Then she was rowing, still fogged with dreaminess. Sheffield’s boats had been sweep boats, with each rower pulling a single oar on one side, and though the coach had the girls try sculling every now and then, flipping two oars and pulling them through the water wasn’t a natural motion for Evelyn. She forgot, too, how tippy a scull was; a bit of extra depth on the oar, and the rigger would dip to one side, threatening to drag under and eject her.
Evelyn had thought this would be like the sailing Fruit Stripe, basically an excuse for onlookers and racers to drink before noon, so her lack of recent training wouldn’t be a problem. The rowers looked meaty and intense, though, and their water bottles looked to be filled with water and not bottles of T. The implied irony she had banked on was not present in Lake James today. She heard a crackle on the shore and observed that loudspeakers on tall posts, which she had figured were for some sort of weekend concert, were actually for the narration of the race.
“Good morning, and welcome to the thirty-third annual Fruit Stripe Regatta,” she heard a voice that sounded suspiciously like Bob Costas say. Hadn’t she heard he had a place on East Lake?
The announcer reviewed the course as Evelyn warmed up: west of Turtle Island, another private island on the lake that was closer than Sachem, then the passage between Turtle and Sachem, around the buoy south of there, keep buoys on your starboard side, watch the rocks off Turtle’s east side. The loudspeakers boomed as the first group of boats approached the line. “Robert Stimson, known for his annual Christmas party, is a three-time winner in the masters’ doubles at Head of the Schuylkill.…” Oh, Evelyn thought. These were real rowers.
The officials were sending the boats off at two-minute intervals. The race marshal gave her a three-minute warning, and she pulled up to the line. Someone in the stake boat grabbed Evelyn’s stern, and she was doing her best to stay lined up straight via small dips with the oars, but the wind was starting to blow her sideways. She heard the announcer saying she was Jenny Vinson, a Manchester resident and mother of three, with her eldest rowing for Choate; Mrs. Hacking apparently had not updated the bios. Then she heard, “Sit ready. Are you ready? Row!”
She was trying to remember rowing strategy as she pushed her legs down and swung her back backward. High pace at the start to lift the boat out of the water, right? Or in a head race, were you supposed to be slower and steadier?
People from some of the lakeside houses were starting to come out in boats to watch the race. One motorboat veered far too close to her, its driver apparently forgetting that the wake from the boat could send her scull onto its side, and she smelled eggs hollandaise over its gas fumes. The water felt heavy, and her body didn’t remember how to get the oars through the water. Her hands were traveling too fast on the recovery, and her legs couldn’t seem to push down correctly on the stroke. She was sweating, she hadn’t brought anything to drink, and she had forgotten how long these head races took. Twenty minutes? An hour? A boat that had started two minutes behind her started to pull closer; the rower looked like he was visiting from the 1970s with his white-and-red-striped sweatband.
“Charlie Hawley is pulling up on our Mildred’s Moms rower,” she heard from the loudspeaker.
No, he’s not, thought Evelyn. This time I’m not getting beaten.
She didn’t know whether it was adrenaline or anger, and she didn’t care. The rhythm was starting to come back to her—slamswing-handsglide, slamswing-handsglide—and her body remembered things that her mind didn’t as she almost stood up off of the footboards and cracked her hamstrings down against the fiberglass. She made the water whoosh by as she sent her oar puddles flowing forward, and she was making the boat lift, lift, lift as though she could get it out of this water, out of the water and into the air. She was flying. “Jenny Vinson from Mildred’s Moms is giving Charlie Hawley a run for his money,” she heard from the loudspeakers. “What a great race this is becoming.”
She passed the first buoy marking a turn and had to hold water with one oar and pull with the other one to get her boat angled around. She was now in the passage between Sachem and Turtle, Charlie Hawley getting ever smaller in the distance, and she slowed down her recovery a bit to gulp in a few breaths of air. Evelyn checked; she wasn’t far from overtaking the next boat. She could win this thing. Come in to the dock and raise that stupid Fruit Stripe trophy. Her hands felt hot and she could feel blisters forming, but she grabbed the oar handles tightly again and started getting her momentum back.
She heard the whine of a motorboat from the north, which didn’t seem to be joining the other spectators at the shore. It was skipping straight toward her. Evelyn felt a surge of energy. Now she really began to row, forcing the blades through the water as she slammed her knees down. She was going. She was moving. She had the rhythm now. Slam, swing, hands, glide. Slam, swing, hands, glide. Now the seat did not seem to be trying to jump the tracks. Now the oars were understanding what she wanted them to do.