Lessons in Chemistry(27)

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—

He’d long ago decided that he was a jinx and he had solid proof: every person he’d ever loved had died, always in a freak accident. The only way to put an end to this deadly pattern was to put an end to love. And he had. But then he’d met Elizabeth and, without meaning to, had stupidly and selfishly gone on to love again. Now here she was, standing directly in line of his jinx fire.

As a chemist, he realized his fixation on jinxes was not at all scientific; it was superstitious. Well, so be it. Life wasn’t a hypothesis one could test and retest without consequence—something always crashed eventually. Thus he was constantly on the lookout for things that posed a threat to her, and as of this morning, that thing was rowing.

They’d flipped the pair yet again—his fault—and for the very first time, they’d ended up in the water on the same side of the boat and he’d made a terrifying discovery: she couldn’t swim. By the looks of her panicked dog paddle, she’d never had a swim lesson in her life.

That’s why, while Elizabeth was off in the bathroom at the boathouse, he and Six-Thirty had approached the men’s team captain, Dr. Mason. It was bad-weather season: if he and Elizabeth were going to continue to row—she actually wanted to—it was best to be in an eight. Safer. Plus, if the eight did flip—unlikely—there’d be that many more people to save her. Anyway, Mason had been trying to recruit him for more than three years; it was worth a shot.

“What do you think?” he’d asked Mason. “You’d have to take both of us, though.”

“A woman in a men’s eight?” Dr. Mason had said, readjusting his cap over his crew cut. He’d been a marine and hated it. But he’d kept the hairstyle.

“She’s good,” Calvin said. “Very tough.”

Mason nodded. These days he was an obstetrician. He already knew how tough women could be. Still, a woman? How could that possibly work?

“Hey, guess what,” Calvin told Elizabeth a minute later. “The men’s team really wants both of us to row in their eight today.”

“Really?” Her goal had always been to join an eight. The eights rarely seemed to flip. She’d never told Calvin she couldn’t swim. Why worry him?

“The team captain approached me just now. He’s seen you row,” he said. “He knows talent when he sees it.”

From below, Six-Thirty exhaled. Lies, lies, and more lies.

“When do we start?”

“Now.”

“Now?” She felt a jolt of panic. While she’d wanted to row in an eight, she also knew the eight required a level of synchronization she had not yet mastered. When a boat succeeds, it’s because the people in the boat have managed to set aside their petty differences and physical discrepancies and row as one. Perfect harmony—that was the goal. She’d once overheard Calvin telling someone at the boathouse that his Cambridge coach insisted that they even blink at the same time. To her surprise the guy nodded. “We had to file our toenails to the same length. Made a huge difference.”

“You’ll be rowing two seat,” he said.

“Great,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice the violent shake in her hands.

“The coxswain will call out commands; you’ll be fine. Just watch the blade in front of you. And whatever you do, don’t look out of the boat.”

“Wait. How can I watch the blade in front of me if I don’t look out of the boat?”

“Just don’t do it,” he warned. “Throws off the set.”

“But—”

“And relax.”

“I—”

“Hands on!” yelled the coxswain.

“Don’t worry,” Calvin said. “You’ll be fine.”



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Elizabeth once read that 98 percent of the things people worry about never come true. But what, she wondered, about the 2 percent that do? And who came up with that figure? Two percent seemed suspiciously low. She’d believe 10 percent—even 20. In her own life it was probably closer to 50. She really didn’t want to worry about this row, but she was. Fifty percent chance she was going to blow it.

As they carried the boat to the dock in the dark, the man in front of her glanced over his shoulder as if to try to understand why the guy who usually rowed two seat seemed smaller.

“Elizabeth Zott,” she said.

“No talking!” shouted the coxswain.

“Who?” asked the man suspiciously.

“I’m rowing two seat today.”

“Quiet back there!” the coxswain yelled.

“Two seat?” the man whispered incredulously. “You’re rowing two seat?”

“Is there a problem?” Elizabeth hissed back.



* * *



—

“You were great!” Calvin shouted two hours later, pounding on the car’s steering wheel with such excitement that Six-Thirty worried they might crash before they reached home. “Everyone thought so!”

“Who’s everyone?” Elizabeth said. “No one said a single word to me.”

“Oh, well, you only hear from the other rowers when they’re pissed. The point is, we’re in the lineup for Wednesday.” He smiled, triumphant. Saved her again—first at work and now this. Maybe this was the way one ended a jinx—by taking secret but sensible precautions.