Deep End

HATED PICTURE DAY IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL, HATE MEDIA day in college. I’m nothing if not consistent.”

I doubt Victoria, or anyone else, has ever uttered words worthier of my endorsement, even if Pen shrugs cheerfully and says, “I think it’s fun.”

It’s Thursday after practice. The entire team wears black meet suits and crowds around the locker room mirror—the unflattering one that magically spotlights all our pores at the same time. We have one reflective surface, two harsh ceiling lamps, three poorly placed outlets, four curling irons, five divers, and twenty minutes to fool the world into believing we’re more than chlorine-soaked hair tangles.

“If this is fun, I fucking hate fun,” Victoria mutters. She turns to Bree and Bella, who are fighting over eyeliner techniques. “Can’t you two ever do your own individual thing?” she snaps. The twins look so fiercely outraged, I’m surprised she doesn’t collapse into a pile of elastane blend.

“Okay, well, what are you doing with makeup?” she asks Pen and me. I have hairpins held between my teeth, but point at my mascara.

“I did consider all-body galaxy glitter, just to see Coach’s face,” Pen says, “but I think I’ll replicate the natural look I did last weekend when I went out.”

“Date with Blomqvist?”

“Uh . . . yup. Yeah.”

“Nice to see the end of your breakup delusions.”

“Yeah.” Pen clears her throat.

Bree gasps. “Hang on—were you about to break up with Lukas?” I see they went for the cat eye.

“I . . . briefly considered it.”

“Why?”

She shrugs. “The joy of being single. The thrill of being chased, you know?”

“Maybe in your next life you’ll be a mallard duck,” Victoria mutters.

“Quack, quack.” Pen grins and sneaks a quick, secretive glance at me. She’s not a particularly good liar, and I’m not sure what surprises me the most: that she’s hiding something, or that the others can’t tell.

Truthfully, given Victoria’s reaction a couple of weeks ago, I understand her choice. Plus, she and Lukas are kind of a big deal on campus. Maybe they’re working their way to making an announcement.

As usual, Pen manages to be the first to get ready, help everyone else with their full-coverage foundation, and herd us to the media team on time. I stand between the green screen and the baking-hot studio lights, palms clammy, doing as the photographer instructs. Smile, show your biceps, spread your arms, kick your legs back, jump. It’ll give the underpaid social media managers something to work with if I ever win a competition—unlikely, considering that the inward dive I attempted this morning morphed into a cannonball in midair. Under Coach’s displeased scowl.

Maybe they’ll write a human-interest piece about the bucket of slop that is my athletic career. My photo will end up in one of the glossy magazines they send to all Stanford alumni to promote school spirit and solicit donations. Meet the girl who has been diagnosed with dumpster fire brain by a team of board-certified neurologists. And give us money.

Even after I step out of the strobes, I still feel uncomfortably vulnerable. Most of my awake time is spent in wedgie-prone swimsuits, and self-consciousness has little space in aquatic sports, where athletes constantly pad across the deck in the bright, unforgiving sunlight, every imperfection up for inspection. But in the pool, my body is a machine—all that matters is what it can accomplish. Here, I feel almost obscenely exposed. Something that could be sectioned and poked and stripped for parts.

Not to mention that of late, my body has accomplished very little. Being a good athlete, a good student, reaching for perfect—those were the building blocks of me. Now that I’m struggling with almost everything, do I still have a fully fleshed identity? Or am I just an assembly of meat pieces, to be sold separately on clearance?

“Vandy?” Pen’s hand slides into mine, cardinal-red nail polish dark against my skin. She tugs me back in front of the green screen and hands everyone on the team heart-shaped sunglasses. My pair, she slips right onto my nose. “Team pics!”

The photographer clears his throat. “We already—”

“But not fun ones.”

He scratches his neck. “I don’t think props were approved . . .” Pen, though, is an avalanche of charm—hard to resist, harder to say no to. The sunglasses pics are followed by sequined hats, Charlie’s Angels poses, “Another one like we’re a nineties boy band, please,” and by the end we’re all laughing, photographer included, and I feel more at ease.

