Deep End(101)

LUKAS: What hotel?

SCARLETT: Motel One. You?

LUKAS: Same.

SCARLETT: Who are you sharing with?

LUKAS: No one.

Oh, come on.

SCARLETT: Did the King of Sweden pull some strings?

He sends me a picture of a handsome middle-aged man.

SCARLETT: Who’s that?

LUKAS: The Swedish Prime Minister.

SCARLETT: I heard he’s just a puppet for the King. Anyway, I’m sharing with Akane.

LUKAS: 767

SCARLETT: 235843

LUKAS: ?

SCARLETT: Are we just sending random numbers?

LUKAS: It’s my room. Come see me tonight.

Akane is quietly terrifying. Small and wiry, with long, dark hair, full but unsmiling lips. She’s in her late twenties, on the older side for a platform diver, especially one as good as her. All I know is that she trained at Cal, has a child, and enjoys minding her business. The reason we’ve been paired is that Emilee, the good friend she usually rooms with, didn’t qualify. Because I fucked her over in the clutch.

If a vengeful angel of death has to stab me and stuff my corpse in a plastic bag, so be it. Still, as I roll my suitcase into the hotel room, I cannot help some trepidation.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she orders, severe .

“Like . . . what?”

“Like you’re afraid I’ll bite your head off while you’re asleep. It’s not your fault if you dove better than Emilee.”

“Technically, I didn’t—”

“You dove more consistently.”

I’ve never felt less inclined to contradict someone. I really do respond well to a firm hand.

“So, you’re this year’s pariah?”

“Looks like it.” I clear my throat. “Is there always one?”

“It’s a small sport.” She shrugs. “People have history.”

I sigh. “I kinda walked into my pariahship. I’m not very good at these kind of games.”

Akane studies me with stern, wide eyes, and says, “There’s hope, then.”

“Hope?”

“For the two of us to get along.”



The pool is bright, warm, and clean—the trifecta. I practice during the time slot assigned to the US, pleased to notice that I can spot the water easily and the platform doesn’t feel weird under my feet. Some do, and careening off them at twenty miles per hour is terrifying.

Coach Wang, who wants to be called Mei, stops me on my way out.

“Vandermeer, come here.” God, she’s intimidating. “Your forward.” She lifts a tablet and shows me my most recent dive. I had no idea she was TiVoing. I fully expected to be ignored in favor of more promising athletes. “You see how you washed over?”

I nod at the slo-mo replay. It’s not a disaster, but also not world championship material. “You come out a little too early, that’s why. Here.” She shows me the error twice more. Each time I cringe harder, till I’m ready to throw my body out of the window for the carrion birds to feast upon. “I think I can correct that,” I tell her.

Tomorrow I’ll do better.

But Mei looks at me like I’m a pimple, newly sprouted on her nose. “Why are you standing here like a lamppost, then? Go back up. Fix your dive.”

Wincing, I haul ass.

Go back up.

And fix my dive.

We repeat the process for three more dives. She tells me what parts look “uglier than starvation,” gives me precise corrections, and shows me how improvement can be driven by tiny adjustments. “This pike? There’s half a dozen points here.”

I nod, bewildered.

“You know,” she tells me. “I’d written you off.”

“I . . . excuse me?”

“I remember you from Junior Nationals. Even told a couple scouts to check you out. But then you got that injury, and I thought you were over.” Her eyes eviscerate me. I’m a salmon, and she’s carving my spine out. “But you’re not bad. Even better, you’re good at taking directions. Where are you training?”

“Stanford. With—”

“Sima.” She nods. “He’s good. Some things, though, even a good coach stops being able to spot. A second pair of eyes is always useful.” I nod, until she starts looking at me like I’m a wart again. “Are you gonna stay here all day? Training slot’s over. Beat it.”

I vow to learn to tell whether I’m being dismissed.



The event mascot is a horrific seahorse with piercing blue eyes. I walk in desperate search of a snack station, trying to avoid his too-long snout. Athletes move in packs, wearing their countries’ colors, and I feel weird wandering alone. I’m about to take a shuttle back to the hotel, when I come across a basketball-court-sized room, sectioned in different areas.

“There’s one for each country,” a volunteer tells me before glancing at the badge hanging from my neck. “US is over there.”

I glance at our table, where Carissa and Natalie are eating yogurt. No, thank you.

“What about Sweden?”

It’s in the opposite corner. I walk, taking in the different languages around me, till I find it. There appears to be no strife among the Swedish team: they stand around their table, playing ball with something that looks like a protein bar.