Chapter Eight
Eight
After I’m berated for “using club property without permission,” Adrian starts locking the bay doors when his team gets on the water.
In answer, I start pacing the shoreline until I can pepper my so-called coach with questions, like: “When will you release me from this purgatory?” and “Is this some kind of conspiracy to tank my performance?” and “Are you secretly a Canadian plant?”
My questions barely faze him. In fact, they seem to fuel his resolve.
I don’t know what happened to the enthusiastic smiles and kind words.
Now, he’s all crossed arms and wordless shoulder shrugs.
He even snorted when I asked him about being a Canadian plant.
Snorted. He then retorted that the Canadians are winning plenty of medals without an ounce of his help.
Frankly, I find this offensive given that I have to beat one of them to get my damn life back.
I’ve spent hours hatching a plan to break into the boathouse, heist-style.
Most of the windows are firmly locked or, I don’t know, sealed shut with grime and dust, but there’s a possibility I can scale the wood siding and get in through one of the small ones up high.
Yet, after picturing myself getting stuck like Winnie the Pooh, resulting in a broken ankle or, even worse, a rescue from Adrian, I shoot down the idea.
Instead, I manage to convince Peter—the serious kid with the glasses—to leave a set of dumbbells outside the weight room so I can do weighted lunges. This earns me my second reprimand from Adrian, who’s all scowls and finger pointing as he wrests “East Bay Rowing property” out of my hands.
“You said I can get back to strength training!” I protest as I relinquish the dumbbells. “Today!”
“I said,” Adrian growls as he hoists them onto a shoulder, “that I would consider letting you join us for the weight room session this afternoon. The one I have programmed. Where I will be present. But now you’ll have to wait until tomorrow at least.”
“WHAT?” I scream at his tight shoulders as he strides away. Adrian keeps saying stuff about “mental health” and “emotional bandwidth” but never acknowledges this actual torture he’s putting me through. “What about a racing shell? When do I get one of those?”
He points a finger toward the road. “Get some rest, Parker. Have some fun.”
Terrified he’ll add yet more time to my sentence, I stop stalking the bays.
Instead, I stalk his office.
At the very least, I argue, he should let me read his training program.
Ostensibly, I’ll be doing this program for the next two months and I need to mentally prepare.
After much cajoling, Adrian begrudgingly agrees to give me an hour with it and forks over a stack of papers.
This is the first red flag. Back home, my programs are on electronic spreadsheets where they belong.
With raised eyebrows, I heft the jumbled pile to the team lounge and prop myself on one of the faded couches.
My eyebrows climb into my hairline as I keep reading.
Adrian’s program isn’t a “program” so much as it is a Choose Your Own Adventure novel.
The sheets are littered with a wild array of matrices, printed text, and handwriting in different colored pens.
Big sections have been scratched out with ugly slashes and replaced with nearly nonsensical scribbles.
Plan A’s and B’s and C’s abound. There are decision trees scrawled in margins and contingencies mentioned on every other page.
It’s all so indecipherable that I give up, trudge back upstairs, and ask Adrian to translate.
With that enigmatic smile, he tells me he’s happy to answer any specific questions, but ultimately, I shouldn’t get too “wedded” to any single approach because he might decide later to “adapt” the program as needs arise.
“Adapt,” I say, dripping with skepticism. “A training plan is a plan. It’s based on analysis and evidence. You can’t change it because you feel like it. That’s called winging it.”
He lifts a shoulder like my entire future isn’t riding on the next sixty days. “I prefer to call it ‘intuition.’ ”
“Intuition. Whose? Yours?”
“Yes.” He leans forward, arms crossed on his desk. “And half my team went to Youth Nationals last year, so the proof is in the pudding. Time’s up, by the way.”
I bottle up a scream and power walk home, stomping with every step, but avoid an actual jog lest I fail another one of Adrian’s resting heart rate tests.
When I careen through the door, Mom makes a whispered suggestion that I should try one of her yoga classes for relaxation.
I tell her I’m in no mood for chanting, then cloister myself in my room and stare at the Olympic rings on my ceiling, feeling farther from my dreams than I have in years.
. . .
“It can’t have been that bad,” Sofi says through my phone, which is leaning against a shampoo bottle.
I’m sitting on a shaggy mat attempting to turn Mom’s claw-foot bathtub into a cold plunge.
