Flat Water Tuesday (34 page)

“How do you know all this?”

“I’m your advisor. I’m advising.”

“Tell me about the picture on the wall of your house, Coach.”

“What picture, Carrey?”

“The newspaper photo. You at Gales Ferry, rowing against Yale.”

“It’s of another person, a long time ago. He’d have little to offer you.”

“I’d still like to know.”

“I appreciate your interest, Carrey, but I’m in the future business, not the past. And unless you keep your hands higher into your chest at the finish you won’t be rowing anywhere once the year finishes. One person alone cannot make that much difference, but two rowers, you and Payne, can. The four has the speed, it has the potential. Learn to exploit it.”

“There’s not much time left; only three days until the race.”

“I’m well aware of that. Use what you have, Carrey. Use what you have. You need to solve this problem. Now. Do whatever is necessary. And if I see you out in the single again without my say-so, I will kick you off the team.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you
will
learn to row with the others. Right now. You will think of nothing else. Or the Rob Carrey story will be over.”

“Got it.”

“I’ll see you and the others on the water tomorrow. And again on Sunday, immediately after chapel. I need improvement, Carrey. Get ready for two long days.”

28.

Later that evening I walked across the campus to the Rowing Cottage. It was two hours until lights-out and there was a movie showing in the auditorium, a band playing in the coffee room. A dwindling light still glowed over the mountains. I walked up the stairs and when I stepped into his living room, Connor looked up at me from the couch where he was crouched under a long brass lamp, carefully pulling tape from his fingers. He was dressed in an achingly white button-down Brooks Brothers shirt, khakis, and black loafers. He was also wearing wire glasses I had never seen on him before.

“Did you ever hear of knocking, Carrey?”

“We’ve got to get the boat to work, Connor. I need to be able to follow you on the water. I’m not able to do it.”

“Talk to Channing. He’s the coach. Every time I criticize your rowing I wind up getting insulted or hit.”

“Channing says if I don’t learn to row with you and the others I’m off the team, but I have no idea how to do it anymore. I don’t want to get dumped from the team, or lose the Warwick Race. If I can follow you, then Jumbo and Wadsworth will fall right into place behind me, and we’ll beat Warwick.” I waited. “But I just can’t follow you. I’ve tried everything. Even when I’m sure I’m doing it, I’m still off.”

“I could have told you that back in the fall, when we were rowing in the tanks. Wait a minute, I did tell you that.”

“I know. Channing bet on the fact that I was just as strong as you, but it’s not working.”

“You’re not as strong as me. Not quite.”

“Close enough.”

He looked at me for a few long seconds and I held his gaze. Then he nodded. “You’re losing six inches of finish with each stroke, pulling out of the water early and jerking the first two inches of your slide.” Connor held his hands in front of his face and tested his fingers, gingerly making fists. “The way you rush up the slide screws up my rating.”

“I know. I
know
. But how do I get the length? What do I need to do?”

He looked up at me over his glasses, a frighteningly mature look. “Are you seriously asking me? Me? Seriously?”

“Serious as cancer.”

Connor thought for a second. “Sit down on the floor.”

“What for?”

“Look. I’m going to tell you something. Something you need to understand. You’re a good rower. No. You’re a great rower. The best I’ve seen in four years, maybe even the best—”

“Outside of yourself, you mean.”

“Shut up and listen, Carrey. You have one flaw. When you’re sitting in the boat you have no flexibility in the last phase of the stroke. And it’s easy to—”

“But—”

“Are you going to sit down and listen or not?” His usual sarcastic tone was gone. He was confiding in me, and the earnestness in his voice was unnerving.

I sat down on the threadbare Persian carpet and looked up at him. “All right. I’m listening.”

“It’s easy to fix, but you need to trust me. What I’m about to tell you to do won’t feel right to you because you’re a sculler, which is why your hands are too fast, but it will work in the four.”

He stood, reached for the long brass lamp and unscrewed the linen shade which had stains on it—speckles of champagne or else something vile—from God knows what rituals. He set the lampshade aside, pulled the cord out of the wall, twirled off the dusty bulb, and lay the brass rod across my knees. I examined it. “This thing is supposed to look like a long piece of brass bamboo. What is it with rich people and fake bamboo furniture?”

