The day of the race on the Schuylkill was eights and geese and nervous girls. Rambo’s jacket carried the giant T for St. Timothy’s in gray on her back. Eight oars in unison moved the boat away from the Canoe Club dock. The knock of the blades turning in the oarlocks added a regular beat to the geese honking in the boat wakes.
You were downstream. You were there under the water that flowed from where I stood to wherever your body was. You were somewhere on this river where we sprinted against Penn in ’81. I looked for you on the docks that bounced with each girl’s steps, in the launches packed with referees, on the riverbanks where cattails turned from brown to gray. I couldn’t find you.
There was nothing I could do any more.
The T on Rambo’s back got smaller, and she turned the boat upstream. Even at this distance, I saw three and four seat were not parallel to the other backs.
Down the ramp, an eight came black and wobbly. The cox’n kept one hand on the bow ball. I waited at the bottom of the ramp. Behind the eight, carried by our rival school, Warrenton, came Crisco, Cris Copeland. Tall like an elm, she paused at the top of the ramp. She looked at the river and took in current and wind and wakes. Her baseball cap was a silhouette against the gray clouds. She didn’t look at her crew until her cox’n yelled, “Way enough,” and the girls took too many steps with the eight on their shoulders.
Crisco’s steps down the ramp were loud on the metal. She said, “Back two steps.” The girls stepped back. Crisco walked under the shell, put hands on each gunwale. Her cox’n gave the commands to lift, and the boat rose up over their heads. Crisco couldn’t extend her arms fully or she would lift the boat out of reach of the girls. She was six foot, two inches, and one of the strongest women on the National Team. We had rowed together for a season, she at six seat, me at five. For a season, I read her back.
At the start of a race, her back was short sentences and fear, a child in the face of a father’s rage. In the middle 1,000 meters, her back was graffiti and living on the street, straight As in high school. In the last 500 meters, her back beat the songs played in every lesbian bar, “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Nothing stopped that back.
Crisco watched her crew get their oars, take off windshirts, and toss them on the dock. I walked up behind her, and with both hands, tugged her sweats down. They dropped a couple of inches and stuck. She spun around.
“Hey, Crisco,” I said. She spun around partway, enough to lean down and wrap one arm around my waist. With one swift motion, she flipped me upside down. In front of her girls and everyone else on the dock, Crisco picked me up like a salt shaker and shook me upside down.
My feet in the air, my hands hitting the dock, my head came close to wet wood. I smelled rot.
“Alta,” she said, “how’s the view, you rascal?”
“Crisco,” I said. The blood pooled in my forehead. “Don’t make me hurt you.”
“Oh yeah, like you could.”
“Ladies,” the dockmaster said, “don’t do that.” A man with a Henley Royal cap, blue jacket, clipboard, and bullhorn, looked down his glasses at us.
Crisco shifted me to her right hip, then bent her waist enough for me to get my feet and hands on the dock. My butt was in the air, but then I folded into a kneeling position before her, sat back on my sneakers, and laughed. Crisco’s big buttery face, with her wide cheeks, broad forehead, and blue eyes, was summer in the middle of October.
“Coach Co,” her cox’n said, “we’re ready.” The girl came to Crisco’s waist and looked more like a blueberry with all the clothes she wore. The girls sitting in the rowing shell were sunflowers in October turning to Crisco.
“Okay, Wolverines,” Crisco said, “this is it. Stay long. Stay connected. For heaven’s sake, stay in front of St. Timothy’s.” The girls looked from their coach to me, obvious in my maroon and gray windshirt.
Since they had won last year, and St. Tim’s hadn’t, our start time was after theirs. The boats went off every twenty seconds, and the goal was to pass as many boats as possible. I had coached my girls to catch the Wolverines.
“Okay, Melanie,” Crisco said, “they’re all yours.”
From the end of the dock Crisco watched her crew head up the race course. I joined her there, and side by side we stood over the dark water, rising and falling when wakes washed through. The river was girl-voices over PA systems, geese, and launch motors. Without turning, Crisco put her arm around me and pulled me into her side.
“It must be hard for you to be here,” she said, “on this river.”
“Kind of,” I said.
Only Alex and I had talked about you. Only rowers knew what it was like to lose someone whose back you knew. I couldn’t talk about you to someone who knew and still coach a race on this river.
“Thanks,” I said. “Your girls look good.” I stepped away from her arm.
“We lost a lot of seniors, a building year.” She looked down at me and winked.
