What’s up? he sent.
Nothing. Having pizza in the Village. Just thought I’d check in.
Excellent. Who you with?
Just Lycan. She tried to sound casual.
Is that becoming something?
I don’t know. It’s in that blurry area.
I know it well. Have fun.
Veronika closed the link. Mission accomplished. Yeah, he’d sounded devastated. She spotted Lycan through the window of Lombardi’s, sitting at a table, sort of wringing his hands. He stood when she stepped inside. He looked… distressed.
“Are you okay? You look a little…” she trailed off, reluctant to label how he looked.
“Panic attack,” he said, and gave a “What are you going to do?” shrug.
“I just love anxiety. Any idea what set it off? Work?”
Lycan shrugged. “They just happen.”
Veronika certainly knew how that was. “What do you usually do to cope?”
“Usually? I row.”
“You row.”
Lycan nodded. “I have a rowing machine. I pick a place, maybe the Nile, or the Amazon, and I row until I’m exhausted.”
Veronika broke into a grin. How many times had she passed the lagoon around Central Park and vowed to rent one of those antique fiberglass rowboats and paddle around? A quick check told Veronika there were a few available. She reserved one.
“Come on, let’s get our pizza to go,” she said, standing.
“Is it helping?” Veronika asked.
“A little, yes. I always feel better when I have something to do with my hands.” Lycan pulled on the oars. He seemed less awkward, less a goofy brain, now that he was pulling on oars. Veronika reclined in her seat, a slice of pizza in one hand, enjoying the sweet smell of cut grass in the air. It was delightful—the breeze created by the boat’s movement, the dribble of water off the oars as they lifted out of the water, the plunge as they dug back in. She watched the oars trace an oval, Lycan’s biceps and triceps alternately bunching and relaxing. The baggy clothes Lycan wore gave the impression that he was more plump than powerful, and his atrocious posture reinforced that misperception, but he was actually a muscular guy.
“I have a theory about anxiety and exercise,” Lycan said between heavy breaths.
“Yeah?” Veronika tossed a piece of crust into the water; almost immediately, the water swirled and a fish plucked it away.
“I’m guessing you know that physiologically, all emotion is nothing but elevated autonomic nervous system activity—elevated heart rate, skin conductance, blood pressure?”
“Sure.”
Lycan smiled, nodded. “So, emotion is just the label you place on that arousal. If someone is pissing you off, that beating heart is ‘anger’; if you’re giving a speech, it’s ‘terror’; if you’re in a horse-drawn carriage with a beautiful woman, it’s ‘love.’”
Another rower came into view to their left. Veronika glanced at him; he looked like he was rowing for his life.
“I think rowing alleviates my anxiety because it provides a plausible explanation for my pounding heart and sweating palms. It tricks that primitive part of my brain where the fear is originating. It’s not ‘anxiety’ I’m feeling; my heart is pounding because I’m ‘exercising.’”
“Misattribution of the arousal. There’s a tried-and-true method dating coaches use based on that principle: Get a couple on a roller coaster and get their hearts racing. Often they’ll attribute their thumping hearts to physical attraction instead of fear.” Veronika sat up, considering. “You’ve come up with a clever application of the theory.”
“I find the key is that I have to hit a level of intensity in my exercise that matches the arousal my anxiety is creating, to fool the caveman in the back of my head.”
Veronika chuckled at the analogy. To their left, the other man was rowing with all his might. He glanced back, pulled even harder.
“What’s that about?” Veronika asked. She queried her system. Virtual boats appeared, along with a dozen lanes delineated by red strips perched a foot above the water. “Oh, he’s racing.” Evidently the other boats were in other bodies of water.
“Interesting,” Lycan said, consulting his own system. “The program corrects for variations in wind conditions and water flow, so the racers are on even footing.” They watched as the live rower finished third, then, huffing, slowly made his way toward shore, passing Lycan and Veronika.
“Excuse me,” Veronika said as he passed, “can anyone participate?”
“You have to belong to the International Rowing Club,” the guy said. He raised his eyebrows. “You want to race one-on-one? IP is always better, and I could use the extra work.”
Veronika looked at Lycan, who was already shaking his head. “I’m not a racer.”
“Oh, come on, it’ll be fun. So he creams you, so what?” It was weird and wonderful, playing the role of the carpe-diem free spirit. Normally Veronika would be whining for them to go back to the coffee shop, that she was damp from the spray of the oar. “This is a perfect opportunity to get out of your comfort zone.”
“I left my comfort zone when I stepped out of my apartment this morning,” Lycan said.
Veronika reached over and sent a spray of water at Lycan.
“Hey,” he laughed. He swung one of the oars, shooting a veritable wave into the boat and over Veronika’s lap. She leaped out of her seat, screeching from the cold, then leaned over the boat and splashed him a couple more times.
“How about it?” the rower called.
“Come on,” Veronika goaded. “Let’s race.”
Lycan shrugged. “Okay, why not? Seize the day.”
The rower, whose name was Russell, created two lanes and a countdown clock with his system. Lycan struggled to get their boat into the lane and relatively motionless as tiny waves nudged them. Russell used his oars to compensate for the waves, keeping his boat firmly in place. The clock hit zero.
With smooth, easy strokes, Russell pulled ahead almost immediately. But once Lycan got going, Russell didn’t pull any farther away; he and Veronika hung on, about twenty feet back.
“Faster!” Veronika called. Laughing through gritted teeth, Lycan rowed faster. With each stroke, the front of the boat lifted slightly out of the water, then crashed back down onto the lake. They were moving, really moving, a stiff breeze whistling in Veronika’s ears, her hair blown back in the cool blast. Veronika closed her eyes, laughed out loud. “Faster!”
She opened her eyes and looked at Lycan, who was looking right at her, grinning and grimacing simultaneously, pulling on the oars with all his might, seemingly oblivious to Russell, who was only a dozen or so feet ahead.
Veronika clapped her thighs. “You’re gaining on him.”
Glancing at Russell over his shoulder, Lycan found another gear. His hands were a blur, his rowing smooth. Veronika saw Russell react, picking up his own tempo a notch, his forehead rippled with creases.
She’d always been a little skeptical of the evidence supporting technomie, had always suspected it was mostly trumped-up bologna created by people nostalgic for a simpler time, the same people who had once argued that picture books were wonderful for your child, but if the picture moved, it would rot her brain. How different was it, really, to talk to a screen instead of a live person? Wasn’t a virtual landscape still a kind of landscape? But this—racing in a boat—might force her to rethink her position.
“How’s that panic attack?” Veronika asked.
“Gone,” Lycan shouted over the crashing of the oars.