Pushing Perfect

She kissed the top of my head. “Excellent. This was fun, wasn’t it?”

“I guess.” It actually had been. It reminded me of when I was little, when Dad’s first start-up had just taken off and he was at work all the time. Mom and I had spent hours at the kitchen table doing logic puzzles together. At first it had been great, having so much of her time and attention, when normally she was almost as focused on work as Dad was.

But then she’d figured out that I was really good at those logic puzzles, really good at math in general, and all of a sudden everything was about school. She started asking more questions about what we were doing in class, whether it was hard for me or whether I was bored, and when I made the mistake of admitting that I didn’t find any of it all that difficult, she started giving me extra homework. “You’re gifted,” she said. “Pushing yourself is the only way to get better.”

Better at what? I wanted to ask her, but I had a feeling I knew the answer. Better at everything. It would never end. At least not until I was perfect. Maybe that was why I was so freaked out about this one zit. I knew I wasn’t perfect, but I didn’t need my face to broadcast it.

“It’ll be nice to spend more time with you this summer, when we can relax,” Mom said.

There it was—my opening. But I felt bad trying to get out of the trip after she’d just finished helping me. There would be another time. I just nodded.

“I told Becca I’d go over to her house,” I said. “Can I?”

“Of course,” she said. “Let me know what the girls think about the makeup.”

“I will,” I said, though I hoped they wouldn’t notice it.

No such luck.

“Something’s different,” Isabel said as soon as I got to Becca’s house.

We were in her bedroom, where we always hung out. It was huge, almost more like a suite, and she’d set it up like a studio apartment: bed and dresser on one side, and a little lounge area on the other, with a love seat and two chairs. I sat in my usual chair and slung my legs over the side; Becca was in the other chair, her legs crossed. Isabel relaxed in the love seat like she was waiting for someone to feed her grapes. Becca had lit one of those big scented candles in a jar, so the room smelled like cantaloupe.

“I don’t see it,” Becca said. “T-shirt, Converse, cutoffs.” Just like hers.

“We really need to go shopping this summer,” Isabel said. “But seriously.” She tilted her head and looked at me more closely. “Wait, I know. It’s the freckles. They’re gone. What did you do, soak your face in lemon juice?”

“Don’t be mean,” Becca said.

“I’m not. I’m evaluating. Stand up.” I did, and she gave me the up-and-down look she was becoming notorious for. “Makeup,” she said. “Kara Winter’s wearing makeup.” She waved her hand in front of her face as if it were a fan. “My stars,” she said, in a fake Southern accent. “Our little girl’s growing up.” Then she collapsed back onto the couch. Always the drama queen. I sat down too.

Becca frowned. “I thought you hated makeup. You said you’d never wear it. What’s changed?”

“Nothing.” I hated lying to them, but if I told them about the zit, Isabel would make a Perfect Kara joke and Becca would feel bad for me, and neither one of those things was appealing. Isabel had a way of finding my most sensitive spots and poking them with a sharp stick, and I was getting tired of it. And Becca’s pity just made me feel like I wasn’t good enough to be her friend. I hated feeling like I wasn’t everything people wanted me to be. Better to hide the feeling with a little concealer.

“Was it your mom?” Becca asked. “Did she talk you into this?” She made it sound like my mom had tattooed my face while I slept.

“Smart to try to soften her up,” Isabel said. “Did you ask her?”

I shook my head.

“You missed the window,” Isabel said. “You have to just do it. Be bold!” She raised her fist in the air.

If only it were that easy. “I still don’t know what to say. They’re making such a big deal out of this trip.” No one knew how much my parents really needed this. They’d been fighting a lot lately; Dad was really stressed about finding a new idea, and Mom had taken on more work to make up for his lost salary, so she was exhausted. She’d been talking about our vacation for months.

“You just have to make it easy for them to say yes,” Isabel said. “Tell them you’ve already worked it out, that Becca’s mom already agreed to it.”

“Tell them you’ve got a lifeguarding job,” Becca said.

“I don’t want to lie to them.”

“You wouldn’t be lying,” she said. “My old camp counselor is in charge now, and she said we can work there if we want. We just have to go meet with her before camp starts in two weeks.”

“Becca, that’s amazing! Is there drama stuff there Isabel can do? Then we can all be together.” I was getting excited enough that the idea of asking to stay home seemed less scary than it had just a few minutes ago.

“I signed up for a drama camp in San Francisco,” Isabel said. “I’m not about to spend that much time in a pool with you losers. My hair will turn green.” She blew us a kiss, which took away some of the sting of her calling us losers, though I already knew she was kidding. Isabel said stuff like that all the time.

