I’d already checked out of my hotel—Geoff had been disappointed I hadn’t stayed with him, but once I’d explained it, he’d understood—so I took my team duffel bag and changed at the race venue. CalPac unisuit under baggy shorts and one of my inevitably tight tee shirts, and off I went. I had a racecourse to walk.
But first….
I stopped by the Cap City encampment. It wouldn’t hurt them to make the walk. “Any of you guys want to walk the racecourse with me?”
Instead of the nods of recognition that usually greeted me—even the ones I’d never rowed with had gotten to know me while I’d trained with Lodestone—dead silence greeted me. They looked at me like I was some kind of alien invader or enemy to be killed, like an escapee from the latest first-person-shooter game.
Lodestone looked up from the boat he’d been tinkering with. He met my eye and frowned. I shrugged imperceptibly.
“We’ll do it later,” someone—I didn’t see who—said.
So that’s how it would be. “Michael, a word, please?”
“Can’t it wait?”
Whoa. Petulance and hostility. My favorite flavors.
“No.” Glaciers were warmer than my tone, and the temperatures on Mission Bay dropped a good thirty degrees. If he wanted to treat me like that, he could, but he would reap what he sowed.
Michael rolled his eyes. Huh. I wonder where he learned that….
He stomped up to me as I walked a little way away. “What?”
“Can we please not do this this weekend? You haven’t responded to anything I’ve done to try to contact you, and—”
“Figure it out, Jeremy.”
That hurt. “The last time we spoke, we were still boyfriends, and nothing you’ve said has changed that.” Of course, he apparently wasn’t speaking to me…. “We’re leading parallel lives. We do the same sport at the same boathouse with the same coach, we’re at the same race, but we’re ignoring each other, and it’s stupid. Everyone knows what’s going on, so how about you cut the crap, act like a grown-up, and treat me with the respect you’d treat a total stranger, m’kay?”
I admit I might’ve spoken a little louder than conversational volume, but maybe other people needed to hear that.
Without waiting for his answer, I walked off. I pretended not to hear the “Whoa! A little aloe for that burn?”
I cranked Parallel Lines, and off I went for my walk of the venue. The cover art for Parallel Lines was piano keys, but puh-leez. I’d bet money I’d once seen a cover featuring two lines of coke on a mirror. Given what went down during the 1970s, that was probably more appropriate. But…. Debbie Harry. All gay men have their divas. Blondie’s mine. Cher? Meh. Madonna? Whatevs. Give me Blondie or give me death. I don’t care if she’s old enough to be my grandmother. We don’t go there.
The Crew Classic was rowed down two thousand of the finest meters the back end of Mission Bay offered. The back end provided the most sheltered waters, although some years sheltered was a relative term. I’d seen rainy and windy and sunny and hot, with everything in between. Spectators watched along Crown Point Shores, and if they were loaded, they did so from the tents, otherwise they sat on the grass with binoculars or squinted at the Jumbotrons. That’s where I found the vendors, and as per Remy Babcock tradition, I bought tee shirts for everyone who mattered. This year I bought one for Craig as an apology, and for my grandparents, since they footed all kinds of bills.
Let the children stare. We were at a regatta, and they’d all seen me row my single. They could all kiss my fine uni-clad ass as I walked the racecourse. When I reached the end of the sidewalk, I stopped. Quite a bit of the racecourse remained, but I had no way to walk to it, so I made do with looking at it and remembering the conditions all the different times I’d rowed on Mission Bay. I spotted SeaWorld off in the distance. Funny. When my boat sat at the starting line, SeaWorld would be right there. I’d probably always have a soft spot for the park for that reason alone. I found an out-of-the-way spot to sit down and composed an admittedly lengthy text to Geoff and Laurel to warn them about what just transpired with Michael. Sure, they knew what had happened between the two of us, and more important, what hadn’t happened since, but there was no point in letting them stumble into this weekend blind, not when they were expecting to host both of us.
R: Sorry, lovelies. It’s already shaping up 2B a nightmare, and I’ve done my best.
