In the Same Boat

by Holly Green

  I stand up. “You don’t smell right.”

  “I didn’t know Axe Body Spray was a race requirement.” He stands, too. “One whiff of your brother says different, though.”

  “You need to Desitin up or you’ll chafe all over.” Everyone knows you smear your whole body with the stuff. “And you need sunscreen. Don’t you know you’re a redhead?”

  He cocks his head to the side and puts a hand to his chest. “Look at how much you care.”

  “I care about you not being a dead fish in your seat because it hurts too much to move your arms.”

  “I was going to put it on in the bathroom. Didn’t want to stink up my car.”

  My car will probably smell for a week after the race. Dad’s truck always did.

  I push him toward the bathroom. “Get in there before everyone who did laxatives makes their final trip.”

  “Slow down,” he says, and goes to his seat, fishes out a Desitin tube and some sunscreen, and stands back up. “You don’t do laxatives, do you?”

  I shake my head. “Too risky. You?”

  “No.”

  Some people would rather not poop during the race, so they try to get it all out ahead of time. But getting the timing wrong can throw a serious wrench in your first day.

  John Cullen walks away. I make myself small, sitting next to my canoe, using the people around me as a shield. I’m not going to hide behind a building or something, but I don’t want to be noticed, either.

  In the gaps between a team of racers one boat over, I spy a couple stopping him on his way into the bathroom. I move my head so I can see as they pull him back toward the picnic tables. They’re smiling, and he’s smiling back, and they’re all talking. I’ve never seen these people before. They must be novices. The woman mimics wobbling and maybe falling out of a boat, and John Cullen laughs and she laughs and then he shakes hands with the man and the woman pulls him into a hug, and he takes the sunscreen from his pocket and walks into the bathroom.

  I wish Erica hadn’t gone off with Gonzo. Everyone is milling around and talking and laughing, and I’m sitting next to my canoe, wishing I were invisible. I pick a blade of grass and tear it into little pieces.

  A hand presses into the top of my head. “Hey there, Sadie.”

  It’s Ginny, lowering herself onto the ground next to me. She’s short and plump and old. Her long gray hair is pulled into a braid that goes over one shoulder. She mentored my dad when he started racing.

  “It’s weird seeing you here without your racing clothes on,” I tell her, even though she didn’t race last year, either. Ginny racing is a staple of my childhood. If she hadn’t injured her shoulder a couple of years ago, she’d still be out there cutting a wake.

  “Still strange knowing that I’m leaving here in a car instead of a canoe,” she tells me.

  “I know that feeling.”

  “I suppose you do.” She gives me a small little smile. “Heard you and Cully have teamed up.” Ginny mentored Johnny Hink, too. She’s the flag tied to the rope in our families’ game of tug-of-war.

  I nod.

  “It’s like a duck and a moose decided to climb into a canoe together,” she says.

  I’m still trying to work out which of us is which, and what it means, when she says, “If you ask me, you’re better off waiting a year and going solo.”

  “Why?” I ask. “How come you never raced with a partner?”

  “I did in my first few races. Learned pretty quick that when I get on that water, I want to do it my way. I don’t want to be responsible to anyone but myself.”

  “Ginny!”

  I recognize Mark Siegfried’s voice. He reaches out a hand, and Ginny’s face lights up. Mine probably does, too. Mark has golden skin, bright blue eyes, and looks like he was chiseled out of stone. Ginny lets Mark pull her to her feet and he lifts her in a hug. He’s someone else Ginny mentored.

  “You gotta meet my girlfriend, Kimmie!” he says. “You’ll love her. She’s like lightning in a boat.”

  Mark is one of the fastest paddlers I know. If Kimmie is anywhere near as good as him, they’ll take first in class.

  I get up to hug Ginny goodbye, and as she whispers good luck in my ear, I see him.

  Tanner.

  Walking up from the parking lot with Hank and Coop.

  Coop locks eyes on me, elbows my brother, and points. And now my brother sees me.

  His face is a war hammer.

