Despite the hurly-burly of race preparations, the BU coaches were actually quite willing to take a few minutes and talk to me, especially once I mentioned I was thinking about transferring. While Lodestone wasn’t around at that moment, he had already arrived in Boston and stopped by, apparently. He had worked his now-usual magic and told them about my performances at the two Youth Nationals I’d raced in, as well as about my mojo as a walk-on junior varsity rower for CalPac. I wondered when I’d stop being grateful to Lodestone for all the things he did for me, and then I realized that maybe helping people out was something friends did for each other and that one day maybe I’d be in a position to help a friend out. That’s how you paid people back—you did good things for others in your turn. While the varsity coach was friendly, the JV coach gave me his card, and I promised him I’d keep him posted about my transfer plans. He promised to watch my races.
After meeting the BU coaches, I was too scattered to walk the course in my headspace. For once I was too unsettled for my prerace ritual. I had no idea what to do about that, either. Eventually I found my way to where the CalPac trailer was parked. Maybe I could help rerig boats. The mindlessness of rerigging always settled my nerves.
And there was Coach Pendergast. Great. I was actually kind of afraid of him, but maybe—hopefully—that was only his reputation. What else was there to do?
Suck it up, dude. I stood nearby. “Excuse me, sir.”
He looked up from where he was stretching. “Oh, hello. I literally just got here. You’re on the JV, right? The sculler.”
“Yes, sir.” I laughed nervously.
“What can I help you with—?”
I held out my hand. “I’m Jeremy Babcock.”
“Franklin Pendergast.”
“I got here yesterday and finished what I needed to do today. I’m looking for something else to occupy me for a while,” I said.
Coach Pendergast glanced significantly at the trailer next to them. “Well, the varsity rowers aren’t supposed to meet here until tomorrow morning, but I think you and I can keep ourselves out of trouble for a while.”
“Coach Ridgewood isn’t having us meet until tomorrow at 1:00 p.m., and I’m too distracted right now for my usual prerace rituals.” I started pulling out slings for the quad I’d be rowing.
“And what,” Coach Pendergast said, “would these rituals be?”
Aw jeez, I’d set myself right up. “I usually walk the race course at least once so I’m prepared for anything thrown at me. Based on the map, Anderson Bridge looks the worst.”
“That is a wise thing to do, young Padawan, but let me show you something.” Coach Pendergast made gimme motions, and I handed him my map. “Anderson looks bad, but there are worse perils along the banks of the Charles.
“There are two other bad bridges besides the Anderson, and all three bridges have their issues. First, after you launch, there’s a dogleg, not unlike what we row on at home. Think of it that way, and you’ll be all right.” Pendergast pointed it out. “When you come out of it, look for the Riverside Boat Club on the Cambridge side of the river. You can essentially ignore the River Street and Western Avenue Bridges. I’m assuming you won’t be rowing in the stern of the quad? If you are, Peter Lodestone’s a bigger sadist than any of us realized.”
I chuckled. “No, sir. I’m rowing at two. I shouldn’t get into too much trouble.”
“We can only hope. Next comes the Weeks Footbridge. It’ll have people sitting off the edges, but they know better than to drop things on rowers.”
“That’s… different.”
Pendergast chuckled. “That’s not the half of it. The real problem with Weeks is that if your cox’n or bow seat isn’t careful, you can easily add a good two hundred and fifty meters to your course. This is where experience comes in, and probably one of the reasons why you’re not rowing bow in the quad.”
“That and the fact that you don’t want someone who’s never rowed the course steering your boat.”
Pendergast gave me a long, hard look. “You’re an unusual person, Jeremy. You’ve achieved a lot at a young age, and yet you don’t seem to have let it go to your head.”
I thought about that for a few moments. “I’m not sure I’d say that, to be honest. It’s more like we’re not discussing that right now, and I’m very pragmatic. I know myself, and I know what I can do.”