If I were in the training center, Sofi and I would be sitting in adjacent tubs, as we do every day after strength training.
Here in Berkeley, I have nothing but a bucket of ice, a meat thermometer, and simmering rage over my first official workout with Adrian.
“Yeah, it was worse,” I say as I tip another handful of cubes into the already icy surface. “Remind me what temperature it’s supposed to be?”
Sofi sucks in a breath through her teeth, then wades across her sleek, stainless steel contraption held at a constant temperature with a continuous filtration system. She peers at the LED display.
“We’re at fifty-one degrees.”
I glare at my meat thermometer. “Crap. I’m at fifty-four.”
“That should be fine.”
“There are studies on this.” I shovel another few handfuls of ice into the tub. “The temperature needs to be precise.”
Sofi balloons her cheeks as she settles back. “I’m only here because Carla thinks it builds character.”
“Not what I said.” Carla’s voice floats in from the background.
Sofi waves her off. I’m pretty sure she’s the only one with the confidence to tease our coach. To her face, anyway.
“Carla’s there?” I whisper.
Sofi angles her phone so I can see. Carla seems to be dispatching advice to one of Sofi’s teammates.
Oh, the irony of missing that woman. I always knew I loved the training center, but I never appreciated how good I had it until now.
Real, consistent training programs printed out and pinned to a bulletin board?
Specific metrics and predetermined goals?
A rowing coach who actually lets me row?
Heaven.
The pair disappear as Sofi sweeps back into view, tugging at her red bathing suit strap to keep it from falling off her shoulder. “So, why exactly was the first practice such a disaster?”
“First of all, it wasn’t even practice,” I grind out.
My tub has now reached fifty-one degrees.
I dip a foot into the icy surface. Cold slingshots up my leg.
I let out an involuntary hiss. When I get myself under control, I stick the next foot in.
“It was strength training because Adrian hasn’t deemed me worthy of anything else.
And, second, he wouldn’t let me do the right number of sets. ”
For some reason I couldn’t fathom, Adrian told me to stop after four sets of squats, instead of the typical six I do during the on-season. But I still felt good enough not just to keep going, but even to add another couple of plates to my barbell.
“Cut it out, Parker,” Adrian growled from across the room, even though his eyes were glued downward as he spotted Peter on the bench press.
I glared at him from over the bar, thoughts seething.
He never does this dictator routine with any of his kids.
As he cued Rohan on his triceps extensions, he joked about his advice even as he dispatched it.
With Peter, he squatted to meet him at eye level and coaxed him through his final reps.
When another guy slipped off the pull-up bar and nearly ate it on the rubber mats, Adrian helped him up, drew him aside, and gave him a pep talk about falling that sounded like it was copied straight off a motivational poster.
So, it’s just me that gets domineering Adrian.
Of course.
Adrian turned to cue a kid on the bench row. With his back turned, I racked my weight, curled my fingers around the coarse grips, and dropped below the bar to start my sixth set.
“Parker!” Adrian’s voice bit out over the clangs of iron and thuds of barbells against wood. “Don’t you do it.”
I cursed under my breath before glowering at him.
He scowled right back with equal obstinance—all the gentleness that he’d just been administering to his young athletes evaporated.
Still, I didn’t let go. I’ve researched this.
I’ve done the repetition maximum tests and calculated the right load coefficients factors.
I do six sets because of science and evidence, not winging it.
“I always do six,” I bit back.
“Today you’re doing five.”
I tensed my shoulders and lifted the bar off its hooks. Adrian flew across the room, landing in front of me. Eyes burning, he pressed his hands on either side of my barbell, hemming me between his arms. Then he pushed backward until I heard a click of metal on metal.
I stared up at him defiantly, neck still pressed to the cool bar.
The proximity of him, the way his body seemed to engulf mine…
With him this close, I could even smell him—all sandalwood, and citrus, and opinions.
On either side of my shoulders, Adrian rolled his hands against the grips, as though fixing the bar—and me—in place.
“Enough,” he growled. “That’s enough.”
My heart thudded, low in my chest, and heat spread up my neck.
Around us, the clangs and thuds of an active weight room quieted. Dozens of pairs of eyes descended on my squat rack. With another frown, I released the bar and stepped back, extricating myself from Adrian’s overwhelming nearness.