  My chest, my throat, my stomach all go tight. I want to hold Ginny there like a human shield, but Mark pulls her away and I’m left completely exposed.

  If we have to do this, I don’t want it to be in the middle of a crowd. I weave my way through the canoes on the grass toward my brother. I wish Hank and Coop would leave, but they stick with Tanner.

  “Are you really racing with John Cullen?” Tanner’s voice is only about two notches below shouting.

  “Only because I didn’t have another choice,” I say. “This is on you.”

  “It’s not about me,” Tanner says. “How could you do this to Dad?” He swings an arm out and wraps his thick hand around my wrist. “Come on. I’ll find someone to drive you home.”

  My heels dig into the ground. “Stop it!” I twist my wrist from between his fingers and wrap my own fingers around the spot. It burns from the friction.

  “Tell you what, Sadie.” Coop claps a hand on Tanner’s shoulder, even though Tanner is a couple of inches taller. He digs his fingers in. “We’ll consider him on loan this year. Next year when Randy’s back, you and Tanner can have your race. We’ll give him back to you better than we got him.”

  Hank winces at his brother’s words, but Coop keeps going. “You’ll make top five for sure after he paddles with us.”

  He smiles, like he’s just offered me first pick from a box of chocolates.

  I’m so glad I turned the Cussing Lamp on, because, “Fuck you, too, Coop.”

  “God, Sadie. What’s wrong with you?” my brother asks, like Coop didn’t just completely dismiss me. Like he didn’t just offer my brother back to me next year as his leftovers. Like them having a good race is so much more important than me racing at all.

  I step forward, nose to chin with my brother, and pull myself tall.

  “I don’t need you to make top five. John Cullen is fast. Faster than you are. We’ll probably make first in class.”

  It’s the stupidest thing I could have said. Boats that train for years don’t make top five. And clearly Mark and Kimmie have first in our class locked down.

  “Really?” Tanner asks, his mouth curved into a smirk. “Your partner’s going to have to stop crying first.”

  I follow Tanner’s eyes to the corner of the tent, where Johnny Hink is red faced, fuming at his son. And John Cullen—I don’t think he’s actually crying, but I’ve seen that face on him so many times. Eyes trained on the ground. One cheek pulled in because he’s biting it, willing himself to keep the tears in. The back of his neck is on fire.

  When we were kids, things like this happened over the stupidest stuff. A missed catch in a baseball game or a half gallon of ice cream forgotten and melted on the counter. Tears always ran close to the surface for John Cullen, which just made things worse with his dad.

  So much shame. I guess we have that in common these days.

  A lump swells in my throat. This could be the end of our race, right here. And not because of me and my brother.

  Gonzo is walking up to the two of them. They both turn their heads in his direction, and Johnny turns his back on Gonzo, putting himself between them. He’s still laying into his son, and Gonzo must be the bravest person here, because he steps around Johnny and pulls on his friend’s sleeve.

  I stalk back to my boat. There’s nothing left to say to Tanner and the Bynums, and I don’t care to watch John Cullen get raked over the coals.

  A few minutes later, he walks back alone, hands shoved into his pockets and head down, the brim of his blue baseball hat covering his fac
e. Gonzo is gone again.

  A blonde girl—why is Allie Davis here?—puts a hand on his arm as he passes, but he pushes it away without a word.

  I expect wet eyes when he gets here. They’ll be pink rimmed, like when we were kids. But his eyes are dry and steely. His face is volcano red.

  I wait for him to say, I’m out. This was a bad idea. But he brushes by me toward his seat.

  The words spill out of me, like a habit. “Are you okay?”

  The answer was always more tears when we were kids.

  But instead, he stares at me, searching my face and biting the inside of his cheek, turning something over in his mind. I wish I could peer inside and see what he’s thinking. He shakes his head.

