Smooth Sailing

May 23, 2018

May 23, 2018

The bus arrived at West Clearwater High School ten minutes before first period, and although we had been chatting all throughout the bus ride, there was still one more thing that I desperately needed to bring up with Eden. I climbed off of the bus and stepped into the fresh morning air. I couldn't see the lake from the high school, but there were enough yacht club kids attending West Clearwater that I could still feel like I was taking a small piece of Clearwater Lake with me.

Eden and I went directly into the school, and after a trip to our respective lockers, we met again in the cafeteria. The student body had split itself into cliques, and Eden and I knew exactly which one we belonged to: the yacht club kids. We passed by the football players, the band geeks, and the outcasts before we found an empty table. Brooke and Quentin would arrive soon enough, along with the handful of other CLYC kids who attended West Clearwater High School.

The table next to us was filled with kids from the nearby Oneida reservation. My Oneida heritage from Dad's side of the family should have given me a connection with them, but as they made inside jokes and talked about things that I had never even heard of, I realized that they lived in a whole different world. Even they were a minority within the Oneida Nation - most of the Oneida kids went to the school on the reservation or East Clearwater. A part of me wished that I was more connected to my roots, but I wasn't really sure how to do that.

Eden was in a similar situation. She was a petite Chinese girl with deep brown eyes and long, black hair, but she had lived in Clearwater Lake since the Reinharts adopted her and her sister Kelsey when Eden was a baby and Kelsey was two. Unlike me, Eden had no real desire to connect with her roots. As far as she was concerned, she was a Reinhart through and through. Perhaps that was what brought us together - we were two girls who were separated from our heritage, living in the almost entirely white community on the shores of Clearwater Lake.

Of course, that was not what I wanted to talk to Eden about. "The registration deadline for the Clearwater Lake Junior Regatta is coming up soon," I said.

"I know," Eden said. "I already registered."

That was when my plan to win the regatta fell apart. Eden and I had sailed the regatta together the last two years, and we had placed in second last year. I was certain that we could win this year, as long as I had Eden as my crew. "I thought that we were going to sail together," I said.

"I know, but Brooke asked me to crew for her already, and we entered the race together," Eden said. "Please don't be mad, Sylvie."

"I'm not mad," I said. "I just thought that we agreed that we would sail together this year."

"I'm sure that you can find someone else to crew for you," Eden said. "Maybe Quentin would do it. I mean, you two went to prom together."

Even thinking about Quentin made me uncomfortable. He was a nice enough guy, but I just wasn't interested in him, no matter how much both he and my family wanted to think otherwise. "I don't want to talk about Quentin," I said.

"Why not?" Eden said. "He knows that you two are just friends, right?"

"I'm not sure that he does," I answered.

"You should just tell him that you're gay," Eden said. "He'll back off if he knows that."

"Yeah, but then he'll tell his dad, and Mr. Stafford will tell my parents, or worse, Grandpa, and I'm not ready to come out to them yet," I said.

"You have a good point," Eden said. "Maybe we should just find you a different crew. Is Megan Graves sailing this year?"

"She's on vacation in Europe during the regatta," I said. "What about Ashley Vega?"