In the Same Boat

by Holly Green

“Power.” I dig my paddle in and bounce a little in my seat, trying to shake us off it. He’s not giving me enough. “Power,” I say again, harder. I rock back and forth just enough to shake us off the log.

  We’re sliding off it when it hits—his body seizes up and another sneeze cuts through the air, and we’re flipping as the second sneeze comes and then I’m under the surface holding my paddle in a death grip.

  Another sneeze echoes across the water as I surface.

  My hat. The one Dad gave me. It’s beyond arm’s reach already, moving downriver, sinking lower and lower. I can’t survive tomorrow without it.

  Achoo!

  Still clutching my paddle, I kick and pull with one arm, climbing over part of the fallen tree that caught us and pushing off it, moving through the water, until my hat is in reach. I grab the brim and shove it onto my head. Water pours down my face.

  I kick and pull upstream, back to the boat.

  John Cullen straddles the log. He’s got one hand on the boat and the other on his nose. He blows a snot rocket into the river.

  “Water up your nose?”

  He nods.

  And then it hits me. My stomach fills with lead.

  “Where’s your paddle?”

  He holds his hands palms up, staring at them like he’s never seen them before, and then his head jerks, looking to the left. To the right. All over. The back of his neck is scarlet.

  “SHIT!”

  I kick my legs and push the water with my arms, scrambling away from whatever is about to happen.

  He swings his arm down over the surface, scooping up the water and throwing it at the tree.

  “Shit!” he yells again, slapping the side of the canoe.

  7:07 P.M. SATURDAY

  John Cullen takes the extra paddle. It’s like an extra life.

  It’s my extra paddle, which means it’s a little too short for him. His stroke is messed up again. It’s going to wear on his muscles.

  Carbon fiber paddles are hollow and light. They float. So we search the banks and check the eddies for the next half mile. But it’s gone. We can’t search forever.

  “Palmetto by eight fifteen,” I tell him. “That’s our goal.”

  “Fine. Whatever.”

  It’s kind of arbitrary, but it’s a good goal. “That’s where we’ll put our lights on, okay?”

  “Loud and clear.” His tone is terse.

  Jerk.

  We pull and we pull and we pull and the boat moves, and we pass trees and scrape past a few sandbars and it’s beautiful. It’s always beautiful. This is my river, and I love it. But right now I can’t actually see the beauty. It’s drowned out by the pain and the miles and miles to go.

  And anyway, the sun is gone now, somewhere behind the dark gray clouds. And it’s easier in a way. Not as hot. The sun doesn’t glare in our eyes when the river bends west. But with every breath I smell the rain coming.

  And dark clouds mean an even darker night. No moon. A cold night, because of the rain they bring. A night where it will be hard to see and even harder to listen to the river and hear the rush of water that means a rapid or a dam.

  Seven thirty glows green on my watch. Ottine Dam, an old, busted-out rock dam, should be just around this corner.

  Or this one.

  Or this one.

  I grit my teeth.

  We’re not going to make eight fifteen.

  “We need to pick things up,” I say.

  Nothing.

  “Your stroke’s kind of off with the new paddle. You need to reach a little farther forward for the catch.” He doesn’t say anything.

  “And your elbow’s dropping.”

  He still doesn’t say anything, but his stroke does change. And he’s still pulling out at his hip.

  Good.

  But we’re not going fast enough and John Cullen doesn’t seem to care.

  I hear what I’ve been hoping for—the rush of the water through the rocks. Ottine, the rapid left over from the broken dam, is up ahead.

  “We’re going to run this just right of center,” I tell him, using the rudder pedals to help line us up.

  We paddle forward, and the nose enters the rapid. My stomach dips with the boat and the current pushes us left. I press the rudder pedal and John Cullen pulls right and I backsweep and then we’re past the turmoil and the strong current and we paddle on.

  But my watch shows 7:53.

  We should have been through there twenty minutes earlier.

  “Now pick up the stroke rating. We’re off target.”

  He does.

