a few years earlier at a historic-mansion wedding venue. It was like Clue. There was a capital-L Library and a Great Hall. When I carried plates of sea bass under chandeliers in the dark-wood-paneled Living Room jammed with tables, flowers and gold-edged glassware, I felt like I was on the Titanic (first class deck, OBVIOUSLY.) The bridal couple and their immediate families were always seated in the Pink Room. (“I will arise and go now…and a small room build, of macaron made.”)

 

We did the setup: rolled in round tables, unfolded the legs and clicked them into place, arranged the white tablecloths (seams face door at longitude), and set the table. Then the chess game with the florist: we tightened the multiple centerpiece elements to squeeze in coffee cups and wee dessert spoons; the floral team came around and moved everything back, shifting our glassware into no-man’s-land; then the cater team manager circulated, complained at our work, and moved all the centerpieces again. Tonight’s arrangement had tall candlestick holders – tiered, silver, with tapered white candles. Gilded Age! Mrs. Astor! Serve your consomme from the left!

 

After the salad course I cleared plates in the biggest dining room, deep in the contest of how many I could stack and some self-talk on starting weight lifting soon. It had been a long setup, long cocktail hour, and long opening-dances variety show followed by long toasts. I was tired. A fellow server with a short stack of plates (noted) entered the room and moved toward me. “They need help in the Pink Room,” she said, breathless and with that tinge of puffed-up excitement when you get to deliver bad news. “A table collapsed. Everything is on the floor. Lit candles fell on someone.” She ran out of the room to pass the word. 

 

I took in the information. Then I carried on clearing. My body would not bring me to the Pink Room. It held up its hands and said: I am not up for this right now. I collected the whole room’s salad plates.

 

It was completely out of character. I love teams. I’m ready for duty. Lead, follow, or get out of the way! You over there, start boiling water! But I couldn’t bring myself to get involved in this crisis where, if I showed up early on, I’d not only be inside a yarnball of other people’s stress but hold some responsibility for problem-solving. I should. But I just … can’t. 

 

I peeked into the Pink Room after a safe amount of time. The table was on the floor. My coworkers cleared away broken plates and rogue bread rolls. Others stood by with new place settings and a new table and whispered about who hadn’t checked the leg locks on the first one. Our manager Ed talked down a tall woman, burned by candle wax. Her face said I’m keeping it classy but you know damn well I could be screaming right now and I’m not only angry, I am offended. How dare something like this happen to ME? Ed said, “We’ll pay for your dress.” He called for more napkins. I can’t remember if someone brought new candlesticks. Which was a crueler joke, to bring new candles or not? Maybe don’t light them? 

 

I removed myself and went to the kitchen to get in the service line for the main course. ​

 

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I heard Jeff’s voice again: “Help!”

 

My body had the same reaction as it had to the news of the Pink Room. I felt no urgency. I didn’t even cut through the bushes to get closer to the lake, which, at that point, I could have. He called again, “Help!” and reader, do not judge me. I laughed. It was a bubble of natural delight that was allowed; there was no danger in this water; I would have laughed if it were any of us. I straightened my face before I got closer.

 

There are times when you need to rush yourself for someone, and times when you don’t. I didn’t run. I could see through the trees now; Jeff was standing in the water. “I’m coming,” I said, walking at the speed I might use to browse a new farmer’s market. I rounded the last clump of trees and went to the water’s edge. 

 

He stood in the lake, soaked. The kayak floated upside down nearby. The paddle bobbed on the surface at a distance. 

 

“The boat flipped,” Jeff said. He looked emotionally destroyed. 

 

“It’s fine,” I said. “I got the boat.” I waded out into the water, which yeah, you didn’t swim in by choice, but at some point it was part of the experience, and like the gravel in the shoe hole, it felt good: I’m in there, YESSSS! I turned the boat over and started to pull it in. He waded in after me, crushed. 

 

“It’s no big deal,” I said. “People end up in the water all the time.” I realize those weren’t exactly the words I used before.

