should at least know the Old Testament.”
“I’m not a Catholic-Jew. I’m nothing, not even an atheist. Just nothing.”
“Have it your way.” He kissed her neck. “See you later, nothing.”
“Whenever. You better get home. Isn’t it almost time for bed check?”
She knew almost nothing about his girlfriend, not even her name. Some girl he had gone to high school with down inthe Washington suburbs. Probably rich, if she even existed. Sometimes Tess wasn’t sure. If she did exist she might as well get used to Jonathan cheating on her. For a good story Jonathan Ross would crawl in with anybody.
Tess’s Toyota ended up behind Rock’s bicycle on Light Street the next morning. She chased him along Hanover Street and down Waterview to the boat house. The attendant was missing in action again, so Rock unlocked the door with his key.
“Catch you on the flip side,” he said to Tess. To get to the exercise room and the stairs beyond, one had to pass through the men’s or ladies’ locker rooms. Tess threw her keys in an empty locker, stopping to examine her face in the long mirror. Gray, a little puffy under the eyes, as she always was at 6 A.M . Jonathan’s visit hadn’t left any unusual marks. She pushed through the swinging door into the small anteroom, crammed with weights and Concept II ergometers. Rowing machines to laymen. Torture devices to Tess.
Rock was staring out the window to the west.
“Downpour in fifteen minutes,” he said authoritatively, like some movie Indian predicting a herd’s movement by pressing his ear to the ground. Tess thought the clouds were the kind that burned off with the rising sun, but she didn’t care enough to argue.
“Good,” she said. “It’s God’s way of telling me to go back to bed.”
“How about a challenge on the erg? A five-thousand-meter piece?”
“Terms?”
“Breakfast for the one who comes closest to his personal best.”
“Above or below?”
“Right. If I come in ten seconds over my best time, and you’re nine over, you win.”
“Assuming I’d take this bet, what’s your personal best for five thousand? Mine is…twenty-two minutes.”
“You’re such a liar. I was here the day you did sub-twenty-one and threw up on your shoes.”
“OK, twenty-one minutes and thirty seconds for my mark. But don’t forget I’ve seen you do five thousand in eighteen.”
“You’re on.”
Tess set the distance on the erg and strapped her feet into the blocks. Despite her height she had to stretch to reach the wooden pull bar, worn smooth by rowers’ rough hands. The bar was attached to a chain, the chain connected to a large flywheel. She slid the bicycle-like seat to the top of the metal shaft, knees bent, her right arm between her legs, her left arm outside, head down. At Rock’s signal she pulled the bar into her rib cage, sliding back, then up, and the meters started clicking by on the odometer. But as fast as the meters went by, the seconds flew faster.
The erg, unlike most exercise machines, measured how hard one worked, precisely the reason Tess loathed it. Unlike a stair-climber, on which she could lock her arms and spare her legs, or a stationary bike on which she could ease up for a few miles, the erg knew if she was trying. Pull hard and efficiently, and the meters mounted up. A fast stroke rate—the number of pulls per minute—wouldn’t fool the machine, not if there was no power behind the strokes.
The digital readout said her stroke rate was twenty-five per minute, her five hundred-meter time just over 2:10. Tess closed her eyes and settled in this groove, simulating a head race, powering on and off, barely aware of Rock at her side, locked in his own fantasy race. She was on the Chester River now, eyes fixed on the bony spine and white neck of the team’s stroke, Whitney Talbot.
Tess opened her eyes. The first 2,500 meters had clocked in at 9:35, but she knew she could never keep up a sub-twenty-minute pace. She backed
“I’m not a Catholic-Jew. I’m nothing, not even an atheist. Just nothing.”
“Have it your way.” He kissed her neck. “See you later, nothing.”
“Whenever. You better get home. Isn’t it almost time for bed check?”
She knew almost nothing about his girlfriend, not even her name. Some girl he had gone to high school with down inthe Washington suburbs. Probably rich, if she even existed. Sometimes Tess wasn’t sure. If she did exist she might as well get used to Jonathan cheating on her. For a good story Jonathan Ross would crawl in with anybody.
Tess’s Toyota ended up behind Rock’s bicycle on Light Street the next morning. She chased him along Hanover Street and down Waterview to the boat house. The attendant was missing in action again, so Rock unlocked the door with his key.
“Catch you on the flip side,” he said to Tess. To get to the exercise room and the stairs beyond, one had to pass through the men’s or ladies’ locker rooms. Tess threw her keys in an empty locker, stopping to examine her face in the long mirror. Gray, a little puffy under the eyes, as she always was at 6 A.M . Jonathan’s visit hadn’t left any unusual marks. She pushed through the swinging door into the small anteroom, crammed with weights and Concept II ergometers. Rowing machines to laymen. Torture devices to Tess.
Rock was staring out the window to the west.
“Downpour in fifteen minutes,” he said authoritatively, like some movie Indian predicting a herd’s movement by pressing his ear to the ground. Tess thought the clouds were the kind that burned off with the rising sun, but she didn’t care enough to argue.
“Good,” she said. “It’s God’s way of telling me to go back to bed.”
“How about a challenge on the erg? A five-thousand-meter piece?”
“Terms?”
“Breakfast for the one who comes closest to his personal best.”
“Above or below?”
“Right. If I come in ten seconds over my best time, and you’re nine over, you win.”
“Assuming I’d take this bet, what’s your personal best for five thousand? Mine is…twenty-two minutes.”
“You’re such a liar. I was here the day you did sub-twenty-one and threw up on your shoes.”
“OK, twenty-one minutes and thirty seconds for my mark. But don’t forget I’ve seen you do five thousand in eighteen.”
“You’re on.”
Tess set the distance on the erg and strapped her feet into the blocks. Despite her height she had to stretch to reach the wooden pull bar, worn smooth by rowers’ rough hands. The bar was attached to a chain, the chain connected to a large flywheel. She slid the bicycle-like seat to the top of the metal shaft, knees bent, her right arm between her legs, her left arm outside, head down. At Rock’s signal she pulled the bar into her rib cage, sliding back, then up, and the meters started clicking by on the odometer. But as fast as the meters went by, the seconds flew faster.
The erg, unlike most exercise machines, measured how hard one worked, precisely the reason Tess loathed it. Unlike a stair-climber, on which she could lock her arms and spare her legs, or a stationary bike on which she could ease up for a few miles, the erg knew if she was trying. Pull hard and efficiently, and the meters mounted up. A fast stroke rate—the number of pulls per minute—wouldn’t fool the machine, not if there was no power behind the strokes.
The digital readout said her stroke rate was twenty-five per minute, her five hundred-meter time just over 2:10. Tess closed her eyes and settled in this groove, simulating a head race, powering on and off, barely aware of Rock at her side, locked in his own fantasy race. She was on the Chester River now, eyes fixed on the bony spine and white neck of the team’s stroke, Whitney Talbot.
Tess opened her eyes. The first 2,500 meters had clocked in at 9:35, but she knew she could never keep up a sub-twenty-minute pace. She backed
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