  “And be sure to catch past your toes.”

  John Cullen raises his paddle over his head and slaps the water with it so hard the handle might snap. “Could you just stop?” he yells. “My day has been total crap. I don’t need to keep hearing how much I suck.”

  I can’t see his face. Obviously. But it’s in my head—the same as it looked when he lost his paddle. Red. Muscles popping out on the sides of his jaw. I can feel it in the way he holds his body and the way he attacks the water with his paddle. My paddle.

  I can hear Dad’s question again. How do you think he’s going to handle it when things go wrong?

  Dad is worried he’ll hit me like he did my brother, but I don’t think so. He knows all my weak points and exactly how to use them. It would be something more like the tree house. Something like destroying the boat.

  Volatile.

  I wish Dad had never said it, because now it’s there.

  I wrap my mouth around the word and swallow it.

  There’s no going back now. We’re in this together till the end.

  Even in the dark.

  Even in the rain.

  Two hundred miles to go.

  8:35 P.M. SATURDAY

  We’ve just passed under the Park Road 11 bridge and I know the sun is setting, even if we can’t see it. That’s when the first raindrops hit, fat and cold on my head and shoulders, tickling my scalp. We’re officially in Palmetto State Park.

  I’ve always loved Palmetto. It’s the third official checkpoint in the race. Mom would drive to the back entrance that’s closed off for everyone but the bank crews. Driving in feels like entering a tropical forest. There are palm trees and the namesake palmettos, and it’s dense and lush and always about ten degrees cooler than the last water stop.

  When John Cullen and I paddle in, it’s like walking into an air-conditioned room.

  When we were kids, Tanner and I would carry the camp chairs while Mom carried the milk crate with the water and snacks. Sometimes ice socks, if it was a high-water year and Dad came through early when the sun was still strong. I loved the old buildings of red stone that Dad told me were built by the Civilian Conservation Corps during the New Deal. Dad loves FDR.

  We’d hike down the hill to the footbridge that crosses the river. On a normal year, it’s high enough above the water that you can get out of your boat and float it under. If the river is really low, you might be able to stay in and lie down without scraping your face on the underside of the bridge. But on a year when the river is high, water may rush through the six-inch-high stones on either side.

  Everyone stood on the bridge or sat in chairs, and when a boat came into view, we’d all scramble to make space for them. Dad was fast, so we saw a fair number of six- and four-person boats come through, the racers hopping out of their canoes with mechanical precision, climbing onto the bridge, sometimes lifting their boat and carrying it over. Or, when the water was low enough, sometimes sending the boat under and meeting it on the other side.

  The year my house flooded, the river was wild. They postponed the race not once but twice, until the river was low enough to be safe. That was the year I saw a man almost get sucked under the footbridge at Palmetto, clinging to one of the stones, trying to pull himself out of the water. My heart lived somewhere in the back of my throat as hands reached out to him from everywhere and he shouted that no one should touch him.

  I knew why. H
is race would be over if he took help.

  It went on for a minute or maybe a lifetime, until a race official rushed up and told him, “It’s okay. You’re still in,” as she pulled him onto the bridge.

  “Why didn’t he just swim under?” the woman next to me asked her friend.

  “Because we don’t know what’s under there. It could be a tangle of branches, or some barbed wire that washed away and caught there,” her friend answered.

  “Oh. Oh my gosh,” the first woman said, realizing that we could have all stood there helpless as the man drowned beneath our feet.

  The image of that man, clinging to a rock, still flashes into my head sometimes.

  And I’ve never loved Palmetto quite the same since.

  We’re lucky this year, though. We’ve had enough rain that the river’s not low—low years are slow years—but not enough rain to flood.

  It takes a few more minutes before we see the footbridge, and now the rain is coming down hard enough that I grab my hat and put it back on my head. Not for the sun protection, but to keep the raindrops out of my eyes.

  “Let’s restock on top of the bridge,” John Cullen says.

