Around the pool, we are waiting for the races to start. It smells how you’d imagine a high school swim meet would: tangy chlorine and wet towels, the baby powdered latex of swim caps, all cut with the vanilla Bath & Body Works sprays and lotions we teenage girls use to mask all original smells. We wear two bathing suits each, to make us faster. One slathered over the other, pushing any bits of pubescent fat out to the edges. Our already baked faces heat and toast in the late afternoon sun. Our young coach — red-headed and narrow, in a wide brimmed lifeguard hat — approaches with bad news. Meagan’s out with cramps, he says, seemingly to me. You’ve got to swim in her place.
Meagan swims the butterfly, and her race today is the 200. That’s eight laps. I am short-armed; the butterfly doesn’t look good on me. Nor does it feel good. I inhale the chlorinated water when I lift my face to breathe, my shoulders quickly lose power; at best, I can swim three laps, maybe four...