“We’ll just have to find a way to live without you,” Becca said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before swim tryouts.”

I felt a wave of nausea. Swim tryouts. Becca and I had been practicing all year; keeping our schedule was one of the reasons I didn’t want to go on vacation. But I had no idea whether we’d be good enough. What if one of us made it and the other didn’t? I’d never been in that high-pressure a situation before, and just the thought of it made me anxious. The only way I’d feel better was if I spent the summer practicing, and for that, I had to be here.

And then a new fear kicked in. What would happen if they spent the summer without me? They’d been friends first; I’d met Becca through swimming, and Isabel through Becca. Though the three of us were close now, I’d always felt like it was temporary, like they could go back to being a twosome at any time. They’d done it before, after some stupid fights in middle school, and I remembered the ache of that loneliness. What if they had an amazing time with me gone, and didn’t want me back? My thoughts started to spiral. What if they saw the zit and decided they didn’t want to be seen with me at school? I was being ridiculous; I knew. It was just one zit.

“Don’t worry,” Becca said. “Your freestyle is amazing, and we’ll keep working on your butterfly. We’ll be great. We just have to make sure we aren’t separated this summer. You have to sell it.”

“I will,” I said. “I promise.”

When I woke up the next morning, the horrible monster zit had multiplied by five. I asked my mother to go to the store and get me some benzoyl peroxide, like I’d seen advertised on TV. I didn’t ask her about staying with Becca; instead, I stayed in the bathroom and practiced putting makeup on by myself. It was a disaster.

The day after that, there were ten. They were hard and red and they hurt. I kept looking at myself in the mirror, hoping I was imagining them. But they didn’t go away. I got back in bed and stayed there all day, trying to avoid envisioning showing up for my first day of high school looking like this.

With every day came more angry red bumps, throbbing away under my skin. The benzoyl peroxide didn’t do anything. Becca called, and I told her I had a weird summer cold so I could avoid seeing her. I knew Becca probably wouldn’t think the zits were a big deal; she’d be sympathetic and supportive, like she always was. But behind her support would be that pity, and I couldn’t bear the thought of it. And Isabel—Isabel wouldn’t want to hang out with a monster. Not if it would interfere with her social life. Becca would have to choose, and why would she choose me? She and Isabel had the history; all I had was swimming.

Maybe the monster face was just a summer thing. Or maybe Mom could help me find a doctor who could give me medicine to make the zits disappear. Or she could teach me enough about makeup that I could hide them myself. I just needed some time. I realized I wasn’t just avoiding asking Mom about staying with the Walkers; I’d decided I wasn’t going to ask at all.

Once I had so many red blotches on my face that my freckles had all but disappeared, I called Becca. “Mom said no,” I told her. “I tried as hard as I could.”

“That sucks,” she said, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

“I’m sure Isabel will be fine with it.”

“Don’t say that.” Becca knew I worried sometimes that Isabel just tolerated me. “She’ll miss you as much as I will. Have a great time, and make sure to find somewhere to practice. And I’ll make hair appointments for us when you get home.”

“Sounds great,” I said, though I couldn’t imagine cutting off all my hair with this face. I’d worry about that when the time came.

I got off the phone and told Mom I wanted to see a doctor before we went to Lake Tahoe. And that I wanted to go buy some makeup.

By the end of the summer I had a diagnosis: papulo-pustular acne, which basically meant that my whole face and neck were covered with zits. I had a dermatologist I would see every week who told me chlorine might have triggered the initial breakout and I should give some serious thought as to whether continuing to swim was a good idea. I didn’t get in the water all summer.

By the time school started, I had two new regimens: drugs and makeup. Every day I got up, took my pills, and counted the cysts to see if there were fewer than the day before, writing the numbers down in a notebook I kept in the bathroom. And then I slathered my face with foundation, along with a little eye shadow and lip gloss so the foundation didn’t look weird. Self-evaluation, cover-up, and makeup.

SCAM.

2. (#u419ea94d-00de-5bfc-b5a5-9685f48735e5)

The Brain Trust was occupying its regular table when I came into the cafeteria with my brown bag lunch. As always, I had to walk by the drama table, where Isabel hung out with her theater friends, and the swim team table, where Becca sat. They didn’t look up when I passed them by. They never did.

Mom had made me spinach salad with quinoa and feta and a lemony dressing. Brain food. She’d done a ton of research into my skin condition and had made me try a million different diets that, just like everything else, did nothing. She’d amped up her game in anticipation of the SAT exam. The test was coming up in a little over a week, and though I’d studied so much I’d worn my Princeton Review guide to shreds, I was terrified to actually take it.