Flat Water Tuesday (39 page)

When we began to talk, I realized we were doing it while walking away from the rest of the class—the surreptitiousness of the past coming back to us, unconsciously.

“I’m so glad you made it back, Rob,” she said. “It’s not a bad weekend. I’m handling it.”

I gave her a sideways look. She shrugged. “I am. You don’t get to do these things too often. I’ll never have a fifteenth reunion again. And I have to say it, the school looks good.”

“True. I can’t believe how much we hated it back then.”

“You hate everything at that age. Nothing’s cool.”

“Have you been here since the start of the activities?”

“I have. I’ll admit it. It’s mostly been the hard sell on the qualities and growth and values of the school, you know, all that stuff, but I guess if I ever have kids, I’d be happy to send them here.” She smiled again, ruefully. “Although the having kids part is starting to seem less and less likely.”

It was an opening but I wasn’t sure I was ready to exchange that information yet. Neither of us had good news for the other in that department, it could wait. They’d give us booze soon and we’d get into it then. She looked at me. “Chris Wadsworth didn’t make it. He sent me an e-mail and said there was no way. His wife had a baby ten days ago or something. Or so he claims.”

“Where is he living?”

“He’s in Florida. In Tampa. So it’s a plane ride for him, not just a few hours in the car.”

The school has many quiet nooks. Benches under trees with vantage points into the mountains. I didn’t remember these—when you’re a teenager there’s no time to sit.

She was half my size, I realized. A very tiny woman. Her voice had a huskiness to it I did not recall. We sat for a few beats in silence, me thinking that I was looking at a woman who had become, essentially, the person she’d envisioned she’d be in high school. I envied that.

She said, “I have to say one thing, I never saw you going into the film industry.”

“It’s not really the film industry the way you think of it. It’s documentary film. We’re more highbrow, which means we don’t make much money.”

“It sounds exciting. I never could see you in a suit, Carrey.”

“I couldn’t either.”

“You get to travel all over the world, I guess. That must be something.”

“It’s better when you’re just out of college, or film school.”

“Did you go to film school?”

“No.” I laughed. “Can you see me trying to pass a class in film theory or postmodern cinema? I came into it by mistake. I needed money and I wanted to see the world and a crew was hiring.”

“Another crew.” She reached into her shorts, pulled out a soft pack of Marlboros, and gave me a guilty look. “Do you mind?”

“Christ, no.”

“It’s such a dumb habit. So dumb. I started the minute I got into law school. I’ve quit a few times, naturally. Then I took it up again about six months ago. I think because of the stress of leaving my husband. I’m weak.”

“I’ve never thought of you as weak.”

“I’m a lawyer and yet I never realized, at, you know, a kinetic level, the toll of a divorce. It goes on forever. Never get divorced, it truly sucks.”

“How long were you married?”

“We got married six years ago. My ex and I knew each other in college. And then he went to business school at Yale and I went to the law school. It seemed like a good fit. It was, for a while.” She lit the cigarette, inhaled, breathed out through her nose tilting her head away from me awkwardly to redirect the smoke. “God, I feel like I’m going to get caught any minute now for smoking on campus.”

“Twenty hours of work if they bust you.”

“It’s so worth it.”

“So will you stay in New York?”

“Yeah, definitely. He’s the one who has to find a place to live. It won’t be hard. He was one of those people who got hooked up into the dot-com thing and it lasted through the first crash. The second time around he wasn’t so lucky. But he just lost a company and a job—he got to keep the money. Unlike everybody else we knew.”

“Sounds like a good profile for a documentary.”

“His name is Walter. He’s a great guy, he really and truly is. He’s wonderful. Even with all the shit we’re in, he’s great.” This sounded rehearsed, polished, as if she’d said it to a few people. Practiced it in front of a mirror.

I almost asked her what happened, why the marriage blew up, but I didn’t. We weren’t in enough sync yet to trade war stories. Somewhere along the line I’d lost the appetite for bad news and firsthand gossip. I leaned back on the bench and admired her neck. I could count the rise of the vertebrae leading into her sweater.

