Course Correction (10 page)

Winning felt pure and good, like an Ivory Soap commercial. I could point to our victories as proof that I didn't wimp out. I delivered.

Our season's perfect record earned us first seed for the Eastern Sprints, held on Lake Quinsigamond in Worcester, Massachusetts. The championship regatta featured heats and finals over a two-thousand–meter course. Crews raced in groups of six, with the top three proceeding
to the Grand Final later in the day. We won our morning heat without expending extraneous effort, rowing most of the course at a sedate twenty-nine strokes per minute and beating second-place Cornell easily.

Then came the final.

The sun beat down with its characteristic late-afternoon, late-spring intensity as we laced our foot-stretchers and shoved away from the dock. My heart beat loudly in my throat. We were racing for the championship. The Yale women had never beaten Radcliffe or won the Sprints, but today we were the favorites. We had a chance to claim the title. All that lay between us and the trophy were five other crews who might share our dream, but not our strength or our bond.

We ended our warm-up by the starting line. The six crews in the race before ours were lined up at the starting platform, their sterns held by volunteers lying on their stomachs, arms stretched out. The rowers stared straight ahead impassively, bodies angled forward, knees tight to their chests, arms extended, oars buried in the water, ready to explode into focused aggression at the starter's command. We sat still, relaxing but not relaxed, waiting for the race to go off and the official summons to the starting dock. I tried not to think about all the things I could do wrong to blow the race. Now was not the time for fear, but I struggled to combat my inner voice of doom.

I concentrated on the real enemies, the Cliffies in their black shirts with white piping, imposing white Rs emblazoned on their backs. They looked big and mean, but we could beat them. Why not? We'd beaten everyone else all season, whether we'd been the favorite or the underdog. We would win this race.

Before I knew it, we were in the race's last five hundred meters. “All right, we're even with Radcliffe. Let's move on them,” our coxswain, Lynne Alvarez, called. Now or never. Let's go! Eyes glued on Elaine Mathies, my quads pounding down through the drive in time with hers, our hands flowed out of the bow to start the recovery and reach for the next catch and kick some more ass. The boat was a little rocky, the setup disturbed by the water's slight chop, but we would not be distracted or deterred. Lynne's voice boomed through her megaphone: “Ok, you gave me two seats. I want more.” Accelerated breathing, no time to gasp for air, muscles shrieking with the burn of overexertion.
“Okay, just twenty more strokes. Give me all you got. We've got those Cliffies. Let's take it home!” Lynne commanded and I obeyed, back arching with effort. “Paddle,” she called. I looked up and saw Radcliffe behind us. Alright. “Way enough.” We stopped rowing. Bent over my oar, now I could gasp for air. I looked across the course.

In the far lane, the Wisco crew was cheering. What the hell?

We beat Radcliffe. That was a big first, but Wisconsin sneaked by us while we were focused on passing the black-shirted crew. Our coxswain forgot it wasn't a two-boat race. Sometime in the second thousand meters, Wisconsin claimed the lead and didn't give it up in spite of our mighty final sprint. We finished second.

I'd thought we were invincible. I hadn't considered any other outcome.

“Losing sucks,” I told Nat later.

He frowned slightly, but said philosophically, “You learn more when you lose.”

He sounded like a professor, but I wanted a sympathizer.

Nat was right, however. The lessons would follow fast and furiously. I didn't know until then how much winning mattered. I had taken our crew's success for granted; it came so easily. Suddenly I had to contend with the possibility that I'd not done my best, not pulled hard enough, or maybe not wanted to win enough. My confidence, hard won over the previous nine months, felt suddenly tenuous again.

My freshman teammates seemed disappointed but not disheartened: we beat the hated Cliffies, our arch rivals, a never-before-accomplished feat. Captain Chris Ernst was less sanguine, noisily frustrated and disappointed. A senior with no more second chances, she couldn't understand how Lynne Alvarez had neglected the Wisco crew: that was the coxswain's job, to know the score and report our position, and help us react and adjust to the competitive situation as it unfolded. Chris knew we would've won if our crew had known what was happening during the race.