“I better get to the start. See you later?”
“Maybe I’ll see you coming next time,” she said. “Come to the bar tonight.”
“What bar?”
“Sneakers. It’s Third and Market.” She turned and faced me, put her hands on her hips. She was too bright and too strong on a cloudy day on the Schuylkill.
“Heads up,” a cox’n called.
“Ladies,” the dockmaster said again, “please get out of the way.” His clipboard was at his side, and his glasses slipped farther down his nose.
“Crisco, I’ll see you tonight.”
“Taylor,” she said, “may your crew eat our wake.”
My bike was on its side on the lawn. No locks, no helmet, bikes were all over the grass by the bike path. Coaches rode along the river, one hand on the handlebars, one hand on stopwatches, timing the strokes per minute of their crews.
On the other side of the Strawberry Mansion Bridge, I spotted our maroon and gray blades. The girls were under-stroking a crew they were passing. The chop on the river was a cross wind, and starboard side was down. Rambo yelled, but all I could hear was the low tone of her voice.
In two strokes they pulled even with the other boat. That crew was breaking apart. They were an accordion, two seats moving forward, six seats moving back. St. Tim’s was moving through them. The silhouettes of the two crews were nearly the same, except our crew was fluid, not broken, and then Crystal at bow, her thick shoulders and bushy hair, showed St. Tim’s gaining. The bow of the boat surged and receded, surged and receded, and with each surge they gained a few inches. Soon, Tiffany and Jenny and Carla were ahead of the other crew. Carla’s big stroke, her focus, moving the boat.
This was the moment that would change them. Right here, right now. After this moment when their past pain melted away, this moment of rolling oars, sliding seats, and one voice calling, when their race and SAT scores and social status made no difference, nothing would be the same. This moment plugged them into the essence of service, into a love that lasted forever. Or the belief that this love would last forever.
I pressed the watch at Buttons’ stroke and pressed again when Crystal’s went in. Their stroke was a thirty-one, a little low, but they moved. The starboard blades splashed, and Crystal’s blade dug into dark water. Even still, they opened water on the other crew. Another boat was twenty ahead, and Rambo was sure to have it in her sights. She’d take each one.
The last race you and I rowed on this river we were supposed to win. At the start you took us off at a forty. In the first ten strokes, we were half a length ahead. At the settle, when crews shift from explosive pace and position to race pace, we were a length up on the other six boats. That was a different kind of race, a sprint, not a head race like this one. It hurt in a different way.
We didn’t win. Despite the announcer at the grandstand saying, “If they row like this, they’ll be unstoppable.” Despite your words to our cox, Leslie, “Keep going.” The pain in your voice pushed the balls of my feet away from me so hard that I almost split in two. Despite each stroke that I willed my blade into water. Each stroke your blade kept going. I kept going.
But six seat stopped. Her name was Nancy. Each catch felt like shoveling mud when she stopped. Her hernia got clipped between muscles. Her winter training of barbells and squats now turned us to straw. Straw oars moving mud.
At the finish line, she doubled over, and it took awhile to get referees to notice. She was loaded into their launch and into an ambulance on shore. Surgery that night. We lost.
For 2,000 meters, the whole way back to the Canoe Club, I cried. You didn’t. After loading the boat on the rack, stacking the oars, I reached for you, and you walked past me. You said, “Not now.” It turned into not ever.
A few hours after the race, after loading the St. Timothy boats, the award ceremony, the knock was tinny on the beige metal door. My hotel room smelled like Lysol, a pine veneer over smoke or dogs or vomit. St. Timothy’s, a school for families owning farms, for sons of Du Ponts, didn’t spend much for off-campus accommodations. The rowers were returning to campus with their trophy in hand. I was staying in Philadelphia one more night on my dime.
“Just a minute,” I said.
All nine of the crew on the dock, getting their medals and flashy trophy. Today they won the Head of the Schuylkill. In their eyes was sunrise and graduation and chocolate sundaes. They hugged and hugged and screamed and hugged. And I watched the ceremony from the riverbank; I was an enormous river rushing downstream.
The door to my hotel room opened, and Carla stood, fresh-washed, her curls stretched out and wet. She looked up and grinned, a little whistle in her look when she saw me. My loose jeans, blue and black flannel shirt, and my hair up were not the St. Timothy’s dress code. Off-duty meant pants with seams and clothes bought somewhere besides L.L.Bean.
“Carla,” I said, “why aren’t you on the van?”
