Page 134 of Final Drive

Two months ago, I’d have pushed. I know exactly how I’d have done it, too. I’d have asked Tyler what time she went quiet in the group chat last night, come back with a number, and put it in front of her. I’d have called that caring about her.

Instead, I drink my own coffee and ask her about the start. “What’s the plan?”

Her shoulders come down a little. “Same as yesterday, one beat lower off the settle. Forecast has a crosswind at fifteen hundred, and I want somewhere to go if it lands.”

“Thirty-four.”

“Thirty-four, and I’ll want it clean.”

“You’ll get it clean.”

She finally takes a drink. I let myself look at her while she’s not watching me do it, and there’s nothing obviously wrong except that she’s twenty years old and looks about ten years past that. I put it down to the last eight days, which turns out to be my mistake.

Six lanes at eleven-forty. Top three to the final.

We draw lane two. Three heat winners, seeded on raw time, and we’re the slowest of them by a second and a half, because yesterday she took the rate off us at eleven hundred and made us hold it. The grandstand is a long way off from there, and the wind will find us before it finds anybody else. Reese doesn’t complain. She takes us out early and spends nine minutes running the point, testing the crosswind, putting the bow where she wants it and letting it drift so she can feel how much rudder it’s going to cost her. Bennett watches from the launch and says nothing.

At eleven-thirty-eight, we back into the blocks. Cameron locks the bow on. Somewhere down the line, Hampton Hills’ coxswain is giving his crew a speech, but our boat is silent. Reese doesn’t do speeches before semifinals.

“Thirty-four and long,” she says. “Nobody’s a hero for eight hundred meters.”

The starter calls attention, the boat goes still, and when the horn blasts, Reese says, “Row.”

We’re off clean.

The first five hundred is the best rowing we’ve done all year. I mean that. Thirty-four, exactly where she put it, with so much run under the boat it feels like cheating. We’re a seat up on Northridge and half a length on the rest of the field, and I’m not working nearly as hard as I should be. That’s what happens when eight men stop trying to move a boat and start letting it move.

At eight hundred, Reese says, “Beautiful. Hold it here.”

At nine hundred and forty, her face changes.

I’m three feet away and the only man in the boat with a clear view of her, so I see the whole thing happen. Her pupils blow out and her chin comes up half an inch. Her mouth is already open for the next call, but nothing comes. Then her right hand slips off the rudder line and lands palm-up in her lap, and the cox box goes silent.

Later, I count eight strokes on the video. At thirty-four, it’s about fourteen seconds. In the boat, it lasts forever.

Her eyes are open, but she’s not looking at anything. Her body stays upright, one hand loose in her lap, while the boat starts walking off its point. There’s three feet between us and I can’t cross any of it, since both my hands are on the oar.

If I let go, we’re done. Not just the race. The season. You don’t restart a national semifinal because your coxswain disappeared for fourteen seconds, and everything these eight men have spent since coming to Sable Ridge goes into the water with me. But if I keep rowing and she doesn’t come back, we’re going to cross into lane three at full pressure.

Bo feels it too. His blade goes light for half a stroke behind me, then comes back in hard with his timing exactly where it belongs. He can’t say anything without telling the whole boat something’s wrong, but he doesn’t have to. He’s got the boat if I need to watch her.

The bow keeps walking left. Two feet, then four, and every instinct I have says to do something.

Instead, I hold thirty-four.

I don’t shout at her or call the crew. I don’t throw a hand up for the umpire. I keep my eyes on Reese and the rate exactly where she put it, since if she comes back to a boat that’s fallen apart, she’ll have nothing to steer. If she comes back to thirty-four, she’ll have everything.

She told me not to buy her season. This is the same thing with water under it.

By stroke six, the bow is eight feet off point and Northridge’s coxswain is shouting at us. On seven, I say her name, not loud and not like a command. Just the way I’d say it if she were in the next room.

“Reese.”

One more stroke, and her eyes focus.

Her hand closes around the rudder line and she takes one breath. That’s all she needs. Inside it, she reads the point, the lane, the bow walk, the rate, and Northridge pulling level with us.

“Down two on port, three strokes. One. Two. Three. Point’s back. Sorry, gentlemen.” She doesn’t leave enough of a gap for anyone to answer. “Thirteen hundred. Northridge’s got their nose on us. Let them have it for four hundred meters.”