Deep End

THAT WEEK, FOLLOWING THE CALENDAR GUIDELINES KINDLY provided by my courageous forebears (i.e., people who got into med school and lived to tell the tale), I finish writing the first draft of my personal statement.

And promptly right-click it into the trash can. I also consider deep-frying myself straight to the gates of hell. According to Maryam, it’s that bad.

“‘I desire to follow the footsteps of my heroes, such as Hippocrates of Kos . . . which is how I realized that my favorite bacterium was Bordetella parapertussis . . . and as I looked at Queen Amidala dying on the screen, I decided that I would become a doctor to help people like her survive to see their Force sensitive twins thrive . . . ’” Maryam is bulge-eyed. “Who are you?”

I grab a throw pillow and hand it to her. “Will you please hold this against my respiratory airways for the next sixty to ninety seconds?”

“Seriously, what is this word soup? Did you kidnap a middle school dropout and force him to write this at gunpoint? Is it AI generated? What was the prompt? ‘What if crotch smell was an essay?’”

I groan and let myself fall back onto the couch. “Is it that hard to believe that I’m just that bad with words?”

“You could be an illiterate praying mantis, and my answer would still be a resounding yes.” She scoffs. “None of this is true, anyway. Just be honest. ‘Hi, my name is Vandy McVandermeer and I’m a neurotic, perfectionist, overachieving student athlete who memorized the workings of the musculoskeletal system by the age of nine but is still unable to timely replace toilet paper rolls. Hobbies include staring at the As on my student transcripts. I want to become a physician because I love my stepmommy. And because I’m a control freak and this job is as close as I’ll ever get to mastering life and death. Aside from maybe holding the nuclear codes. Do you happen to know if there are any openings for that position?’”

I could do that. I could be honest. But if I went that route, I’d have to admit to the low C I’m currently pulling in German, to how under I’ve been achieving, to my inability to exert control over anything.

I bemoan my language constipation on Saturday, on my way to practice. There are student services I could use for help, but they’re for fine-tuning and wordsmithing, not the nuclear makeover I need. I should ask Barb, but she got into med school nearly three decades ago. Maybe Lukas would be willing to share his essay with me? I have his number. And his email, of course.

It should be me.

Nah. Better not.

Avery is larger than my entire high school used to be—one diving well, three pools, a million satellite structures—and today it’s packed full. I follow the cheers and music to the competition pool until I spot Coach Sima, who’s glaring resentfully at the crowd.

“What’s going on?” I ask him.

“Pool Wars.”

“Oh, right. I always forget that it’s a thing.”

“As you should. It’s damn unnecessary.” Coach’s resentment for the swimming team is legendary, and mostly due to how many more resources they get compared to diving. He has a point, though: intramural competitions are a waste of time.

“Is it almost done?”

“It’s a damn pentathlon.”

It means, I think, that all swimmers race one hundred yards for every stroke, plus individual medleys. Not sure, though. Also: don’t care. “When does it end?”

“Daylong infestation, apparently.”

I pat his shoulder. “There, there.”

“The rest of the diving team is over there.” He points to under the stands. “They wanted to watch the medley race. And apparently it would be too much of a tyrant move for me to demand we begin practice on time.” He raises his voice, as though anyone but me could hear him. “We’ll start dryland once it’s over, which cannot be soon enough.” I give him one last pat and head toward the others. “If any of you is late, I’m making y’all run laps!” he yells after me—a frequent threat with zero percent follow-through.

Pen is delighted to see me, in a way I’m not used to experiencing from anyone but Barb or Pipsqueak. She asks the swimmer next to her to scoot over to make space for me, then twines her arm with mine. We had dinner yesterday, just me and her. We talked for hours without mentioning diving or Lukas Blomqvist. Nothing special, but it’ll go down in my top five Stanford moments.

Who am I kidding? Top three.

“I think it’s the first time I’ve seen you at a swim meet,” Pen says.

“I think it’s the first time I’ve been to one since I was in high school, and my ride home was the mom of one of the backstroke guys.”

She laughs. “In your defense, you’re always taking so many classes and—” She stops, as if recalling something. “I heard about the project with Luk! That’s going to look so nice on your CV when you apply for med school!”

“I hope so.” A pair of distrustful eyes flashes into my head. “I . . . did Rachel tell you?”

“Rachel? Which Rachel, Hale or Adrian?” Her brow furrows. “Either way, Luk told me. Why do you ask?”

No reason, I almost say. But this is Pen, and . . . I don’t know. I trust her. It’s a gut feeling. “The other night Lukas and I were together in the dining hall, and she looked at me like I was doing something wrong.”

“Wrong in what way—oh.” Pen’s eyes widen. Then she laughs. “Nah, Rachel’s just chilly. Freshman year she’d treat me like I was crashing swimmers’ parties or distracting Luk just by existing.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “Plus, he’s single. And I’m the one who got wasted and cosplayed a Tinder algorithm to set you two up, remember?”

“Hmmm.” I squint. “Nope. I’d forgotten. It’s definitely not seared into my mind.”