“That’s supposed to be bamboo? I had no idea. It’s not like I go out and buy this stuff myself, Carrey.”

I held the lamp, and using the heavy base as a fulcrum, jiggled it up and down. It had almost the exact diameter of an oar.

“Lean back,” he said. “Tap the end down. Like you do in the boat.”

I obeyed, but I lost my balance, just a touch.

“See?” He sounded almost triumphant.

“See what?”

“You’re pushing the oar handle away from you already, sliding it out. Tap the oar out of the water leaning
back
.”

I tapped out, sitting on the floor, legs out in front of me, leaning back maybe one hundred and twenty degrees, looking dead forward. I felt the pull across the tight stomach muscles clinging to my ribs.

“Do it again. Ease it out of the water and take your time.”

“How many times do you want me to do this, Connor?”

“Until it looks like you know what you’re doing. Tap it out. Now. Right now while you’re leaning back.”

I tapped out and bent forward at my waist, just slightly. He shook his head, scratched it and looked around. Then he walked toward his bedroom, glancing down at me as he went. “Don’t stop.”

“Where are you going?” I was sweating from keeping my back at full extension, but my finishes were looking slightly better.

Connor came back and set something next to me. “That’s called a metronome.”

I tried to keep my voice from sounding winded. “I know what it is. Did you steal it out of the music department?”

“No, from the chapel. Father Davis uses it to keep time on the piano, or used to, to get an even count. Like, twenty-eight beats a minute.”

“Or thirty-five.”

“I’m setting it at twenty-eight for now. You worry about pushing down on the oar handle, releasing, and moving your body forward just before your knees come up. That’s it. Those inches at the release are where you’re losing the beat and losing your length.”

“We should go to the tanks and do this.”

“They’re locked. It doesn’t matter where we do this. I’m talking about six inches of movement. Be quiet and concentrate. Just think about doing this correctly.” He set the small weight and the metronome began to tick over, a hollow, tinny sound.

“You stole something from a chapel, Connor, so you could improve your rowing. A
chapel
. This cannot be ignored.” I tapped out the shaft of the lamp, leaned back, and it was a strangely familiar sensation. The pull at the back of my legs was deeper, and I almost felt the motion of the boat.

“Do you want to make this team work or not?”

“Tell me what to do.”

“I’ve told you. Just a few inches on your release. Like you’re doing right now. If you do that, then we’re not losing anymore races this year. We’re winning. But you need to trust it. You keep wanting to get the oar out of the water and charge up the slide. I can feel you back there, just hacking away.”

I followed the beat, and then he reset the metronome to a higher cadence. Even sitting on the floor of his living room I started to miss strokes. I felt it. “How much longer do I have to do this?”

“Until you know what you’re doing. Stop being impatient, okay? I’m going to tell you something, Carrey. Channing knows a high rating isn’t the answer. He’s right. We
can
hit a high rating but we don’t need to. I’ve been hitting those high ratings for him for years now. Years. Ruth won’t let us go past thirty-five strokes per minute again.”

I nodded absently. I could feel myself falling into the cadence. The metronome ticked away until I didn’t hear it, just felt myself slide into its rhythm.

“Look, you’re doing it. You’re following it just fine now. Anyone can do it. But you need to
trust
it.”

I stopped, held the oar out at the release and followed through. I was sweating hard. Connor looked at the arm of the metronome, then at me. “The boat is fast, Carrey. Ruth panicked against Dover and you were rushing the release. But it’s fast.” He paused. “If you wait just half a second when you tap the oar out, you and I will drive this boat over the limit.”

“How do you know? How can you be so sure?”

“I’m sure. You know it, too. The others will feel the power and catch on. If you just wait, the boat will lift out of the water with each stroke. It’s not a matter of showing you what to do. It’s a matter of you trusting what you have to do. That’s it.”

“I’m going to have to take it on faith.”

“And you’re going to have to trust Ruth. She’s the best coxswain you’ll ever meet.”