She leaned forward, sucked a last gasp from the cigarette and stepped on it, ground it into the grass with the toe of her shoe. “I’m having a weird time. I’m hanging out with people I just do not remember. Isn’t that strange? We spent all that time with only a hundred or so measly people and I have no recollection of some of them. I’m drawing total blanks when people come up to me. They’re older, for one, and that’s depressing because it means I’m older.”

“You don’t look it.”

“I’ve been told that ten times already. I
do
look my age. I
want
to look it. I
deserve
to look it, after what I’ve been through.”

“What’s it like, in there?” I gestured at the dining hall, where people were filing in now. You could hear good-natured laughter from across the quad. The restrained, polite, adult laughter of people on their way to drinks.

“Do you know what?” she turned, looked at me, her eyes widening a little, but now she could make a point and be emphatic about it. “We went to school with some interesting people. I thought all the interesting ones would be at Yale. I still see those people, but never really thought my boarding school friends would be as nice. Turns out I was wrong.” She checked her watch, a platinum Cartier, with roman numerals. Last time I’d seen her she was wearing a waterproof digital that was too big for her wrist. “They’re going to serve us drinks. I’m dying for one.”

It turned out I was, too.

33.

The boat still moved fast in the water even after they moved up Leonsis. We were strong, but we arrived to practice like mercenaries, people doing a job. Leonsis coped well in the bow and Wads was a solid stroke who worked really well with Ruth. I rowed in the three seat in front of Perry as I always had, but I was more aware of him now, perhaps because I was no longer so focused on Connor. Perry was stronger than I had thought but he had changed, we all had. He was harder, I suppose. Less like the stuffed bear Connor had made him out to be. I watched him rise out of the boat after practice, well over six five, his mass apelike, powerful, and could not see how Connor had found it so easy to treat Perry so badly.

I remember those last weeks like they were one long practice, the five of us working steadfastly to create a boat that was ever more impressive. Against expectation, we performed well that season, winning four of our remaining six races. But there was a heaviness to the boat we could not rid ourselves of. The feeling of flying, the passion and aggression, the soul of the boat had disappeared with Connor. The fact was, nothing was the same without him. Although we seldom spoke of him, we felt his absence acutely. Rowing was not as exciting for me anymore, it was simply an exhausting sport that demanded a lot of hard work and sacrifice and now offered dubious rewards. I started to look forward to graduation. Walking out of the boathouse with Perry one day, I said to him what we’d all known for a while. “It feels so different.” I didn’t add
without Connor
, but it hung in the air as if I had.

He just shrugged. “What did you expect? It’s a tough sport. We’re getting tired. And we’ve been through a lot.”

I felt the exhaustion more and more, felt the pain in my back and my knees, across my shoulders. At the end of each practice I realized I was leaving blood on the oar handle, and the ripped blisters and ruptures on my palms were taking their toll. I felt as if I were trapped in an old man’s body at the end of the day.

DeKress showed up one late afternoon just as I was starting the ritual of laying ice on my knees, sitting hunched over my bed, chewing Tylenol. The sour taste of the pills was going right into my blood, and I was waiting for the dull feeling to reach my legs. DeKress told me Channing had called the dean’s office and wanted me to stop by his house before dinner. “He says you have to go, dude.”

I closed my eyes and counted to a hundred, then got up and pulled on my sweatshirt. I hobbled for the first few steps, feeling my muscles start to widen and warm up again as I walked down the stairs, and then out the door. It was a mile to Channing’s house, at least, so I took it slowly, thinking he’d better have a good reason for calling me. I had a pretty good idea what it was about, though, and it kept me going.

And then it started to rain. Hard. The clouds that had been sitting fat and heavy over the school just opened up, and I kept walking along, the rain warm and humid on my face. It was over in a few minutes but by the time I reached Channing’s, the pathway down to the shed was practically a river and part of the site was yellow-brown clay.