“I see.” He appeared to think about that. “That’s an interesting discussion, and one we’ll have to come back to sometime, particularly when you make varsity. At any rate, after you clear all of those is when the course geography gets dicey. First you’ll come to the Anderson Street Bridge.” Pendergast looked up from the map. “It’s right here. Can you see it?”
I squinted at the map. Could they not make the print bigger? “Yes, I think so.”
“Anderson’s tricky because it has a narrow opening, and to do it right, your cox’n—or your bow seat in the case of the quad—has to be on it, but that’s not where collisions usually occur.”
I gulped. “Collisions?”
“Yes.” Pendergast grinned. “Collisions. I bet you’ve never been so glad not to row bow. Collisions usually occur at the Eliot Bridge.”
I frowned. “Coach Ridgewood has had us practicing sharp turns for a month to be ready for it. It’s that horrible?”
“It is indeed.” He pointed to one of the bow-loading fours on the trailer. They looked strange without their rigging, the boats. “My cox’ns call those fours ‘coffin ships’ because if they hit anything, they’re goners, and the Eliot Bridge? There’s a very good chance of hitting the bridge or another crew if they’re not careful. In a stern-steered boat, what will hit will usually be oars, or if the cox’n’s terrible, the bow. In a bow-loader?”
I nodded. “Yes, I see. Coffin ship.”
“Look at your map again. You’ve made it past Anderson, and there’s a wicked dogleg. Your cox’n or your bow seat in the quad is going to be calling for one side to row harder than the other to keep the boat turning.”
“That’s basically a 180-degree turn.” I frowned at the map.
“A blind 180-degree turn, and then you go through the Eliot Bridge.”
Ugh. I was suddenly glad not to be a solo sculler and said as much.
“So you walking the course prepares you by helping you to stay calm and being ready to drop power or crank it beyond everything you’ve got when it’s needed.” Pendergast smiled, as much as anyone can smile when someone’s driven a boat trailer across the country. “So tell me about you and sculling….”
When I finished I realized it was a bit darker, and Coach Pendergast was smiling. “You’re an interesting person, but as much as I enjoy talking to you, my own squad appears to be AWOL, and I need to find it. Or at least send out a text blast.”
“I think I know enough to walk the course and have it make sense now. Thanks for your help.” I could work with him.
As Coach Pendergast tried to find his rowers, I looked up… and met the friendly eyes of a rower from UC Davis. I wondered how much he had heard. Spilling your guts to your future coach is one thing, but to some stranger from another school? Suddenly I felt creeped-out and vulnerable.
I looked at the course map again, trying to find the nearest subway stop. They called it the T there. I’d come from BU, and that was a green-line T stop down near the starting line, but I’d been speaking to the BU crew coaches at the DeWolfe Boathouse on the Cambridge side of the river…. Such a headache. New York City was laid out on a grid like they actually wanted you to find your way around, but Boston? Totally random because go fuck yourself, which, I was told, is a semiofficial greeting in these parts.
I felt my phone vibrate. I pulled it out of my pocket to find a text from Lodestone.
L: Sorry I wasn’t there to meet you. Marissa and I were getting settled. R U at the racecourse?
R: I am.
L: Great! Meet you at the rowing expo in ten?
R: Perfect!
&nbs
p; That solved one problem. But as I walked away, I glanced over my shoulder, and that guy was still looking at me. I had a boyfriend. I shouldn’t even be looking at other guys, should I?
SINCE I loved sculling, it only stood to reason that I’d love rowing in a double or quad, which was sculling with one or three other people, respectively. But ZOMG, rowing a quad during practice—even practicing sharp turns—couldn’t hold a candle to rowing one during a race, particularly a race as tricky as the Charles. For one thing, the power. I’d never felt such power, not even in an eight. A men’s eight at full steam was a dreadnought—big, heavy, and when it’s up to speed, unstoppable. A sculler found that out the hard way at the Charles several years ago, when he was run over by a collegiate men’s eight going all out. The sculler’s innards became outtards, and if that accident had happened anywhere but there, the guy would’ve died. The Charles River isn’t all that clean, and add to that the horrifying trauma of evisceration…. But some of the best hospitals in the world are in Boston and Cambridge, and the sculler went from debris to the operating table in an amazingly brief amount of time. For all I know, he had a lifetime invite to row at the Head of the Charles. If not, he should.