  “Fuck him,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

  Spring Lake is closed to boats, aside from the glass-bottom boat tours John Cullen and I used to go on when we were kids. We could see the springs that feed the lake bubbling up through the sand on the bottom. There’s an old building that used to be a hotel back when this was an amusement park. There used to be women dressed as mermaids doing water ballet, and at one point there was a swimming pig, but that was all over before I came along. Texas State University bought the land. Now the whole place is called The Meadows Center and is dedicated to environmental education and preservation.

  But on this one day a year, they let about a hundred canoes on it for the start of the Texas River Odyssey.

  It feels like a lifetime has passed since Tanner and I dropped our boat off here yesterday. Now I’m under the tent, among all the other boats, getting ready to launch my canoe with someone else. Everything about this is so wrong.

  The back of John Cullen’s neck is still red.

  “I told my brother we’d make top five,” I tell him.

  His forehead wrinkles up and his head kind of tilts.

  “Why the hell would you do that?” he asks.

  I don’t answer.

  “We should put in in the shallows.” I point to a narrow strip of dirt between the cypress trees that surround the water. Most of the shore is covered in bushes. This is one of the only access points aside from the stairs. “It’s a good place to test the trim and make adjustments.”

  “Aye aye, captain.” He mocks me with a stupid little salute.

  “Don’t pull that,” I say. I know more about the river and the race and we both know it. It’s only natural that I should take charge. I don’t need to catch any crap for it.

  I pick up the stern handle and he takes the bow handle and we carry the boat across the grass to the water. We wait behind two other boats before we get our chance to put in.

  If I were with Tanner, he’d march into the shallows, but John Cullen stops at the edge of the water and feeds the boat in.

  “What are you doing?” I ask when I’ve pulled up even with him and the whole boat is in the water.

  He grabs the side and pulls it toward him. The nose of the canoe makes a slow arc around, finally coming up parallel with the shore. “Just thought I’d enjoy another ten minutes of being dry before I’m wet for three days.”

  I plow through the water, step a leg across the boat, and put my butt in my seat. Cold wetness floods my shoes and runs right through my tights, soaking me up to my knees. I won’t be dry again until after I shower at the finish, and there’s no point in putting it off. There’s no room for hesitation.

  John Cullen carefully stays dry.

  How are we going to survive 265 miles when I already want to kill him?

  “Ready?” I ask.

  John Cullen pushes off with his hand and I push off with a foot. We paddle a few strokes out of the way to make room for other boats putting in.

  “I’ve gotta move my seat,” he says.

  I throw a leg into the water over each side of the boat because these things are tippy as hell. We shudder as he scooches it forward.

  “Good?”

  “Good.”

  I lean back and check the rudder, and it looks like it’s in the water at a good height. We need to run bow heavy for at least these first eighty miles to get through the patches of shallow suck water that slow you down, and right now it looks like we are.

  We join the crowd of canoes and kayaks. One hundred and thirty-nine is the official number registered. Every single boat on this water is planning to make it to the finish line. Somewhere between a third and a half of them won’t. Some of them won’t make it past noon.

  I can’t be one of those boats again.

  We wait, our boat rocking slightly in the water. We’re at the very back of the pack. Your place in the Odyssey Marathon, a race that runs in the spring, determines your starting position for the Odyssey. Tanner and I were going to be toward the front. Since we didn’t compete together, John Cullen and I are stuck in the back. Thanks to the roster change in their boat, so are my brother and the Bynums. They’re about ten feet away in highlighter-yellow shirts, holding double-bladed paddles.

  Tanner and I never double-blade. They’re faster than the single-blade paddles we’re using, but they wear on your shoulders. Nobody double-blades the whole time. That means carrying single blades, too. You’ve got to be pretty sure those double blades will pay off, because carrying two sets means more weight when you want to travel as light as possible. Ounces turn into pounds and pounds turn into pain.

  With every little ripple that leaves my brother’s boat and hits ours, I can feel how angry he is. I stare at John Cullen’s back and the way his gray shirt stretches across it. The way his hairline is square on his neck below the bottom of his royal-blue ball cap.

  He isn’t paying attention to anything ahead. He’s stealing glances at the shore. A distracted partner. Just what I need. I don’t care what it is distracting him, I just want him to focus on the race. Except that after about his fourth peek in two minutes, I have to look.