  “Why?” Tanner and I always thought it was kind of selfish, taking up space on the bridge. So I guess it makes sense that John Cullen and Brent do that.

  He doesn’t answer. But I don’t really feel like arguing. Not after he lost it back there.

  “Okay. Fine.”

  We round the bend and the shouting starts.

  8:42 p.m.

  “We’ve got a boat!”

  “A tandem.”

  “Looks like they’re going to the right.”

  “What number is it?”

  “Three-twenty-four! Who’s here for three-twenty-four?”

  There’s enough light that we can see, but it’s dim. John Cullen climbs directly onto the bridge. I hop out into the water river right, where it’s shallow and the current is slow and there’s no way I’m getting sucked under as I swim up to the bridge. I keep my legs bent, away from the muck of the bottom, and pull with my arms. I don’t want any more mud in my shoes than I already have. The bridge is rough on my waterlogged hands. My arms quiver as I push up and climb on top.

  John Cullen takes the bow handle and pulls the boat onto the bridge, resting it between the low sets of stone blocks on both ends.

  “How are you guys doing?” Erica asks me.

  “Water and food, no ice sock. And tell me what place we’re in.”

  “Yeah, I got that. But how are you actually doing?”

  “Fine,” I say. “We’re fine. I’ve gotta do the lighting.”

  I push past Gonzo and Erica to the front of the boat. There’s another boat, two guys in a standard, in the shallows just downstream of the bridge. They’re doing the exact same thing I am. In the bow, I unscrew the end cap, reach in, and pull out everything I need.

  “Headlamp,” I say to John Cullen, handing him one before I pull on my own.

  The raindrops are coming faster now, plunking across my shoulders and back.

  “Can you get that foam under your seat?” I ask John Cullen. I grab the two flashlights, point them at the bridge, and click them on, just to make sure. Light bounces off the water and the trees all around us.

  “Whoa, those are bright,” someone says.

  After last year, I searched the internet for high-lumen flashlights.

  A hand appears beside me with the foam. John Cullen’s. I slide the long handles of the flashlights into the holes cut in the foam, unclip the strap on top of the nose, and perch the foam on top of the canoe.

  When I stand up, Erica, Gonzo, and John Cullen surround me.

  “Water, food, trash—all taken care of?” I ask.

  “Got it,” Gonzo says.

  “Keep eating. Every hour,” Erica says.

  “Sure thing,” I tell her.

  She holds something out in her hand. It’s a gumdrop cookie from the bakery. The gumdrops were my idea, which is why Mom calls them Sadie Bears. I wish she wouldn’t. It’s fresh. Out of the oven within the last few hours. Or maybe just kept warm in the hot summer sun.

  “What’s our rank?” I ask, before I shove it in my mouth.

  “Twenty-third,” Erica says.

  “Boat!” people on the bridge start calling.

  The guys in the standard are still messing with their lighting. This is our chance to be boat number twenty-two.

  “Let’s move,” I say to John Cullen as I head for the stern.

  We pick up the boat and feed it into the water, then push it back under the bridge, so John Cullen’s seat is reachable. He climbs in and hangs his legs over the sides to steady the boat as I push it forward until my seat is in view.

  “Sadie,” Erica says as I climb in.

  “Yeah,” I answer, picking up my paddle. The clouds are even darker up ahead.

  “Ready?” John Cullen asks.

  “Promise me that if the storm gets bad, you’ll get off the water,” Erica says to my back.

  My insides prickle because it’s nice that she cares, but it also makes me feel guilty because there’s absolutely no way I’m pulling over.

  “Ready,” I tell John Cullen, eager to get away before she asks me again.

  I match his first stroke, and we’re pulling our way downstream. We’ve gone about twenty yards when I hear her voice shouting downriver.

  “Promise me!”

  I usually didn’t work the late shift at the bakery, but Mom and Dad had to go to a wedding, and I was always happy for the extra cash.

  Erica and I were in the back, icing cookies, when the bell hanging on the front door rang.

  “I’ll take it,” I told her. We’d fallen into a routine of taking turns with the bell.