I looked in and saw that Channing had started to move his stuff into the shed; an old desk, a stack of pictures and his file cabinet. He had divided the back part out and his gardening tools and crap were out there, bags of fertilizer and the spades and the pitchfork and everything he’d need. It was a good shed. Solid. The basics were there and I’d started from nothing. Just a frame, a badly built one at that.

“What are you doing, Carrey?”

It was him. He was standing on the porch. I could just see his outline behind the rusted screen of the door. He looked out at me tentatively, as if I was some sort of official come to investigate his outbuildings. “It’s customary to knock on the front door when you visit somebody.”

“I wasn’t visiting.” I started making my way through the mud and over the wet grass until I was at the foot of his sagging stairs. “You called. I came.”

“Indeed. Come inside and get dry.” I was struck again by how dilapidated his kitchen looked. He opened the freezer door and I heard him rattling ice cubes, scraping trays against the gaseous frost. “Do you drink, Carrey?”

“If you’re buying.”

Channing grunted and poured me a shot of whiskey in one of the glasses he kept on top of the freezer, threw ice on top of it, and passed it behind himself. “Make it last, Carrey. I give this to you with complete deniability attached.”

I knew if I had one sip I’d feel it. Good. I sipped. Channing poured scotch over the ice cubes in his own glass, set the drink down on the counter, looked at it. “The picture in my office was taken at Gales Ferry. I was in six-seat. They moved me back from the stroke. We won by half a boat length. Not clear water, but enough to break them. It was one year before an Olympic year. Back then the selection was different. Much more arbitrary. We didn’t have the machines you have. Nothing, really, except boats.”

“You were the power seat.”

“We were snot nose brats. I’ve timed your boat. On good days you people could have taken us on the short run, just the four of you. Two men smoked on my freshman team, if you can believe that.”

“Did you go to the Olympics?”

“It was a different time, Carrey. I wanted to go to Henley, and we did, and we won there as well.”

“And then?”

“I believed I wanted to work. I went to law school at Harvard. Practiced law, briefly.” He smiled. “I was never disbarred. Or sued. I despise those rumors but at times they are useful. No, I simply quietly left the profession to teach. And coach. There was nothing untoward or dishonorable about it.”

“Thank you for telling me. I’ll keep mum about it.”

“I would appreciate that.”

He reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a small card, no bigger than an index card, folded in half. It was cream colored, with a single crimson stripe across the top. He pushed it toward me but I didn’t open it. I looked at the embossed, heavy paper, then back at him. “What is it?”

“I am the messenger of greater things, Carrey.”

I unfolded it.

Charles,

Please ask Mr. Carrey if he would be interested in joining us next year.

I knew the signature, which wasn’t really a signature, just the printed first name of the Harvard coach.

“They know I’m interested. They’ve known for a year.”

“You deserve it, you know.”

“It’s because of you.”

“They’d seek you out.”

“They have no idea what happened on that bridge. Not really. I’m not sure they’d want any of us if they did.”

“Listen to me now, Carrey. Connor Payne was a prodigious rowing talent, one of my best, but a very troubled young man. I coached that boy for four years and I am deeply saddened by his death. I am angered by it. But I am not surprised by it. Do you hear me? And you should know that there was only one note sent to me from Cambridge. This one.”

“What about the others?”

“Neither Perry nor Wadsworth applied, it seems. And our Ruth has already said yes to New Haven. Much to Harvard’s eternal dismay.”

“What should I do?”

“No, Carrey. This is up to you. This is your decision alone.”

I looked at it again, then folded it along the crease. Channing waited. He did not look impatient, merely curious.

“Can I keep this?” I asked.

“You may.”

“It will be something to have.”

“They’ll be sorry to lose you. Do not be overly hasty in your decision, Carrey. What you have experienced has been very trying. Understand what you are turning down. Perhaps you need to take some time. You might feel differently after the summer.”

“I know what you’re saying, Mr. Channing, but I really think I may be finished with this sport.”

“Possibly you’ll change your mind.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I am obliged to remind you that you do not need to row if you accept their invitation, Carrey. Harvard is, in the end, an institution of learning.”

“I don’t work that way. You don’t either.”