 

He told me that when the rain picked up and he saw Pete and Jess way ahead, all he could think was Pete is a Farmer’s Almanac trapper survivalist weather interpreter and if he says this is bad and we gotta get out of here, I GOTTA GET OUT OF HERE. He gave up his even, kayak-appropriate pace and took up his original vision of kayaking as extreme sport. He jammed the paddle into the water at a violent angle, leaned into dragon boat arm movements like a strong Viking, swung his body wildly back and forth trying to go faster, and created a momentum that finally turned the boat over.

 

“I didn’t want to be the last thing left on the lake stuck in a kayak during a thunderstorm holding a metal pole,” he said. 

 

Was the paddle metal? I never thought about that. We drained the kayak on the grass, and realized my car keys had fallen out of the hatch into the lake. Jeff looked sadder than ever. Pete and Jess walked over. 

 

“Ooh. I could get my fishing magnet and we could fish for the keys,” Pete said, excited. “It’s a magnet on a fifty foot piece of rope.” He dug around in his van, which had: gallon jugs of water, orphan fishing reels, duct tape, camera and tripod, plastic bag of individual flossers, protein bars, a bag to filter creek water, a box of CDs from his band’s first album, tarp, flip flops, turtle food, blankets, dirty socks, fanny pack designed to look like a belly button, ear plugs, and a grass skirt and coconut bra. The fishing magnet wasn’t there, so they went home to get it. 

 

I sat on a bench with Jeff. The sun was hot now, and he was wet and despondent. There was a streak of white mineral sunscreen on one ear. “All I wanted was not to be the new boy,” he said. “And I flipped the boat and lost the keys. I’m the new boy.” 

 

They returned with the magnet; Jess opened tupperwares of dark cherries and Rold Gold twists and we watched Pete from the sidelines and ate. He paddled out, unwound the rope from the loop of the round magnet, and dropped it in the water. “This thing is so strong,” he said, proud. “People go magnet fishing out here all the time. They find guns. This one guy found a locked safe.” 

 

We called out directions: “I think it was probably over there,” and then, creating false realities to fool ourselves, “Wait, actually it was over there.” Then we put together fantasy clues; there was no way we couldn’t figure this out. “The angle of the flip was like this, so if the keys went out at exactly this point, they would have gone in that direction.” “Okay, and the speed they moved underwater at was probably impacted by residual motion from the boat impact, so they probably drifted over here.” I gave it a try, swinging the magnet around underwater and skimming the sludge at the bottom. I focused on one spot, then another. I thought about people who spend retirement with metal detectors on the beach. Do they think they’ll hit something, or is it just the buzz of possibility? 

 

Jeff cheered up after the magnet fishing and seeing how into it Pete was. He was relieved no one seemed to mind the whole hiccup.

 

“This is a normal day for us,” I said. 

 

We didn’t find the keys, but went and got my spares. Three weeks later, Jeff bought his own kayak. 

 

I’m still not convinced that you’re convinced that I’m not an unsupportive wife. (I’ll leave the triple negative. It drives home the point.) So, before you go: Three years later when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, me and Jeff went to the victory parade and claimed a front row spot. By the time it started Jeff had ended up behind me (he’s tall) and I was one or two deep from the barriers. Parade buses rolled up Broad Street, and we all went wild. You know how Philly fans are. (See my first book for the time I served bacon-wrapped dates to Jason Kelce at a catering event and saved his used appetizer stick as a memento, and if you think that’s gross, you’re not a true fan, baby.)

 

A couple players jumped off the open-top double-decker buses to greet the crowd. I dove into a front spot; offensive tackle Lane Johnson came past and I high-fived him. Ten feet behind, running back Saquon Barkley walked along the row of fans, smiling and hugging people. Saquon was the most exciting person you could see, the city’s most adored; he was NFL Offensive Player of the Year, but most importantly, he was executor of the incredible famed reverse hurdle jump over Jaguars cornerback Jarrian Jones, the image of which had been seen all over the world, was taped to any respectable Philadelphian’s front window, and had been recreated by local artisans in paintings, mixed-media pieces, and needlepoints to sell at Philly’s German Christmas Market. Saquon got closer. The crowd screamed. 

 

There are times when you don’t need to rush yourself for someone, and times when you do. I did not scream. I reached back, grabbed Jeff’s arm, spun myself behind him, and pushed him forward full force so he could get to the front and high five Saquon Barkley, which he did. If that’s not a good partner, I don’t know what is. 

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