But Chris turned away from the done-and-gone Sprints, accepted her second-place medal, and resolved to rally the team to focus on the season's final race, which would also be her last for Yale. She was determined: we would beat Radcliffe again in two weeks at the historic Yale–Harvard race, which would include women for the first time in
the race's 125-year history. The Harvard and Yale men's varsity crews raced against each other head-to-head for four miles on the wide and rough tidal Thames River in New London, Connecticut. The women would race two miles.

I shrugged off the uncertain thoughts weaseling into my head. We were going to do just fine. Chris had decided; she was my captain, and I trusted her.

Stormy skies. A chill wind kicking up aggressive waves. Grim water. Two miles: 3,218.7 meters. The starter stood behind us with his red flag held high, rippling. We left as the flag swept down, leaving his command to “Row” behind.

We started well, but Radcliffe did, too, and kept on going. The boat felt heavy, as if Radcliffe's speed took us out of our mental game. Our crew lost its concentration, instead focused on trying to catch our competitor. My legs were dead at the halfway mark, empty of drive. A race that started with our determination to win dwindled into a dispirited slog as Radcliffe forged into the lead and didn't give it up.

It's impossible to row a good race if you can't feel what's happening within your own crew, and if you're too distracted to focus. That afternoon we discovered that past performance is not a sure bet when it comes to predicting the future. The Radcliffe women ignored the fact that we had beaten them at the Sprints. They refuted the solid evidence that we were the faster crew. From the moment the race went off, they acted like the winners and left us in their wake.

After the race, we landed at the Gales Ferry dock. Nat greeted us silently, handed us our shoes, held onto the boat while we ungated our oars, stepped onto dry land, and laid the blades on the dock. Only our coxswain spoke, uttering familiar instructions to guide the boat safely into the shell house.

We had proven insufficient to the challenge; I had proven insufficient. I had no one to thank but myself. The sting of the moment stirred something inside, my defiant voice. Wait 'til next year. We'll show you; just you wait. Reason was bantering with me, keeping things light inside. We lost a race. It's not the end of the world.

I felt a tiny bit better. Not great. I was disappointed, yes; angry, yes; but mostly okay.

Until I saw Chris. Her college career was over, marred by unfinished business. She would never beat Radcliffe head-to-head. Her scowl started at her forehead, drove her eyebrows sharply down, deepened into her eyes, flared her nostrils, and settled across her mouth; then she howled at us huddled on the dock. Focusing specifically on the five freshmen, she unleashed her fury. “You gave up! How could you? You gave them the race! When are you going to learn how to pull?”

I had never seen Chris cry. I felt like a traitor.

When my father pricked the bubble of my growing up in a happily-ever-after family that evening in the twilight off Madison Avenue, the air began to leak out of my world. I didn't realize when I was eleven that the dissipation of our family's atmospheric mix of routine, structure, duty, and affection meant the end of life as I knew it, but everything became clear soon enough.

A great divide had always existed in our family between subject matter for adults and children, until Dad moved out. Overnight he assumed the stereotype of a disappearing dad, and it fit like a well-worn shoe. He didn't visit, rarely called, and saw us only on weekends. Mom's anger moved in and filled the empty spaces he left behind. The normal family topics of homework, dinner, clean rooms, and laundry fell by the wayside, derailed by new, grown-up ones of betrayal and abandonment.

Mom sniped nonstop about Dad: “You know, he left me for that whore, that bitch. Just ask him. See what he says!”

I couldn't deny or downplay her pain, but I doubted her charges against Dad. The tumble and turn of events seemed so sudden and fantastic. I couldn't keep up. I felt as if I was living in a made-up story told by a crazy person, and the shock of the new script immobilized me. Without my father's confirmation or denial, I didn't know who or what I was supposed to believe. My parents, who'd always served as the bastions of truth, had blown apart into separate corners of the universe, leaving me to sort out the facts myself.

It wasn't only the topic of family conversations that changed, but Mom's behavior, too. The first time she ventured out of character, I was unprepared.

The yelling sounded far away, muffled by layers of sleep. When I finally woke up, the loud noise sounded as if it was next door. Then I realized it was: in Peggy's room. “You disgusting pig. Look at this mess. No wonder he left,” my mother was saying.

