by Pip Harry
Sam looks embarrassed. He stops cleaning and listens in.
‘It’s not about technique, Vas. It’s about potential.’
‘My son has potential. Why else would he be on scholarship?’
‘He’s also unfit, unmotivated and overweight.’
‘We see. He show you.’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m the coach of the firsts. It’s my decision who’s in and who’s out. And this boy,’ says Westie, motioning to Sam, ‘has the potential to go all the way to Olympic gold medals. Don’t tell me you don’t see that too.’
‘I see he’s not ready,’ says Dad.
‘I see a parent who needs to take a step back,’ says Westie.
The two of them eye each other in cold silence. Dad puts his hands up and takes an exaggerated step backwards.
‘Fine. Don’t come crying to me when you lose Head of River.’
The seconds come in and I wait for Adam to get ready for school so we can go in together. I need to see he’s all right. As he walks over to me I notice he’s not wearing red socks anymore. He’s already been stripped of that first crew honour.
‘Hi Leni,’ he says. As if this is any morning. Not the morning after last night.
‘How are you?’
‘Fine,’ he says with a tight smile. ‘A bit tired.’
‘Really? Are you okay to row?’
He’s wearing the dorky straw hat that’s part of our school uniform. Tipped at an angle, it hides his injury perfectly. I want to tell him not to pretend there’s nothing wrong.
‘Yeah. No worries.’
‘I’m worried,’ I say.
I reach for his arm and he lets me look him in the eye for precisely three seconds, all the hurt and pain from last night bubbling up. Then he puts the fake smile back on.
‘I have a plan to get Cris and I back into the firsts. You’ll see. It won’t be long. Come on. I’ll treat you to an egg and bacon roll from the deli. To say thanks for last night.’
Just like that, Adam is back in control. All the frayed bits pulled together with his pressed blazer and perfectly aligned tie. He holds my hand and laces our fingers so tightly it’s uncomfortable. I wiggle my fingers free and put my arm around his waist.
‘Egg and bacon roll and a chai latte.’
‘Deal,’ he says, leaning in and kissing my neck lightly.
Cristian
Adam’s waiting for me in the common room at recess. Both of us are still stinging from our training row with the seconds. The crew might have been hot stuff last week, but with two new rowers in the middle of the boat, everyone has to find their feet again. We were out of sync and didn’t get their in-jokes.
‘Let’s walk, Poppa.’
Adam steers me out the school gates to the street.
‘Hey man, is your head feeling okay?’ I ask.
Adam has hidden his wound under his school hat, but I still know it’s there. Underneath all the school-prefect, straight-A front, he seems unhappy. Stressed.
‘I don’t want to talk about that.’
‘Sure?’
‘Positive.’
This is how it was with Adam. He was the leader and I was the puppy dog.
‘The seconds are okay, but they’re not our crew,’ says Adam flatly. ‘We belong back in the firsts. You know what the other schools are saying?’
‘No, what?’
‘There’s trouble brewing at Harley. Westie is chucking out star rowers for novices.’
‘What are we supposed to do about it? This isn’t musical chairs.’
‘I know someone who can help us.’
‘Who? Jenny Craig?’
‘Guy at my gym. The one I go to with my brothers and Dad.’
Adam works out at a private club on his side of the river. Shiny, brand-spanking new equipment and wall-to-wall pumped-up AFL players and gay guys. Lots of fluffy white towels and personal trainers pushing an agenda.
Adam took me there once and I couldn’t wait to leave. It was the antithesis of the shabby, zen yoga studios around my area. Everyone was watching me lift, then watching themselves in the mirrors.
‘He can get us some stuff,’ says Adam.
‘Stuff? Like protein powders? Aminos?’
‘Nah, like real gear.’
I know what gear is. Also known as juice, sauce, slop, product. Gear is steroids. And it’s not the first time I’d been offered a taste. A team from South Africa came out on a school rugby tour last year and a few of the blokes were into it. Told us it was the best way to get bulk. I ignored them, but maybe Adam was listening.
