This was early, even by crew standards, but St. Augustine's College boathouse was at least an hour away and S wanted them there with hours to spare.
Alison wanted to get to the van with time to spare as well. No matter what Beth had told her, Alison doesn't trust Sarah to just GIVE OVER her seat up front. Best to just get there first and claim it fair and square.
So when Beth pulls up with the women's team van- a white, 16 passenger monstrosity that has definitely seen better days- that's exactly what she does. Alison tosses her bag and coxbox in first before climbing up to take her seat.
" 'Morning Ali," Beth says, smiling slowly.
"Good morning," Alison replies, savoring the way her name sounds on Beth's lips. It's 3:30am and Beth's voice is still husky from sleep. Alison realizes it's possible that those are the first words Beth's spoken today and something about that- about Alison's name being the first thing Beth says in a day- rocks her to the core. It's intimate, but like all moments it ends- this time interrupted as Sarah climbs in the back of the van.
"Oi! For real Childs? Don't you two spend enough time sitting next to each other, making googily eyes in the boat?- Why you gotta give up my seat in the van too?"
"Hey, she called it and got there first," Beth shrugs. "Besides, it's not so bad in the back. I hear Stubbs is looking talk about some new theorem she came up with for one of her physics classes. Something about particle annihilation velocity angle... I can't remember- but it sounds right up your alley..." Beth grins in the rear view mirror.
"Toast Childs. Right after racing season is over, you're toast..." Sarah grumbles but takes a seat in the 3 row, all the way in the back, as the rest of the rowers pile in.
It's not long until they're on the road. It's pitch black out and all Alison can see is the finite distance ahead illuminated by the headlamps. It's eerily quiet outside and eerily quiet in the van as well. It's going to be a long boring drive at this rate, she thinks. Alison reaches for the radio to cut the silence but Beth stops her- laying a hand on hers as she reaches for the dial.
"Bit too early for music," Beth says, glancing from the road briefly to meet Alison's eyes.
"Really?" Alison chuckles, still looking at Beth but distracted by the hand still atop her own. "It's never too early for music, at least in my opinion."
Beth removes her hand, still staring straight at the road. "Fair enough, but I'm driving, and I say no radio yet."
Alison drops her hand from the nob, slightly miffed but not deterred. It's still quiet, but she's determined to change that. She turns around to face the rest of the van. "Hey, so what kinds of calls do you guys like best during a race?" she poses the question to her teammates.
"Ooo what a wonderful question! Well, personally, I really appreciate when-"
"Shut up Stubbs! This is important!" Sarah interrupts. The other girl shrugs, smiles, and goes back to the text book she's reading.
"Me, I like to be yelled at," Sarah continues. "If you were allowed to swear, I'd want you to scream at us. Degrading, disparaging, drill sergeant type of shite, yeah? It really gets me going…"
"Hey Sarah, it's all well and good you're telling us about your sex life, but she asked about coxing calls!" Beth teases from the driver's seat.
"If you weren't driving…" Sarah growls back at Beth, but there's a smirk on her lips.
"I like crisp power-10 calls. A different focus each time." Rachel adds lightly, pausing to look up from her tablet. "And please do annunciate. Sloppy calls equate to sloppy catches…"
"Hey Childs, maybe your joke about coxing and sex preferences does translate!" Sarah leers. "Can't you just see Rachel now, in the middle of shaggin' and she's all like 'Yes, power ten for strong finishes- And please don't be late. It is so irksome when you're late'…" Sarah's impression of Rachel's posh accent is spot on, the rest of the team roars with laughter.
Rachel simply rolls her eyes and mutters what Alison thinks is a low string of obscenities, before returning to her iPad.
"Was it something I said?" Sarah smiles. "Childs- what about you. You're stroke seat, so you should probably weigh in. What should our fair coxswain say to really get you going?"
Beth simply shrugs, "I'm happy with anything that moves the boat. If it's something that gets everyone to work their hardest, I'm good."
"Oh Come on! We're having a good discussion here about what everyone wants in bed- I mean the boat! " She chuckles. "I'm sure you have a favorite…"
Beth simply shrugs again, and Sarah backs off, not getting the kind of reaction she wants.
