Swim

daughter drove, they could have been making major gifts to the endowment fund since Caitlyn was but a twinkle in their eyes.
    “Did you like it?” She tilted her head, looking me straight in the eye, then letting her gaze drift sideways as she rested her cheek on her palm. My own hand inadvertentlyrose to my own face. With the Dermablend, my grandmother swore, you couldn’t see the scar. With her vision, I told her, it was a wonder she could see anything.
    “Yeah, I did. I liked it a lot.” Lie. My first week of college I’d gone to a party in a fraternity house basement. It was hot and crowded and noisy, and I’d gotten separated from my roommate as we made our way through the forest of bodies toward the keg. I’d gone upstairs to hide in the frat house’s library, which I’d figured, correctly, would be deserted. I was curled up in an armchair in a dark corner, planning on going back downstairs when the crowd had thinned out, when a girl and a guy had stumbled into the darkened room and flopped onto the couch.
    “Jesus,” said the guy. “Did you see that girl with, like, a crater on her face?”
    My hands flew to my cheek. It did look like a crater. A shiny pink crater, the size of the bottom of a soda can, slightly indented, like someone had scooped out the flesh. The scar tugged the corner of my right eye down and extended across my cheek to the corner of my mouth. I’d fooled myself into thinking that I looked all right that night. I’d worn a cute halter top, pink sandals, jeans my roommate had lent me, and perfume and lipstick and eyeliner on my good left eye and my droopy right one.
    “I wonder what happened?” the girl mused.
    What do you think happened, dumb-ass? I got hurt! I wanted to say. I waited until they were too engrossed in each other to notice me. Then I crept out of the room, out of the frat house, down the sidewalk and over the hill and into the fitness center, which was open twenty-four hours a day and was one of the reasons I’d gone to Grant in the first place.
    The pool was empty and glowing turquoise in the murky light. The familiar smell of chlorine, the feel of the water holding me up, eased my homesickness and my shame. I’d shucked off my borrowed finery, washed the makeup from my face in theshower, scrubbing extra hard against the disk of pink that no cosmetic could ever erase and no surgery could restore, and swum laps for two hours. Later, after I’d gotten dressed again, I stared at myself in the mirror. My wet hair clung to my scalp, and the scar was livid against my water-bleached skin. Smile! my grandmother always told me, her own face lighting up in demonstration. If you’d smile, they’d see the smile, not the scar! In the mirror, I attempted a friendly smile. A flirtatious smile. A charming little nice-to-meet-you smile. I saw the same pale, lightly freckled skin that my mother had, in pictures, the same clear blue eyes; a straight nose, full lips, eyebrows that refused to arch no matter how I tried to coax them. Good teeth, thanks to the braces; no zits, thanks to the Accutane. A cute face, or it could have been, without, like, the crater. I sighed, and turned away from the mirror and trudged back up the hill to my dorm.
    “College was terrific,” I told Caitlyn, and then, unable to help myself, I cupped my cheek with my palm.
    She flicked her phone open and shut, open and shut, “I don’t know,” she said. “Berkeley’s so big? Every time I go there with my parents, I just feel . . .” Her voice trailed off. She put the phone into her tiny pink purse and slid her cup across the table, shifting if from her left hand to her right, then back again. “Lost?”
    “You’ll make friends,” I said.
    She shrugged. “Well, have you thought about other options? Maybe a smaller campus?”
    “My parents,” she said. The sour little smirk on her pink lips made her look much older than seventeen. “They’re, like, obsessed. They both went there, you know.”
    “They mentioned it,” I acknowledged.
    Caitlyn bent her head and nibbled at aragged fingertip. “I don’t know,” she said again.
    “Well, maybe you should make an appointment with your school’s guidance counselor. We’re still early in the process, you know. It’s not too late to change your mind.”
    She nodded, looking unconvinced. “Next Saturday I’ll give you back the application. We’ll go over it together, and I’ll take a look at your personal statement.”
    “Can I ask