Parallel

the wooden pew, letting the music and the darkness envelope me. He finds my hand and squeezes it. Neither of us lets go.

6
    THERE
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2008
(opening night for my mom’s exhibit)
    “There are a couple of calls you need to know before you get on the water,” she tells me, pulling her blond curls into a ponytail. We’re sitting side by side on a picnic table near the river’s edge, watching the rowers run laps around the boathouse. “You obviously shouldn’t push off until everyone is ready, so your first call will always be ‘number off from bow.’ The bowman will call, “Bow!” and then the rest of the rowers will shout out their seat numbers. Once you hear ‘stroke,’ check to see that it’s clear, then push off.”
    “Number off from bow,” I repeat. Does it matter that I don’t know who the bowman is?
    Turns out the smiley blond girl from astronomy (whose name I now know is Megan) is a coxswain for Brookside’s crew team. I didn’t even know what a coxswain was until three days ago when Josh told me the crew team was looking for one and suggested that my gimp foot and I would be perfect for the job. They needed a coxswain, and I needed a varsity sport for my Northwestern application. Lacking other options, I decided to give it a shot. The coach was so elated that he didn’t even make me try out. Say hello to the newest member of the Brookside crew team.
    I’m making an effort to stay positive—about this and everything else. The effort is necessary, because without it I succumb to sulking and pouting and generally feeling sorry for myself, which isn’t the way I normally react to setbacks, but appears to be my default response to this one. For the first couple of days, I moped around like Eeyore, stuck under a giant cloud of gloom, until Caitlin finally shook me out of it (literally, took me by the shoulders and shook me, practically giving me whiplash in the process).
    “I know it’s a lot to take in,” Megan is saying. “But you’re doing really great for your first day.” She smiles encouragingly. “Before you leave, I’ll give you a handout that lists all the calls with a little picture that tells you when to use them.”
    “That’d be awesome,” I say with a grateful smile. “Thanks.”
    “I’m the one who should be thanking you !” she gushes. “Because we only had one cox for the men’s team—me—Coach had to split practice so I could run both boats. I had no life.” She leans back on her elbows, arching her back to let the sun hit her face.
    How can such a small girl have such big boobs?
    “How long have you been on the team?” I ask. “I didn’t even know we had one until I met Josh.”
    “He’s great, isn’t he?” Megan says, flashing a smile at Josh as he runs past us. He returns her smile, then waves at me. “Are y’all a couple?”
    “Oh—no,” I say quickly, shaking my head. “Just friends.” In reality, I’m not sure you can even call us that. We haven’t hung out outside school since the night I hurt my foot. And we don’t really hang out at school, either. The polite “Hey!” we lob at each other across the room during fifth period is pretty much the extent of our social interaction. His suggestion that I join the crew team was the longest conversation we’d had since Ilana’s party, and it was only two sentences long. How pathetic is it that talking to him was the highlight of my week? Fortunately, I’ve been doing a better job of keeping my feelings to myself. I’ve been polite but aloof. No more stalkerish staring in astronomy. No more asking him out. If there’s gonna be a next move, it’ll have to come from him.
    So far he hasn’t made one.
    Caitlin thinks I secretly like the fact that Josh is so enigmatic. That the uncertainty keeps it interesting. It does, but that’s not why I find him so appealing. I like him because when he’s around, I feel really, really awake, like I’ve just drunk a Venti Red-Eye and chased it with Red Bull. It’s not an adrenaline rush, exactly (the boy wears crew socks with loafers), it’s just that when he’s around—even if he’s on the other side of the room and not paying any attention to me—I stop thinking about all the things I normally obsess over, i.e., the Things That Matter: my grades, my college applications, my future, my Plan. When Josh is there, wherever “there” is, the only moment that matters is the present one. The rest of it just falls away.
    “So