The van, and the girls in the front seat slip into silence once more and Alison's mind drifts. Her gaze drifts a bit to her left as well, and falls on Beth's hands. One grips the steering wheel, the other is casually draped over the arm rest. Alison thinks about those hands, how they're rough and strong, but deft and delicate too.
The heater in the van is going and the warmth and silence blanket her and make her eyelids heavy. She thinks about what those hands would look like on her. One hand grasping her own, the other casually draped over her stomach. She relaxes further in her seat and for once, she allows herself the indulgence of not resisting her own consciousness. She lets her mind wander further to a scene- a Sunday morning. Sunday morning in some other world- where she would wake up to find Beth asleep curled up to her. Alison would be reading the paper in bed quietly until the rustling stirs Beth, who raises her head. "Morning Ali," she'd say, her voice husky from sleep like this morning...
Only a short time passes before Alison drops off to sleep with a smile on her face. She doesn't bother wondering how it was she's gone from never thinking about having a girlfriend to imagining them together on a Sunday morning. Instead, she wonders exactly what would have to happen for her to be able to visit that world when she was awake too.
"Ali, we're here…"
Waking up she has to take a moment to reorganize herself. "Oh…" she yawns, rubbing her eyes.
Beth grins, "Yeah, time to rise and shine. And be glad I didn't let Sarah wake you up. She wanted to dump her water bottle on you."
Both girls exit the van and begin walking towards where the team was set up.
"You know, I don't believe you for a second you know," Alison states, jumping in and restarting the conversation they'd left off an hour earlier.
"Don't believe what?"
"I don't believe you don't have specific coxing calls you favor over others."
"Oh really?"
"Yes. What I don't understand is why you wouldn't tell me. Sarah's right- you're the stroke seat. And besides that, I know you Beth. You're super competitive and you live and breathe rowing. You MUST have favorite calls…" Alison's surprised at her own insistence. Part of her knows that it's more the idea of Beth keeping something from her, than a deep desire to know the rower's preference for something so mundane, that is gnawing at her.
Beth raises an eyebrow also at Alison's insistence. "Well, I mean… yeah. I do. Sort of."
"Well you're going to share those sort of favorites then. If there's anything I can do to help us all win, I want to do it."
Beth chuckles as they arrive at the trailer site. She grabs a bin of seats and the two walk to the boat to put them on. "You're awfully enthusiastic. You've come a long way from 'I'm not sure crew is right for me'…"
"Yes well…I guess you can say, even though it's only been a short while, I've sort of… fallen for it." Alison blushes and it takes all she has to look Beth straight in the eyes. Purposeful in doing so.
Beth blinks and furrows her brow a bit. "Fallen…for rowing?"
And you. AND YOU. The words are there. On the tip of her tongue, but she swallows them. "Yes, for rowing."
"Oh."
Oh? Just Oh?
Alison can't tell if Beth looks relieved or disappointed. Feeling like she may have gone off track, she backs up a bit. "Uh- yes. Yes. So how about those favorite calls you were going to share?'
Beth walks around the other side of the boat now, facing Alison and putting in one seat at a time. "Well, it's not so much what is said, but how it's said, really…"
"What do you mean?"
Beth bites her lip and her eyes leave Alison's dipping down and keeping busy at the task at hand. "Well, I want fire. I want to… to hear someone wanting what they're asking for, you know? It doesn't matter if it's a power 10 or crisp catches, or a sprint or what- I just want to hear whoever's calling it want it so bad they make me want it too. Passion, you know? Fire. Nothing's worse than a blasé coxswain. It's like, don't ask me for something- DEMAND it. TAKE it. I want it to sound like if don't get those next few strokes, if you don't see us give it all up those next few moments, you'll just die…" Beth finally meets Alison's eyes again. "Does that make sense? You know that feeling I'm talking about?"
Alison nods. She nods because she's not exactly sure what will come out of her mouth if she opens it.
There's little time to dwell on it either- Coach S walks up to the pair, and addresses Alison. "Come now Love, we have to go to the coxswain's meeting." Alison moves to say something to Beth, but thinks better of it. Not now, later. Later. And she falls in line behind S.
Beth had told her previously that during official regattas the coxswain meeting was a time for the officials to go through the course map with all coxswains, letting them know about traffic patterns, starting procedures and everything else...
