Page 15 of Little Pieces of Light

Xander

Saturday morning, I dressed in sweatpants and a T-shirt. Underneath, I wore my old athletic tech shorts and tank top that I’d worn for training with my last crew. I’d been too young to row for University of Maryland and had had to find a junior league to keep my skills honed after Langdon.

Dean was waiting for me in the parking lot, where he leaned against the side of an old white Toyota Camry. The September sun was gold and bright, and there was a light breeze. Perfect conditions for being on the water.

“Thanks for meeting me.” I clasped Dean’s hand. “It’s not going to come off as favoritism, will it?”

He snorted a laugh. “You haven’t met Coach Daniels. Poseidon himself could have sent you to row for us, and Coach’d say, I need to see his stroke. How is your stroke, by the way?” he asked as we headed toward the Academy. “And which position are you pulling for ? See what I did there?”

“Bow seat,” I said with an answering grin. “I like to think I’m pretty good. Our crew won a few titles.”

“Sweet!” Dean said. “If I may pour on some more Greek mythology, bow seat is Coach Daniels’s Achilles heel. It requires a special skill set, and he’s always complaining he can never fill it properly.”

“I’ll do my best,” I said as we stepped onto campus. The Academy rose up around us like a white-winged spaceship—enormous and sleek and reeking of wealth. “Rhode Island—and Castle Hill especially—is tiny. Where does the school get all its money?”

“The Richies set up a foundation that pays for everything,” Dean said. “But it’s mostly a few families who make it all happen. We call them the Big Five: Hill, Wallace, Winslow, Foster, and Mercer.”

My mind instantly sparked at hearing Emery’s family name, but I ignored it.

“It feels…extravagant. So many resources for such a small town.”

“Au contraire,” Dean said. “You didn’t know this was a boarding school too?

Richies from all over the country send their spawn to live here year-round.

International students too.” He pointed to a rambling building behind the admin that resembled a castle.

“Behold: Atlas Hall. The most outrageous parties happen there. Lots of music, drugs, sex.” He grinned.

“It’s not my scene, but you know how it is. ”

I did not, in fact, know how it is. I’d never been to a party, but Dean didn’t need to know that. He was friendly now, but I was certain there was a limit to the amount of weirdness he’d tolerate.

We headed toward the center of the Academy and into the gym complex through a set of double doors. Dean grinned. “Prepare to be amazed.”

Castle Hill Academy’s affluence was obvious, but walking into the gym, I realized it was on a whole other level. My jaw dropped.

Dean laughed. “This fucking school, right?”

The gymnasium was shaped like a hexagon, with signage indicating coaches’ offices off the lower sides, and girls’ and boys’ locker rooms off the middle.

In the center of the hexagon, a professional-grade gymnastics floor surrounded by equipment: horizontal and uneven bars, pommel horse, balance beam, rings, vault, and various pits filled with Styrofoam blocks for tumbling practice.

Beyond that, a wall of glass revealed a huge weight room that looked as if it had every piece of exercise equipment known to mankind.

“It gets better,” Dean said and pointed to a passage marked POOLS.

“ Pools , plural?”

“Yep. One for racing and one for water polo. Not to mention ice baths, a hot tub, and a sauna. Past the pools, you’ll find the lacrosse field, and beyond that , the path that will take us to the marina and our own little clubhouse. Just for crew.”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit is right. Aren’t we lucky?” Dean chucked me on the arm. “Come on. Let’s introduce you to Coach Daniels.”

Back outside in the brilliant sunshine, we took the walk down to the Academy marina on Narragansett Bay.

Tryouts for pairs, fours, and singles would be tomorrow.

Today was just for the eights. A bunch of guys were already there, broken into distinct groups: sixteen hopefuls (including me) and four veterans—Tucker Hill among them—who’d likely had been on last year’s team.

The veterans talked, laughed, and gave each other shit.

The newbies stood loosely clumped and silent.

All in all, there were twenty of us competing for first string on the eight-man team.

Dean pointed to a tall, thin man in a windbreaker and visor with a whistle hanging from his neck. “That’s Coach Daniels.”

But there was no time for introductions. The coach, standing with another portlier man, caught sight of Dean and waved him over.

“Yearwood, there you are. A word, please.”

“Break a leg,” Dean said and jogged away.

I joined the hopefuls, and after a moment, Coach clapped his hands and addressed the group.

“All right everyone, let’s get lined up.

I’m your head coach, Bruce Daniels. This is assistant coach, Alan Wright, and this is your cox, Dean Yearwood.

I’ll keep this short. I care about two things: teamwork and excellence.

Every man standing here, regardless of their status last year, has an equal shot at a seat this year. ”

I glanced at Tucker and his friends, arms crossed, nudging each other with their elbows and looking smug. Now that they were seniors, they clearly felt the statement didn’t apply to them.

“Show of hands,” Coach said. “How many of you have never rowed before?”

Of the sixteen newbies, four raised their hands.

Coach frowned. “I sincerely hope you four didn’t decide to give row a try because you thought it might be ‘fun’ without ever having set an oar in the water.”

Judging by the chagrined expressions, that’s exactly what they thought.

Coach went down the line with his clipboard, starting with me. “Name and position?”

“Xander Ford. Bow seat.”

Coach’s eyebrows rose slightly. He moved on while I caught Tucker exchange glances with a lean guy on the team.

Likely, the current bow seat—a role that was less brawn and more technical skill, charged with balance and stability.

They both turned their glare on me. The implication was clear: If I got the job, I’d be kicking his friend off the team.