“They’re waiting,” she said. “You left kind of fast after we loaded the boats.”
The door still open, I took up the doorframe, crossed my arms. “I just wanted to get back to the hotel.”
“Got a date?” she said. “Oh, you’re doing that cute thing, like a fly does when you touch it. Back up, shake your head.”
“Don’t start.”
“Inquiring minds want to know.”
I don’t want her to add up the way I don’t touch students, the quick exit today, no guys ever calling or dropping by on the weekends.
“None of your business.”
“Then it is a date.”
My hand started to close the door. She stepped closer to block it.
“Wait,” she said, “you should know. Just listen, please.” In her voice there was child and woman and teammate.
I kept the door part closed, part open. “What?” I said.
“We won for Sarah,” she said.
My hand dropped. The name in the doorway. The name out loud. Explosions went off inside me, and my eyes went crazy, a thousand places, no place the same, and then, I charged her, my hands pushed her shoulders, backing her into the hall, my face hot, and my voice. She flattened against the wall, and I didn’t know what I would do next. Every inside part of me wanted out.
“Fuck you, Carla.”
The hall echoed, even with carpet and all the doors closed. My hands gripped on her shoulders, her shoulders pinned to the wall.
“Miss Alta, I’m serious.”
“Quit messing with me.” I was eyes. I was voice.
“Rambo called a power-ten for Sarah. I swear. The boat picked up. We won because of her.” Her words were little. Her eyes in my eyes, her shoulders in my hands, her back against the wall, Carla was caught and pleading and girl.
She looked at one of my eyes and then the other to see what I was going to do. I looked at her eyes to see if she were playing with me. A breath went in, and my shoulders went down. I pushed away from her shoulders and stepped back.
My hand on my forehead, my other hand on the wall.
“And that’s when we really moved on Warrenton,” she said.
My steps into the room turned me from storm to rain. My shoulders curled in.
“We all know, you know?” She took a step into the room. “We pulled for you and her.”
The words had to stop. I turned around. Her eyes were dark brown, like the cornfield in rain. We stood there like that. No words. The two of us.
“Thank you, Carla,” I said. The words were quiet, almost shy, like we were meeting for the first time. And I opened my arms.
She walked right into my arms, and I wrapped around her, and in that moment, all the hugs I hadn’t had moved into my arms. I didn’t let go. She leaned into me, and I felt her hips against my hips, her hair soft on my cheek. She was warm. She was really warm. And I wanted to hold her.
The cabbie didn’t say much when I told him where I wanted to go, “North Third, between Market and Chestnut.”
He said, “You won’t stay.” His bushy eyebrows took up most of the rearview mirror.
“Why’s that?”
“Only dykes and gangbangers on that block.” He hacked up a wad of spit from his throat, but he couldn’t spit in his car. He swallowed.
There was a heat that came up my neck, a hot place in my throat that pushed words out. “I’ll fit right in.”
And that was all we said to each other until we arrived. It took the ride over potholes on the Philadelphia streets for my face and neck to cool. I paid the fare and not much tip.
“Sneakers” was in pink neon on a black sign, flat against the front of an old rowhouse. The streetlight was down the block a ways, and the shadows of stairs and cars reached across the sidewalk.
Up the stairs to Sneakers were women leaning against the railing. Their leather jackets and jeans blurred their shapes. At the top of the steps someone sat on a stool to the side of the entrance. The rim of a captain’s cap was the pink of the Sneakers sign. The person had leather pants and a leather jacket and chains hanging low off the leather belt. Standing up, the bouncer was taller than me.
“ID?” the tall one said. The voice was low like a truck on a street.
“Excuse me?”
“Your ID and five bucks.”
The door opened at the same moment I handed the bouncer my driver’s license. Through the open door, the beat of Donna Summer was fast. The first woman out was bleached blond with hair cut so short it stuck straight up. Another woman’s hand was down the back of the blond woman’s pants. They laughed and bumped when the blond woman paused by the bouncer.
“See you, Janie,” she said, “gotta get some shut eye.” She winked.
Janie, the bouncer, turned toward the pair. “You gals have fun. Be careful.”
The blond gal stopped again. Her eyes moved over me like a rake and scraped every inch. “That’s a cute one. No charge.”
“Sure thing, boss,” she said and watched the two down the steps. She turned back to me. The five dollars in my hand went back in my pocket. My jeans fell on my hips just right, and for the first time since starting my new job, I felt dressed just right. “Stamp your hand.”