“
I
have to trust Ruth! I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
You
didn’t trust her against Dover.
You
jacked our rating sky high, twice, not Ruth. What happened to trusting the cox to control the boat? And you were the one who told her to take off her shirt. Not me.”

“You didn’t stop me. You blamed her for the Dover Race, too.”

“Okay, I know, I blamed you both. I was mad at you for taking the rating up and at her for not calling you on it.”

“So we both need to trust her. After the race I went over to Middle Dorm and left her a note. I tried to say I was sorry, but she needs to hear it from you. Why haven’t you spoken to her? She expects me to be a bastard. She doesn’t expect it from you.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried speaking to her. She’s totally blowing me off.”

Connor sat in front of me, leaned back until he was at the oar’s release. I copied him, tapped out the lamp and waited that millisecond before he moved his torso forward. I followed through and we paused for the strokes and then the recovery until we were leaning back, mirroring each other. “Let’s hit thirty-five for five minutes. If you can do it here, you can follow me in the boat. I guarantee it.”

“It’s that simple?”

He twisted around and looked at me. “Rob, trusting something that doesn’t feel right is not simple. You’ll either do it or not. But if you don’t try it, we’re dead. That’s what’s simple.”

“I’ll do it.” And I meant it.

*   *   *

“Ruth, wait for me.”

Of course she ignored me. She had ignored me since the Dover Race. She’d made sure to abuse me on the water, but a silence had hung between us in the boathouse and now again in chemistry, the last class of the day. Students were filing out of the sulphuric labs into the warm hallways and outside into the bright sun. Ruth didn’t even look back at me as I tried to catch up with her. She could move surprisingly fast when she wanted to, even carrying that heavy leather bag of hers and wearing the regulation-length skirt and shoes they forced the girls to wear. I finally got next to her and she still refused to even look at me, managed to increase her pace so I almost had to jog along beside her.

“Listen, Ruth. Wait. Please. Just hear me out. Give me five minutes of your precious time, okay?”

“I’m busy, Rob. Do you understand? I’m busy.”

“You are
not
. That was the last class of the day. Practice isn’t for an hour. You have five minutes.”

“You have no idea how busy I am when it comes to you, Carrey. Go away.”

But she slowed down just a little to hear me out. We were headed for her dorm and I gently took her elbow and guided her away, toward the island in the school parking. The trees around the school were bursting into a furious green and the omnipresent cut-grass smell was overpowering. It was Monday, the day before the Warwick Race and the kids who saw us walking together made way. Some of the freshmen high-fived both of us as I tried to steer her someplace where we could talk. She didn’t look at me but she didn’t pull away from me either.

We crossed the quad in front of the Schoolhouse and then passed the dining hall toward the back sports fields. The tennis courts were a giant circuit board of fenced-in red and green and white in front of the squat, gray tennis club. Some kids were already out there, warming up before practice, and I could hear the
thwack
of the balls being hit from player to player in what looked like lazy, slow-motion strikes. I had never been here, never knew that the clubhouse had a solid Plexiglas front behind which were comfortable-looking couches, a widescreen TV, soft drink machines, and pale wooden tables. The room had the privileged smell of tennis balls, and the walls were lined with rows and rows of framed pictures of kids in white, holding rackets.

“Ruth, I’m sorry about what happened after the Dover Race, I really am.”

She set her mouth, looked out at the courts, back at me. “Right, Rob. You’re so sorry yet you didn’t even
say
anything, let alone do something. None of you did. I really thought you guys had my back. Especially you.”

“I was so furious because we had lost. I wasn’t thinking straight. What can I say? I was wrong. I know it.”

“And you’re the last one to apologize to me, you know. Even Connor’s apologized. But not you.”

“That’s not fair. I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me all week, Ruth, you know I have. I’m apologizing now, okay? I really am. I should have done something. I blew it. I always blow it.” I wanted her to get away from the glass, but she was immovable. I swung my backpack down onto one of the pedestal tables, unzipped it and pulled out a small, tight bundle; her rowing shirt. I handed it to her like a folded flag of surrender.