L: Thanks for the heads-up. We’ll handle it as it comes. Maybe if we give U each someone 2 vent 2, you’ll move past this.
I didn’t feel that optimistic.
R: Maybe. Let me know when U can make it down from La Jolla and rescue me from team dinners.
L: We’re bringing Olive.
R: You’d better ;-) Craig 2 if he’s not afraid of me after lunch.
L: Didn’t G tell U? Craig came out yesterday. So B nice.
My dear brother had clocked his roommate within five minutes of meeting him last fall. Then he’d spent most of the school year trying to coax the shy and timid Craig out of the closet. I was sure the aggressively heterosexual Geoff singing the virtues of out, loud, and proud confused Craig no end. But apparently perseverance paid off. Or me being a jerk in the bathroom had.
R: I’m always nice.
L: Nice looking, maybe.
R: I’ll text U as soon as I have more info about the team circle jerk.
Then I reported to the CalPac base of operations. I had a long afternoon of practice rows.
I HATED team dinners. Always had. The fact that I now rowed for a collegiate crew changed nothing. Colossal wastes of time, team dinners. Every special snowflake wanted to be heard, yet somehow we always ended up eating spaghetti or pizza, two of my least favorite foods. All carbs did for me was make me hungry again in two hours. Can we say “insulin spike”?
By this time the CalPac teams had moved into the cluster of rented houses spread out along Grand Ave near Mission Beach. Awesome sauce.
As I made ready to leave, Pendergast scragged me. “Wait, Remy, where’re you going? You’ll miss the team dinner.”
“My twin brother goes to UCSD, Coach. That’s why I flew down early. We hardly ever see each other anymore.”
“Hold on, there’s more than one of you? Why didn’t you warn us?” Steve crossed his eyes and stuck out his tongue. Was that his signature move? Now that he’d removed the board from his ass, he was turning out to be an okay guy.
“Introduce me tomorrow, then.” Pendergast sighed and waved me away.
“I will, I promise. You’ll like him. We’re nothing alike,” I said as much to Steve as my second coach.
Pendergast laughed before he could stop himself. “You’re terrible.”
“Geoff’s not, and his girlfriend is the nicest, kindest, sweetest person you’ll ever meet… as long as you’re not competing for a space in med school with her.” I liked Laurel. I knew her, but I liked her.
“Tomorrow at the venue, and even if you eat better than we do, you still owe me a double run.”
I smiled. “Does Lodestone know?”
Pendergast nodded. “I cleared it with your daddy.”
I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Too bad the neighborhood was so dodgy, so different from where I’d stayed in high school with the Cap City junior crew. In high school, the crew stayed in some of the nicer areas around Mission Bay—mansions, once even in Crown Point Shores above the race venue. Literally million-dollar views. In college? Mission Beach. Not too terribly far from the bay, but jeez, an entirely different world. Bar fights at 3:00 a.m. and tattoo parlors as far as the eye could see.
Next year? I was so staying up in La Jolla with my brother, whether or not I’d terrified his roommate. Maybe he and Laurel would shack up by then. That was something to look forward to, I supposed.
The CalPac team was still up when I got back.
Jonah looked up from his book. “How was dinner?”
“Do you mean how was the restaurant, or how’re my brother, hi
s girlfriend, and their roommates?”
“The latter,” Jonah said.
I flopped down next to him on a ratty-looking sofa. “I apparently committed the grave sin of being overwhelmingly attractive in front of my brother’s babygay roommate.”
“What,” Steve said, “is a babygay?”
“My brother finally talked him out of the closet, so… babygay. Geoff’s been trying all year, then apparently I show up and swamp this Craig creature with my studliness or tight clothing. Or something. I stopped paying attention to complaints about my wardrobe years ago. You know how it is.”
Pendergast looked up from the papers he’d been focusing on. “Jeans that’re too tight through the quads? Regatta tee shirts that don’t go down far because you’re too tall and don’t fit because your shoulders are too broad? We’ve all been there. You could always try buying clothes that fit. That’s what my wife tells me, at any rate.”