‘I gotta get back in the firsts, Cris. This is the only thing I can think of. I’ve talked to this guy. He gets it for the footy players. Anything we like. Good gear.’
‘Where am I going to get money for that?’
‘I can pay for it.’
I feel uncomfortable. Our family isn’t well-off but I don’t like my cashed-up mates paying my way, either. If I pulled a few extra shifts at Bunnings, would it be enough?
‘I dunno, Adam. Don’t they, like, shrink your balls or something? Make you Incredible Hulk aggro?’
‘Nah. This guy has good product. That weight you have to lose, will be gone in like, a month. I can get big. I’m too skinny. The more I lift, the skinnier I get. The protein shakes can only do so much. I need this. We can stop, way before the Head of the River. There’s no testing, right? So no one has to know. Everyone does it now anyway.’
‘Isn’t it cheating?’
‘Clean sport is a myth, my friend. You either get smart or you get beaten.’
We walk in silence, each of us weighing up the risk. It’s minimal, our school doesn’t drug test for performance-enhancing drugs, and it would be so easy to say yes. Rowing had gotten too hard. There was too much at stake now. We’d worked our way to the senior crews, but now we both needed a shortcut. The quickest point from A to B.
‘Will you do the talking?’ I ask.
Adam smiles and slaps me across the shoulders conspiratorially. He doesn’t like to do things on his own. It wasn’t just about helping out a friend, he wanted a partner in crime.
‘We’ll go see this guy after school. He’ll hook us up. So, you’ll come?’
‘Only to talk to him? I’m still not sure I want to do this.’
‘No-obligation, free quote,’ says Adam.
We change the subject and talk about our biology assignment as we head back for more classes, but all I can think is should I? Shouldn’t I? Like I’m tossing a coin in my head. On the shiny side is easy entry back into the firsts and holding onto my scholarship. On the tarnished, green side is a voice that’s asking if I’m a drug cheat.
It’s the dumbest of dumb ideas, but I imagine taking my shirt off in front of Penny at the river. Imagining her face when she sees how ripped I am. It tips me in the wrong direction. The shiny side falls up.
Leni
Audrey and I take the 86 tram home and get off at Sunny’s bakery on Smith Street. She orders a Vietnamese pork roll, extra chilli.
‘Same,’ I tell the girl behind the counter. This is our Tuesday special. It never changes. That makes me happy.
While we wait for our rolls to be assembled, I pour a sachet of protein powder into a container of water and shake it up.
‘Let me taste that,’ asks Audrey.
I hand it over. ‘You won’t like it,’ I warn.
She swigs and makes a face.
‘My tongue. It’s burning!’
‘It’s not that bad.’
‘It tastes like hell. Here, take your Satan shake.’ She hands it back to me. ‘You are dedicated to drink that.’
The most exercise Audrey gets is using her mouse hand to play World of Warcraft, working up a sweat on a new earring design and running around muddy
paddocks pretending to be a warrior queen. She’s not the slightest bit interested in my training.
‘I wish Harley would spend half the cash that they do on the rowing program on fencing gear for Lucy,’ she once mused. ‘Rowing gets all the attention and all the funding.’
I couldn’t really argue with her. Everything else did seem to pale in comparison to my sport.
Audrey pays for our snack – we take turns shouting each other – and we walk towards her house. We’ve got an English essay to do, but we take it slow, chewing on the fresh coriander, strips of carrot, the tangy mystery pate and hot fatty pork.
We stop and look in the window of her favourite second-hand shop, ‘Release the Hounds’.
‘Should we go in?’ Audrey asks. ‘Get a little something pretty?’
‘Best not. I’m broke. Let’s go back to yours and make a start on The Kite Runner essay. Due tomorrow, don’t forget.’
We’re studying in Audrey’s bedroom. It’s like being in an enchanted forest. She’s painted the walls dark green, and hand-drawn wood animals with big eyes, creeping vines, forests and snow-capped mountains. She’s got a fish tank with two Mexican walking fish called Weasley and Dumbledore. Audrey says you’re never too old to love Harry Potter. She has a quidditch broomstick in one corner.