If you spent more time with your friends, Barb’s gentle voice echoes in my ears, you’d be less in your head about stuff.

Okay. Sure. Fine.

“Vandy, wanna get dinner with me after?” Pen asks. “They’re filming captain interviews, but it’ll be fifteen minutes, tops.”

“Did something happen?”

“Why?” She smiles, kindly amused. “Because I want to hang out?”

“No, just . . .” I guess that gave away the status of my social life. “I have a meeting, and . . .” I check my phone. Time flies when you’re re-creating the Abbey Road pic. “I’m already late, actually.” I’m genuinely disappointed to decline, but Pen’s smile doesn’t waver.

“What about tomorrow, after practice?”

It’s probably a tad pitiful, how the simplest overture warms my heart. “I’d love to.”

On the other side of the room, the men’s swimming team is going through its own media ordeal. When I pass them on my way out: There’s an animated scuffle going on, laughter, “You go on the right” and “We got him, we got him.” Lukas is in the thick of it, with three other swimmers trying to restrain him while a fourth holds the US flag behind him. The Swedish one, bright yellow and baby blue, is on the floor.

The camera clicks, and a USA chant erupts. Everyone laughs, Lukas included. A sophomore—Colby?—teams up with Kyle to wrap the flag around Lukas’s shoulders. More laughter, more scuffle. Rough play and loud voices can be a trigger for me, so I take a step back. A deep breath.

“How much to make that disappear?” Lukas asks the photographer’s assistant, freeing himself.

“How much would one gold Olympic medal get me if I were to melt it?”

“I don’t know, man, but it’s yours.”

“Deal.”

Lukas shakes his head. In the movement, the blue of his eyes catches mine.

Time slows.

Curious, patient, it stops.

My breath lodges somewhere in my trachea.

It should be me.

I force a brief smile and turn around to run across campus, heart pounding from more than effort. I make it to my meeting with two minutes to spare, but when I peek inside the office door, the conversation is already animated.

Dr. Smith—Olive, as I’ll never call her despite her repeated invitations—looks not much older than me, but sounds like the repository of hundreds of years of knowledge on the biology of pancreatic cancer cells. Her office is a mix of gentle chaos and early fall scents, the same Post-its I spied on Dr. Carlsen’s desk stuck on most surfaces, scribbled with barely sensical handwriting. Lancet review. Upload 405 assign. Anh baby shower. Insurance paperwork. Vet appt. SBD abstract. Call program officer. What if cobwebs???

They must be the official stationery of the Biology Department.

“I feel like I know you already—because of your paper!” she says excitedly before quoting entire passages of it and introducing me to one of her grad students, Ezekiel. (“If you call me anything other than Zach, I will report you to HR.”) He’s cheerful, easygoing. Charming. Dr. Smith will guide my project, but her calendar sounds like a nightmare. “So if you can’t get a hold of me, Zach is here for you.”

“Feel free to stop by my office whenever. I’m always there. It’s like I have no life.” His smile is kind. The “unfamiliar man, solo meeting” combo is not my favorite, though.

“I’m a student athlete, so I’ll probably do most of the work alone at night? My schedule can be a little inflexible.”

Dr. Smith grins. “A student athlete! That makes two of you.”

I turn to Zach. “Are you . . . ?”

“The undergrad working on this project is. He’s been harvesting and classifying the initial cell samples. Done some preliminary work on the algorithms, too.” She cocks her head. “Do you happen to be a swimmer?”

My stomach churns. “Diver.”

“Those are different sports, right? You two will get along great, though. He’s—” A single, soft knock. Dr. Smith swivels her chair. “Come in.”

The door opens, and I watch Dr. Smith’s eyes rise—and rise, and rise, and rise. She grins, just as a familiar whiff of sandalwood soap and chlorine registers.

“Lukas, we were just talking about you. May I introduce you to Scarlett Vandermeer?”