“Why? I’m eighteen and have no idea what I want to do or be when I grow up.” Seriously, where’d he get this stuff? “Okay, maybe I’ll go into nursing, so… scrubs. Problem solved.”
Jonah shook his head. “He’s got you, Coach. Admit it.”
“What if you want an office job?” Pendergast wasn’t giving up. I could see that.
My phone buzzed, and I pulled it out. Geoff. “Trust fund.”
I swore I heard Steve mutter “Let it go” as I typed out a message. I started humming the song from Frozen.
G: Did you have 2 dress like a go-go boy?
R: What’re U vaporing on about now?
G: How U dressed. How U always dress.
R: At least I didn’t wear the leather pants.
….
R: That’s what I always wear, U know that. My clothes have always fitted like that :-( Michael liked them.
O: *snort* Craig did 2. I thought he was going 2 cream his jeans right there at the table.
Looked like Geoff added someone new to our group texts.
R: My entire team backs me re clothes btw.
G: Biased sample.
R: Tell Craig not 2 touch himself when he thinks about me.
G: Don’t be gross.
R: But you know he’s going 2.
G: I *know* damn U. Now I have 2 bleach my brain. I hate U.
Then Jonah grabbed my phone.
“Hey! I was using that.”
“Hay is for horses. What do you eat?” he said.
I blinked, nonplussed. “That is possibly the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Geoff’s your brother?” Jonah ignored my verbal jab as he scrolled through the conversation.
“Oh jeez, now I have to bleach my brain, too.” Jonah handed my phone back.
I shook my head at his foolishness. “No one made you read my messages. Now that I think about it, for someone who’s a devout Christian, you probably shouldn’t be swearing ‘Jeez.’”
“Now what’re you going on about?” Jonah said.
“Don’t you imagine it’s a shortening of Jesus?” I shot him a bland look. “I mean, I haven’t checked the OED or one of those Why Do We Say It? books, but it only stands to reason.”
“Wow, look at the time.” Pendergast checked a watch that wasn’t there. He clapped his hands. “Off to bed, everyone! We start early.”
Steve chuckled. “Coward.”
Chapter 25
SATURDAY MORNING dawned cool and still. A marine layer wrapped the sky and the city in a thin fog, but most of us racing knew it would burn off by midmorning, and we’d have a glorious day of rowing. The weather app on my phone held potentially dire things for later, however, and I tried not to take it as a portent. Relationship troubles, newly out gay man, who I hoped was more careful than I was—what else could go wrong?
I tried to put it out of my mind. I knew Geoff and my San Diego friends were somewhere around the venue before they’d texted me. I’d already told them not to buy tee shirts or anything because reasons. Geoff knew what that meant.
The regatta organizers liked to group schools and clubs geographically, so CalPac’s boats were close to UC Davis’s and Cap City’s. Because we didn’t see enough of each other on the water and in the parking lot? Oh well. The thing I hated about this was that I was preternaturally aware of two men I needed not to be aware of, Michael and that Randy dude. Michael had well and truly etched himself into my mind, and even if we were over, it would take a while to root him out, but Randy? He baffled me. I made jokes about people being into me because I otherwise had no idea how to deal with it. I was just Remy Babcock, rower and misanthrope, and not all that loveable when it came down to it. These people… they needed to have their heads examined. I needed to start carrying my therapist’s cards to hand out.
I’d recently come back from my first run of the morning and sat on the ground to stretch. Pendergast wanted two runs, but he never specified when he wanted them. One run to cool down after the first heat for one of the invitational cups, plus fours races, with stretches after. I’d missed many of the CalPac women’s heats by virtue of being on the water myself, and vice versa. We all knew the deal. At least we could see the novices row. The finals for the invitational cups would be held tomorrow afternoon, probably in time for the predicted rain. Yay.
Another run later in the day would satisfy Pendergast. Actually, I think he only wanted to know I took him and CalPac as seriously as I took Lodestone’s training. Speaking of Lodestone, ordinarily I’d have spent the afternoon cheering on a certain high school crew, but under the circumstances, I’d spend it with the coach, instead.