She laughs. “Don’t worry about Rachel. She has no idea what’s going on.”

A lump of tension I wasn’t quite aware of dissolves. “Will she, though?” I remember Victoria’s questions on media day. “Are you and Lukas planning on telling people that you broke up?”

She sighs. “For now, you’re the only one who knows. We’re still trying to figure out the logistics of not being a couple, you know? People have this weirdly idealized view of us, and I know they’re going to make such a big fucking deal out of it. You know how invasive the gossip is in the athletic village.” She rolls her eyes. “Plus, our social circles overlap. We don’t want to make things weird with that, especially since he and I are still best friends and together all the time. And I won’t lie . . . it’s nice, being seen as Luk’s girlfriend. During freshman year, before people knew about it, so many guys would hit on me and get aggressive when I rejected them. Luk’s existence is like an instant repellent.”

I understand it would be a problem, when one looks like Pen and is that widely beloved.

“Not to mention,” she continues, “he’s very Swedish about this stuff.”

“What’s that?”

“Just, private. Pretty hard-core about not disclosing. Like that time an ESPN journalist asked him whether he had a girlfriend.”

“What’d he say?”

“He just calmly asked, Do you have any other sports questions for me, given that you are a sports journalist?” Her impression is spot-on, down to the faint accent. She knows him inside out, and then some. “He was sixteen, and that was the last time anyone asked him about his private life. So awkward.”

Appealing, too. I know Lukas is our age, but he seems to have skipped the self-doubt stage. Resolute. Strong-willed. Knows what and where and when he wants to be. I bet he wrote his med school essay in twenty minutes.

“He’s a good guy,” she adds, more serious, eyes toward the pool. “I know he seems . . . distant, and rarely bothers to switch on the charm, but he’s great.” I’m not sure distant matches my impression of him, but before I can point it out, Pen adds, “He deserves to live his best sexy, depraved, dungeony life.”

The athletes are walking to the starting blocks, and people around us start clapping. I ask, “Are you, um, living your best sexy, undepraved, aboveground life?”

She turns to me. Leans closer. “There is this guy—”

A piercing whistle. Pen springs to her feet. Her screams of “Go, Luk! Go, go, go!” fade in the cheers of the crowd. The sudden noise startles me, and I take a deep breath to collect myself.

Lukas wins, though he doesn’t beat Kyle by a lot. He doesn’t slap the water, dance on the lane separator, or do any of the icky things that I was forced to witness in my club youth and turned me off swimmers forever. He just evades Kyle’s (playful?) attempt to drown him and slides out of the pool. Pen takes my hand to head to dry-land training, and—

Nope. We’re turning for the pool deck. “There he is.” Pen waves a hand. “Luk!”

Lukas is talking with another swimmer, but he’s wrapped it up with a one-armed hug by the time we’ve reached him. Pen beams at him. “Congrats!”

He nods. If he’s happy to have won, I can’t tell.

“Could you stop consistently being the best at what you do?” Pen teases, lifting her arms to hug him.

“I’m dripping.”

“Since when do you care?”

He doesn’t lean down, so it’s up to Pen to reach up for him. My gaze reflexively flicks away, cheeks heating. I’m intruding on this non-couple, again. I shouldn’t be here. Leave for practice. Pen’ll be right behind you. But she brought me here. And she’s my friend. And I’m doing a project with Lukas, and—No reason to be so damn weird all the time, Scarlett.

I give it a couple of seconds, then glance at them again, clearly underestimating the duration of their hug. Pen’s arms are looped around Lukas’s neck, but he’s not reciprocating. Instead, over her shoulder, I find him looking at me.

There is no smile on his face. His eyes are dark, and serious, and heavy, and I—

“You goddamn machine.” The men’s head coach gives Lukas’s shoulder a weighty slap. Pen breaks apart from him, and I exhale in relief. “Have you seen the splits? Can’t believe this is unsuited. Pen, whatever you’re feeding him, do more of that.”

“He feeds himself, Coach Urso.”

“Am housebroken, too,” Lukas deadpans.

I take a step back as the coach pulls out an iPad and starts critiquing every micro-aspect of Lukas’s stroke, not wanting to crash the conversation, and take the opportunity to study Lukas, for once without being studied in return.

Swimming and diving are only sister sports out of convenience. They both require pools, locker rooms, and yards of polyester, but that’s where the similarities end—and all it takes to figure it out is a good look at the athletes.

Diving necessitates balance and control of powerful bursts of movement. Swimming is all about reducing drag through the water to increase speed. We are all muscular, but the sports have different demands, and swimmers’ bodies tend to be cut in a way divers’ aren’t. And Lukas . . . well. Lukas is one of the fastest swimmers in the world. He looks the part.

I know, rationally, that it’s nothing to write home about. I grew up in pools, surrounded by rippling lats and arching trapezii since before I fully understood what sex was. That guy’s ass in a Speedo belongs in MOMA, someone would say, and I’d nod, unimpressed, wanting the attraction but not feeling it in my stomach.