Off to a great start already.

Coach Daniels finished taking inventory of his hopefuls and addressed the group.

“For those of you who are new to row, I’m going to give you a real quick rundown, and I mean, real quick.

Once the season gets rolling, we’ll get into mechanics, technique, et cetera.

But today, I’m going to be shouting a bunch of commands, and you need to know what the hell I’m talking about and react accordingly. Make sense?”

Nervous, murmured assents from the four newbies.

“Good. The boat is called a shell . The head of your oar is called a blade . How you rotate the oar is called feathering . The catch is when the blade goes into the water. I want to see clean catches. No flailing around. Drive is pulling the oar through the water. Layback is how far you lean while you drive. Got all that? If I call out any adjustments to these terms and you don’t make them, we’re going to have problems. All right, let’s go. ”

I frowned. For the guys here who’d never rowed before, this tryout was over before it began. It was clear that—like everything else at Castle Hill Academy—the only goal was to win. “Having fun” wasn’t on the agenda.

An eight-man shell was tied to the dock, with four oars to a side.

Coach called out names and seats to form a team, each man sitting with their backs to the front (the bow) of the shell, while Dean hunkered down in the stern with his megaphone, facing forward.

It was the job of the coxswain to set the pace, give encouragement, and relay instructions from the coach on race days.

Dean Yearwood—who moved fluidly between social groups—seemed put on this planet to be a coxswain.

The first team, comprised of newbies and veterans, shoved off while the rest of us waited our turn. Coach and the assistant puttered alongside the shell in a motorboat, shouting orders and corrections.

A guy beside me—a veteran—crossed his arms and shook his head. He looked as if he’d stepped out of a magazine: exceedingly handsome with light brown skin and dark eyes and dressed in expensive warm-up gear.

“What a bloody shit show,” he muttered in a British accent.

I nodded. “Agreed.”

It was not going well. Even from the dock, it was clear that the chemistry of the eight guys was completely off.

Some of them couldn’t control their oars, never mind pull in unison.

One actually smacked the guy behind him.

Coach Daniels ordered everyone back to the dock and even watching that laborious journey was painful.

“That was the sloppiest bunch of bladework I’ve ever seen,” Coach said. “Let’s hope the next group does better. Sakes alive, it can only be better than that.”

He started calling names for the next group, including mine and the guy beside me, Orion Mercer.

Orion held out his hand. “That’s me.”

“Xander Ford,” I said, shaking it.

“Let’s give ’em hell, eh, mate?”

I took my seat at the bow of the shell, my back to the open water.

Orion took the number two seat, his back to me.

Tucker Hill and some of the other bigger guys took seats three through six—the “engine room,” from which much of the power and speed was generated.

Once seats seven and eight were filled, Dean put the megaphone to his mouth.

“Let’s do this, gentlemen. Nice and easy.”

Once we’d pulled away from the dock, Dean gave the word.

Blades went into the water, and we all drove back, pushing with our legs against the foot stretchers under the seats in front of us.

Within a few strokes, we’d found our rhythm, moving in time to a digital metronome that Dean controlled to keep us in unison.

No longer eight men, we became a unit, inhaling into the drive, exhaling through the recovery, over and over.

I kept my focus on the middle of Orion’s back, my oar to the left, his to the right.

The water glided under us at an impressive speed.

“That’s it,” Coach called from alongside us. “Rhett, watch your layback. You’re leaning too far. Good timing, Knox. Nice form, Orion.”

Rhett…

I hadn’t recognized him, nor he I, but apparently, I was sharing a shell with the other water balloon bully. Awesome.

The water was smooth but made rougher by the coach’s boat swells—likely on purpose, to see what we could handle. I braced my legs, feet pressing hard into the stretchers, thighs screaming as I pulled to keep the boat set.

“Excellent work, Xander,” Coach called. “Just excellent. Okay, that’s it. I’ve seen enough. Next group.”

Two hours later, after rowing bow seat with various combinations of guys, it was clear no one was better than my first group. Back on land, Coach gathered us around again.

“Some changes coming. I’ll post the final team roster on the gym bulletin on Monday morning. If you’re on it, you’ll get an email with further instructions, such as how to order uniforms, the practice and workout schedule, regatta dates, and the like. Okay? That’s all, gentlemen.”

Then the coaches and Dean huddled, but not before Dean shot me a surreptitious thumbs up.

“Bloody good show,” Orion said, clasping my hand.

“Thanks, but I don’t think the rest of the crew agrees.” I nodded to where Tucker, Rhett—tall and pale with wicked black eyes—and a few of their buddies stood off to the side, muttering to themselves. All of them shot me dark looks.

Orion waved a hand. “We’re the best bow pair of the lot, and they know it. They’ll come around.” He grinned, flashing perfect white teeth. “See you at first practice.”

He joined Tucker and the other guys while I pulled on my sweats and gathered my bag. The guys walked past me, one jostling my shoulder. Hard.

“Don’t worry, Brent,” Tucker said loudly. “Your position is safe. Ford here won’t be able to afford the race goggles, never mind the uniform.”

The group laughed and moved on; I overhead Orion telling them to ease off.

“Teamwork makes the dream work,” I muttered and shouldered my bag, just as Dean jogged to catch up to me.

“Xander, my man! That was the best bow seat action we’ve seen in years. Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Fit in on my own crew?”

Dean slapped my back. “Nah, Tucker’ll come around.”

I doubted it. Because the other thing I couldn’t do was stop thinking about his girlfriend.