Word: piers
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Maggie MacLean was standing in the tall, wide doorway of Newell Boat House, just at the line that divides the vast room stacked with boats and oars from the grey pier that slopes gently down to the Charles River. Like the other ten women who stood in a semicircle listening to their coach. Harry Parker, she was wearing gym shorts and a tank top--hers was grey, with blue letters that said "U.S.A. Rowing Team Camp." But unlike the others, on her large, strong hands she wore protective leather gloves...
Parker was standing on the pier with his back to the gray seven-in-the-morning sky that hovered on the edge of a drizzle, making a few dry, formal jokes in his New England-patrician way. After a minute or so, he moved on abruptly to the business of the day, calling out the names of the ones who would row in the first boat of four, the ones in the second boat, the unlucky ones who would have to stay behind to work on the ergometer machine. No one knows what Parker will do from...
...boats of fours shoved off a few feet into the river, where they drifted waiting for Parker, who was still on the pier conferring mysteriously with an assistant: "I don't think she knows that we know"... "Well, I hope she works hard, because when she's good, she's very good." Finally Parker climbed into the launch, the motorboat from which he scrutinizes his rowers, and chugged off to where the two fours were already gliding along. The rowing was smooth, steady, rhythmic, as the oars skimmed through the water and flipped up, over, back, skim, up, over, back...
...standing on the pier at Newell waiting patiently for the joking and the chatting to subside so he could get down to business. Soon there were ten women sitting quietly on the bench, and he had their attention. He began quietly, in his deep, sonorous voice...
Back at the boat house after the workout, the usual milling around was going on, and more water squirting and frisbee throwing, when Nancy suddenly emerged onto the pier with a cake. The team greeted her with cries of delight. What was the occasion, exactly...