But with Lukas I think I see it. His hair tousled by the peeled-off cap, the width of his wrist as he wraps his goggles around it, the play of the tattoos on his shoulder, triceps, forearm. It’s a forest, I think. Stars in the night sky. Snow. Something flying around the hill of a biceps. No sign of five interlaced links, unlike one hundred percent of the other Olympians I’ve met. He nods at something the head coach says, thoughtful, a palm rubbing the slope of his jaw, and yes.

I really do get it.

But maybe it’s just this kinship I feel for him. Maybe Pen hacked my head, and I’m imagining what he could use all that strength for. Maybe I finally reached puberty at the geriatric age of twenty-one.

It should be me.

“Bottom line,” Coach Urso tells Pen, “this guy just shaved nearly a second off his medley best from the summer—fastest progress he’s ever made.”

Pen grins without missing a beat. Squeezes Lukas’s arm.

“What’s that?” Coach Urso asks him, pointing at the back of Lukas’s hand. He’s a portly middle-aged man valiantly holding on to what little hair he has left. Widely beloved, and considered something of a talent-fostering genius. He is also, according to Pen, absolutely unhinged.

Which must be the reason Lukas looks like he’s bracing for impact. He catches the towel a sophomore tosses at him and nods his thanks. “That’s my hand, Coach. Nothing to see here.”

“No—what did you write on it?”

“Can’t recall.”

It’s not the model I drew, right? No. Can’t be. It was days ago.

“Well, kid, try to recall,” Coach Urso insists. “This is it.”

“It’s what?” Lukas dries his midriff, puzzled. Kid, I think, bemused, noticing the V muscling down his abdomen.

“The perfect circumstances. To re-create. To win.”

“Ah. Of course.”

“Remember last season’s lucky routine?”

“You mean, putting a Disney princesses Band-Aid on my toe for an entire year?”

“It’s how you won the NCAA and the world championship.”

“Nothing to do with training.”

“Are you sassing me, Blomqvist? You know I can’t tell. Either way, we’re set. We got our lucky routine. Our work here is done. Ad majora, kid.” Coach salutes him and walks away—then turns around to finger-gun him. “The hand. Make sure you take a picture.”

Lukas shakes his head and dries his face with the towel.

“He’s going to make sure you have a whole-ass painting on your hand every meet,” Pen says.

“Yup.”

“What even is it? Looks like boxes and scribbles?”

“Pretty much.”

Oh, shit.

“Well, good luck with that.” On her tippy-toes, hand on his stomach to balance herself, she presses a kiss to his jaw. Lukas, I notice, doesn’t bend down to make it easier. “We gotta go, or Coach Sima’s gonna get angina.”

Lukas nods. His eyes lift to mine. “Bye, Scarlett.”

I’m flushing. Not sure why. “Yeah. Bye. And . . . congrats.”

His smile is faint, and crooked, and almost intimate. Short-lived. But it sticks to me through the afternoon, like adhesive tape under the sole of my shoe, and I don’t want it. There’s no reason for it. I try to concentrate on Pen’s chatter, on warming up, on my core exercises, but I’m distracted. Dryland practice is my least favorite, and somersaults in a foam pit get old surprisingly fast. Focusing on the aerial parts of a skill definitely has benefits—but at what cost.

“If I’d wanted to jump off of a springboard and land on my feet on top of a crash mat, I’d have become a gymnast,” Victoria mumbles when I’m done with my set of reverse somersaults, nose scrunched up in disgust.

“At least Coach didn’t bust out the spotting rope.”

“Or the twisting belt.” She makes a gagging sound and goes in for her turn. We only have four dive stands, which gives me a compulsory break. I sip on some water. Take out my phone. Write a text to an unsaved number.

SCARLETT: Please tell me that someone else drew a convolutional neural network on your hand in the past two days.

Immediate reply.

UNKNOWN: Are you calling me a computational slut?

SCARLETT: How has it not faded?

UNKNOWN: Someone used indelible marker.

Shit.

UNKNOWN: Looks like I’ll need you around this year.

And: fuck.

SCARLETT: As in, I’m in charge of drawing a CNN on your hand before every meet?

UNKNOWN: Nah.

Thank god.

UNKNOWN: Just the international ones. And Pac 12. NCAA.

Jesus.

SCARLETT: Do you really want to be reminded of my computational superiority that often?

UNKNOWN: I do. I have a thing for women who are smarter than me.

My heart hiccups.

SCARLETT: I’m not ready for the responsibility of being part of your lucky routine. If you lose, will the King of Sweden get mad at me?

UNKNOWN: My country is a parliamentary democracy.

SCARLETT: You’re a man of science. You’re not really superstitious, are you?

UNKNOWN: Maybe I am.

I sigh.

SCARLETT: On the one hand, I want to shame you for it. On the other, my worst dive ever happened the day after someone stole my tie dye shammy.

I’m ready to admit that as far as evidence supporting the efficacy of competition-adjacent rituals goes, it’s pretty thin—until a scream startles me.

I drop my phone and run toward the sound. When I reach the portable board farthest from me, my heart drops into my stomach. Because Victoria is lying on the floor. Her eyes are full of tears, and her ankle is bent at an unnatural angle.