if the shoe fits

There is a moment in everyone’s life when you realize that you are not good enough and never will be. At least one moment. At times, at least one a day. Never the athletic type, I was nevertheless good at swimming. I guess it makes sense, fat floats after all! My mom forced me to take swimming lessons. I rarely wanted to go that first week in the summer. I hate having my shirt off. Every year, though, once it gets stared, I love it.
I sit on the edge of the pool, watching my nine year old counterparts take their turn doing sets of fifty bobs a piece, my belly tipping over the front of my swimming suit and resting on my legs, my back and shoulders already darkening to pink in the sun. I am good at bobs, but they always scare me too. Just out in the middle of the water, feet pointed down as you wave your arms up and down like jumping jacks. You might as well send out a cordial invitation for the sharks to attend the feast.
I feel a movement on my back. I flinch. At first I think it is another horsefly. Their bites hurt! I look over my shoulder. Two boys are at my back, grinning. “What are you doing?”
The one on my right shrugs. “I was just tracing a letter on your back.”
“Oh.” Not a horsefly. Tracing a letter? “What letter?”
“E.”
“Why an E?”
“For Elephant.” With a roll from his eyes as if I should have know. Couldn’t I feel what his finger wrote on my back?
I think for a second, befuddled. “Why an Elephant?” I guess I have never known when to keep my mouth shut.
“Because you’re as fat as an Elephant!”