But if a men’s eight was a dreadnought, the coxless quad we rowed was a clipper ship—pared down to the bare essentials and built for speed, carrying nothing but the four people rowing her and moving with a velocity and grace the larger boats couldn’t match. I fell in love with the quad almost immediately, which I supposed was only natural.
As it turned out, I knew the other three rowers, if only by sight. Lodestone obviously, and I had at least met Brad Sundstrom. I’d never met Adam Lennox, but given how tall he was, he certainly stood out around the Cap City boathouse. When we met that Friday morning for a quick practice row—they knew I had other obligations—one of the hottest gingers I’d ever seen accosted me. He was older, with gray touching the hair at his temples. It didn’t detract from his looks; far from it, it screamed “seasoned beef.” He walked with a slight limp, which explained the cane.
He grabbed my hand, pumping my arm up and down like I was a well and he expected water to come out. “I cannot thank you enough for this. Would you believe these fools were giving serious thought to shoving me into the empty seat?”
The freakishly tall guy—Adam—sighed. “Tell the nice boy who you are, before he runs away and we have to go find him.”
Ginger blushed. “Sorry, I get a little excited sometimes. I’m Owen Lennox. The giant over there is my husband, Adam.”
“Hi, Owen, I’m Jeremy Babcock.” I tried not to laugh. “I’ve met, or at least seen, your husband, but it’s good to put a name to the face. But why are you thanking me?”
“Dude, seriously? Are you blind? I limp and use a cane.”
I felt my face heat right up. “I assumed you can row, or they wouldn’t do it.”
“I can row, but not on this level, and thanks to this bum leg, I’ll never row at this level.” Owen seemed pretty cheerful, but I happened to glance at Adam while Owen was speaking. Adam looked like he was in the mood for dismemberment. They had a story to tell, but it wasn’t my place to ask. “So you being here? Gives them a chance to win and spares me from humiliating myself. I owe you a beer. Are you old enough to drink?”
“No, but I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
Adam frowned. “Pete, I thought you said he was varsity.”
“I said he was varsity-caliber.” Lodestone smirked at Adam. “Actually, I said he’s better than that, but don’t let him know.”
“He’s standing right here, Pete.” Brad shook his head as he looked up from where he was adjusting the foot stretchers on the boat.
Lodestone looked right at me. “Oops.”
“Can we launch?” This was getting tiresome and more than a little embarrassing. “And are there any heterosexuals at Cap City?”
“Sure,” Owen said. “Just because I haven’t seen them doesn’t mean there aren’t any.”
“That’s pretty shaky logic, you know,” I said to Owen.
He shrugged. “What can you do?”
Brad elbowed Lodestone. “He’ll do fine.”
So with that, we launched the clipper, a Cap City quad named Wind Racer. True to her name, she flew before the wind coming in off the harbor. With Adam and his long reach at stroke making us all stretch to match and Brad in the bow to keep us on course, we spent the first half-hour learning one another’s rhythms. In actuality that meant me learning to fit in with them, since they knew how to row together. It took me longer than I thought it would, but we eventually clicked together as a crew.
“So wait,” I said to Brad’s husband, one Drew St. Charles, as we fetched the oars. “Those three came out here to row in the Directors’ Challenge? And nothing else? That seems kind of extreme.”
“With you in a collegiate race, they can’t row anything else,” Drew told me quietly. He’d been busy this morning, working on our “fun” race apparel.
“Damn, I’m sorry.” I felt like crap. “I’m keeping them from really enjoying this weekend.”
But Drew shook his head. “No, you’re not. You’re allowing them to be here. Don’t get me wrong, I was the first to suggest finding someone who could commit to both races—nothing personal, it’s only logical—but it turns out that most of the guys who’re here in the masters or seniors sweeps events are lousy scullers, and all the women scullers are entering their own boats.”
“Oh.” I hadn’t expected that.