He exhaled, and it sounded almost like relief, then spun around. “Back to work, boys!”
“You sure this is about the squats?” Sofi asks from her perch at the edge of the tub.
“What’s that mean?” My teeth involuntarily chatter again. I glance at my timer. Still nine minutes to go, which sounds shorter than it’ll feel.
Sofi’s eyes get closer to the screen, like she’s trying to inspect me through the tiny window. “You’re more agitated than usual. And that’s saying something.”
“I’m agitated,” I say, pivoting to avoid her scrutinizing gaze and so I can scoop up one of my hard-boiled eggs from the Tupperware on the bathroom tiles, “because I have to beat the Canadian to get my life back and the person who is supposed to be helping me do that is holding me back instead.”
“Hmm,” she says, leaning yet closer. I can barely see anything but one of her brown eyes. “Or you’re feeling embarrassed about the dance floor incident, but that emotion makes you uncomfortable so you’re channeling it into rage instead.”
I narrow my eyes. Sofi might be my best friend, but I still hate that she witnessed that moment. No one should have seen that because it never should have happened in the first place. “I’m not.”
She nods like I just agreed with her. “Right, so it’s both, then. And maybe some repressed attraction?”
I fight a sigh, which quickly turns into a shudder. “I am not repressing attraction. Adrian is my coach. Besides, I don’t have any attraction to repress.”
“Yeah. Right, totally,” Sofi says. “It’s probably also why you kept yourself a respectful distance away from Citrus Adonis on the dance floor.”
“Citrus Adonis?”
She fights a grin. “You don’t like that? I’ve got more. Hunk o’ Lemon? Tarty Squeeze?”
I bite off half an egg and roll my eyes aggressively enough that she can see me do it. “Can we talk about you now? Surely you have some emotional wounds we can pick at instead.”
Her gaze pings around her med center room before she pinches the bridge of her nose.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, realizing I’ve elicited more consternation than expected.
“It’s just…Missy melted down after practice this morning because she feels like the boat isn’t ‘respecting her calls,’ but that led to a huge fight with everyone about how emotionally she responds when things aren’t going her way and I, of course, ended up in the middle when I tried to talk everyone down. Now I’m lightheaded and fed up.”
“That’s frustrating,” I say, genuinely sympathetic. Every time something like this happens with Sofi’s team, I feel grateful I have only my own drama to deal with. “How are things now?”
She puffs her cheeks as she resettles into her seat. “Fine, I guess. Missy apologized for her outburst, but it’s been an hour since I left her room and I’m still dizzy.”
“Yeah? When’s the last time you ate?”
She regards me skeptically. “You’ve only been home for a few days. How have you already turned into your mom?”
I laugh darkly. “Well, first off, you’re thinking of anyone else’s mom, not mine. But second off, I always bring eggs and bananas to our afternoon cold plunges”—I lift the banana peel that I dropped on the floor earlier—“and you’re both lightheaded and empty-handed.”
She balks. “Will you be mad if I admit that I haven’t eaten since second breakfast?”
I sigh. “I’ll text you tomorrow to remind you of our snacking times.”
“And to think people call you overbearing.”
“Those people should meet my new coach.”
She guffaws before shaking her head. “You know, you could try his method. To see if it works.”
“I can’t afford to experiment right now. I’ve lost days and I have no idea how much longer this is going to go on. I’m considering quitting the whole thing.”
“Quitting what whole thing?”
I wrap my hands around my triceps as though it will do something to dispel the deep chill.
“Training with Adrian. Or not training with Adrian, as the case may be. The kids are more of a distraction than a pacing help, anyway, so I might as well get on the water alone. I can talk to the boathouse’s equipment manager to get a permanent loaner shell and then make my own program. ”
Sofi’s eyes drag between me and something off-screen. “You sure that’s a good idea? Wouldn’t you want to talk it over with Carla first?”
I open my mouth to retort something very acerbic and convincing about how I shouldn’t have to loop Carla into my plans when she’s cut me out of all of hers, but Sofi grimaces. My stomach sinks.
“She’s listening, isn’t she?” I ask.
Sofi nods.
I lean back and instantly regret the way the cold water sends another shiver up my spine.
From the background a voice bites out, “Let me talk to Kath.”