A pink triangle stamped on my right wrist, big like a brand.
“Step right in, honey,” Janie said. “They don’t bite unless you ask them to.” Her big hand was loud on my shoulder.
Sneakers inside was cigarette butts, neatsfoot oil, and wine coolers. Smoke hung in the air about five feet off the floor. The entire bar was two rooms, a large one with most of it a dance floor complete with disco ball and revolving light turning the dancers different colors. Women all butched out in black and flannel didn’t notice their skin turning red, blue, pink, purple as the colored lens turned clockwise. There were tables with women, leaning toward each other, and tables with nothing but bottles, glasses, and ashtrays stacked. Women sat on women’s laps. Some were bundles of bodies against the walls. Some shouted into each other’s ears, and some said nothing and stared at the women doing the bump and hustle on the dance floor.
On one side there was a bar with a mirror the length of the room, and women were three deep. Plenty of women looked in the mirror while they waited; everyone checked out who was there, with whom. In a side room there were pool tables with women who looked like Janie chalking their cue sticks and bending over the green pool table tops to line shots up.
“Taylor,” I heard behind me. Two arms reached under my arms and around my waist. Crisco heaved me up and down.
“Saw you coming this time,” she said and held me off my feet.
“Crisco,” I said, “you can put me down now.” This morning, when Crisco turned me upside down, I smelled the rot of the dock with your body somewhere in the river. I wouldn’t look for you here, in a dyke bar in Philadelphia. In the bar I smelled wet ashtrays and spilled liquor going rank, and the sweat of women wanting not to be alone. The women nearby turned and smiled and raised their glasses to us.
She let me down and held me still. “You’re nothing but skin and bones, Alta.”
I leaned back into Crisco. Her arms loosened enough that I could breathe, and we stood pressed against each other taking long, slow breaths. Her arms were not Mark’s arms holding me before I stepped into the funeral with you not in the coffin. Hers were not Carla playing with me. Crisco’s arms were holding me so I could hold myself up.
“There you go,” she said. Her cheek was soft on my cheek. My arms reached behind her back and pressed her closer to me. I felt her thighs press against the backs of my legs.
The DJ changed the song to the BeeGees’ “Stayin’ Alive,” and women jumped up from the tables. Crisco and I cleared a place for us to sit.
“I’m glad you came,” Crisco said. “Want a beer?” She stood up. Her turtleneck was tight around her shoulders, tight around her biceps, tucked in at the waist.
“Long Island Iced Tea,” I said.
She stopped moving toward the bar. She turned toward me.
“Coming right up.”
All around me were tables with cities of bottles and glasses. The few women not on the dance floor were quiet by the wall, and I was the only one in a seat in the middle of the tables. The dance floor was packed. Women screamed the lyrics, swinging their hair with sweat dripping, and bumped their hips into the butts of women in front of them.
To party this hard was rowing at race pace, no air, instinct kicking in. And to dykes at Sneakers, the dance was a time they moved with their own kind, hit a rhythm they could keep. Loneliness was the bass line, and they danced to it. Except for rowing, nothing in my background prepared me for this movement out of body. This loneliness was its own kind.
What I knew about parties was invitations my mother wrote by hand. Each season she threw one party, mostly for teachers from my siblings’ schools, and for her own brothers and sisters, and sometimes our priest, Father M; nearly everyone in the New England town came to our house. They came with matching pantsuits and jackets, with purses matching blouses, kerchiefs matching ties. They drank dark drinks that my older sister and I brought on silver trays. Mother also hired help who wore white uniforms and said, “Yes, ma’am,” and “Yes, sir,” to people half their age.
By the end of those parties, the tables in our living room were little cities, full of empty glasses, glasses with a cube or two, glasses with red lipstick on rims. By the end, my mother and father were fighting.
One time ended up like a city demolished.
“You shouldn’t have invited him,” my mother said. She was sitting in the lime green armchair. Her legs were crossed, and her arms were crossed, a cigarette in one hand. My mother loved her burgundy jacket with the wide lapels and shoulder pads. The fashion was out of old movies, like Lauren Bacall, and her waist tapered in a straight skirt. My father was standing up, facing her. His gray suit was pressed so creases ran up his legs, and his leather shoes were polished. My sister and I were across the room on the couch.
“You invited the Catholic one,” he said. His forehead was getting red. His forehead was getting red in the places where he didn’t have hair.