I crept out of my room down the hall to Peggy's open door. Light spilled from the bedroom into the darkened hall. Peeking around the doorway, I saw the cluttered floor, covered as usual by clumps of clothes, piles of dirty dishes, and stacks of books and homework papers. Peggy was in bed, halfway sitting up and looking scared. Mom stood over her, disheveled and ranting. She wore one of her flowing nightgowns, filmy material designed for allure, a flimsy cut suggesting sex. Her dirty-blonde hair stuck out in all directions, her face contorted.

Mom reached out to grab Peggy. Peggy eluded her grasp, rolled out of bed to the floor, and then crouched with her hands in front of her body. Mom lunged toward her but tripped, banged her shin against the bedpost, and fell on the bed.

“How could you do this to our family? You selfish bitch. He's not coming back.” Mom started sobbing. The remnants of her mascara smudged her eyes and cheeks with black ink.

I wanted to tell Mom she had it all wrong, that Peggy was just being Peggy, messy maybe, but not a villain. I wanted to put my arm around her and comfort her, but I couldn't move. Her snarling and physical aggression terrified me. She had always been friend, never foe, even when she was angry, but she was crossing into new territory now.

She straightened up. “You pig, clean up this room completely. I've had enough of your slovenliness. Now.” She bent down and picked up a book, flung it at Peggy, but her aim was off, and it thudded harmlessly on the floor.

Peggy kept her expression impassive as she reached for the clothes nearest her and began folding them. Mom watched her briefly and said, “I'll be back shortly and it better be perfect!”

She turned toward the door and saw me. Without a nod or a word or a gesture, she strode past me, her fancy nightgown trailing behind like a train. I caught a whiff of her sour smell as she sailed by. I flinched and recoiled, and felt an immediate burn of shame.

I shuffled into Peggy's room. She glanced at me, eyes brimming,
and turned away. I realized we would not speak of this incident tomorrow, or ever. Half-heartedly, I reached down to pick up some papers from the floor.

Peggy waved me away as she got off the floor and sat on her bed. “She won't be back tonight, don't worry.”

“How do you know?”

“Couldn't you tell? She's drunk.” She saw my shocked expression. “We'll be okay, Ginny. I can deal with her. Don't worry.”

Without my dad at home in those days, life deteriorated further. Mom lost her way. She stopped cooking, cleaning, and organizing on any regular basis. She stayed in bed for entire days, crying or sleeping, leaving Peggy and me to fill in the gaps where we could—making dinner, cleaning up, giving the Littles their baths, and tucking them into bed at night. Our home became a ghost town, with four shadows tiptoeing through, trying to figure out the new lay of the land.

And then, our family imploded.

One night, after we had cooked dinner, eaten with the Littles, and cleaned up afterward, Peggy and I happened upon Mom in the dining room. She sat in Dad's old place at the far end of the table. Her head bobbed gently as she slurred a hello. A depleted liquor bottle teetered in front of her, and her closed fist rested on the table.

Peggy didn't waste a moment. She ran into the room, grabbed Mom's wrist and jerked her hand to open it, but Mom tightened her closed fingers.

“Come on, Ginny, help me.”

Peggy pulled Mom's hand toward me and I grabbed the clenched fingers, trying to pry them open. It took Peggy's and my combined strength to counter Mom's determined clawing, until I finally saw what Peggy had already seen: the prescription vial Mom was gripping like a life preserver. I wrenched it out of her talon-like grip.

“Ugh, Valium and vodka. Get rid of these,” Peggy said.

I didn't have textbook knowledge of the risks associated with downing a giant dose of “mother's little helpers” chased by several shots of alcohol, but I knew enough to be scared. I ran through the French doors separating the dining and living rooms and stopped all the way at the other end of the room at the piano. I scattered the pills among its innards.

“No, you idiot, the toilet!” Peggy said, still battling Mom over the bottle on the table.

Reversing course, I ran into the main entry hall, through the library and jerked open the lid on the toilet in the powder room. As I flushed away the tiny blue rounds of oblivion, the phone rang. I rushed back into the library to answer it.