My head’s not in my work. I keep reading the same paragraph over and over, the words losing focus. I put my book down, wondering if I should betray Adam’s trust and spill the details of last night. Would that make me an even worse girlfriend? Some things aren’t for sharing.
‘Do you think I’m the sort of girl who shouldn’t have a boyfriend? Lately I’ve been thinking maybe I should be single,’ I say.
Audrey looks up from her book, puts her glasses on. She’s horribly short-sighted.
‘You are torturing that poor Adam Langley. You still haven’t put out, have you?’
‘I do put out. In certain pre-specified areas.’
Adam and I were engaged in an exhausting sexual tug of war. I held onto my virginity on one end of the rope and he pulled his in the other direction. The direction he was used to.
‘What’s sex like, Auds? Worth doing?’
‘Of course it’s worth doing. But only when you’re ready. And when you’re ready with the right guy.’
‘I shouldn’t make such a big deal of it.’
‘It’s the biggest deal,’ says Audrey, sitting up and looking at me intensely. ‘Look, technically, it’s just sticking something in a hole, but it changes everything. Like EVERYTHING,’ she says. ‘You’re not kids anymore. Boom. Like that.’ She clicks her fingers. ‘You gotta worry about the babies and the diseases and taking the pill. Before sex, you’re playing. After, it’s business.’
‘So, Kieren, he’s like the one? How do you know?’
‘I don’t know. But he makes me feel safe and beautiful and we look out for each other. He gives me the jtzooum.’
We talk about the jtzooum a lot. That weird, tingly, floaty feeling that some guys give you. Adam doesn’t. Sam does.
Audrey and her boyfriend have been together since she was in Year Ten. He’s just finished Year Twelve. In high school years that’s a long time.
Audrey sighs. ‘I told Kieren to dump me for schoolies’ week.’
‘Why?’
‘I doubt he wants a little Year Eleven girlfriend who can’t even go to clubs on the biggest party of his life. I told him we should break up for a week, and he can do whatever he likes. Then we can get back together.’
She looks miserable. ‘I think I made a huge mistake.’
I give her a hug.
‘Get back together with him. Kieren is awesome and you guys are like vegemite and toast. Not as good apart.’
She nods and wipes her nose on my sleeve.
‘Yuuuk,’ I say. ‘We’re not that close.’
I decide to confess something murky and secret to Audrey because we tell each other almost everything.
‘I’m crushing on someone at school.’
Audrey leans forward and widens her eyes.
‘Might this have something to do with you wanting to be single?’
‘Promise you won’t tell anyone.’
‘Pinkie swear.’
‘It’s Sam Camero.’
‘Bike Pant Guy? He’s in my ceramics class. You should see him handle a piece of clay.’ She makes a lewd gesture with her hands and laughs.
‘What do you think of him?’
Audrey shrugs. She hasn’t spent a minute thinking about Sam. Unlike me.
‘Doesn’t talk much, comes in, does his thing, leaves. Obviously he’s very lovely to look at, but I reckon he’s well aware of that. Oooh. Want to look him up on Facebook?’ she asks.
I’ve already googled him, but I let Audrey feel like a detective.
‘I’ll log in as you. Password?’
‘RowingGirl.’
‘Of course.’
‘Sam Camero, Samuel Camero Jr, Samantha Camero. There’s heaps of them.’
I look over her shoulder at the profiles. ‘Cut out all the Samanthas and all the ones overseas. There he is.’
Sam’s profile photo is of him riding a mountain bike over a huge cliff and taking air.
‘Let’s see. Photos first,’ Audrey says. ‘Photogenic character, isn’t he?’
Sam’s photo bank is like an action adventure catalogue. Mountain biking, rowing, snowboarding, bungy jumping and one of him in an insane yoga pose. There’s a cute one where he’s holding a baby I assume is his niece or nephew.