“That’s right,” she said. “I invited the real priest.” She put the cigarette between her red, red lips. She took a puff, and the end of the cigarette was a dare.
“Forget it,” he said. He looked down at the oak floor.
“Forget what? Forget that you’re not Catholic?” She uncrossed her legs, leaned forward.
“Quaker,” he said. “You knew that from the start.” The top of his forehead was red.
“Well, it’s not good enough.” She twisted toward the end table by her side and crushed her cigarette in the ashtray.
“Never have been,” he said. My father didn’t look angry any more. My father was a boy alone.
“Oh, great,” she said, “poor, pitiful you.”
My mother looked at my father’s pants, not at him. Then she smacked her lips like she was thirsty. She tried to get up. Stretching one arm to the armrest and trying to push off, she slipped. Her hand was a crushing ball on a glass city. Water and glass and ice flew off the table. The floor was shiny with wet and pieces, and some kept going on the floor, bounced off the wall, under furniture.
Two tall glasses were all that was left on the table. Mother stood up and looked at them. The top of her body swayed side to side a little. Then she drew back her hand like a golf club, twisted, and smacked them off. The tall glasses popped against the sideboard. Everything was loud, but my father. My mother turned her big shoulders with the shoulder pads toward my father, and smiled.
“Here you go,” Crisco said. She put her face in front of me, her face not angry or drunk. Her smile was invitation and breath.
“Thanks.” The cocktail glass filled my hand. The drink was so strong my eyes watered. The music was so loud that we had to face each other, pull our seats close, and put our lips to each other’s ears.
“How’s teaching?” Crisco said. She smelled of soap.
“Harder than I thought.”
“Like how?” She pulled back to look at me. Her wide face was freckles across the bridge of her nose.
“Like how to reach them.”
“How can you?” She pressed my cheek with her cheek but then took it away.
“What?” My cheek where hers touched was moist.
Crisco grabbed my chair and dragged it, with me in it, as close as it could go. My knees pressed between her legs. She took my shoulders in her hands, and pulled me toward her. My skin got hot like she was going to kiss me. But she turned her head to the side to shout into my ear.
“How can you reach them when you’re so far away?” She pressed my shoulders with her hands, slid her hands toward my neck, and squeezed my delts. She shook me back and forth a little.
I nodded, put my hands on her thighs. My palms were spread across her muscles.
A slow song came on. Cris Williamson. The dance floor cleared. Some women hissed. No one got up to dance. Crisco and I sat and listened. One of my hands stayed on her thigh, and she held the armrest of my chair.
The waitress came around with a small tray raised above her shoulder. Her jeans were ripped, and her pink tank top showed tight muscles.
“Another round for the rowers?” She looked at Crisco.
“Sure, M.J.,” Crisco said.
I sat back in my chair, raised my eyebrows, and smiled at Crisco.
“What?” she said. “What?”
“Does Traski know about this place?” The U.S. rowing coach, Carl Traski, would try anything to break a rower’s will. If he found out about Crisco, in every practice he’d tear her down.
“He’s too busy sleeping with the girls.” Crisco played tough. Years on the streets of Chicago required smarts and secrets: keeping herself hidden was as easy as breathing.
Soon M.J. brought the second drink. Between rounds we danced. We jumped when Van Halen told us. Crisco danced like a teenage boy, stiff shoulders and lead hips. She raised her arms above her head, and her shirt wrapped around her triceps. There was nothing like her smile, bigger than the disco ball, bigger than the dance floor.
The next time a slow song came on we stepped into each other. There was nothing soft about Crisco: Her breasts were all pec muscle, her arms were all biceps, and her stomach was a flat plane. In her arms I felt safer than open water in a sprint race. In her arms the race was over. And for the first time since you disappeared in the Schuylkill, I didn’t wonder where you were.
Margie Adam sang her sweet, slow song, and Crisco’s shoulder fit under my neck. She leaned back enough to talk into my ear.
“Taylor, you know Sarah loved you.” Her cheek gave heat to the side of my neck.
“Sure.”
“No, she really loved you.” Crisco’s lips moved air on my ear.
“She really loved Mark, remember?”
“Yeah, but she was in love with you,” Crisco tightened her arms around me, like someone might do before the doctor gave a shot.
“No, she wasn’t, Crisco. She was like my mom, said I was going to hell.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but she couldn’t help loving you.” Crisco pressed her cheek against my cheek. Our skin was wet. Our skin was neither mine nor hers. What Crisco said reached into that forever place, the one that had prayers and mountains in Massachusetts. Sarah in love with me was nothing I could touch, but the words made that place in my chest crack a little more open. Forever was no longer a place any more. In Crisco’s arms I knew forever could never be again. With Sarah gone, forever was the crack that kept opening.