  Hundreds of people are crowded on the side of the lake. About a dozen have squeezed into the spot between the trees where we put our boat in, which shouldn’t even be possible. I don’t know who among this crowd could be significant. I don’t see John Cullen’s sister or his mom, and his dad’s in a boat somewhere up front.

  But I do see Allie Davis. Her hand lifts in a stupid little finger wave. But John Cullen’s got his head trained straight forward again.

  High-pitched feedback cuts through all the chatter. Doug Hammond starts talking through a loudspeaker. He goes on about race stuff. Some good stuff about spotting hyponatremia, or water poisoning, and electrolyte consumption and staying safe around dams, and then he says a prayer, and someone sings the anthem, and then he says, “Get ready. This is it.”

  I sit taller. John Cullen raises his paddle, right hand planted on top and blade on the left side of the canoe, pointing straight down into the water. I raise my paddle to the right. All over the lake, the same thing is happening in every single boat.

  My brother and the Bynums have their double blades poised above the water.

  This is probably the last time I’ll see them until the finish.

  If I make it to the finish.

  “Three.” Doug’s voice echoes over the now silent water.

  I can do this.

  “Two.”

  We’ll glide through this mess. We’ll pick them off one by one.

  Bang!

  9:00 A.M. SATURDAY

  The world erupts into splashes and grunts and shouts and cheers as I shove my paddle into the water and pull hard. The Bynums’ double-bladed oars slice through the air. My brother’s boat surges forward. Their waves rock my canoe and I miss the catch on a stroke. The lake is littered with boats, like sprinkles on a sugar cookie, and we have to navigate through them. But they’re all moving, too. We’re pulling past an aluminum on the left, and John Cullen’s oar slaps the oar of another racer.

  “What the—” the guy in the boat shouts as we pass him.

  I keep my eyes trained ahead, looking for openings, using my rudder pedals to steer the boat, all while tryi
ng to match John Cullen stroke for stroke. But he’s constantly drawing and pulling up short or putting in late so we don’t hit another boat, and we move jerkily. I steer us to the right and we paddle through an opening between two aluminums. We follow on the tail of a guy in a C-1, a solo canoe you only paddle if you’re a glutton for punishment. As he tries to pass a standard, he overdraws, and suddenly his boat goes over. His head pops out of the water next to the hull of his boat, and we’re plowing straight for him.

  Too many boats on the right.

  “Draw left!” I shout as I press my foot on the rudder pedal.

  He draws us left. The bow of our canoe grazes the tail of the C-1, but we avoid the man.

  It was a good call. Up ahead on our right a four goes over. A longboat. An aluminum hits it with a bang, knocking it sideways with a splash. Shouts erupt from the guys in the boat and the other boats that start stacking up behind it. We keep pulling and glide past.

  Thunk.

  The whole boat rocks to the side, and I lay the blade of my paddle flat on the water to keep us from tipping.

  “Sorry,” comes a gruff voice. It’s a big guy in the bow of the kayak that just hit us.

  We paddle by the glass-bottom boats and the dock, and I keep my eyes trained on the water up ahead.

  Waves from the other boats rock ours.

  We’re about to pass a tandem on the right when another boat slams into us from the left. I pull my paddle up to keep from stabbing it into the woman who just appeared in the boat next to me. I wedge my paddle between the boats and push them away, but it’s no good. No room to paddle on the right either. We’re too close to the other canoe.

  “Sorry,” the woman beside me says. Her paddle hovers above the top edges, the gunnels, of both our boats. The man in front of her takes timid strokes on his open side. The boat on the other side appears just as flummoxed. So is John Cullen up in the front, even though there’s enough open water for him to paddle.

  “Power!” I yell to the front.

  It takes him a moment to realize I’m talking to him, but then he takes a massive stroke. And another one. We inch ahead. Space opens up for my paddle. I put in and pull as hard as I can. Our boat glides into a less congested area. I think we’ve made it out of the crush.