This only being a "friendly" scrimmage meant that the coxswain meeting wasn't quite as official. As far as Alison could tell it seemed to be little more than an opportunity for Coach S and Ms. Bowles (the St. Augustine's coach) exchanging barbs. It makes Alison wonder if Beth's theory about them might actually hold water.
"You're looking well Marion," S intones. "Is Sheep still treating you well?"
"Shepard- my HUSBAND- is doing well, thank you for asking. I can only hope you find someone as lovely. About time for you to settle down, don't you think? I'd hate to think of you as some lonely old lady with nothing but your precious records to keep you company..."
"I think we both know that me finding someone isn't a problem. But unlike you, I'm not about to settle for anyone or anything..."
The two stare at each other for a full minute, looking like both contemplating homicide, before Alison jumps in, extending her hand to Mrs. Bowles "Hi, I'm Alison. I'm the new coxswain for our team..." Alison was used to adults behaving badly. She often had to smooth things over at her mother's cocktail parties when inebriated guests had their middle-aged egos bruised and we looking to start an argument.
Alison's interjection seemed to break the spell a bit, as Marion snaps her attention back to Alison. "Oh of course. And this-" she waved a small girl over, who Alison hadn't even noticed until this point, "-is my daughter Charlotte."
Daughter? Alison thought.
"Daughter?" Coach S asked, as if reading Alison's thoughts. "Is she old enough to be coxing for your team? College already?"
"Yes. She is. We adopted her, and she skipped a few grades. This is her first year at St. Augustine's."
Coach S appraises her for a moment. The girl did look very young, or at least quite small. She had dark brunette hair that hung loose halfway down her back, and dark eyes like she knew more than she saying. Coach S nods, accepting the explanation, and Coach Bowles continues on and explains the course and race.
Alison learns which lane she'll be in and that St. Augustine will be racing not one, but two boats in their race: Their A Boat and B Boat. She also learns that Charlotte will be coxing the A boat.
By the time she and S get back to their trailer, the men's team has already launched for their race and the rest of the women's rowers are just returning from a warm-up run. Alison frowns, she wanted to wish Ramon good luck- I guess for now I'll just a have to focus on my own luck.
Beth gathers the rowers around quickly. "Alright ladies- it's go time! Everybody in uniforms and hands on the boat..."
"Uniforms?" Alison asks as Beth begins shucking off layers.
She doesn't have to wonder for long. Rowers remove the sweatshirts and track pants from the early morning, stripping down to what looked like one piece wrestling singlet.
"Yeah," Beth grumbles, stripped down to spandex herself. "Like 'em? They're terrible. Racing Uni... whoever came up with these can just eat it as far as I'm concerned. It always makes me feel like a cased sausage..."
Alison can help but run her eyes up and down Beth quickly. The spandex left nothing to the imagination, clinging to toned muscles that Alison wagers were ready to explode into action at a moment's notice. She clears her throat, looking away a moment before adding, "I don't think you look like a 'cased sausage' at all..." When lifts her gaze again, Beth is smirking.
"Thanks Ali."
"I don't, um, need to have one right?" She asks, feeling like coxing would be hard enough to do fully clothed, and feared she wouldn't fair looking quite as good in the revealing clothing.
"Not this time. But, you should wear this," Beth says, handing over her varsity jacket, "Dyad University Rowing" big and bold on the back.
"Oh, perfect," Alison slips it over her head. It's still warm from Beth.
"Childs! You can give her your pin and ask her to prom later!" Sarah jokes from where their boat sat in slings. "We have a race to get to!"
"Shut up Sarah!" Beth smiles, before returning attention to Alison. "She's right though. We should go. But listen..." Beth starts, taking a deep breath. "Just know that you have this. I've never seen someone take to coxing and this sport so fast. You're a natural. Just remember- we're chaos. We're the power behind the storm and you're job is to control it. Your job is to harness it, tell us what to do and then ask for more. Bring the FIRE, Ali. You're going to be awesome."
Beth moves towards the boat but stops suddenly. "Oh, and don't forget these." She takes the aviator sunglasses off her head, and carefully places them onto Alison's face. Alison watches through blue tinted glass as Beth takes a step back and appraises.
"Yup," Beth grins. "Total Badass. Now let's kick some ass."