  I pushed through the swinging door just in time to see a big group of guys pouring in. It was like being invaded by a swarm of giant termites. They wore soccer uniforms, shin guards and all. Their cleats left dirt clods on the floor. I’d have to sweep that up later.

  “Yeah, but did you see their forward try to head the ball?” one guy in the front of the crowd asked his friend.

  “He went down like a fat kid on a seesaw,” said another guy.

  They reached the counter in one big mass.

  I forced myself to smile. “What can I get for you?” I asked the group in general, because there was no clear order to this thing.

  A dark-haired guy, front and center, took me in. It was like he flipped a switch the way he turned on his lazy smile and leaned forward on the counter.

  “Hey there …” he said. The rest of them quieted down. “We heard that you have the best cookies in town. So tell me, which ones are the best of the best? Those are the cookies we want.”

  Hair was falling out of my sweaty ponytail, and my apron was smeared with chocolate frosting. Why this guy wanted to turn ordering cookies into some kind of seduction was a mystery. It wasn’t like I’d give him free cookies just because he flirted with me. And he looked like he could afford to pay for them.

  “They’re all good,” I answered, although if he had actually bothered to look at the case, it would have been obvious. We made twenty-seven different kinds of cookies, and the most popular ones were almost sold out. Everything in the case was going in the day-old discount basket if I didn’t sell them before closing. “Why don’t you just take them all,” I continued. “Then you can decide for yourselves.”

  The dark-haired guy lifted himself off the counter and stood up straight, not amused. He glanced at the case for the first time, probably registering that there were thirty or forty cookies left.

  “Hey, Cully,” he called out, his chin lifted like he was talking to someone in the back, but too lazy to actually turn his head. “Which kind of cookie did you say you like?”

  Everything inside me stiffened at hearing John Cullen’s nickname. That’s when I finally read the school name on their soccer jerseys. St. Matt’s. That was the private school John Cullen’s pa
rents started sending him to when he was in eighth grade.

  These guys were friends with John Cullen. Which explained the asshattery.

  “Cully’s not here, man,” a guy from the back called to the front.

  I looked out the window to see if he was out there, but it was too dark.

  “Did he stay on the bus?” the leader asked. “This place was his idea.”

  The guy beside him shrugged. “It’s the Sadie Bars. He said the Sadie Bars were his favorite.”

  “Sadie Bears,” I corrected him automatically. I immediately wished I hadn’t.

  The leader’s eyes fell on my name tag. “Sadie Bears …” he said slowly, like he was tasting each syllable. He looked over the case again. “Well, Sadie Bear …”

  The guys around him laughed and and I was all hot lava inside at the use of my nickname. Nobody had called me Sadie Bear in years, and even then, it was reserved for family. Certainly not for these jerks. I couldn’t believe John Cullen would send them in here.

  Actually, I could. I totally could. He’d turned out to be the douchiest of all the douchewaffles.

  “We’ll take all your Sadie Bears, the chocolate chip, the orange Creamsicle, and the rest of those iced ones.”

  I bagged the cookies and rang them up. He handed me a hundred-dollar bill for less than thirty dollars’ worth of cookies.

  “Just give me one more minute,” I told him, and pushed through the door into the back. I grabbed a fresh bag and put in a couple of Sadie Bears.

  “What are you doing?” Erica asked as I reached into the compost bin and took out a handful of cracked eggshells.

  “Tell you later.” Sharp pieces of shell pressed into my hand as I crushed them and sprinkled them into the bag on top of the cookies. I covered it with a couple of paper napkins and stapled the bag shut.

  I rinsed my hand and was back to the front in less than a minute.

  “For your friend on the bus. The one who recommended us,” I said, and handed the leader the bag. “On the house.”

  The guy gave me another smarmy grin as he reached in the first bag and pulled out a gumdrop cookie. “Thanks, Sadie Bear,” he said, and tipped the cookie at me before taking a bite.

  I hated John Cullen for setting this jerk loose on me.