Tutoring my Rival Boy novel · Chapter 3 of 24
Chapter 3: The Field House
Chris cleans the Field House at night and sleeps in a cold boathouse loft. A notice says room inspections are coming.
The Field House was a long, dark building that smelled of rubber and old sweat.
Chris clocked in at ten with a card the grounds company had given him, and no paperwork.
Nobody at Harrowgate knew he worked there.
The supervisor was a tired man with a thermos who let him in by the side door and told him which floors were his.
"Locker rooms, hallway, weight room," the man said.
"Done by two. Don't touch the pool."
"I won't."
"Pays fifteen an hour, cash on the first."
"I know."
Chris took the mop and the gray bucket and started on the locker rooms.
He worked the way he did everything, fast and without wasting a step.
The lacrosse team had been here that afternoon.
There were tape wads and sock balls and a wet towel with LEANDER written on the tag in black marker.
Chris held the towel for a second.
Then he threw it in the hamper harder than the hamper deserved.
By midnight, the floors shone.
By one-thirty, his hands were red and his shoulders ached.
At two, the supervisor signed his slip and went out to his truck.
Chris waited until the taillights were gone.
Then he put on his coat, took his bag, and walked down to Harrow Lake.
The Ashgrove boathouse stood at the end of a dock, a gray wooden building with a slanted roof and a plaque by the door.
ASHGROVE BOATHOUSE, it said.
GIFT OF THE ASHGROVE FAMILY.
Chris almost laughed every time he read it.
The school kept it locked all winter, because the rowing team did not row after October.
But the lake shed beside it had a key hanging on a nail inside the door frame, where a groundskeeper had left it years ago.
He had found it his first night out of the dorm.
He unlocked the shed, crossed the dark room, and climbed the ladder to the loft.
The loft was a low square space under the roof with a window facing the water.
An old rowing mat made a bed.
He had a sleeping bag and a blanket from his mother's house.
He had a flashlight, and a phone charger plugged into a power strip he had borrowed from the Field House.
It was thirty-eight degrees outside.
It was not much warmer inside.
He took off his shoes, climbed into the bag with his coat still on, and lay on his back.
His dorm room in Fenn House was still his on paper.
His bed there was made, his books were on the shelf, and he showered there every morning before anyone woke.
But a bed that cost six thousand dollars to sleep in was still a bed he could not afford.
His phone buzzed against his chest.
MOM, the screen said.
It was 2:20 in the morning.
He answered at once.
"Chris?"
His mother's voice was thin and tired.
"Why are you awake? Did I wake you?"
"I was studying," he said.
"I'm up. What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I couldn't sleep, and I thought of you."
"Mom, it's two in the morning."
"I know."
"The back?"
A pause.
"A little."
"Did you take the pills?"
"Chris."
"Did you?"
"I took one. They're expensive, so I'm making them last."
He closed his eyes.
The ceiling above him had a leak stain shaped like a boot.
"I'll send more this week," he said.
"I got a tutoring job. Four hundred a week."
"Oh, Chris."
"It's easy. It's a boy who needs help with calculus."
"That's wonderful. Is he nice?"
Chris looked at the boot stain for a long moment.
"He's fine," he said.
"Is the dorm warm enough?"
"It's fine, Mom. It's really warm."
"Good," she said.
"I worry about you in those old buildings."
He told her he loved her and said goodnight.
The phone went dark.
The wind pressed on the loft window, and the dock creaked below.
He lay still, listening to the lake slap the posts, and told himself it was only until he made the money.
Four hundred a week for ten weeks was four thousand.
Add the night job, and he could pay half the board by the deadline.
The other half he did not know how to find yet.
His phone lit once more, and this time it was an email from the dean's office.
Subject: Room inspections.
The housekeeper would be checking every Senior Program dorm room next week, to confirm that students were actually living in them.
Chris read the line twice.
He put the phone down on his chest, and for a long time he did not move.
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