Summer School

Water works

By Megan Malugani

I zip up my red, white, and blue Spandex bodysuit, feeling like a cross between a hapless Evel Knievel and a supersized Mary Lou Retton. There’s no doubt I’ll need a little of Evel’s derring-do and a pinch of Mary Lou’s flexibility in the minutes to come.

It’s Memorial Day at Lake Zumbro and I’m performing with the Rochester Waterski Show Team in their first gig of the year, despite the fact that I started practicing with the group only two weeks earlier and have proven to be a klutz in nearly every stunt they’ve tried to teach me. For the show’s second act, I am supposed to be part of a human pyramid skimming across the water. And as showtime nears, one thought keeps plaguing me: I’m the weak link who could bring the whole pyramid tumbling down. Don’t choke. Don’t choke. Don’t choke.

One month before the show:
Am I crazy?
I tell my husband I’m taking up waterskiing, that I’m going to perform a yet-to-be-determined trick in a waterskiing show over Memorial Day weekend, and that the whole experience will make a fun story for the magazine that employs me. His reaction: Long pause, furrowed brow, incredulous sigh. “Can’t you make the intern do it?” Mike asks. I inform him that I actually volunteered for the waterskiing story, and I’m excited about it. After all, I grew up waterskiing and can still drop a ski on my annual lap around the lake at my parents’ cabin every summer. So how hard can it be? Mike doesn’t exactly try to talk me out of it, but he does hint, gently, that I may be overestimating my waterskiing abilities.

Two weeks before the show:
It’s 53 degrees in the water
I arrive at the Waterski Show Team’s first practice of the season in mid-May and notice that the average age of the waterskiiers is about 12. I ask around and find out there are plenty of older skiiers, but they sanely wait until the water is warmer than the current 53 degrees before getting wet. Thank goodness for my borrowed wetsuit, which is so tight that it qualifies as a form of torture but will keep me from freezing to death. Dana DeWitz, the show director, wants me to first learn the “hop dock,” as all the show skiiers start their acts by hopping off a dock rather than starting from in the water. I fail on my first attempt at the hop dock and plunge head first into the shockingly frigid waters. I don’t try the hop dock again, but do end up skiing around the lake after succeeding with a deep water start. I go home excited and feeling like I’ve accomplished something, even if the accomplishment is nothing more than proving that I’m tough (and crazy) enough to brave the elements.

12 days before the show: 
Complete humiliation
At my second practice, I whiff the hop dock again, swallow a mouthful of water, and come up spluttering, coughing, and wheezing. Then, after I start in the deep water and take a quick lap, I wipe out after letting go of the rope and bungle in to shore, hoping no one is watching. They are. It’s complete and utter humiliation, but my teammates are too polite and kind to tease me. I also practice a “trio” on the dock, which entails sitting, climbing, and standing awkwardly on the arms and shoulders of two strong guys probably young enough to be my sons. At one point, I am instructed to perch on their outstretched arms, wrap my legs around their backs, and lean forward a la the heroine in Titanic. I’m as graceful as a turkey vulture. It’s obvious that the trio is not going to be my strength, so we abort an in-water attempt.

One week before the show: 
Close to quitting
My husband was right. I overestimated my waterskiing ability—by about two miles. I feel like throwing in the towel (no pun intended) and giving up on the whole scheme, since I only have another week to perfect the hop dock and learn a trick for the show. But my boss at the magazine won’t let me quit. And I don’t want to disappoint show director Dana, who has offered me boundless enthusiasm and stellar instruction. I go to another practice, and this time the air temperature is in the low 50s and virtually no one actually gets in the water. Dana devises a new plan for me: I will perform in a pyramid. It’s genius—I don’t even have to wear waterskis to be in a pyramid!

Last practice: 
Flying like a kite
I’m glad I stuck with it. The pyramid is a total blast. As instructed, I climb on the strong, steady shoulders of my waterskiing partner, Jerad “Hutch” Hutchens, who is sitting on the dock. Then I grab a rope and we both take off behind a speedboat, along with two other sets of skiiers. That’s the easy part, since Hutch is such a pro. From there I become some kind of superhuman pretzel who climbs from a sitting to standing position. Once I am balanced atop the shoulders of Hutch and another first-row skiier, I squat down for a little girl to climb up me to the top of the pyramid. When the pyramid is intact, I feel like a kite flying through the air. I savor the soaring sensation, but it is over all too soon as we’ve almost made the loop back to shore. I slide back down one of Hutch’s shoulders and ski in to shore standing on the front of his skis. The other skiiers cheer and share with me their memories of the first time they participated in a pyramid. “You’ll be hooked,” they say, and they are right. I can’t wait to do it again in a few days for the show.

Showtime:
The moment of truth
So there I am, on show day, with “don’t choke, don’t choke, don’t choke” playing like a broken record in my head. But I’m choking. Paralyzed. Can’t move. We’re crashing over the waves (or are they whitecaps?) in front of a few hundred spectators, me safely atop Hutch’s shoulders. But it’s bumpy and blustery, nothing like in practice, when the water was smooth as glass and the wind nonexistent. And I can’t for the life of me remember the proper technique for transitioning from sitting to standing position. I almost bite the dust—twice—but catch myself a split second before toppling into the waves. My pyramid-mates are encouraging me and giving me instructions, but it is not working. I’m screwing up and don’t know how to get my foot to the right place on the shoulder of the guy in the middle on the bottom row of the pyramid. Finally, Hutch physically moves my foot to where it is supposed to be. I stand up, shakily. The little pyramid topper, Alisha, then climbs surefooted right up to the top. It’s not pretty, but it’s done.

The aftermath:
A huge sigh of relief
We’re only in pyramid formation for a few seconds before it’s time to descend and ski in. Hutch steers me in to shore, and only then do I fall, in waist-deep water, taking Hutch with me. But it’s no big deal. The crowd still cheers, especially those friends and family members familiar with my crazy ‘writer-turns-skiier’ plan. I get up with a Mary Lou smile plastered to my face and an Evel Knievel swagger in my step, grateful that my teammates refused to let me choke