After Margie Adam finished, Crisco kept her arm around my shoulders and walked me off the dance floor. I almost missed the step down to the sticky linoleum, and her hand guided me around the tables with all the glasses and beer bottles.
“Grab your coat,” she said, her face so close to my face. My face did the getting-hot thing in case her lips came closer. Crisco lived in another part of town, and I lived an hour away. We’d have to swing by the hotel and get my stuff on the way. But with women’s faces spinning and glasses blurring and a rower’s arm around me, I’d do anything.
Janie’s hand was hard on Crisco’s back. “Be safe,” she said to the two of us. I waved to the women bunched in the shadows and waved to the streetlight down the street.
Inside Crisco’s blue Datsun hatchback, there were sandwich wrappers, pop cans, and U.S. Rowing magazines. There was condensation on the inside of the windows and mold around the edges. This was the car that got us to practice before dawn every day. Never once did I think we’d sit in the dark outside of a lesbian bar. Never had I thought I’d want the dark in Crisco’s eyes.
“Nice to see Joni again,” I said. Joni Mitchell Blue was Crisco’s car.
“She’s glad to see you too, Taylor Alta, but she thinks you’re skinny.” She turned her sunflower face to me. Her hands came around my ears, wrapped around my head, palms holding my cheeks. She pulled me within inches of her face. I closed my eyes, waiting for soft lips.
“Gotta go.” She let go of my head. My eyes opened. “Got to get you a cheesesteak, real one, fatten you up. That’s what we’re going to do.” She turned toward the steering wheel and started the car.
My body was still leaning forward, leaning on the stick shift. My lips got cold. Maybe she didn’t notice my face right there, waiting.
I said to the windshield, “Complete with Cheez Whiz?”
“The works. Your body’s got to be big enough to hold that big spirit of yours.” Her hand left the steering wheel, and she locked it on my thigh. A shock pitched my body forward.
“You call this muscle a quad? Good God, girl. What’s happened?” Her smile was hanging off her face, so big. I tried to watch where we were going since she was looking more at me. I figured out we had gotten to west Philly. In front of Marty’s Steaks, we found a parking spot.
As soon as I opened the door, I could smell the onions, the grease. The booze from the bar and not much food made the lights too bright, the counter far away. My stomach tightened. It had been awhile. When my crews raced, I forgot to eat. When I had too much to do, I forgot to eat. Over the past six weeks, I lost twenty pounds, and my clothes that I had bought to teach at St. Tim’s fit like rice sacks.
“We have arrived,” Crisco said, “at the place of your redemption. See and believe, the best cheesesteak in all Philly.” Crisco was a loud preacher when we walked in the door, the type of loud that doesn’t seem loud when you’re drinking. The single man at the counter and the couple in the booth turned around.
We ordered two, and my stomach knotted with hunger. We shuffled down the chrome counter. Within minutes, the server in a black T-shirt slid a steaming plate onto each of our trays. The steak was piled high with onions and cheese over an Amaroso’s roll. The steam rose into my nose, and Crisco kept one hand on me, one hand on her tray.
“Mangia, mangia,” Crisco said in impossible Italian when we sat in our booth. Everybody in Philly spoke like Sylvester Stallone and charged up the museum steps.
As the steak slid out of the roll and juice ran down my hands, as the roll gave out and the cheese pooled on my plate, Crisco talked to me about spirit, about the way that the body acts as a vessel, about the importance of honoring the spirit by honoring the body. She said it didn’t matter what religion I was, or my mother was, or Sarah was. She said I had to eat and keep my body big enough. She gave me the rest of her cheesesteak after I finished mine.
“Just a second,” she said, and she went back to the counter. In a few minutes, she came back to the booth and grabbed her jacket, and with a milkshake in hand, she led me back to her car. “This will keep you while we drive to Delaware.”
“You’re kidding. You’re not driving to Delaware tonight.” The cheesesteaks were landing in my stomach.
“You’re going to need this coating. And I need to know where you live.” She opened the passenger door for me.
“What about practice?” Traski expected the team at 6 a.m. Crisco’s coaching was later in the day.
“What about it? I’ll get back in time.”
“Ah yes, respecting the vessel,” I said.
“Shut up. Drink your shake.”