So there I sat underneath CalPac boats to stay out of the sun, and whose voice should I hear but my brother’s. And Michael’s.
“Hi, Geoff.” Michael sounded wary.
“I’m still your friend, too, Michael, or I’d like to be.” Geoff sounded sad.
“I… I wasn’t sure whose side you were on.”
Geoff sighed. “Is it already down to sides?”
“I don’t know,” Michael said. “I didn’t think so, but then Remy called me out in front of my team.”
“Did he? Or did Remy ask to talk to you?” I loved my brother, oh yes I did.
“He told you.”
“Yeah, he did. He’s not a bad guy, Michael, and I don’t think he’d try to humiliate you on purpose.” Geoff paused. “Do you want to talk to me? Because I’m not on one side or the other. It makes me sad that you see sides. I don’t think he does.”
“Are you going to run right to him?” Michael sounded bitter.
“Believe it or not, Michael, as much as I love my brother and hate seeing him hurt, I’ve been your friend as long as he has.”
Michael didn’t say anything for a few ticks, and then laughed. “You know, I’d almost forgotten that I’d met you both at the same time.”
“It’s still true, though.”
“I guess it is,” Michael said.
“So talk to me. What’s going on? When you left our house, you left as Rem’s friend and boyfriend. You don’t seem like you can stand the sight of him right now.”
Michael’s turn to sigh. “I… I feel smothered by my relationship with Rem all of a sudden. I’m, like, graduating from high school in two months, and I’m tied to someone I never see.”
“His training?”
“His training,” Michael all but growled.
“Wait, Rem said you were there when Coach Lodestone explained it all.” Geoff sounded puzzled. “It’s not like you could say you were surprised.”
“There’s knowing and there’s living, I guess. I want a boyfriend who’s committed to me, not a sport.” Michael didn’t sound as angry anymore, but damn. He knew all of this when we started dating. Hell, we started dating because of rowing. What did he expect?
“When it comes down to it, he and I want different things. He’s a rowing phenomenon, and that’s amazing and wonderful and he should go for it, but I’m just an ordinary mortal,” Michael continued. “I row well… for a high s
chool and eventually collegiate rower. I know the meaning of balance. Your brother doesn’t.”
Geoff snorted. “You’ve got that right.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Geoff, you really don’t. He’s incredibly dependent on me, and he’s like an addict where rowing’s concerned. Seriously, keep an eye on him. He should never drink, and if he ever starts using drugs, book the room in rehab, because he’ll crash if he doesn’t kill himself.”
“That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think? What you see as the possibility for addiction, his coaches see as dedication and determination.”
You tell him, Geoff.
“The line is very, very thin,” Michael said. “He seriously scares me sometimes. You don’t get to be as good at something as he is without being touched by the gods, Geoff. Or crazy.”
“He lives life pared down to his essence. I wonder if that means the rest of us have to pick up the slack for certain things.” Geoff paused. “I’ve had some time to think about this. I wonder if what my parents saw as dependence on you was more like you taking over for him, like maybe he depended on you for certain things so he could reach that much further in rowing.”
“Okay, maybe. Don’t get me wrong, I dug that dependence at first. Rem’s an amazing guy, and if he was that into me, maybe I was, too. Reflected glory, you know? In some ways, Rem’s a titanic figure, but in a lot of ways, he’s really not. That I could be strong for him meant a lot to me.” Then Michael broke off. He sounded like he was choking up a little. Ouch. “But you don’t know what it’s like having the responsibility for someone’s happiness, shit, for his life, heaped on your shoulders when you were as young as I was. You don’t.
“My parents are psycho, Geoff, but that doesn’t mean they’re always wrong. In some ways, being with Rem—as awesome as he is—robbed me of experiences this last year or so. Robbed me of being a kid.”
Geoff didn’t say anything right away. Then, “I think you’re being overly dramatic. You were in high school, not elementary school. Yes, him being poz certainly taught you and me things we never wanted to know, but robbed you of being a kid? Come off it.”
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