“I actually looked all this up online. There are mixed boats allowed, but they have to be two men and two women, otherwise they’re ineligible for medals, and that would never do. They’re such competitive boys.” He gave me the beady eye. “Something tells me you’re one, too.”
What could I say? “Guilty as charged.”
Drew laughed. “Good for you. You’re honest. So many people try to deny that sort of thing. From what I saw of practice, you at least have something to back it up. In any event, they wanted to row a men’s quad, and by asking you, they get to do that. I know you’ve got a busy day ahead of you, but try to get some rest blah blah blah. Pete will no doubt get all coachy on you, but if you’re as good as he says, you know this. After you’re done with your CalPac practice—expect me to take a ton of pics to send to Nick, by the way—come find us. We’ll have us a cackle or three and then you’ll launch.”
I found myself liking Drew. I could tell he’d be high maintenance, but then, I was, too. We can smell our own. Maybe that was why he clapped his arm across my shoulders as we walked back to the other guys. We already felt like we were a team.
Wait, did he say Nick? As in Nick Bedford? Holy moly.
WHEN THE four of us pulled into the dock at the end of our race, I discovered we had far more than Drew, Owen, and Marissa Lodestone rooting for us. Word had spread, and all of the CalPac and Cap City rowers had turned out to cheer for us, not only my JV teammates. It was pretty cool to realize that some of those people hanging off the Weeks Footbridge had belonged to people cheering on my boatmates and me. Owen told me that by the time we neared the finish line, we had quite the following, and not just people from our various teams, either.
“People like a good show,” Owen said, “and with those getups Drew put together—”
“Everybody loves a gay unicorn. Don’t deny it.” Drew smirked. “They’d better get points for them, too.”
“Good job, guys!” Lodestone congratulated us once the boat was derigged.
I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “We missed an automatic invitation to return next year by the skin of our teeth. We’re thrown back into the lottery.”
“Let me tell you something about that lottery,” Brad said. “It’s not nearly as random as they pretend it is. Where did we start? I mean, what was our bow number?”
I thought about it. “Thirtysomething?”
“Right,” Adam said, apparently picking up the job of cheering me up. “Where did w
e finish, Remy?”
“I don’t know, actually.”
Adam thought for a moment and then laughed. “I don’t, either. Owen, where did we finish?”
Owen checked his phone. “Unofficially, I think you finished eleventh.”
“So what that means,” Lodestone said, “is that we passed over twenty crews. That wasn’t three men at or over thirty, Remy. That was you. You may have killed our age handicap, but you more than made up for it. I can almost guarantee this boat will be coming back. Now we have to find a way to tell Hal he’s fired.”
Drew leaned in close. “They’ve never advanced that far in the pack. Ever,” he said in a stage whisper.
“Ouch!” Brad clasped his hands over his chest like he’d taken an arrow to his heart.
“Oh cut it out, you big baby. You’re the one who explained age handicaps to me.” Drew sounded tough as nails, but I also saw him give Brad a tight hug and big kiss on his cheek moments later. All I could do was smile at that. I hoped Michael and I would be there someday.
Michael. Our plan. Talk about throwing water on the buzz. I’d avoided thinking too much about it, but BU wasn’t going to work. As much as I lived for crew, I couldn’t live on it, not really. Sure, there were professional rowing bums, and apparently a moving company in the area that hired rowers to facilitate the rowing bum lifestyle, but I needed more out of life. I needed not to think about that right now, not with another, arguably more important race tomorrow.
Then I looked up, and somehow there he was again, the UC Davis rower. I knew he wasn’t stalking me. The Davis trailer happened to be next to CalPac’s and Cap City’s, but I saw him again, the same good-looking fella at the UCD trailer, who saw me right back. He smiled and I? For some reason, I smiled in return.
“Good job,” he said. “That was fantastic to watch. But… are you a member of Cap City or do you row for CalPac?”
I laughed uneasily. “I rowed at Cap City for four years, but I go to CalPac now.”
“That’s cool.”
All That Is Solid Melts Into Air Page 5