‘What can Facebook tell us about the elusive Sam?’ Audrey says, reading his profile.
‘One hundred and eighteen friends. Interested in women. Lucky. Birthday, September. Dating status: It’s complicated. Hmmm. What does that mean?’
What did that mean? It’s new since I last stalked his profile.
‘Favourite activities: Bikram yoga, whatever that is, rowing, mountain biking. Yawn. He likes Discovery Channel, Nat GEO, Breaking Bad, Dexter, favourite movie The Lord of the Rings … okay, maybe I have a crush on him now.’
I’m too busy looking at Sam’s page that I don’t notice Audrey has moved the mouse to hover over the ‘Add friend’ button. She looks at me, smiles and clicks it.
I scream and try to wrestle the mouse away from her.
‘You did not do that!’
‘It’s sent, Leni!’
‘You are the worst best friend ever!’ I scream, falling backwards onto her bed and covering my face with her pillow.
The next time Sam logs into Facebook he will see a big fat ‘Friend Request’ from me.
‘He probably has a crush on you too. You’re gorgeous,’ says Audrey.
‘You think?’
‘Don’t fish.’
‘I’m not!’
I knew I wasn’t Year Nine Leni anymore, painfully skinny, with a faint moustache and greyhound legs. I looked good to guys. I’d seen them staring.
‘I can’t believe you sent Sam a friend request from my account. What’s he going to think?’
‘That you want to be friends? You’ll thank me when you and Bike Pant Guy are doing Bikram yoga poses together.’
‘What am I going to do about Adam?’
‘Have you gone off him?’
‘I dunno. He’s sweet and good-looking, but not much jtzooum.’
‘Wishy-washy. Break up with him,’ Audrey advises.
‘You make it sound so simple.’
‘Why are you making it so hard?’ says Audrey.
The question burns at me. Why wasn’t I calling it off?
On my way home for dinner I come up with two answers. One: I was worried what Adam might do if I did break up with him and two: Adam made me feel special. He chose me, when he could’ve had any other girl at school. That
was worth holding onto, wasn’t it?
Cristian
It’s Tuesday so we have a precious afternoon off training. Adam drives us to his gym after school. He’s edgy and driving badly – tailgating and going through orange-red lights. He plays angry rap music and we don’t talk. If we did, we might renege. Or at least I might. He seems resolute.
‘I’m nervous,’ I say, turning the sound down on Adam’s stereo. ‘How does this work exactly?’
He turns the music back up, even louder. ‘I have no idea! Relax Cris!’
The air-conditioned room smells like sweat and perfume. A bouncy soundtrack makes the lycra-clad receptionist jiggle as she swipes Adam’s membership card and he pays for a guest visit for me. Putting down thirty bucks as if it’s paper money. The timber floors squeak with the impact of expensive running shoes and machines whir quietly. I eye a guy with no neck and hulking shoulders in the free weights room. Is he using? He catches me staring and I duck my chin to my chest. I don’t want any more trouble.
‘Is Doug here?’ Adam asks one of the trainers.
‘Finishing up a spin class,’ says the girl, nodding towards the pulsating darkened room.
We stand near a wall, painted up with inspirational sports quotes. One of them says: ‘Pain is temporary. It may last a minute, or an hour, or a day, or a year, but eventually it will subside and something will take its place. If I quit, however, it lasts forever.’ — Lance Armstrong.
Underneath someone has scribbled ‘cheat’ in very small letters – surely a sign for Adam and I to heed. I nudge Adam and point to the quote. He gives me his ‘shut up Cristian’ stare. I’m close to pulling the pin on the whole shady deal when Doug strolls towards us, shiny with sweat. He looks at us standing there all jittery and high schoolie and wisely decides to exit the building.
‘Boys. Let’s adjourn to the café,’ he says smoothly.
Doug’s wearing a ‘Fitness Now!’ uniform and looks pretty normal, which is reassuring. He’s slim and toned. Like a regular personal trainer.
‘Next time, wear casual clothes, you look like preschoolers in those uniforms,’ says Doug.